My Philosophy: My Believes and How I Coach Clients
Nov 27, 2023
Jamie Magdic
Ready to shatter the chains of diet culture and step into a world where body size doesn't dictate your worth? This is your invitation to join Jamie Magdic, a registered dietitian with a passion for breaking down harmful diet norms and fostering a healthier mindset around food and body image. Jamie's philosophy is simple: ditch the unhealthy obsession with weight loss, embrace our diverse body types, and focus on behaviors that lead to long-term well-being. Let's delve into the intricacies of this philosophy and learn why it's the healthier, sustainable path to a happier, more fulfilled you.
Our discussion takes a deep dive into the significance of holistic health, which involves more than just physical well-being. Jamie provides insights on the importance of psychological well-being and individualized approaches to eating. She shares her unique approach on shifting our focus from weight loss to cultivating beneficial lifelong habits. Jamie also introduces a program designed to help you foster a compassionate relationship with food and your body. This episode is a must-listen if you're ready to redefine your relationship with food and embrace a more positive body image. Join us in this revolutionary conversation and start your journey to a healthier, happier you today.
Ready to shatter the chains of diet culture and step into a world where body size doesn't dictate your worth? This is your invitation to join Jamie Magdic, a registered dietitian with a passion for breaking down harmful diet norms and fostering a healthier mindset around food and body image. Jamie's philosophy is simple: ditch the unhealthy obsession with weight loss, embrace our diverse body types, and focus on behaviors that lead to long-term well-being. Let's delve into the intricacies of this philosophy and learn why it's the healthier, sustainable path to a happier, more fulfilled you.
Our discussion takes a deep dive into the significance of holistic health, which involves more than just physical well-being. Jamie provides insights on the importance of psychological well-being and individualized approaches to eating. She shares her unique approach on shifting our focus from weight loss to cultivating beneficial lifelong habits. Jamie also introduces a program designed to help you foster a compassionate relationship with food and your body. This episode is a must-listen if you're ready to redefine your relationship with food and embrace a more positive body image. Join us in this revolutionary conversation and start your journey to a healthier, happier you today.
Speaker 1:
Welcome to another episode on Bites and Body Love. I am your host, jamie Magdick she her registered dietitian, who specializes in disordered eating and eating disorders, and I am super excited to chat on this today. I want to talk more about my philosophy and why I do not focus on weight loss and diets, which is very different from a lot of mainstream nutrition and nutritionist dietitians and just you know people in the world in diet culture. So I want to dive deeper into this philosophy, to just explain the reasoning behind why I focus on what I focus on, why this is my philosophy, and to help you to understand why I believe that focusing on weight loss and restrictive diets are not the way to go when you are trying to move toward a healthy relationship with food and body, and why redirecting attention to your behaviors, to your holistic well-being, to your relationship with food and body is the most constructive approach that is going to bring you the best results that are sustainable. So today we're going to talk about the following items we're going to talk about holistic well-being, diverse body types and sizes. Behavioral focus for long-term success. Your psychological well-being and why that's so important as part of your relationship with food. Behavioral change as a positive goal, addressing underlying health factors and underlying health issues, cultivating a positive relationship with food, individualized approach, lifelong habits over short-term solutions, and promoting a positive self-image and body image All of which make up my philosophy when it comes to food, body image, food nutrition and body image. So, without further ado, let's dive into these different aspects.
Speaker 1:
Holistic well-being this is actually where I started, when I was forming my philosophy with food and body. When I started working with clients, I was really eager to become a dietitian because I was starting to understand the holistic nature of food and nutrition and health and I wanted to help people with health and their overall well-being to live just more joyous lives and long, healthy lives. That was my original desire and reason for becoming a dietitian. What I started to understand through my own experience, through others' experiences and research, was how holistic health truly is. I was under the impression that what you put in your body just makes or breaks your health Very much in that rigid mentality of good foods, bad foods and finding the right way of eating this quote-unquote right way of eating. As I was just in that myself, in that mentality in myself and seen others in that mentality, and started to research that mentality, that rigid good food, bad food, finding this ideal body and food mindset, I really started to find that it's not that simple, it's not that clear cut and that actually is really harmful. So I focus on a holistic picture of health and holistic well-being, and this philosophy emphasizes a shift from an exclusive focus on weight loss and ideal body and good food, bad food, to a broader consideration of what health is.
Speaker 1:
Health is complicated. It is so naive, and it was so naive of me to, and of course we hear it all over, so I'm going to give myself self-compassion, but it is just the no, it's not that simple. So many things impact health. It's really multi-dimensional and encompasses your physical, mental, spiritual, emotional, all these aspects of health. And by fixating solely on weight, solely on what you're putting in your body, it's going to neglect other crucial elements that are contributing to your relationship with food, to your relationship with your body and to your overall well-being.
