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Intro music: Bags are packed, are you ready to go?…This time tomorrow we’ll be on the road…riding with you into sunnier days…I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Julie: It’s time to name the neglect from typical food advice. Welcome to the Find Your Food Voice podcast, hosted by me, Julie Duffy Dillon. I’m a registered dietitian with 20 years of experience partnering with folks just like you on their food peace journey. What have we learned? Well, cookie cutter approaches exclude too many people, and you don’t need to be fixed. It’s not you. It’s not me. It’s all of us. Only together we can start a movement and fix diet culture. And we will. Let’s begin with now.

Transition music: I want to see how the world turns round…Let’s go adventure in the deep blue sea…home is with you wherever that may be…home is with you wherever that may be.

Julie: Hi and welcome to episode 281 of the Find Your food Voice podcast. I am Julie Duffy Dillon, registered dietitian and partner on your food peace journey. How is that journey going for you? I appreciate that it has been a hard time. There’s a lot going on in this world, and mending your relationship with food can be even harder during these times. I am wondering how you’re doing, and you may be someone who is feeling okay with the food part, or maybe not, but also really struggling with your relationship with movement. What is it like for you to rest all day? What’s the message that your brain gives you? Do you get a message of, wow, I must have needed rest, or that felt really good to rest my body? Does that sound foreign to you? Yeah, many people I talked to, that’s not the message that their brain is giving them. Instead the message is the four letter word that just needs to be gone: lazy. Oh, that word is so loaded, and that is one that Yeli Cruz and I, Yeli is assistant- podcast assistant for the Find Your Food Voice podcast and our resident bibliophile, we talked about in this episode. This episode is a book review episode of the book called Weightless by Maggie McGill, and we found this book by finding their Instagram, and so we’re really excited to share our review and a discussion about movement as it relates to your food peace journey. Maggie McGill’s book is um, a brief one, it’s only 25 pages. It sort of looks like a workbook in PDF format, and we could have talked longer than the 33 minutes that we recorded. We had so much to say. So like, it’s a small and mighty book, that especially if you’re in a place where your relationship with movement is really getting in the way, it’s causing a lot of pain, there’s trauma connected to it. Are you feeling really stuck? We highly recommend this book. So before we get to this book review here from Yeli Cruz, we want to ask you, is there a book that you think we should review? Maybe you’re an author of a book or you’ve read one recently that you think is really important. We would love to have that feedback from you. You can give us that feedback over at julieduffydillon.com/contact. There’s a way to do that. And if you’re also someone who is wanting to submit a letter to food, to your body, to movement, to anything that’s really promoting a struggle for you, you can also do that in that same place, julieduffydillon.com/contact. And you can submit your Dear Food letter right there, and we really want yours. We haven’t gotten it yet. And we’re really excited to share it on an episode. So send it to julieduffydillon.com/contact. All right. We are going to get to the discussion on Weightless with Yeli Cruz in just a minute after this quick sponsor.

Julie (ad): We all know that diets and diet culture, eating disorders, they all contribute to being literally probably the biggest asshole that we can find. They are mean, they are like, a mind suck and mind fuck. Honestly, they do so much to suck the energy out of the room and our lives. So, if you are looking for more tools to find a way to recover from your eating disorder to fight back against diet culture, I have tools that are waiting for you. You can get them at julieduffydillon.com/voice. I have handouts to help when you go to the doctor, if you’re living with PCOS, and other tools that you may find helpful no matter where you are on your journey to really connect with non diet tools. Maybe you like intuitive eating, or you read the book Anti-Diet, or you just have decided that oh my gosh, I cannot diet ever again. Well, again, I have some tools for you. Go to julieduffydillon.com/voice, and you can connect with them right now.

Julie: Alright, let’s get to my chat with Yeli Cruz about the book.

Transition music: Take the good and the ups and downs…I want to see how the world turns around. Home is with you wherever that may be.

Julie: Hey Yeli, welcome back. Nice to see you.

