Breaking the generational dieting cycle is hard. It is so easy to critique your body, especially when your body looks very different in the postpartum period. Today I am welcoming Sammie Gollup, a registered dietitian and the founder of Anti Diet Mama. Sammie and I go in-depth about raising intuitive eaters from the time they are babies, into toddlerhood and on.
Join us as we chat about:
To connect with Sammie, please visit her:
Click here to learn more about handling the 1-year eating transitions without the stress
Connect with Erin:
Breaking the generational dieting cycle is hard. It is so easy to critique your body, especially when your body looks very different in the postpartum period. Today I am welcoming Sammie Gollup, a registered dietitian and the founder of Anti Diet Mama. Sammie and I go in-depth about raising intuitive eaters from the time they are babies, into toddlerhood and on.
Join us as we chat about:
To connect with Sammie, please visit her:
Click here to learn more about handling the 1-year eating transitions without the stress
Connect with Erin:
How old were you when you went on your first diet? I remember being self-conscious about my body when I was in middle school probably even elementary school actually and as an adult I look back and I feel sad for my younger self. Luckily, there is something that we can do to stop the body shaming and dieting cycle. Today I am welcoming Sammy from Anti-Diet Mama to talk about her experience with intuitive eating and breaking generational cycles so that our families can learn to love and nourish their bodies and be kind to themselves. Let's dig in.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the Baby Food for Busy Moms podcast, where you will get the knowledge you need and the support you deserve so you can finally feel good about feeding your baby, whether you're breastfeeding, formula feeding or offering solids. I'm your host, erin Moore, a mom of two boys, a practicing pediatric nurse practitioner and a lactation counselor with years of experience helping moms feed their babies. Tune in each week for bite-sized, judgment-free education you can trust, all with a busy mom in mind. Before we start, this podcast does not provide medical advice. Information on the podcast is for educational purposes only and no information on the podcast or my website is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. I am a pediatric nurse practitioner and a lactation counselor, but I am not your baby's NP or CLC. Please consult your pediatric provider for any questions. Sammy, thank you so much for coming on. Why don't you tell me a little bit about yourself and your why, and then any other background information that you'd like to?
Speaker 2:share, yes, so thank you for having me, erin.
Speaker 2:I tend to get a little long-winded with this, so I'll try to keep it short. But I am a registered dietitian and I have been for almost a decade now, and I am in Madison, wisconsin, and have two little kids. So just to give you a little bit of background of how I got to this space of having my own business and intuitive eating. I started my work as a dietitian in a clinic for medical weight loss or surgical loss as well, so I was helping people that have lots of weight on their bodies lose weight via surgical intervention, so gastric bypass, gastric sleeve, and, as I was working in that field for the better part of the last 10 years, one. I got really passionate about intuitive eating because what I was seeing over and over again was that my patients were on this kind of roller coaster of dieting on and off again, sure, for lots and lots and lots of years, since they were like actually really little sometimes, and what that showed me was how disembodied these people were. They were not in tune with what their body's signals were.
Speaker 2:They were constantly under eating. They had a lot of stress, maybe not only from their weight, but from how they were treated in society and all of these other things that were going on in their lives. So what I love to teach them, first of all, was how to eat adequately for their bodies and then, second, how to get back in tune with their body signals. So that kind of led me into this intuitive eating space. But when I was talking to these people about being on a dieting journey, since they were like eight, nine, 10 years old- the history of eating disorders.
Speaker 2:I was like, oh, I really want to like go work with Ken to show them that they don't need to be on this dieting journey, that we can just learn how to eat for their bodies. But then it was like that's not going to work. You know, if I'm working with just kids and then they're going home and learning all these other things from their family members or still hearing from their family members that they need to diet or whatever it is, I'm not going to be getting to the source. So I wanted to start working with moms. This was all around the time where I was wanting to become pregnant and pregnant that I started this business for myself. I wanted to work with moms that have maybe a history of a strained relationship with food or just really don't know where to start with feeding their kid, with feeding their kid and how to respond to their signals and how to not get in the way of their kids naturally becoming intuitive eaters, which we'll get to. But, you know, helping moms first feed themselves adequately and learn to respect their body in a way that feels sustainable.
