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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: Hey there, welcome to episode 348 of the Find Your Food Voice podcast. I am Julie Duffy Dillon. I am so glad you’re here. Thank you for joining me for this diet culture IRL episode. What are diet culture IRL episodes? Well, these are monthly segments that we get to hear from our hype woman extraordinaire, Coleen Bremner. She’s on the Find Your Food Voice team and she unpacks a specific part of rejecting diet culture and that is just timely and of course, this episode is getting released in December so I know a lot of us are experiencing just a different time of year because of holidays and different kinds of get togethers, seeing people we’re not used to seeing and lots and lots of food body diet talk. And what can make it even more complicated is when you’re experiencing grief, loss, different types of life transitions. So we dive into all the hard murky stuff. 

Julie: And before we get to hear from Coleen as she unpacks this diet culture IRL. I wanted to give you a very, very quick book update. The Find Your Food Voice book is still slated to be released in January 2025. And I am knee deep actually, as I say that I may be almost done with chapter five and chapter five is a lot about making those first few steps away from moving away from dieting. So whether you are recovering from an eating disorder or you have been dieting your whole life and you just want to not do it anymore. Those first few steps are hard like you may see like, OK, diets have never worked for me or my eating disorder has not ever been something that really has helped me. But how do you actually make those first few steps um that the working title of this chapter is pivot because it’s just like I always think if I could just get you to turn your head a teeny, teeny bit in another direction, you can do it, you can do this. And so it outlines all of the steps that I would take clients, one on one when I worked with people, one on one, what I would do to help them make those first steps to pivot away from, you know, using food to manipulate your body. So, um it’s a really, um it’s a chapter that is, I don’t know, say fun, fun is the right word. Um Yeah, I guess it is kind of fun to write. I, I get excited when I start to share with people the step um or that there’s actually three different steps that explore in this chapter because it’s concrete and so much of rejecting diets is not concrete. It’s so like big picture and you know, it’s something that’s abstract and giving you something concrete I’m excited about and also working with people for 20 years now, seeing people go from before the pivot to after the pivot how meaningful it can be. I’m just excited to share it with you. So if you want to stay in, um I don’t want to stay in all the, what’s going on with the book. You can get to all the updates at julieduffydillon.com/book and I’ll also be sharing it here. So that is all of the book update update I have for you today. And we are going to now hear from Coleen Bremner as she unpacks this month’s diet culture. IRL. 

Coleen: Welcome to December, can you believe we’re already here? I sure can’t. I feel like we just had the new year! With the holidays right around the corner, a lot has been coming up for me with the end of the year approaching and family excitedly listing the countdown of days until we see one another.

Coleen: For me, December has always felt magical, like there’s just a little more excitement in the air. It’s also been a time where I can reflect on the year and think about what’s on the horizon for the next. Only there’s one big time standing between me and the new year, the holiday season. There are so many things that can come up around the holidays, diet talk, grief, reflection on estrangement, boundaries, and lots of not so happy feelings too.

Coleen: I wanted to share a list of ways I like to move through some of these in my own day to day. Let’s start with diet talk. This may come up with friends, family, healthcare practitioners, in the media, or even if you’re standing in line with all your holiday meal ingredients and you’re reading some of the headlines on the magazines.

Coleen: My first step is to recognize it – sometimes diet talk can be really in your face and sometimes it can be subtle. What’s helped me is just naming something as diet-y and then moving on. Sometimes it feels appropriate for me to respond to diet talk by walking away from whatever is triggering, or I will change the subject completely, it’s also helpful to set boundaries with the people I am with, that can sound like, “I don’t want to talk about food in relation to my body right now – I just want to have fun with you etc.” Or “hey my body isn’t open to comment on, let’s discuss something else.” The best thing to do for you, may look different than some of my examples, you know your needs best. The final tip/trick I will give on this is to really be intentional with your social media use. How much time are you spending on social media, how is your consumption making you feel, why are you using social media? These are all questions I like to ask myself, usually right before the holidays I will do a two – three-week hiatus into the New Year and not partake in any social media. This helps me feel more present during the final weeks of the year and helps me to spend time doing other things I love like cooking, reading, going on nature walks, and I know, not common, but organizing closets in my house.