Yeli: Nice to see you.

Julie: I’m so glad that we get a chance to talk about the book Weightless, not waitlist, Weightless by Maggie McGill, pronouns she/they, and the kind of tagline for the book is “a self guided journey to intuitive movement.” Um, Weightless is a book that is really not long, you know, like it’s a short book and um, before we push recording, I know that um, we were kind of talking about like, it was only 25 pages but yet we have a lot to talk about. So where do you want to start?

Yeli: Um yes, it’s like only 25 pages but we were mentioning, it’s, there’s a lot in it, and it’s such a good jumping point into all of these larger conversations that we could talk about forever. Um, but maybe let’s start with talking about like, I don’t know if you want to talk about your own relationship to movement and how that’s changed in your life, but I found myself reflecting about that a lot when I was reading. Um, because especially, there’s a point in the book where Maggie talks about how much they hated running growing up. And that really resonated with me, because I still hate running to this day. Like, I remember running laps in gym class and like, tasting metal in my mouth and just like, absolutely hating it, and I was always the slowest person, and I truly just can’t go on runs to this day because there’s so many just awful, like, it just doesn’t feel good in my body, it’s not an activity that I enjoy. Um, so yeah, that is like, really what resonated for me. Do you have something like that in your life?

Julie: Yeah, I mean, I have my own relationship with movement too, and, you know, my lived experience is different than Maggie’s, and I can remember some of the things that she brought up, like doing the mile run in school, doing um, the physical fitness tests in school. Um, I don’t know if they do that in Canada, but in the US that’s like everyone’s rite of passage. Like, you gotta go through these things, and there’s lots of like shaming that people experience. And I remember feeling like, comparisons at that point. Um, I actually hate running as well. Um, but I grew up in a running family, and I was a runner, and I had a coach in high school who said Julie, I can time you with a calendar. So, I was someone that they basically, we’re not relying on to bring home any hardware in the races. Um, but it was something that like, everyone in my family did, and everyone in my family did for generations. And so it was just an expectation. And yeah, I hated it. I didn’t like how it felt. Um, and but yeah, like my lived experience, having thin privilege is not the same as Maggie’s, but I definitely had this experience of like, I don’t like doing this movement, but I feel like I have to, um, and now I say I’m a retired runner, I will not run anymore. It doesn’t feel good to my body, my left hip, my right ankle, my knees, they all are, were hurt by that, by running too much as a kid. Um and, you know, I just ran through high school and then I looked, I did some long distance running after college. And yeah, I just, no more, no more running for me.

Yeli: No more.

Julie: Um, and you know the saying that this, this book, and again, in this like 25 pages, Maggie, I don’t know how you did it, but you did it, like bringing up how movement and diet culture collide and bring up so much. Um, and this is something that I think about for a listener who’s like, yeah, like I feel really shameful about not exercising, or I feel really um, like I should be doing more, or I don’t work out hard enough, or I ate a certain amount, so I should be moving more, and um, the whole like movement conversation or exercise, whatever word fits for you, um, is something that I find to be really hard to recover from when I’ve worked with individuals with eating disorders or people who are trying to move away from diet culture that like, exercise and movement had been really fucked around with with diet culture, so I don’t, I wonder what you think about that, Yeli?

Yeli: No, I totally agree. I also think that there’s this weird sense of also moralizing different types of movements as good movement or not good enough movement. When I was growing up a lot of the movement that I was drawn to was the like, movement that was less sporty. So I never liked running, I never liked weights. I never liked any, like hitting the gym, but I’ve always loved dancing, like I danced for the majority of my life. But I did feel this weird um, I guess people kind of turn their nose up at it because it’s not real movement, it’s not intense enough, it hasn’t been claimed by diet culture as much as other forms of movement like running and like strength training and like hitting the gym has been, and because of that, I, I think that I just internalized it as less than, um, which is not true at all, like dancing is so hard. And I only did, I only did it recreationally, but like competitive dancing is a whole other, anyways, I digress, but. And then also I am currently very um, drawn to yoga as movement which I feel is really kind of um, there, we could do a whole episode about yoga, but that’s also interesting because diet culture has co-opted that as well and um, yoga is now very like predominantly white and like, if you can’t do this, if you can’t do tree pose perfectly then what are you even doing here? You know what I mean? And it is like that dichotomy of like good/bad, this is good movement, that’s bad movement. Um and yes, definitely diet culture has, as everything, seeped into um, movement as well.