Speaker 2:Before I started this, I was working out twice a day. I was a collegiate athlete. I, you know, was doing the detoxes and trying to learn a certain way in my body and was never really happy. And it kind of dawned on me one day that once I do have a child, first of all, I'm not going to have time to do all these things. I don't want my daughter to see that I hate my body so much or that I, you know, struggle so much to stay a certain way. I wanted her to see that I really care about my body and I want to take care of it. And the exercise has all of these positives besides trying to look sleek or slim or whatever. It is so long story short. That is my why I told you it would be abbreviated Right. I wanted to paint the whole picture for you of why do what I do. I want moms to feel empowered to take care of themselves so that they can model that for their children.
Speaker 1:And I absolutely love that and I think that a lot of us resonate with that and even if it's not to the extreme, that we're getting surgery or anything like that, but, like, I went on my first diet when I was probably I don't know 10 years old and I remember exercising before going to school and by the time I was in eighth grade I always laugh about it with my husband but I had a set meal which was one piece of bread, one piece of ham, mustard, 17 pretzels and 10 grapes and that's what I would eat every day for lunch and I was just like, oh, this is totally fine, right, this is normal, this is what we do. Anyway, I just really appreciate this kind of change in conversation. So why don't we just get down to the basics of, if we're just learning about, intuitive eating? So what is intuitive eating and what are the guiding principles, especially for children? So most of the moms listening to this podcast have younger children, so even like babies, toddlers, you know, the under five age group.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So let's talk about it from like a grand sense. So intuitive eating was developed by two dietitians who worked in the eating disorder field, evelyn Tribbley and Elise Rash, and they kind of developed this concept of intuitive eating, which is your physical, your emotional and like the logistic behind why we're eating, what we're eating, how we're eating and getting back in tune with our body signals. So this term interoceptive awareness is being aware of what signals our body is telling us and therefore responding to them.
Speaker 2:When we're like dieting on and off and we're so out of tune with our body signals because we have all these disruptors going on, these things taking our attention away from our body, we're not responding to the body signals and as time goes on, we just lose touch with the signals altogether.
Speaker 2:So intuitive eating is helping us to get away from why we got away from our body's signals and responding to them in the first place. So getting rid of diet culture, any like food monitoring rules that we might have or like voices in our head about food that aren't helping us or supporting us and then getting in tune with what are my hunger signals, what are my fullness signals, how do I respect my body, how do I feel satisfied from food. And then how do we find joy through movement? And then how do we put food together and have a variety of foods so that we can still nourish our bodies, like get away from intuitive eating and take away from it, you know, and the more like grand sense of it, that we just eat whatever we want, whenever we want, and that's not really the case. We want to take the nutrition knowledge that we have and insert that as well. But first we kind of have to heal our relationship with food and get into our body signal first before we can really do that so kind of that's the gist of what the principles are and
Speaker 2:how we get there and then when we're talking about kids with this. So I'm working mainly with adults that have a long history of a strained relationship with food. To get back to intuitive eating, because when we're born, we're naturally intuitive eaters, but there are all of these things that get in the way of us being able to remain an intuitive eater. So I also teach moms and parents, caregivers, how to raise their child or nurture their child's inner intuitive eater, so that we're not getting in the way of that and we're instead supporting them to themselves and to not have all the outside, external voices telling us how, what, when, where, why to eat. We're just listening to ourselves. So it's complicated, but that's kind of the long and the short of it.
Speaker 1:Right. So it's really interesting because I think a lot of us know that we don't want to raise our children this way. But then I don't know. I kind of feel this way myself, where I'm like man. I'm so far gone that how can I do this for my children, but I don't know if I'm a lost cause. Well, I'm 36, so I still have a lot of life to live, hopefully. Yeah, that's really interesting. So if you wanted to start practicing intuitive eating yourself, or if you wanted to just start with those principles in your family, what would you think is a good way to start or learn? How would you go about doing that?