Coleen: Something else I think is important to name during the holiday season is some of the grief I experience, whether that’s loss of loved ones in my life who I can no longer celebrate with, grief about what I hoped to achieve in the last year I didn’t, and grief about needing to remove friends from my life to set boundaries to protect my energy. The first step here is the same as the first step I named above, I spend time becoming aware of the grief I am feeling. Depending on your relationship with family, friends, or loved ones it may feel good to share stories about the people you miss. If this isn’t an option for you, lean on some other trusted support outlets for you to talk to. I like to light candles in their memory and include a place setting for them at the table. Finally, I make time to feel and practice self-care as I know I need to. For me that looks like some meditations alone, but this may look different for you. The theme here again is do what feels best for you in the moment, you know your needs the best of anyone.

This holiday season I hope you experience the season in a way that feels good for you and I hope this diet culture IRL helped give you some ways to do just that. I’ll be thinking of you and wishing you all the best until the next Diet Culture IRL in 2024. 

Julie: Hey Coleen, how are you doing? 

Coleen: Good, Julie! 

Julie: Thank you for this month’s diet culture, IRL. Happy holidays

Coleen: Happy holidays to you and to you a listener. 

Julie: Yes, we are so glad that you’re joining us and oh, sitting with you as you’re reading through your IRL, the big picture that I had is that what a what a fucking like roller coaster of emotions that um you know, the holidays I think could be just for any human. But then also trying to repair your relationship with food in a world that has no clue that there’s any issue with it. Like it just, yeah, a roller coaster was the thing that I thought of most. 

Coleen: Yeah, it’s so wild, I think uh I was sharing this with you but it feels like one of those times in my life where, and it always happens November, December. I feel like, uh where I just don’t feel as centered as I normally do. Like, I have these like extreme emotional highs where everything feels festive and wonderful and I’m with family and like, I’ve got all the warm fuzzies and then like, I also have these really low moments of missing people who are no longer in my life. And um it just feels like, you know, I don’t feel as centered emotionally as I do throughout the rest of the year. 

Julie: Yeah. Yeah. Like your experience in December and probably leaking over into January of like trying to figure out a way to stay grounded, but then also not feeling safe when like trying to find those things and obviously, like meditating by yourself. I’m not necessarily talking about that but just like, I don’t know, scrolling through social media hoping to just check out for a minute and decompress and then boom hit with a microaggression of some sort. It’s a lot. 

Coleen: It is a lot and I, I think that it’s something we likely most of us I think experience around these times too. Um So I’m wondering, you know, I shared a few things that I felt like were helpful for me. Is there anything that comes up for you, like around these times when you’re feeling similarly? 

Julie: I, I think a lot about um in my current, like state of like life transition. Um And you know, this about me, I often talk about like past present and future Julie and whenever I’m making decisions for the next few months or next year, I think about, OK, what is the, the decision I can make that would make future Julie want to give me a high five, you know, for this decision. And, you know, one of the things that I did as I was like, as my partner and I were like, figuring out that we were going to be separating is like, I’m gonna have to really scale down like my responsibilities as much as I can. So I can, I just need a lot of space like I need to feel my feels. And so, um you know, it’s something at almost 50 I feel like I kind of starting to like finally get a hang of this, like being a human thing. And that’s one of the things is I really did a pretty good job of um you know, we’re not, we haven’t been launching PCOS Power. Um not seeing um clients like there’s lots of things that I just, I like I’m not doing because I knew I was just going to need space. Um And sometimes it’s just like not being busy. I think that that’s where I’m kind of coming to as I’m talking like that busy chaotic feeling, which for me is something that can really start to trigger things like anxiety and um then just get into all the mood disorder fun times. Um Being sarcastic and I know that not everyone’s like that. So for you listener, you may enjoy the chaotic kind of like checking your list off and getting things prepared. I have a feeling Coleen you’re probably someone who’s like, oh, I got a list of like, let’s put up the decorations and that probably is fun to you. I have a lot. So I guess it’s knowing yourself. Right? Yeah. Knowing what feels good to you. And so for me it’s like having downtime and for you, it may be like having um, a list of things to do to kind of keep you distracted. Maybe is something to keep in mind. 