Julie: Right, that is like an important thing to sit with too, how you describe your relationship with movement and like the movement that brought you joy, how it was, it was just considered to be like less than. And that just makes me so angry um, because it was something that was bringing you pleasure and then like, oh no, you need to be like hating on yourself like the rest of us.

Yeli: Exactly, yes!

Julie: You know, and that’s not right.

Yeli: Like the only movements that are good enough for the ones that like, cause you pain essentially is what I internalized as a kid, which was harmful, like that’s such a harmful thing to learn as a kid is that pain equals something that is good in some fucked up way, you know?

Julie: Right? Yeah. Oh, that is so messed up, like the pain means it’s a good, yeah. Oh, yeah, there’s so many things about diet culture that I just, you know, I cannot stand, you know, it seems there’s so many things um, but it has like labeled itself like, this is a dieting behavior. Um, I think about like, eating apples or eating a big salad. Um, you know, people, anybody may crave those things, like crave some fruit or crave a vegetable, but especially as a person’s really working on repairing their relationship with food, it may almost feel like a speed bump of like, oh wait, if I eat the salad, does that mean I’m dieting or um, restricting? And I hear similar things with movement like, and so like, there’s gonna be somebody who actually loves like, the treadmill or you know, doing some yoga class where they sweat a lot um, and that’s like, that’s fabulous, you found something you really enjoy, and for everyone else to have to do that too um, not so cool, but yeah, like that’s, that’s the part I think of movement and repairing your relationship with movement that makes it so complicated, and this may be kind of a bold statement, but whatever, um is I do think it’s harder to recover your relationship with movement than food. Um, there’s something about the movement piece, and this is not just something I’m like flippantly saying, it’s something just after 20 years, like sitting across people and like taking some like, notes along the way, it just seems like that part takes longer. And I don’t know if it’s because the food piece, I mean we have to eat every single day. And, and we don’t have to move, like Maggie says in their book, we don’t have to move. I can’t wait to talk about that part of a little bit, because I loved that part so much. Um, and so like we have to eat to stay alive. And so, there’s probably just like some kind of exposure therapy that happens and um, but yeah, this movement piece can go on for a long time and, does it feel like a good time to move to that permission piece?

Yeli: Yes!

Julie: Because that was something that I was really excited to see in written form about permission to not do movement. And so, something that I’m remembering um, about Maggie’s story, which we didn’t explicitly say this, but Maggie is providing in this book, like a self guided journey to intuitive movement and like, using their lived experience as kind of the, the outline on some, some insight for you. And part of, like, how she describes helping her relationship with movement was through giving, like, saying, okay, I’m not going to feel guilty about not moving, maybe like doing the right kind of moving, like you’re describing Yeli, um, or not doing enough, and actually even saying I have permission to not do anything.

Yeli: Yeah.

Julie: What was your reaction to that part?

Yeli: Yes, I loved that. I also, when, what you said about mending your relationship with movement taking longer than food, that really does resonate for me as somebody who has had to mend a relationship with both. Um and I agree with Maggie in that I think a super important part of that is to give yourself permission to not move, um. In like, my own movement journey, especially after dancing for five nights a week for ten years, essentially, when I got to university and all of a sudden it stopped dancing, I felt like so guilty about not moving constantly. And something that really helped me was to lean into it and to say, it’s okay, like you are not morally better for hitting the gym or going to dance class five times a week and than you are, if um, you sit on the couch and watch some tv, like, if, it all just depends on what brings you joy and what is soothing to you and what you need in that moment. Um, but this also just ties into diet culture and the fact that um, you know like the stereotype of the lazy person sitting on the couch, and just not getting up off the couch, and how that is really used against fat folks in particular. Um, it really resonated with me and it took me a long time to unlearn that and like, to this day I still, if, my partner really likes going on walks, so if Haley goes on a walk and I’m not feeling like going on a walk, a part of me still is like, you should just go on the walk because it’s better than staying in bed for another thirty minutes, like morally. And in those moments it really does have to be a conscious decision to say no, it isn’t. If you don’t want to go on a walk you can stay in bed and that is okay.