Speaker 2:Sure. So I think a lot of us as moms are just really driven and our purpose is, through our kids, right, and the best way that we can help nurture and have this family that is, intuitive eaters is to model it. So it's kind of tricky, right like wait, is it? You know you're working on yourself versus mom. It's never too late to be working this with like 70 year olds, 80 year olds even, right. But if we are looking at just kind of the basics of intuitive eating and how we support our kid, I really like to start with the mealtime division of responsibility, and this isn't necessarily intuitive eating per se, but it will help provide that structure so that we're not applying pressure to our kids or restriction.
Speaker 2:So, with the mealtime division of responsibility, I'm sure this is something you've heard before, but it's you provide as the caregiver and they decide as the child.
Speaker 2:So you, as the caregiver, are saying when, what and where we're eating, so you get to provide the structure. We're going to be eating breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks. In between, we're going to be eating these things that I'm putting together to create balance and variety with food and we're going to eat at the table, outside, picnic, whatever it is. And then our kids get to decide what's from what you're offering they are eating and whether they're eating it. So that becomes a little gray when it's like well, what if my kid's not going to eat anything or they're only going to swallow the grapes or they're only going to eat blah, blah, blah? You know, we get really, we feel really overly controlling as parents to apply pressure and if our kid is picky or whatever, we really feel the need to jump in and be like no, you've got to take three bites, or you have to do this before you eat this, and that's when we're creating a strain and potentially having our kids move away from intuitive eating principles.
Speaker 1:Right, I struggle with this all the time with Max, who's four, because he went from being a great eater to a picky eater right and now, and he also is very active, so he just could go, go, go, go go. And then it's like I want 20 snacks a day. I want 20 snacks a day, and if he doesn't eat at that table, it's just so hard to follow that and then not fall into the like you need to take another bite, especially when it's like okay, you need to eat protein, otherwise you're eating carbs all day and then there's going to be a breakdown. So do you have tips for that? Like I? Just how do you actually? I know you don't need to like, you're not the one that needs to like get your Kadi, but you're like oh no, I need you to have some protein. You have to eat some protein. It can't just be fruit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yes. So I think, taking this idea of like how we're applying pressure and really trying to like, hold on to that and not have any outward pressure towards our kids, like, can we keep it in? Why are we like, trying to apply all of this and we'll recognizing? So I hear you with the protein stuff and what I will say is our kids are probably getting enough protein, even if it seems like they're eating carbs all day. Okay, because they really need carbs.
Speaker 2:Our kids are growing, they are so active. Carbs are giving us that quick energy and that growth energy and that's the majority of what they need and that's why it seems like that's what they're going for all the time. But can you still expose them to the protein each time that they're eating? You know, could you give them fruit and a cheese stick? Could you give them bread and peanut butter? You know you are inserting these ways of providing them with what you want their balance to look like, right, without giving them pressure to eat those things.
Speaker 2:So, because when we're applying pressure, the opposite thing is going to happen right, they're going to be, they're going to continue to resist, they're going to need to push it away, they're going to become skeptical of it. You know that the more that we, the more that they're going to push back Right. So if we can learn how to continue to explode them to the food, it's going to help them to eventually accept it. And if they're just eating carbs all the time, first of all, know that almost all foods have protein in it, so they're not missing out on protein. Foods have protein in it, so it's they're not missing out on protein.
Speaker 2:But when you are, you know, giving them like a piece of bread, maybe you're choosing like higher protein options or you know, know that a piece of bread, you might have like five grams of protein in it and that's almost half of what they need in a day, or a third of what they need in a day. So you know, give yourself a little look at what I'm trying to say. Give yourself grace when it's coming to all of this, because it is really hard. I still find myself pressuring my kids to.
