Have you ever felt trapped in a cycle of dieting and discontent with your eating habits? 🔄
Today on the pod, I am joined by Leah Kern, a unique voice in the field of intuitive eating.
As an anti-diet dietitian and certified intuitive eating counselor, Leah brings a spiritual approach to her practice, a perspective that I was eager to explore. ✨
Our conversation delves into Leah’s personal journey, from her initial struggles with disordered eating to her path of healing through community and intuitive eating.
Dieting and disordered eating can be an incredibly lonely place, and finding a community to support you in your journey is essential.
Leah talks about the friendships that she built that helped her along the way.
I asked Leah what she thinks is the biggest challenge for people to tune into their own messages and how they are feeling.
Leah described the biggest challenge as making that initial switch, tuning out the people who are telling you what to do, what to eat, and how to exercise, and tuning into yourself and what you want.
Part of making that switch is using the universal attunement question, which Leah walks through with me at the end of the episode.
Leah also has a free panel on June 6th. She will discuss some of the common struggles going into the summer through the lens of food. You can find that free panel HERE.
I hope that you enjoy this discussion with Leah as much as I did!
Have you ever felt trapped in a cycle of dieting and discontent with your eating habits? 🔄
Today on the pod, I am joined by Leah Kern, a unique voice in the field of intuitive eating.
As an anti-diet dietitian and certified intuitive eating counselor, Leah brings a spiritual approach to her practice, a perspective that I was eager to explore. ✨
Our conversation delves into Leah’s personal journey, from her initial struggles with disordered eating to her path of healing through community and intuitive eating.
Dieting and disordered eating can be an incredibly lonely place, and finding a community to support you in your journey is essential.
Leah talks about the friendships that she built that helped her along the way.
I asked Leah what she thinks is the biggest challenge for people to tune into their own messages and how they are feeling.
Leah described the biggest challenge as making that initial switch, tuning out the people who are telling you what to do, what to eat, and how to exercise, and tuning into yourself and what you want.
Part of making that switch is using the universal attunement question, which Leah walks through with me at the end of the episode.
Leah also has a free panel on June 6th. She will discuss some of the common struggles going into the summer through the lens of food. You can find that free panel HERE.
I hope that you enjoy this discussion with Leah as much as I did!
what would feel good for me, what am I craving? What sounds nice? What would be satisfying? What does my body feel like? I think that is one kind of like thing right in the beginning, to answer this question of like that is so foreign to people, of like wait what I can, actually go inwards and trust my own messages.
Speaker 2:
Hi and welcome to the Air we Breathe, finding wellbeing that works for you. I'm your host, heather Sayers-Layman. I'm a National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach, certified Intuitive Eating Counselor and Certified Personal Trainer. I help you get organized and consistent with healthy habits, without rules, obsession or exhaustion. This podcast may contain talk about eating disorders and disordered eating. There could also be some adult language here. Choose wisely if those are problematic for you. Hi everyone and welcome to today's episode.
Speaker 2:
I'm chatting with Leah Kern, who's a registered dietitian and certified intuitive eating counselor, and I really wanted to speak to Leah because she takes a more spiritual approach to intuitive eating. I'm kind of pragmatic and practical and I really wanted to chat with her to hear more about her approach, which I think ultimately is the same but just a different wrapper of really how to tune out a lot of the other noise and tune into ourselves. So I wanted to know more about that. And we chat about how she got into nutrition, which is the same for so many of us. We were trying to figure out how to fix our own bodies and luckily she had some influence that helped her move away. From that perspective, we're going to talk about two key relationships that she had that changed her outlook on bodies and her relationship with food, and I really wanted to know from her what the biggest challenge was that keeps people from really tuning in, and I wanted to know her solution and what she really thinks helps, and I think that you'll find that pretty interesting too.
Speaker 2:
Without further ado, here is my episode with Leah. Well, I'm very excited to be here with Leah Kern today, and, leah, why don't you just jump in and give us an introduction?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, thanks for having me. So I am an anti-diet dietitian and certified intuitive eating counselor and also human who has struggled with my own story, with my relationship with food and body. I feel like it's such a common way into this world. But I went to school to become a dietician from a totally disordered place. Looking back, I did not realize that in the moment I was like, okay, I'm going to learn how to perfect nutrition, I'm going to get a bachelor's and become an RD and then I'll figure all this out. And I didn't learn how to eat perfectly. I learned that there was no way to eat perfectly that's not a thing and I also learned that I was struggling with disordered eating unknowingly. I was really lucky to have an undergrad mentor. The director of dietetics where I went to school, the University of Vermont, was a dietitian and certified intuitive eating counselor, which was sort of rare-ish at the time.