Coleen: Yeah, that’s a really good point. I think it’s also maybe the list is more, it’s less about the distraction for me and more about making new memories. Like if I have a list of holiday, you know, things to do, then it’s like oh, I can fill this kind of hard thought in my heart right now with something like warm and fuzzy and I’ll think about this memory. You know, it’ll be a little bittersweet because I’ll be thinking, oh, I wish I was doing this one. So, and with so, and so they’re not here and we’re making new memories together. Um, you know, but thinking about them so it’s, it’s a little bit different but I think it looks different for everyone. Exactly like you said. 

Julie: Yeah. Well, you know, you bring to mind for me like something that is a, an important highlight as like a human being is we are very complex and we can feel many different things at the same time, even like opposite feelings. And, you know, sometimes when I talk to folks who are in the throes of grief during the holidays or going through something hard, um feel like almost like thinking that’s all that one can feel. And, you know, sometimes that may need more of your energy to be processed and, but at the same time, like we can feel grief and build these new memories, we can feel grief and happiness. Um you know, we can do all that at the same time. But again, the roller coaster, you know, hence the roller coaster. Yeah, uh which can definitely kind of provoke us to feel not grounded. And I think about like scrolling social media for me, sometimes they can provoke that feeling of like a disconnection but almost like a, a buffer zone to get grounded again. And I think about how we just can’t rely on that, especially if you’re trying to like, recover from your eating disorder or recover from diet culture. There’s just so much push this time of year already. Like, it used to be like the two weeks before Christmas or not before Christmas, like the two weeks of like leading up to Christmas and the New Year’s where maybe a little diet talk would happen. But then um it would just be full on after, after Christmas. But I was trying to watch the news a little bit this morning and like making the last school lunch for almost a week. I’m super excited and I was like, what I was getting really mad because it was just diet commercial after diet commercial. Like every different type of diet you can imagine already. I’m like, for fuck’s sake, y’all. Come on, come on. 

Coleen: I think it’s all tied in together and you know, as I scroll social media right now, a lot of what some of my friends are posting are about their own diet journey and like we talk about on this all the time. Like we are huge proponents of doing what feels right for you. So I know for them this is what they need to do and they enjoy posting about it. But I’m like, man, I, I, I look at it now from a place of gratitude to versus a place of this is triggering for me because I’m so grateful I’m not there anymore. Like I just, I’ll see things pop up about grueling routines starting at 5 a.m. and all these things. And I’m like, oh, I’m so glad that my ass is in bed at 5 a.m. and I’m not worried about doing whatever is like all the rage, right? 

Julie: Yeah. So like there’s like a, you know, we’ve talked a lot about grief and change already but there’s this like experience of grief when one starts to appreciate. Ok. Yeah, diets are never going to work and so like mourning that but then once that kind of has settled this like celebration of like, I don’t have to like torture myself anymore in order to just do what I think I’m supposed to be doing. There’s this like freedom that comes with it. I’m so glad that you said that. Yes, especially today. It’s like super rainy where I am right now. Hm. Yeah, this is not a day to get up at 5 a.m. No, thank you. 

Coleen: No, thank you. Thank you. 

Julie: You know, something else with social media that you mentioned that I thought was like, oh, that’s I wonder if you did this on purpose or if it just is like it just happened this way. But you mentioned like taking like a 2 to 3 week hiatus during, did you say it’s like, through January.