Speaker 1:
The next aspect that makes up my philosophy is diverse body types and sizes. The next aspect that influences and creates and shapes my philosophy is celebrating diverse body types and sizes. I do follow a health at every size informed approach. I do celebrate body positivity and I celebrate everyone's unique body and I truly believe that everyone is supposed to be different bodies, that everyone is supposed to be different shapes and sizes, and by trying to go against that, we're creating a lot of emotional, mental and physical, physical stress, distress and unhealthy behaviors and just hurting our health when we do that. Each individual is so different, their body is different, their health is different and it's all complex. Well being is not synonymous with this ideal body, with this thin body that we see idealized. It is not this picture perfect Diet, and with this ideal body and with this ideal Diet being promoted, it is really, really hurting us. I've seen it time and time again Acknowledging and respecting diverse body types is integral, is Absolutely, literally integral for me to be able to help folks and for folks to be able to get to a positive relationship with food, body and health.
Speaker 1:
And the third aspect that makes up my philosophy is behavioral focus. For long-term success, we focus on behaviors, we do not focus on weight, we do not focus on the number on the scale, we do not focus on weight loss. And why? Why? Because if we were to focus on that, maybe we can achieve weight loss, maybe we can achieve lowering the number on the scale, which is what a lot of people want. But that is all we're going to be able to achieve, and I can't even promise that. But if we're focusing on weight loss and dieting and Decreasing that number on the scale, we are neglecting all Of the the things that are necessary for an actual, sustainable, healthy relationship with food and body. Because if I am focusing on weight loss, if I'm focusing on decreasing the number on the scale, that means we are focusing on some type of restrictions, some type of rules, and so, following those, we might get to that weight loss.
Speaker 1:
But then what happens? We are now in disorder, eating. We cannot trust our body. We cannot. You know it's not gonna be sustainable. Our body is gonna catch up and want to get us back to a place that feels good for us. We're just not gonna be able to maintain it. And so how is that helping someone? How is that gonna help if I hand that to you, or try and hand that to you, but in the end, you can't sustain it and you have all this Extra baggage of having a less trusting relationship with food and body? Now, that's just if, by focusing on that, I can't focus on, focus on all of the other things I want to focus on to help bring people to a healthier relationship with food and body, and by helping people to bring them to a trusting, confident relationship with food and body.
Speaker 1:
We need to focus on Behaviors. We need a behavioral focus. For long-term success, we need to shift the focus to these behaviors that emphasize sustainable changes and that focuses on our Relationship with food and body and all the roots and all those things that make up how we show up in our body and how we show Up in our choices with food and our relationship with food, rather than these short-term fixes, because then you're just gonna be on this hamster reel of short-term fixes weight loss, waking, weight loss, waking weight loss, weight gain, new diet, new diet, new diet, whatever it might be you are gonna continue on that. If you're focusing on short-term Weight loss, we need to be focusing on behaviors to actually dive into your relationship with food, your relationship with body, all that makes that up, so you can learn to Eat in a way that feels good, so you can tune into your cues that your body is giving you, so you can start to learn more about your unique body. So you can learn more about what makes up your body image, what causes this negative self-talk, what causes you to feel like you need to jump on the scale, what causes the binging, what causes you to not be able to keep ice cream in the house right? We need to get to those roots. So by focusing on healthy behaviors and by really understanding that we can you know clients get to this very wonderful place where they're able to have all foods, where they're able to listen to their body and take care of it and they feel good and they have movement that feels good, that they can keep up with they having adequate sleep. Their relationship with their body has shifted, where they're no longer hiding their body and they're confident in their body, and it just contributes to long term well being. Now it's not going to be a quick fix. It's going to take some time. It takes a lot of unlearning and doing things differently, but this is what leads to long term success is behaviors. Because I want long term success, I want someone to no longer need me and need my resources. I want them to move on and be free. All right.
Speaker 1:
The next aspect that I focus on is psychological well being. By focusing on psychological well being, which is part of holistic health. Really, by prioritizing, understand what's going on in the mind and taking care of our mental health, we're able to recognize that this is a significant part of health. We're also able to recognize how restriction and dieting and a focus on weight loss is contributing to our health in a very negative way, causing stress, anxiety, shame and negative self perception. Now, creating a safe space for ourselves where we have good self talk, where we are our own cheerleaders, where we are taking care of our mental health, where we are reducing and getting rid of shame, this fosters a healthy relationship with ourselves and this promotes mental, emotional and physical well being and, of course, they're going to impact our behaviors and our choices.
Speaker 1:
Another aspect of my philosophy is, of course, looking at health and addressing underlying health factors, health behaviors, health issues. Now, I got into this because, of course, I am passionate about people's well being, and part of people's well being is going to be their health, and holistic health at that. But let's talk about the physical health here for a second. When we're focusing on behaviors, it allows for a more comprehensive examination of underlying health factors and all that makes up health, instead of assuming that weight loss is the indicator of improved health paying attention to behaviors and the whole person and all aspects of health, including mental and emotional health. Attention can be directed toward actually helping the person, actually looking at maybe some chronic conditions and symptoms people might be experiencing, actually improving heart health and bone health. And all of that because when we're dieting, that impacts our bone health and our heart health. If we're constantly like weight cycling and decreasing weight and increasing weight and decreasing weight and increasing weight and restricting our bodies, that is disrespectful, that is hurting our overall health and it is hurting these chronic conditions that we may be experiencing.