Julie: That’s like so much work in the moment to moment, excuse me, like play by play, like having to sift through so many different, like I could just picture all these different like um, thoughts or feelings, I don’t know how your brain communicates to you, but Maggie talks about “mean Maggie” and connecting to it when they were going through the fitness kind of things during gym class and um, you know, I think about like, you having to make all those decisions in the moment, that’s like, it’s not just one decision, you know, it’s something that, it’s having to decide like 200 times probably in 10 minutes about what you’re gonna do next, you know? And um, so exhausting. And that makes me think about too, you know, and for the listener, I’m like, I wonder if like, you fall along to this or not, it’s okay if you don’t, but like, sometimes I can go on a tangent, but I think about like, how movement has to be no pain, no gain. It has to be, it has to hurt. We have to, and what I was hearing you describe some things, I’m like, oh, it sounds a lot like being productive and being a good worker and not being lazy. Like, hearing some of those things, that word lazy. I’m like, I just can’t ever justify using it. Like, I just think it’s loaded with so much bullshit and-

Yeli: Well, and laziness doesn’t exist.

Julie: Yeah!

Yeli: It doesn’t exist. Like, what is laziness?

Julie: Is there a book on that?

Yeli: I hope there is! [Laughs]

Julie: [Laughs] I think, I think there is, I haven’t read it. Um, if you’re listening, you’re like, oh, I’ve read it, let us know. Um, but yeah, I don’t think so either. Like I think, like listening to what we need or just resting for the, just wanting to rest. Like, not even like I need this, but just like, resting is wonderful. You know, that really rubs up against like diet culture, having its connections with capitalism, white supremacy, all of that. That’s why it’s all wrapped together and why healing relationship with movement is so fucking hard.

Yeli: Yes!

Julie: Because it’s like, it’s going against all of that, and that’s why if you’re like frustrated, like, why isn’t my relationship with movement changed? This, this is, is a big, huge system moving against you, and you know, that’s, I think that’s really, really important, and um, something else that around in this place in the book that Maggie talks about that I also don’t see in print very often was like, the connection to trauma and movement. And Maggie, I mean, if you ever listen to this, hello, we loved your book, [Laughs] but thank you for sharing your experience of like, having anxiety um, as you were like, moving your body, because it was the way the trauma was kind of coming up and um, just like dieting is a trauma, uh, your way of like learning about movement, like, Yeli you describing, you know, how you were taught, like dancing wasn’t good enough, like, that has like a wiring probably, I’m not in your brain with you, but like, I’m assuming there’s some kind of like some wiring in there that’s connected to trauma, you know, like that. Um, and one like, kind of content warning, I would just say too about this book is um, Maggie does talk about some behaviors that some people may just want to know about. Like, that have like some disordered eating kind of behaviors with like sneaking food, they’re really common behaviors. Um, but I just wanted to like, if you need to take care of yourself while you’re reading it, just know that that’s a part of it. But um, as she was like starting to move and like, had a really supportive partner, and felt, it felt fun and challenging, all those things, but yet anxiety, like panic attacks started happening, right? And so um, that’s just like a huge part of this too, and I think there’s not enough like, therapists who do trauma informed work that appreciate that like, this is going to happen. Because so many are going to like, be about weight loss and like, oh yeah, moving your body is great, and not really appreciating the nuance. Um, yeah, like I think that’s a really big part to kind of like, lead into as well, like this can be really messy and it may, take that to make it, blah blah, that will make it takes more time, basically. So.