Speaker 2:My four-year-old also is like will not eat certain foods, and I'm extremely selective with what she will choose to eat, and it's really hard for me as a dietitian to be like oh my God, can you please eat something? Like you can't go 25 nights in a row without eating dinner. Right, she was and she's fine and she's growing. So then also can we look at the basics, like if they're fine, if they're not low energy, if they're not losing their fit all the time you know, sorry for swearing If they're growing like they're, they are fine. Our bodies are so adaptable and our bodies are going to take from the food what they need to sustain life. So just keep remembering that and reminding yourself like they will eat when they feel a time and they're going to eat what looks and sounds best to them. As long as I keep staying within my role of providing the structure and the balance, they're going to be okay.
Speaker 1:So do you have any recommendations for creating, like, balanced meals? What do balanced meals look like from your perspective, especially for like? Okay, well, we have babies, right, so we have a lot of moms who have babies and they're getting most of their nutrients through breast milk or formula, but then we're adding in some nutrients there and then this like toddler period any suggestions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's start with the baby period because, you're right, they're getting the vast majority of their food, of their nutrition, from the milk or formula that they're getting. So I really look at like pre them turning one as practice eating and I tried to keep that really easy on myself and I'm really similar to what you talk about with, like if baby led weaning is not it for you, like do pureed, then that's totally fine, and I had to find kind of a middle ground with what I felt comfortable in and what felt sustainable for us as well. I would try to have a safe food for my kid, for my baby, each time that we ate and I slowly read up how often we were eating. But if they were just having like avocado at dinnertime, that was fine. I don't need to provide a ton of balance for them at that time because they're already getting their balance from their milk. So practice and just exposure to new food is the most important thing in that first year of life or when they're six months old or whatever.
Speaker 2:And then after that, when they are in the toddler phase, each time that they're eating I try to always provide a safe food, which usually is the carb, is it bread? Is it pasta? Is it, you know, some kind of grain? Is it fruit Yogurt? I try to provide that first, or make sure there's something like that on every plate, and then a bite or two of whatever protein we're having, a bite or two of whatever vegetable we're having, and then, if there's something else that we're having, giving them again exposure to it in whatever way looks presentable for them, to it in whatever way looks presentable for them. So if we're looking at a plate, a small toddler plate, we want half of that to be essentially safe foods and or carbohydrates, and then the other half can be a small bite of protein and a small bite of fat or some other carbohydrate, nice.
Speaker 1:And then do you have any suggestions for when kids don't eat their food and then, like 30 minutes later, they're like I'm hungry. I'm hungry, asking from experience of every day of my life for the last probably two years.
Speaker 2:And that is really like such a trigger for me. Honestly, like there is nothing more irritating to me than when Freda does not eat dinner. Then they get a phone snap or safe food 30 minutes later. They're going to learn to anticipate that and say I don't need to eat this new food before being presented. I get to have whatever 30 minutes later when I'm actually feeling hungry.
Speaker 2:So the language that I would use around that is we just had lunch. I would actually probably keep their lunch out right Like 30 minutes to an hour, or put it in the fridge Not that they can come back to that if they really truly are hungry. Or I would say nap time isn't for another couple hours. Here's what we're having. You know, if you're you, we're gonna wait until then to eat again, so that again, it's the boundary and the structure that you are reinforcing there. It's not like keeping food from your kid or anything like that, or bribing them. They just need to learn that when food is served, that's what they they're having. But that's also the function of the safe food food that you know that they're likely going to eat, so that they can fill up on that food, so that they're going to be sustained for the next couple hours, until the next meal or snack.
Speaker 1:Do you recommend offering snacks like food and snacks every two-ish to two and a half hours. Is that how they?
Speaker 2:convert theirs. Yes, so as far as structure goes in, timing every two to four hours is kind of a good rule of thumb for smaller kids and recognizing what their patterns are over time. So that's called responsive feeding, you don't?
Speaker 2:want this rigid structure that's never going to like adjust for them. Because if you're noticing, okay, snack time is at two and then dinner is at six, but they're starting to feel really hungry at five but dinner's not till six. You know, are you like really being rigid about what that structure is or being adaptable because you're noticing what patterns are coming up? So that's part of all. Of this too is like reading your kids signals and patterns and recognizing what's coming up so that you can adapt to meet their needs on a more regular basis. And that's kind of a moving target which, right, is the hard part. But once they get a sense of what the rhythm is, their behaviors are going to follow suit with that and their capability to know what's going to fill them up for the next few hours. And that will come with time. But again, you need to support it and keep that boundary.