Speaker 1:
A lot of my colleagues who I've spoken to have gotten very much like the weight-centric diet culture, education to become a dietitian and then had to like, unlearn and relearn on their own after you know, getting into the field.
Speaker 1:
But that wasn't my story. I really learned about intuitive eating early on and my life was so changed by the framework and by the anti-diet health at every size approach. It just felt so much more aligned with my values and my whole body was like, yes, this is exactly it. And I just knew I wanted to do something with this framework one day. So I kind of got through my education as a dietitian and the dietetic internship, which is a lot of more weight centric ways of viewing things, but I just kind of you know, smile, nodded, got through it, took the test and then I pretty much started my practice immediately and now I work with folks to help them heal their relationship with food and body in a one-to-one setting and have a course and a podcast and all different ways of reaching people. And it really feels I say this all the time and it just feels like the exact work I was put on earth to do and I'm really grateful truly every day that it's the exact work that I get to do.
Speaker 2:
It's really interesting because I don't know that I have heard anyone say that they had somebody during their undergrad tell them like hang on, like there's a different way of looking at this. I feel like almost everybody. I mean, certainly it was my experience in school that it was extremely weight centric, but I feel like you might be the first person I've talked to that's had that experience.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, it definitely is more rare.
Speaker 1:
I think it's becoming less rare and it wasn't like 100% weight neutral, anti-diet education at all. But my professor, the head of dietetics where I went to school, was in the process of sort of like transitioning the curriculum to be fully weight inclusive at the time and I think only you know in the last I mean I don't even I don't even know if she's there yet, cause it's a lot to like overhaul curriculum and professors and managing people with a lot of tenure who are extremely weight centric. In some cases their, their whole research, their whole career could be based around, you know, obesity research or something like this. But I feel really lucky and I'm still in close contact with that professor. She's been on my podcast more than once and, yeah, I just feel so grateful that I learned about this work so early on in my education because I know it could have looked really different education, because I know it could have looked really different, Absolutely so, do you feel like then you started healing your relationship with food and your body while you were actually in school.
Speaker 1:
Totally, it was a combination of so I learned about. I heard the words intuitive eating for the first time my freshman year we had this class. It was called survey of the field and it was where they had different dietitians in different parts of the field. Come in and talk to us and share with us about their careers, because you can do so many different things as a dietitian. It can look so many different ways. And this one week a woman came in and she said I have a private practice. I'm an intuitive eating dietitian. And that was the first I had ever heard those words in that order and I just was like so captivated by this. And at the end of her little presentation she's like if you want to learn more about the intuitive eating framework, like I recommend this book, and puts up a picture of the intuitive eating book on the screen and I was like I need to get my hands on this immediately.
Speaker 1:
I went right to the library from that class on the way back to my dorm, got the book, devoured it like on the top bunk of my little, like forced triple in my dorm, and that was the start of healing. But it wasn't just reading the book. It was reading the book plus an education in food science and, like nutritional chemistry, biochemistry, it changed the way I thought about food, because when I was really struggling with disordered eating, food was numbers, food was morality, it was good, it was bad, but this really objective education, in a way it was like, oh, a carb is literally just like a chain of hydrated carbons. It just made me see it in more of a detached way instead of all of the baggage that I had wrapped up with it, and so that was part of healing. And then another part of healing was the friends I met in college.
Speaker 1:
I was extremely blessed in that my two best girlfriends from college are somehow, were somehow at the time, completely untouched by diet culture. I mean not completely, no one is completely untouched but like, as far as two teenage girls living in this country is completely untouched, but like as far as two teenage girls living in this country can be untouched, they were, and that was so healing for me. Like I have so many stories and memories of just like being with them and being like, oh, they don't force themselves to exercise every single day. They'll just like have a cookie and like, oh, what's the special in the in the dining hall today? Oh, that looks good, let's have that instead of like up right to the salad bar, like that's the only choice here. And that was so eye-opening for me and I was like, oh, they're fine, they're eating whatever and they're fine like I could too. And so it was reading the intuitive eating book, starting my education and just like learning about food really objectively, and also these friendships that I had formed in college.