Yeli: Totally. Well and like, that’s a good segue into something that Maggie also mentioned, which is that movement can be something that ebbs and flows, and it doesn’t have to be this huge constant in your life, um, in the same way that healing from trauma is not linear. Um, it’s, you know, like sometimes high highs and low lows and everything in between. Um, and Maggie talks about how after kind of discovering this love for certain kinds of movement, they also had to take a step away because of focusing on their work, or on healing in other ways. Um, and that is also okay, similarly to how food ebbs and flows, and appetite ebbs and flows and like, that’s such a huge thing about intuitive eating as well. Um, I mean truly just the one biggest takeaway from this is that there’s nothing like moral about movement, just, you know, like move if you want to and don’t, if you don’t. Um, and it’s not as simplified as that, but um, that’s something that really resonated with me as well.

Julie: Mhm, it did for me too, like it, reading about that part of like the seasonality, the ebbs and flow. I mean there’s just permission, I think in whatever your present relationship is with food and movement that I got from reading this book, which is really, I really appreciate, you know? And I know that for a lot of people myself included, like this season really dictates the craving for movement. And um, and just even also like, season of life, you know, like where you are in life right now, and you may be working a job that’s exhausting, or many jobs, and like that’s just not a time where you’re gonna be wanting to go home and do some movement, I don’t know. Rest’s maybe what you really want to prioritize and yeah, like how that can ebb and flow. Along with that too, um talking about um, like her own experience with intuitive eating, which is another thing that I wish more people have talked about, because some people think like, oh if I read intuitive eating or any other kind of like non diet approach, I can like, in six months fix it all. And they mentioned it took five years to do all of that, and I was like, thank you for that explicit amount of time. Like, that’s actually a really normal amount that I’ve seen with clients that I’ve worked with. And I think it’d be faster if it there wasn’t like diet culture shit everywhere. And there’s definitely people who five years is not enough. You know, there’s some people who at five years are like yeah, I’m not, I’m not in a place that I think is, it feels neutral yet with food and movement.

Yeli: Yeah, I did want to talk about actually, um now that you’ve mentioned it, Maggie talks about something, neutral movement in their book, which is something that I had never heard of before. I don’t know if you had, Julie, but I’ve heard of like, feeling neutral about your body. I’ve heard about body neutrality or feel like, treating food as something that’s neutral. But I’ve never heard of neutral movement. And the example that Maggie uses in their book is like, going on a walk because you know that it will make you feel better. Like mental, mental health wise. So she talks about how sometimes she doesn’t want to go on a walk, but it’s like, instinctually she knows that it will make her feel better afterwards. So she says, okay, I don’t want to do this right now, it’s not necessarily going to bring me joy, but it, I know that I, it’s what I need right now. And I mean, you were talking about how long it takes to heal your relationship with movement, and I think that my relationship with movement isn’t even healed enough yet to the point where I can view movement as neutral after five plus years. Because when I read that, I kind of pushed back against it a little bit, like I was like, I, I think that I’m not even at the point where if movement is neutral, I could still do it and not fall back into that old pattern of thinking. Like I, I think that I’m still at the place where unless I feel truly like, overjoyed about the movement that I’m about to do, I cannot engage because it’s still that like slippery slope for me. But I’m interested to hear about what you were thinking.

Julie: Yeah, I think that’s like a really um, like hearing your inner dialogue with connecting with movement that maybe would have an intention of like, oh if I do this type of strength training, it’ll help strengthen my knees, so then it won’t hurt to walk. I don’t know, like something, like that’s what I was kind of picturing too with some like neutral movement um, how it can itself um, start to activate a part of the like, disordered eating kind of wiring and disordered movement kind of wiring. And that’s something like only you will know, like and to protect that and know that, that, that’s there, I think is so important. And um yeah, that’s not like, to like look for that basically, because that’s how you can protect yourself from like going down like a very slippery slope of getting reactivated like in the swing of things, right? Like that’s where so many people will be like yeah, it kind of just started as like um, you know, joining a walking club and then I started going, you know, even when it was raining and then it just became this like other thing, you know, that ended up becoming um, really rigid and um, that’s where I see trauma work being really helpful if um, for you Yeli, or anybody who’s like in a place where you know, there’s like a spot. Um, and also like, it’s okay if you only want to connect to the movement that’s joyful. I don’t know, like to me, I’m like, hey, that’s okay, you know? Um.