Speaker 1:Right, that's really interesting and I was just thinking about you talking about this responsive eating, and I've noticed this shift and I think we've been medical professionals for a similar amount of time. But when I went to NP school, which was I graduated 10 years over 10 years ago, so it was a lot of like your baby needs to eat this much at this time. This is how often you need to feed them. To now the change is sort of like you feed your baby responsibly. If your baby is hungry, you feed your baby. If your baby is not hungry, you don't force your baby to eat. And and then I see this and you're talking about this as you as a child or a baby gets older, but then also really it applies to lifelong right, like that's a principle of intuitive eating.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, isn't a principle of intuitive eating? I wouldn't say so. I mean, the last principle of intuitive eating is gentle nutrition and having structure versus like chaos or rigidity. So if we think about this on a spectrum of like how we're eating and how often we're eating and what the structure looks like, I would say, on one end, it can't be like you're raising you're, you don't ever know what you're eating. It's like whatever's available. You know, you don't have any sort of plan. And then we have rigidity where it's like I'm going to have this many calories at this time and I'm not going to straight from there. You know, both of those are really not supportive of your health, but we find some sort of flexibility and structure within that and that's supporting, you know, our blood sugar and our hormone levels and our energy levels.
Speaker 2:And that's one of the first things I do with my clients actually is can we find a way to make sure that you are eating every few hours, so where we're like eating whatever is available as fast as we can, and we eat too full really quickly and then we're just like on this pendulum all of the time, where we're like crap and we have no energy? So finding that structure first and the balance with the carb and the protein each time that we eat will help you to get back to what your body is telling you and you'll be able to respond to it a little bit more.
Speaker 1:And now I don't remember what your original question was, but that's okay, because I think that that's a fabulous thing to talk about. And one of the things that I wanted to hit is kind of this like bounce back culture of you had a baby and now it's six weeks later and you're like, oh, I can, I'm approved to work out. Now I need to, like I have to lose all this weight. And then you know this feeling of not that you're failing, necessarily, but you're like why isn't my body looking this way, when really your body has changed so much? And I'm still feeling this way at 13 months postpartum with Elliot, just like my body.
Speaker 1:I would love for my body to look a different way. Or I didn't bounce back like I did with Max after the first one, and so I know that this is kind of your bread and butter. Can you talk a little bit about that? And this like, do you call it body kindness? I remember you talking about it. Anyway, tell me, tell me all about it. Yeah, you know, so I can feel better about my body. Okay, that's yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's be a little closer. Yeah, so body kindness or body acceptance and, yeah, kind of my bread and butter. We don't really learn this as dietitians, but I took like a boot camp training with a therapist that specializes in body image and you know, I think there's so much about what societal pressures and norms are for women's bodies that like really just goes so far back but like we're see it's in our faces, we're swimming in it, right. It's like we're seeing all these people that are bouncing back or working so hard to like get their get back in their pre-pregnancy genes and whatever. In reality, people that bounce back, like first of all, probably in their genetics or it probably is coming to.
Speaker 2:You're maybe not healthfully getting to that place, right, but by taking care of yourself, you're probably under eating, you're probably over exercising, you are probably obsessed with what your body looks like and getting to a point where it feels better when, like, really, what mom has the capacity to like be thinking about that all the time? Like the mental load is so heavy already and now we're adding on what your body looks like and how you're controlling it when you like get to this point where you're thinner and thinner, and thinner and you still hate your body. I mean, I've seen photos of my body 10 years ago and be like holy man, I looked good, yeah, but I hated it, Like I was so hard. I was, you know, taking two hour classes at the gym. I was a fitness instructor and blah, blah, blah and I still didn't like my body, you know.
Speaker 2:But and that's such a like messed up thing to be thinking when we really need to learn how can we treat our body well in the present moment, regardless of what it looks like, right, right, like, if we did have our perfect body, how would we treat it? Because that is what it, what feels good to us. So I really get down to the bare bones of body image and if we think about a spectrum, at the bottom end is body hatred. You know, I hate my body.