Speaker 2:
Wow that's. I think it's so interesting because I think that one piece that I really talk about is how important community is and how easy it is to form a community around hating your body or changing your body, because that is like a Tuesday in our culture, but finding people and um, and also being that person that's like, yeah, oh, they have donuts. Good, okay, I'm gonna have a donut and you know, even if other people like aren't super interested, but then your healthy relationship with food, it's actually modeled out totally for other people.
Speaker 1:
I never heard these two girls, who are still my best friends to to this day. I never heard them speak badly about their body ever, and or food, or like oh, I'm being bad, or I shouldn't literally never, and like that is feels unheard of in, especially for women, young women yeah, what.
Speaker 2:
What's going on like in their households?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, that's a good question. Were their parents just like really neutral I have a podcast episode with both of them.
Speaker 1:
So also every summer we do these big hiking trips together. We're hiking the Appalachian Trail like section by section. So a few summers ago we did the New Hampshire section and I had them on the podcast after and we talked about it and I asked them about their story with their relationship with food and body. But yeah, pretty much they grew up with neutral talk around food Households. All foods were there, there were snacks, there was fun foods. They grew up with parents who weren't dieting or at least like overtly talking about their food and body.
Speaker 1:
One of them grew up with three brothers, which I think actually they both grew up with only brothers. So I think that helps. I just not to say men are immune to this stuff, but I do think it changes things when there's a lot of like woman in comparison and there's extra pressure on women with appearance and bodies. So, yeah, I mean that's kind of like the short answer, but there's more layers and I'm happy to give you the link to the episode where I dive in more deep with them and their stories, because it is interesting to kind of reverse engineer and say like how did this happen? How did you really stay so protected from diet culture.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I think that's of great interest to a lot of people because, I mean, my kids are, you know, now 21 and 23 and I have friends that their kids are older and we're like, okay, well, how do we fix what we did? And I'm always interested to, and I think I was luckier to have studied eating disorders before I had kids. So there were things that I mean they were all foods fit. You know I was eating, you know, like only the things that I could eat over here and they could eat anything. So that is impactful and damaging in and of itself. But they did have that experience. And I think there are so many people that are really curious about like, what should I do? And I think you know there are really like fundamental things that it takes a while to peel the onion of, like, oh my gosh, like I didn't realize I was doing that or I didn't do that.
Speaker 1:
But I'm not a mom yet, but I think the best thing you can do is work on your own relationship with food, because kids feel it, they're sponges and they notice. And I know both of these best friends, their mothers, like you know deeply. I've spent a lot of time with them and they both, just like, have normal relationships with food that's fantastic.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I definitely had to go back and do a lot of like, explaining of like, when I was doing this. I thought it was for health. Um, then it became unhealthy and and I think, like those frank conversations are really helpful with kids as well um it, it's a lot of a lot of waters that get very muddied too.
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
Um. So in your approach to intuitive eating, um, I feel like I see a bit more of a spiritual like really tuning in um from some other. You know I'm a pretty pragmatic, practical person and so I want to hear you talk more about that piece. And because, again, some people like practical, some people like spiritual, some people, you know, really like a combo, but how did that come up more for you? And then how do you weave that into your practice?
Speaker 1:
Totally so. It came up more for me because it resonates with how I relate to the world and when I was starting to build my private practice, I was thinking a lot about who would be the type of provider or practitioner or dietitian that I would have wanted to see when I was in the depths of my own struggles with disordered eating and body image, and I would have wanted to see someone like me, someone who recognized like that this work is so much deeper than just food. It's like food is really just the tip of the iceberg. There's so much more there. So that was really the moment where I remember at the time I was I no longer use Instagram as a marketing channel, but that's how I started my business and I remember like going into my settings, my profile, and being like spiritual, intuitive, eating dietitian. Okay, like yeah, I think that makes sense. There was a bit of a moment of having to kind of get over my own ego, because part of me was like I hate that. I'm like self-identifying this way. But I also wanted to do something that someone who has those similar values and connects to the world in that way could see themselves in me and my work and could find me. So that was, you know, a natural way to do it is to identify that in my profile. So that was a natural way to do. It is to identify that in my profile.