Speaker 1:
When we take our focus off of weight loss, we actually are able to address our health and to improve our health. There's a ton of research on intuitive eating and it shows that regardless of weight loss, those health markers improve. So those health markers improve when we become intuitive eaters. We learn to listen to our body, we treat our body with respect, we stop dieting. Those health markers become better, become healthier, despite not having any weight loss or despite what happens with weight. When we focus on behaviors and actually focus on health and do not assume a certain weight equals health.
Speaker 1:
The next aspect that is really important to my philosophy is cultivating a positive relationship with food. A positive relationship with food. Thinking about foods as good or bad, that's really, really a negative way of thinking. That's going to keep you stuck, it's going to keep you obsessed, it's going to keep you fearful, it's going to keep you distrusting and it's just way too simplified. We cannot break up food into those categories and believe that if we eat a certain way, we're going to have this ideal life or never experience health concerns. Absolutely not, and by focusing on that, we're actually putting ourselves in a position where we are going to be more likely to be unhealthy, to have an unhealthy relationship with these things, because we're so rigid, we're so fearful, it's so based on shame, we don't know what to do, so we're constantly trying these different diets and distrusting ourselves and ignoring our body and disrespecting our body and not giving it what it needs to be healthy.
Speaker 1:
So I believe in cultivating a positive relationship with food because that is sustainable and that helps us to create these behavior choices that are good for us. It helps us to be more mindful, to be more intuitive, to nourish our body, souls with all foods, and this approach absolutely contributes to a healthier attitude towards food, reducing the likelihood of disordered eating patterns, reducing binging, reducing restriction, and helps people to have all foods in their diet, including vegetables. Sometimes people feel like, well, if I allow all foods in, am I never gonna want a vegetable again? No, absolutely not. What happens is when you actually explore, dive into and heal your relationship with food and body, you see that you want all types of foods and you really start to listen to your body and what feels best for it, which sometimes is an ice cream and sometimes is a big bowl of vegetables and your body will be able to tell you that.
Speaker 1:
And the next aspect is individualized approach. Health is highly individualized, so individualized. Everyone is different and everyone deserves personalized strategies. Everyone deserves support where their support person is encouraging them to listen to their own experiences, their own body, and encouraging them that they know their body best and that they have those answers and can find those answers when they do the work. Someone who says they know your body better than you do. You should run. You can become your own best nutritionist. I absolutely believe that. So it's highly individualized and my approach is highly individualized, so what works for one person may not be what the other person needs to pay attention to right. Everyone's journey is different. Everyone's going to need to focus on different things. Everyone's gonna need a different amount of time to work through these things. Everyone's gonna need a different level of support. So really, support needs to be tailored to your individual preferences, lifestyles, experiences and needs and it ensures a more sustainable and enjoyable path to overall wellbeing and food and body image.
Speaker 1:
Freedom and lastly but certainly not least, is promoting positive self-image and positive body image. By having a self-compassionate relationship with our self and a self-compassionate relationship with our body, we are setting our self-ups for very sustainable progress. We are because when we are being self-compassionate, it feels good and we're more grounded and we're better able to make decisions and to know what we need and to know what we want and to be able to trust ourselves. And this is so sustainable because when we're living in this realm of self-compassion and we have this positive relationship with ourself, or when we have a trusting relationship with self and body and food, you're going to be able to just feel this unwavering trust. You're gonna be able to appreciate your body. You're gonna appreciate its strength, its functionality, its resilience, its diversity, its uniqueness. You're gonna be able to trust its ability to handle all foods. You're gonna trust your ability to understand what's going to make you feel best when it comes to food.
Speaker 1:
This approach I have really aligns with body positivity, self-acceptance, fostering a healthy and more compassionate relationship with yourself, with food and with body, One that's super sustainable and that's what I want for folks. I want to be sustainable. I want you to leave me and say thank you so much and I am gone off to bigger and better things now, things that I was too scared or holding off or avoiding pursuing because of my relationship with food and body. So breaking those chains. So hopefully that was helpful to understand my philosophy, why it is the way it is, and, of course, I have a diverse amount of different experiences that I have gone through and have helped clients with that have really helped to shape my philosophy and to come to a place where I have, where I believe and see that through this philosophy, people can get to this wonderful place. And, of course, I want to get people to this wonderful place to live the lives of their dreams, to live the lives that they deserve, and this is why I chose this, because this is what helps people get there.
Speaker 1:
So, with that, if you align with this amazing, you would be a very good fit for my program If you are serious about fully healing your relationship with food and body and getting to a place of unwavering trust and self-compassion. So if you're interested, you can apply by DMing me at jmerd underscore and I will get you the details there. I'm so excited for you. We'll get you the details there. Either way, I'm so excited you're here listening to my podcast and I'm so proud of you for being here listening to maybe an alternative way of thinking that is going to put you on a path or help you to maintain the path to food and body image freedom. Until next time, I'm so proud of you and we will chat soon.