Coleen: Yeah, I’d like to do it before the holidays start for us and then through the New Year. 

Julie: Ok. Well, because I didn’t know if the 2 to 3 week meant, like, 2 to 3 weeks into January because, you know, the third Monday in January is when most New Year’s resolutions, um, like, just stop, like, people usually stop pursuing them on that date. So, I was like, oh, I wonder if she picked it because of that or if it was just like by happenstance or if you were including even before. But that may be something that, you know, for you, the listener just to keep in mind if you are kind of preparing for January, which I know um for us here, we are already preparing, we’ve been preparing for January since like what July? Christmas in July kind of thing because it just is like the season to be all in against diet culture since it’s just so powerful in January. Um But if you are wanting to take extra care with not being as exposed to diet culture, yeah, by the third Monday in January, statistically, most people are stopping their New Year’s resolution. So there’s like a move on, you know, there’s like, usually there’s a change in the type of um advertisement, there’s just a different focus on social media. So, you know, pencil it in your calendar if you’re going to take a, like an Instagram break or something, maybe have it until then. I don’t know. Yeah. Why not?

Coleen: I always love my, like, hiatus. I, I, sometimes, you know, when, when I’m in it sometimes I’m like, oh, but now I don’t know what, so, and so is up to, or I can’t see, like, what they’re doing for the holidays. But I also love it and I’m like, you know what, I can reach out to them. I can text them, I can ask them to send me pictures. 

Julie: I don’t need to be or you could just like, go onto their profile and just try to keep your blinders on and not go to anything else or you can get hacked like I was. And so then you just can’t be on it anymore. I got for you. Right. Um, which I was like, thank you Universe. That has been so great in so many ways. But, uh, I got a text from my sister in law who did a screenshot of like a Facebook memory of like my 15 year old daughter was in like her first, like he’d role in a play seven years ago. And, um, it like popped up in my sister in law’s memories and I was like, that’s what I miss, I miss the memory picks, you know, but then I have people who can just send it to me. So no biggie, you know, no biggie. But yeah, some memories. And is there anything that you would say for anyone to keep in mind like thinking about memories, like is there anything that we can do to help feel all the feels? And also, I don’t know, just keep thinking about taking care of your own like self care as you’re like trying to battle diet culture. Is there anything else that’s coming to mind for you? 

Coleen: Yeah, I think, you know, everyone will move through this differently with how they want to remember things and create new memories. I think that some people for them that means writing things down and looking back at it. I can say whenever I’ve written anything down, I never reread what I write. So it’s almost just a precious. That’s like I get it out and then I’m like, OK, it’s out. I’m done like that felt good, but I never reread anything. So that might be a good option for you. I think that I’m moving away from at least in our own family, like actual material gifts and more into experiences than uh we maybe were like in the past or had done in the past. So that’s been really a fun change too. Like we’ve already booked this uh experience. My parents will be here for the holidays and we’re all really looking forward to it and it’s something exciting to look forward to and something that’s tied to someone that we’ve lost, a couple of folks that we’ve lost. So it’s like we’re kind of again adding that nuance of like, oh we’re grieving because neither of these people will be there who would have loved to be there. But also like, we’re creating these new happy memories and like thinking of them along the way. So figuring out what feels good for you. 

Julie: Yeah. OK. So this is where I may be. Some people may say Julie, you’re thinking too much into this. But I don’t know. I, I tend to think that I just, I, I, when you’re talking about making new memories and honoring folks who have are not no longer with us, like feeling the tough feelings and moving forward, I can’t help but think about like, OK, so your relationship with food, you know, you’ve disclosed how you have worked to repair it and move away from diet culture and like doing that work. Um Knowing you personally. And then also folks that I’ve worked with, like, there’s a lot of feelings and intense feelings, hard things to feel that, that you need to do and you know, navigating moving forward without food and um and relying on it in a like a diet culture kind of way. I, I think it adds a layer of um experience with your feelings. I don’t know if that makes sense, but like, you just, it’s not, uh I remember saying a lot of therapists say is that uh my job as a therapist is not to make you feel better. It’s to help you get better at feeling. And that’s what I heard you say that great. 