Speaker 1:
So the way that I explain this is there's this great, great quote. It's on my website and it's a longer quote, but the end of the quote is something like to be spiritual is to be amazed, and that's how I view spirituality. That's really simply how I view it. I'm not so into like crystals or anything really beyond. Like I think to be spiritual is to be amazed and to like constantly bring life back to awe and wonder, because we can so easily lose sight of that and how this relates to food and body. When we're in the throes of disordered eating, we're not accessing awe and wonder and amazement. We're just like trying to, you know, fighting for our lives. Like that might sound dramatic, but like every day is like calculations and like self-objectifying.
Speaker 1:
How do I, how do people imagine that I'm? You know, how am I imagining people are perceiving me right now when I'm like walking, are they? Do I look bad? Do I look? Is this jiggling? And it just takes us so out of. Oh my God, like look at that tree and those pine cones and how beautifully they're like woven in each other, or like, oh, the sun on my face. Or this like beautiful little moment that I just observed on the subway, where these people are being so human and connecting in this sweet way.
Speaker 1:
All of that especially in at least in my story and for many of the clients I've spoken to was not accessible for me for so many years and I would like I had this deep sense of like I'm missing out on something Like I felt like other people were reaping more joy from life than me and I just like couldn't really explain it.
Speaker 1:
And after doing this work and kind of getting over the hump of it, I was like, oh my God, like I like smell the sense in nature more and I'm more like present and willing to just like sit here with my feet in the grass and just be, because I felt more comfortable physically and like I was nourished and I had the mental real estate to think about just wonders and awe and basic things in the world that, like I had previously just kind of walked by. And so to me, the experience of healing your relationship with food and really coming home to your body is innately spiritual. Like I just think there's nothing more to it. Like my program doesn't include crystals or you know, aura readings or anything that like maybe you think about when you think about spiritual. It's just that we talk about that realm, we take it there, we talk about it. That's really the extent of it. To me, it is spiritual in and of itself.
Speaker 2:
Do you feel like the do-it-yourself approach to improving your healthy habits does nothing except feel overwhelming, guilt-inducing and defeating? You don't need more rules, influencers or structured programs. Let me help you discover what you want, what works for you and how to maintain healthy habits during the ever-changing circumstances of your life. If you're ready to create systems that stick head to heathersayerslaymancom backslash health dash coaching and click, let's do it. I think that it's so lovely because I know from certainly my experience, I know the loss of connection really with relationships was one of the things that when I look back to because being alone makes it easier than I can eat what I want or not eat what I want, and there's so much isolation that surrounds disordered eating and that you don't, I don't, I didn't notice, I thought it was good, you know like, oh my gosh, look at me, I'm all by myself and I can do what I want, and it's like so it's also lonely and you're not connecting with other people on a meaningful level.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah. And then I think about, like, the social determinants of health and how social and community context and social cohesion is part of what determines our health outcomes. So like we think, oh, we're being so good and healthy by saying no to that social event and staying home and gnawing on our raw lettuce. But like no, actually like that's health is more than just food. Like lack of connection impacts your health.
Speaker 1:
And I want to add, too, part of how I got into this niche of really identifying myself as a spiritual, intuitive eating dietitian, I came to realize that there's sort of this pipeline into disordered eating that starts with like I'm a spiritual person, like my body is a temple, I only eat clean, and like that whole world can quickly lead to the wellness kind of flavor of disordered eating.
Speaker 1:
And I really saw that in Vermont, where I went to college.
Speaker 1:
It was sort of a wellness-y vibe there and so that became a niche that I became interested in and that was also part of my story.
Speaker 1:
Like I was really in high school, more so I was like I just I think I was just more impressionable, of course, and susceptible as a younger teen and I totally fell into like I remember being on Pinterest and like following all these like kind of like spiritual women, these like nature-y women and being like whoa, I want to be like them and they only eat raw, whole foods, and it just can quickly kind of lead you to a disordered place.