Speaker 2:I want to change my body. I treat my body poorly and at the top is like body liberation. You don't care what anybody says about your body, you don't care about societal standards, etc. But when we're talking about the next step up from body hatred, it's body respect and then body acceptance and body respect.
Speaker 2:What we're working on is eating adequately, nourishing our bodies, finding movement that feels good to us, and we're finding to do exercise other than by losing weight, because when you're exercising to lose weight, it's not going to go very far, it's not going to be a lifelong thing for you. You're going to right and then managing stress and sleep, all these things that are contributing to like how our body feel at baseline, but doing it because we care for our bodies instead of wanting to change our bodies. And then, once we're doing all those like four pillar kind of things, we can look at the consistency over time with all of that, recognize that it needs to be flexible and mom and parenting world, and then we can say I've been doing all these things, they feel sustainable, they feel good, I wouldn't change it and my body is what it is and I accept that because I know that if I went back to this place of under eating and over exercising that I still wouldn't be happy in my body.
Speaker 2:So I'm going to be present in my body as it is now. So that's what I work on with my clients. You know, I think a lot of clients come to me thinking that they're going to be working on weight loss and that working with a dietician is kind of like this other magical pill. But really it's. It's hard work and we were talking about like drawbacks of intuitive eating before and I think that when we're parents and when we have a lot on our plate, you know getting back in tune with your body's signal is really hard and working on your own relationship with your body and it is work but it pays off. That mental load that we were talking about before it's lifted, it's not clear at all and that feels so freeing for my client.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just really love that message and I feel like it's important and it's an important shift that a lot of us need to hear. And then it's like, okay, let's figure out how can we put this into place in our families and our routines and everything. So do you have any suggestions on these small changes that we can do, whether it's with ourselves or with our entire family, just like something that's small, that kind of, can get us, get the ball rolling in the right direction? Because I feel like sometimes, if we are like, oh, we're going to do this, this, this, this, this and this, and then it's like, oh, my gosh, I'm so overwhelmed and then I'm just going to go back to where it is. So is there like a small step we can take in the right direction?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so there are a couple of things that I can recommend. The first thing that comes to mind as you're talking about this is what is your language around all of this? You're constantly talking about how much you hate your body, how much you want to change your body, the diets, the restrictions. I want you to reel in that language, because talking about all those things is not helpful and it's going to show your kids what is important to you and they're going to internalize that eventually and we don't want to just neutralize it as much as possible.
Speaker 2:Call the food what it is. Your body has so much more to it, like, can we talk about our bodies in a way that shows that we respect our bodies and take care of our bodies? So that's that's number one. The other thing is thinking about what can you add to your diet to make it have more variety? So, can we add more fruits and vegetables? Can we limit distractions while we're eating? Can we try to sit at a table a few times a week and eat one more time a week than we do now? Right, so just like, little by little, steps towards having more family meals, having those meals be more balanced.
Speaker 2:So I know these are like a little more grand things, but you really have to look at what are we starting from? Are we starting from this place of chaos or grazing or distracted eating all the time? What's one small thing that I can do to bring it towards more structure? And having those conversations with your family is important too. You know, if you have a four, five, six-year-old, they're going to understand that things are shifting and they want to ask questions about it. So can you open up those conversations, say you know what I learned this about, how we could be eating to like help take care of our bodies a little bit more. So we're going to try it what do you think? And getting their input. So look at where you're starting from and where you want to go and just one step closer to that and then work on that for a week or two and then add on from there and see how that feels. You know, one thing that I really help my clients to just reflect on is how did that feel to you?
Speaker 1:Did it feel global.
Speaker 2:Did it bring you joy? Did it give you more energy? Can we look at why? Are we going to continue to do this or do we need to shift and try something else? So taking a little time to reflect on these changes as well is helpful.
Speaker 1:Right, nice. So, as we're wrapping up, I have some questions that I just ask everybody, and I changed this one just because I thought that this was a good for a dietician. So what is your favorite easy meal that your kids will actually eat?