Yeli: Totally. I also think that I guess, like, I think that it would also. I guess just to preface, I am not like, hugely physically disabled, so I don’t necessarily need neutral movement if that makes sense? Like I hold that privilege of not having a physical disability which requires me to get physical therapy for example, or like, I’m not neurodivergent in a way where exercise significantly makes a difference to my mood. So I think that um, while acknowledging the fact that I hold those privileges, neutral movement is probably a super helpful framework for folks that do have to go to physical therapy every week and don’t necessarily want to, or it doesn’t necessarily bring them joy but it’s just something that they need to do.

Julie: Yeah. That’s, I’m so glad you brought that up because yeah, that it may be a tool to like add to your tool box of like, strategies to help um, have more access or to feel, I don’t know, like a way to manage just living your life. Right? And so, yeah, like finding, I mean I say therapists, but you know anybody who’s trained in trauma therapies like EMDR. Um there’s another one called AIT. That’s one that I did that um, I don’t find a lot of practitioners that do it but I loved it. But they basically, I think there’s also one called Brain Spotting now also that’s um, probably similar to both of those, but it basically helps you to bypass like a lot of the things that we do in talk therapy, and really get to like where the trauma is living in our body to help us to like, let it leave our body. I mean that’s literally, I mean we could have a podcast episode at some point talking about like, how some of this shit works. I mean, it’s amazing. But um yeah, find. But you have to find a therapist who can do these things and also is really um, rooted in fat liberation, and not gonna like fuck around with any kind of diet rules or exercise rules. Like that’s, that’s the thing that makes it so hard. Like these tools like, have done really amazing things for people’s relationship with um, the traumas with dieting and the traumas with exercise and movement. But yeah, it’s like finding the person to do it and having access to that person. But that is something that I’ve seen people be able to like, just like, shake it up a little bit, and again, like literally like the trauma is, like you’ll still have a memory of it, but it won’t be activating anymore. It’s just so cool.

Yeli: Yes.

Julie: Our brain is amazing. [Laughs] So um, that um, I don’t know, that’s something that I hopefully more people will have um, as we’re moving along. And I know we’re running out of time, but what are like, any other like last things you want to make sure that we mentioned before we start to wrap up?

Yeli: Um let me see, I did want to mention. So there’s a part in Maggie’s book where they kind of go into the “but what if I gain weight” mentality.

Julie: Oh, yes.

Yeli: And I wanted to see what-

Julie: Oh, let’s unpack this at the end!

Yeli: Yeah, [Laughs] and I wanted to see what you thought about this because I feel like that’s something that comes up repeatedly, even just in letters that we get for, from people writing into the show of that um, like I, I see that this is a framework that would be helpful and probably healthier for me spiritually, mentally, whatnot. But what if I gain weight, what then? Um I don’t know, what are your thoughts?