Speaker 1:
And so part of identifying myself as a spiritual, intuitive eating dietitian is kind of nodding towards those folks and saying you know, I see you, that's part of your story and you don't have to only eat whole foods to like have spiritual harmony within yourself. You know, like actually that's probably causing more of a disruption to your internal harmony than you know, allowing all foods and having food freedom. So that's part of defining myself this way as well as kind of hoping to bring those folks in and allowing them to still have their identity as a spiritual person honored, while also moving towards healing and like actual well-being it must be such a relief to them to hear that message I hope so.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I hope so. Um, I have heard a little bit. I had someone reach out to me, actually on Christy Harrison's podcast, which we were chatting about before we hit record. I spoke a little bit about my journey, starting an SSRI for anxiety and how diet culture was really something that got in the way for me to take those steps for a while Because, like you and I were saying before we hit record, it was like, oh well, if I could just heal myself, I could just heal my anxiety with exercise and food, which for me, those things wouldn't hold a candle to the level of anxiety I was feeling. And I had someone reach out to me after that episode went live saying like I've never heard anyone talk about identifying as a spiritual person and a person who takes, you know, like modern medicine in a way, you know like a modern approach in the same breath, and that felt good to help someone see like, yeah, you can be both.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I think the binaries that are present in all sort of like you, you know, community making endeavors of, like here is our spiritual crowd, or um, because I would consider myself almost like a shill for big pharma, because I would be dead without big pharma and um, and they've also created catastrophic issues within our society, and so I think, like trying to help people see that, like you don't have to have all of these things to belong to this group, I mean that the most important thing is that you're belonging to yourself and you are unique and you have different issues and different interests, and it doesn't have to look like what everybody else looks like Absolutely yeah, when you are. I mean because obviously people are probably drawn to your message and they want to really tune in. What do you think the biggest challenge is? Sometimes for people to start looking within, like not trying to find a leader outside of themselves, like considering themselves a leader and listening to their own messages. What do you think like is the biggest challenge for people when it comes to that?
Speaker 1:
The biggest challenge is switching gears, like literally like turning the radio station from the one that's like. Switching gears like literally like turning the radio station from the one that's like, oh, okay, this book says, do this. This person on you know, on Oprah that I saw this doctor said do this. Or like this influencer said eat this many X foods and exercise. Like this, switching from that like gear or like, I guess, radio station is the metaphor that's coming to my mind to your own internal station where you're like, oh, what feels good for me? How would I like to eat or move, or, beyond food and movement, like values and decision-making, like, is this a person I want to spend my time with? Is this a I don't know activity that I enjoy? Am I just doing this because I think I'm supposed to somehow?
Speaker 1:
I think just that initial switch is so hard because our neural pathways are like really deeply entrenched in okay, when I'm faced with a eating decision, I resort to what should I do? What am I supposed to do? What are all the rules that I've heard over the years? And so kind of sending the neuron down that new path of like what would feel good for me? What am I craving, what sounds nice, what would be satisfying, what does my body feel like?
Speaker 1:
I think that is one kind of like thing right in the beginning, to answer this question of like that is so foreign to people, of like wait what, I can actually go inwards and trust my own messages.
Speaker 1:
And then there's a whole other layer from there of okay, so how do I go inwards, like if you've been ignoring the inner voices for so long which in so many of my clients I'm sure the same for you, it's been decades for some of them of outsourcing eating decisions, it's like those voices, it's just like white noise. They don't even, they don't register. So it's a lot of intentionally like flexing the muscle of dropping in, and I think of it like exercising, like literally getting reps in to strengthen that ability to go inwards and hear your body, its cues, its messages. So yeah, to answer your question, I think the first piece is just switching gears can feel so foreign and take so much effort because we're used to doing the things we're used to doing from like a neural pathway level. And the second piece is, once you've switched gears, how do you then actually flex that muscle of dropping in that can be so vague and intangible to people who are used to like the concrete rules coming from a book or a diet or an influencer or whatever.
Speaker 2:
I think when you talk about it, it totally reminds me of, like the different times during my life where, like, I was the adult and it's know when you first step into it and it still happens, you know, into my 50s, because then, with your parents getting older, then you're like oh, am I in charge? Oh, shit.