Speaker 2:Maybe a balanced yeah, it really depends on the day, erin. Yeah, I have really been digging some like air fried salmon with like a vacuum, like spice mixture on top of it, which is it's like a rub. Hinch of yam is where I got it and she made air fried salmon and then edamame. If you can get edamame from Costco, that's like a great one for the kiddos. They love eating it. It's also protein and iron and calcium and then just some rice with that or like a yummy salt, like mango salsa or something like that. That's my fave right now.
Speaker 1:Nice, Nice. I feel like anything that I can make in the air fryer, I'm like let's go for it, I love it. I was like I don't think I'm going to use it. The Instapot was kind of like the fad and I'm like I don't know how I feel about this. And then when I got my air fryer, I'm like, oh my gosh, we use it every day, probably like four times, three, four times a day, every day, so I can cook everything in there. I'm like, oh man, this is amazing.
Speaker 2:Oh good, it's so good yeah.
Speaker 1:And then what is one piece of advice you give moms when things are starting to feel really heavy in that first year or two? It doesn't even have to be food related, Just like just whatever um.
Speaker 2:I think that accepting help is right like knowing where you could lighten your load a little bit and and asking a friend or a family member to help you out. And if people are offering help, take it right. That can be really hard when we feel like everybody else is doing it all by themselves or doing it on their own and that's really the case, and if it is the case, like we're all drowning, you know that's not the way that things should be. Building your village in some way. I know that's really hard and a really grand thing to be thinking about, but it's so worth it to have a few friends that you can rely on that can offer help. Agreed.
Speaker 1:I love that and I think that's a hard. It's a hard lesson to learn and it took me a long time. And then I said this multiple times in the podcast but like I would not have been able to function as well as I could with Elliot and all of his feeding issues If I didn't have a meal train. My sweet co-workers put it together for me and I was like, oh, I feel a little, I feel like awkward asking people like we should be able to do this ourselves. I literally like not having to do dishes after, after food, after eating, and then having a guaranteed meal a couple times a week was like really meant everything to me. So I'd like so grateful If any of my friends had brought me food or listening like I'm just so grateful for that.
Speaker 1:And but then asking for help, it was. It was like something that I had to overcome a little bit. So, yeah, it's kind of interesting. So, sammy, how can people connect with you? Do you have any offers? Or you talked about your one-on-one coaching. Tell me a little bit more.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I am active over on Instagram at antidietmama M-A-M-A, and then my website is antidietmamacom. I do have quite a few offerings If one-on-one counseling is not within reach for you. I do have the Anti-Diet Mama course, which covers pretty much everything that we talked about today. It covers intuitive eating, how to balance blood sugars, how to feed yourself, how to get back in tune with your body signals, and then a whole module on body image, a whole module on how to feed your family. We talk about the division of responsibility, all these things that we covered way more in depth. And there is a option to just listen to it as well, which I know as moms we like sometimes just need that little air pod in our ear and just to be absorbing all the information in that way.
Speaker 2:So that's kind of my signature course. And then I do have a few other mini courses coming. I do have one all about nurturing intuitive eaters, which we can link. That's just like a little mini course, which is great, and I'm working on more mini courses because I know our time is valuable. So go, go, check out my website.
Speaker 1:All of my offerings are there, and yeah, well, thank you so much, sammy, for coming on. I really appreciate this conversation and I feel like any steps toward that, like body positivity and teaching our kids how to like break this cycle right, Like they don't need to do this and they're live, they can be kinder to themselves it's just something that's so beneficial. So I really appreciate your time today.
Speaker 2:Wow, thanks, erin, for having me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you. Hey, mama, I hope you love this bite-size episode. This podcast is powered by your reviews. Hope you loved this bite-sized episode. This podcast is powered by your reviews, ratings and shares. It helps other mamas find the show so they can finally feel good about feeding their baby, just like you do. Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode. Need personalized feeding? Help for your baby's unique situation? Let's work together with a one-on-one consult. I can't wait to meet you. Until then, happy eating.