Julie: I mean like, it’s so easy for me to say well, so what? But you know, I need to just be explicit about my privilege and thin privilege, but um, but the thing that I would say especially if someone was like sitting across from me and, and I was their one on one clinician is um, you may gain weight and that is your body’s way of healing. And I think we’re not taught enough how weight gain is healing. Like this is something that our bodies need to do, and sometimes we do throughout life, the longer we live, the more we weigh. Like it helps us live longer. I know people don’t like talking about that either, but like yeah, the more we gain the better as we’re getting older, and then when we hit around 70 we start to live off of it, you know, so like um, there’s actually benefits to that, and for many people as they move away from movement, they do gain weight. And I think um, I can remember certain intuitive eating circles talking about like, well you know eventually your body will um, stop gaining or it will um, you know, basically promises of it’ll find its like um, lower weight eventually. And that’s not a promise that anyone should be giving. Um, nor should they, because that is um, like promoting more discrimination, I guess, people in fat bodies and um, but yeah, like I think weight gain is like, it’s something that our body does to repair. Um, so that’s, that’s what I think about that. And it, I think also with the movement piece, one of the reasons why it is one of the last ones to really get attention too in the repair process is because it can be like um, I don’t know if this is the right word, but like a sneaky way to still use diet culture. Like um, you know, I’m just moving my body to destress or I’m just doing this exercise because of blah blah blah. And um, when we can’t do it anymore for whatever reason, that’s for a lot of people when they start to like, oh, like I think actually I was using movement to weight suppress or to like keep my weight lower. So I don’t know if that’s what you were like thinking about with this conversation, but that’s my initial kind of thought.

Yeli: Mhm. That resonates with me for sure. I think that um, it’s also just an example of why none of this work can exist without the larger conversation of body liberation, fat liberation, fat positivity. Um, because this is like you said something that comes up so much with people recovering from eating disorders or recovering from their relationship with movement and stepping away from it, or moving towards intuitive eating as well. There’s so many people who see intuitive eating as another diet, essentially, like the warping of that is um, something that can be very alluring, I guess? Um, and I think that it’s just a huge example of how all of these systems are just one big like, messy soup. [Laughs] And it just like can’t-

Julie: Yes!

Yeli: It’s not, it doesn’t exist in a vacuum and it can’t exist in a vacuum. And it’s why fat liberation as a framework is also just so important. Because I, I definitely experienced that in my pull away from movement where I gained weight. And like, am the largest I’ve been in the years that I haven’t moved as much. And I’ve had to lean a lot on fat liberation as a framework during that time to kind of combat those um, thoughts.

Julie: Mhm. I’m so glad that you have those spaces to lean on. You know? And yeah, it reminds me of a quote that, I wrote down my favorite quote that Maggie says, was “we are human beings, not machines”.

Yeli: Yeah.

Julie: You know, and, and moving away from movement and have permission to not move. Um, it’s like that reminder that yeah, you’re a human being, you’re not this machine who can just keep going and going, and this may be like the missing piece for you of like what recovery looks like. Um, I hesitate to use phrases like “full recovery” and I don’t know, like what does that mean? But like this may be something to explore. And um, one other last thing that I wanted to mention about Maggie’s book, which we’ll make sure to put a link to the book in the show notes. Um, but there’s a piece in there that talks about like how do you know when you’re ready to move if you are someone who has been practicing permission to not move? And I also really appreciate this piece because this is something that um, a lot of people as they read intuitive eating, you know like the last principle is gentle nutrition. And so sometimes people will say to me like, when am I going to actually crave salad, when am I actually gonna crave exercise? Why is it not happening fast enough? And usually when people are asking that, I’m like, that’s usually, not always, but usually a sign that like, there’s a lot of healing still needed to happen before. Um, because the way like those cravings kind of come in is so like, subtle and um, it won’t be like this all or nothing like, yeah now I crave going on the treadmill. And um, what needs to happen for so many is the amount of rest you need, you know? And there’s like, especially those of you who have PCOS or insulin resistance or diabetes or any, or just any kind of like relationship to dieting that has felt really chaotic um, when you’re eating enough and your body’s had enough rest, like your muscles literally have had time to repair, and there’s been enough like nutrition going to them and safety and um, yeah, just like time to repair. That’s when there starts to be like a little tap of like, hey, I kind of crave moving my body and um, Maggie talks about at first like taking walks at night or in the evening or something, and that was like the first kind of movement that she was doing. And sometimes, again, there’s gonna be times where like that movement craving’s gone. So um, being open to it I think is really important. So this has been a really great conversation, and you were right, like we are have been talking for 33 minutes.