Speaker 2:
Switching gears, yeah, let me see, um, but just of all of those different choices that you make, you know, as you kind of grow up and you're like well, what do you want to do? Like, oh well, this seems broad. Are there any kind of like activities or mantras or cues that you use with people to help them tap in or to change that station?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, are you familiar with the universal attunement question? Okay, so I love this. The universal attunement question is a question that has three choices for answers, so I'll do it with you, just to kind of model. The question is how are you feeling physically right now in your body? Pleasant, unpleasant or neutral? I would say neutral right now. Okay, so what happened from the time that I asked that question to the time that you said neutral? What happened for you to kind of derive that answer?
Speaker 2:
I'm having a bit of a girdy day so I like really did like a kind of like a body scan, and also yesterday was leg day, so my legs are really sore, but I was like it's a gird that's bugging me, so I just tapped into.
Speaker 1:
You know how everything felt like from tip to tail. Yeah, so that's it right there. Like this question makes you there's no other way to answer the question except for to do that body scan. So it's like a way to manually flex that muscle of dropping in. And the cool thing is, you know the answer doesn't matter, of course, like it's not fun to have GERD. I'm sorry you're not feeling more pleasant, but the truth is the answer doesn't matter. What matters is the moment that you go inwards and sort of like roll your eyeballs back into your head and like sense what's going on in there and that in that moment you're like doing a rep of flexing the muscle of dropping in.
Speaker 1:
So I love doing that with clients and making a big deal of it of like you can do this, like look, you just did it, you had to figure, you had to feel. So that's kind of like the first step I like to take. And then there's different kind of activities to more kind of fine tune the sensations, because it starts with just like a general sensing of like pleasant, unpleasant, neutral. Those are pretty broad strokes, but then you can get into, like using the hunger fullness scale, like okay, where, specifically on here, are you in terms of like one to ten your nuanced level of hunger and fullness, and then from there you can even get more granular and talk about, like are you craving like a carb, protein, fat, fiber? Which combination of those things are you craving?
Speaker 1:
And a lot of people in the beginning of this work are like you think I can get to a place where I can be like, oh, I'm craving, like carb and fat right now and like that seems crazy, especially coming from a history of never thinking about what you're craving. But you really can, like I've had so many clients be like, oh, I realized my meal was missing fat today, like that's why I wasn't really satisfied. So you can get to a place where it's that fine tuned. It just takes time and practice and you know, especially if you've been years or decades in diet culture it takes patience.
Speaker 2:
Yeah Well, I think that's a great step because I think the the lore of diet culture with the rules because it's. I think the the lore of diet culture with the rules because it's. I think it feels overwhelming for people to like, tune in, like is this another thing I need to do? And like, oh, I'm already tired, I don't feel great or whatever. And I think really illuminating that it's not that hard or it's not going to be that overwhelming yeah, not even that.
Speaker 1:
It's not that hard or it's not going to be that overwhelming yeah, not even that it's not that hard, but that we can make this tangible too, because I think people are drawn to diets because they're so eat this, do this. It's so like prescribed and intuitive. Eating is never going to be prescribed, but we can still have structure where it's like okay, here's a way that you can drop in that's, you know, concrete and defined. It's not just like check in with your body and like that's the only thing we have to say here, like no, there's tools and techniques that go along with it to give it some structure, because it can all sound so vague.
Speaker 2:
No, I think you're exactly right, and I have had friends who were working on their relationship that felt the same, and they're also, you know, like. My son is a math major at university, so he is a spreadsheet, so talking about certain things he's like I don't even know what you're talking about. But putting things into a format and that's the biggest piece is, you know, everybody's so different, they hear things differently, and understanding there's like there are ways that you can hear a message that seems more like to your point. I like that you use the term tangible. Yeah Well, I know you've got a big panel coming up, and so I'm hoping that people listen to this right away so that they're able to catch it. So tell us a little bit about what you have going on.
Speaker 1:
Yeah. So on June 6th I'm hosting a free panel, so it's myself and three other anti-diet providers, professionals, and it's called the Summer Support Anti-Diet Panel. So the goal is really to give folks extra support going into the summer, which can be an especially triggering time, a time when diet culture messaging really ramps up. I feel like diet culture messaging will take any opportunity to be loud, like new year, new you, summer, get your summer body. Summer is just one of those times.
Speaker 1:
So the panel is myself, so I'll bring the food side relationship of food, talking about some of the common struggles going into the summer through the lens of food. And then Daisy Gillespie, who's an anti-diet personal stylist and, I think you said former guest on this podcast. So she'll talk about dealing with switching over your wardrobe, navigating, dressing yourself, going into summer and bathing suits and all that. And then Brie Campos, who is a she's a body image therapist and she'll talk about going into summer through the lens of body image, which there's so much there navigating, sweating, chafing and like the stories that can come with that comparison and getting in a bathing suit and feeling exposed, all of that.
Speaker 1:
And then the last panelist is Hannah Husband, who is an anti-diet personal trainer who will talk about some of the ways that going into the summer can impact our relationship with movement and exercise, and Hannah's just a wealth of knowledge and really I'm excited for all the different perspectives because there's so many niche parts of the anti-diet world right. It's more than just like people doing the work on relationship with food, and so my hope is that this panel will give really like multifaceted support. So I'll send you the link to enroll, but it's completely free and each panelist will give like a 10 minute presentation and then there'll be a lot of time at the end for questions directed to any or all of the panelists.
Speaker 2:
I think it's great really highlighting all of the different pieces, because I know, certainly as a health coach and actually like a board certified health coach because health coach I don't even tend to use that often because it's so like I don't know, it just feels smarmy. Because people go to a weekend course and it's like oh my gosh, you're a health coach and it's like okay. But there are other pieces that are anti-diet besides registered dietitians, because I know that's sort of the biggest piece. But diet culture is in all of these other facets, facets, and I love highlighting that there are people who are ready, willing and able to help you remove diet culture from these other pieces of your life too.
Speaker 1:
Yes, totally, and yeah, the event's totally free and if you can't attend live, you can still sign up and get the recording, the replay.
Speaker 2:
Okay, awesome, we'll definitely put a link in the show notes and then let people know how they can find you.
Speaker 1:
Absolutely so. The best place is my website, leahkernrdcom. On there you can subscribe to my newsletter, which goes out every Monday. I love writing, so that's like a primary form of connecting for me. You can subscribe to my newsletter at leahkernrdcom slash newsletter. And then my podcast comes out every Monday and that is called Shoulders Down, and you can also check out the podcast at leahkernrdcom slash podcast. And then the last thing is a personal sort of project, which is I have a sub stack where I share more like personal writing not really related to my business, and that is called the sub stack. You can get to through what is it? Substackcom slash Leo Kern? Yeah, I think that's it. Oh, I don't even know. I should figure that out. But yeah, I recently decided to move my business off Instagram. I still have a profile there if you want to see the archives. It's leahkernrd, but I'm no longer active there and I have a piece on my sub stack sharing about the decision to leave Instagram.
Speaker 2:
So, yeah, those are all the spots and I assume you feel really happy about leaving and, sir, oh yeah, it's been so nice it's only been two months so far, um, but it feels so freeing and and there's so much, there's so much.
Speaker 1:
it's such a big conversation, um, but I'm really, I'm really grateful to have, you know, taken the leap and I'm also grateful to have taken the leap and I'm also grateful to have had other places of connecting with people that I'd been sort of working so that it wasn't like, okay, now what? But yeah, it feels great so far.
Speaker 2:
Super Well, thanks for sharing and I'm happy that you are here sharing and I'm happy that you are here and I really like your message just because it's so. I don't know, I mean, it's just warm and humanizing. You know, instead of there are so many pieces that are really I don't want to say not cool, but they're just like really detached of you know, here's a thing that was recommended by this person, this or this person, versus, like you know, the you piece, because that's what you know all my courses are based on like what works for me, because it has to work for you, your lifestyle, your budget, your time, your family commitments, all of those things. So I love that.
Speaker 1:
That's a big piece of your message, thank you thanks so much for having me and and um for hosting this conversation. It's been lovely, great, all right, thanks Bye, heather.
Speaker 2:
Thanks so much for listening today. Do you know what would be really fun? If you popped over to my Instagram at Heather Sayers Lehman and dropped me a DM and let me know what topics you want me to cover Something bugging you, something holding you up? Please just let me know. And topics you want me to cover something bugging you, something holding you up please just let me know and I will tweak some content and get an episode out just for you. As always, please follow show, or you can leave a five-star review on apple or spotify. That would be fun too. See you in the next episode.