Yeli: Oh, I knew we would.

Julie: And this is a 25 page book. [Laughs] So I thank you Maggie McGill for this book. Um, and we are going to be talking about another book coming up next month, Decolonizing Wellness by Dalia Kinsey, and I have been wanting to start this so badly. But I have been waiting till after this discussion because I didn’t want to confuse the two, and um, it is on like this audio version of Decolonizing Wellness. So if you want to read it too and then join our discussion next month, we would love that. Oh, but yes, I hope this conversation about movement was helpful for you, and we look forward to having the next discussion about decolonizing wellness next month.

Yeli: Yes. Love a book club!

Julie: See you later, Yeli.

Yeli: Bye!

Julie: So there you have it. I hope you enjoyed our conversation about the book Weightless by Maggie McGill. There is a link below so you can get to it and connect with the wisdom that we found within this book. Again, it was small and mighty. It really provoked a lot of thoughts for us and feelings, and this conversation. We could have gone on a lot longer, and we hope you dig in and just let all the goodness flow from what you discover reading through it. So we are so appreciative of you, Maggie, for writing this book, and we highly recommend it. And like I said at the top of the episode, if you have any books that you’d like to recommend, maybe you’ve written one or you’re going to write one or you’ve read one lately that has really impacted your food peace journey, send it on over to us at julieduffydillon.com/contact. There, you can also submit your Dear Food letter. We need more letters. We would love to have yours. So you can also get to that at julieduffydillon.com/contact.

Julie: And if you enjoyed this episode of the Find Your Food Voice podcast, well we are thrilled. We love bringing this content to you. So we are glad that you’re connecting with it. It is really helpful for us as a small and mighty podcast team to have people support our show. Doing that really helps more people even just find the show and helps us to be able to grow. So you can do that by subscribing to an episode, or subscribing to the show rather, or sharing an episode, and then of course leaving a rating, a review. Doing those really, really helps, and I know I say it every episode but it really helps. So if you haven’t done it yet, and you have a moment, please, thank you. And we appreciate any feedback. So the contact um, email address that I gave you the beginning um, julieduffydillon.com/contact. That’s also a place where you can give us feedback about the show. Is there something that we missed? Something that we can do better? Um, feedback, um, and being receptive to feedback is a value of ours within my team. It’s a important part of my work, and anyone that I hire to work with me also, I want them able to receive feedback. So this is something that we all really um, find valuable and important in order to do better. So if you have feedback, feedback for us, we would really appreciate it. You can get to it at the same address, julieduffydillon.com/contact. Alright, um enough of all that, thank you so much for joining this episode. I’ll be back next week and it’s featuring a Dear Food letter from someone that is a provider. So I’m excited to um, let you hear this person’s experience and to be able to dig through it and um, have a conversation that I think you’ll find really, really helpful on your own food peace journey. But until next time, take care.

Julie: Thank you for listening. I am Julie Duffy Dillon, and this is the Find your Food Voice podcast. Ready to join the anti diet movement and take the food voice pledge? Go to julieduffydillon.com and sign your name to the growing list of people saying no to diets and yes to their own food voice. The Find Your Food Voice podcast is produced by me, Julie Duffy Dillon, and my team of kick ass folks. I couldn’t make the show without Yeli Cruz, Assistant Producer and Resident Book Fiend. And Coleen Bremner, Customer Service Coordinator and professional Hype Master. Audio editing is from Toby Lyles at 24 Sound. Music is Fly Free by Hartley. Are you looking for episode transcripts? Get them at julieduffydillon.com, where you can also submit letters for the podcast, give us feedback, and sign the Food Voice pledge. We need your voice to end diet culture. We literally can’t do this without you. Subscribe to the Find Your Food Voice podcast to get weekly inspiration and education on how we can defeat diet culture and reclaim our own food voice. I look forward to seeing you here next week for another episode of the Find Your Food Voice podcast. Take care.