Coleen: It is great. I like that. 

Julie: Therapists have great quotes. Um And I’ve had many a therapist say that to me. But um that’s what I think about like recovering from dieting and eating disorders is it’s not feeling better necessarily because it’s losing someone or going through hard times. It’s not necessarily like feeling better quote because it’s still like hard as fuck. And it’s still a transition. It’s still a change. It’s still missing, but it’s getting better at feeling like knowing you’re going to be ok and like moving on in that way, I don’t know. What do you think about all that? I mean, is it like, again, I’m like, some people may be like, that’s just a little too deep. But I also think that like, our relationship with food is real deep. 

Coleen: So it’s something that I love about knowing you and working with you though is like something that I probably wouldn’t ascribe so deeply in my own way. Like you, you eloquently said, like, recapped, kind of what I said. And I’m like, yeah, that makes perfect sense to me. I probably wouldn’t have come to that conclusion. But yet it totally tracks and it makes perfect sense to me that yeah, there is. We talk about it all the time on this podcast, but there’s so much room for nuance in this anti diet journey. And uh I think leaning into that nuance is like such a strength and I don’t know if, you know, five year ago, me, six year ago me could have said that. 

Julie: Is that about how long ago the kind of like acknowledging diet culture is that when I began timeline wise, 

Coleen: that was when we separated me and diet culture, we were done nice. 

Julie: The parallels with divorcing too. Culture. That’s so great. Um Yeah, like being able to name diets as this like intrusive oppressive oppressive system that’s connected to all these other like really horrible evil oppressive systems um doing that work. It does, it’s just, it’s, it’s something that like we will utilize in other areas of our life, other really hard shit like losing someone special. Like um it’s not gonna make you feel better but it’s gonna make you give you the ability to just to be better at feeling it. And uh our emotions are something that we like, we can try to escape or push down put under the rug. I mean, I come from a long line of Irish and Polish folks who are like under the rug people but you know that shit just festers. So yeah, getting better at feeling it. So then we can like truly like, you know, be alive, be awake. 

Coleen: So you told me that feeling, you know, those deep feelings and crying is never a weakness and I think it’s really important to name that too. I want to name that for you, listener. If you’re someone who feels shame or feels a certain way about letting out that emotional release. I’ve had many friends tell me before, like, oh, you’re such an easy crier or you’re such a and I think, I think for me that’s like somehow gets at this shame for me it’s not ok for me to cry or feel a certain way because they don’t cry maybe as easily. But I’ve started to look at that as a real strength and feeling like, oh, that just means I’m feeling what I need to feel in the moment I’m releasing it and then I’m continuing on. So, yeah, I don’t know. I wanted to name that too, Julie because it was important for me to hear. 

Julie: I’m glad you did because I think about um something I wrote about a long time ago. I think it’s still my blog somewhere. That food peace sometimes is sad, like moving away from diets and like naming the, I don’t know, the over promising of that like, hopefulness of starting a diet. Like really discovering how that’s just an empty promise, how sad that can be. And so sometimes people will talk about when they’re trying to like recover from their eating disorder or diet culture, how it feels wrong. Maybe they’re doing it wrong because they feel so sad and I think it is like a normal part of the process and So for you listener, if this is like the first year that you are experiencing holiday time and New Year’s without being invested in trying to like, quote improve yourself, you know, um it may feel sad and the other emotion because you mentioned like, emotions that we’re not supposed to feel or um is anger too, like whenever someone is moving away from all these ways of controlling their body, whenever someone would bring up anger in like a clinical um session, like a one on one session. To me, this sounds so mean. But like, I would be happy because when someone is getting angry and feeling like that meant like they’ve processed through a lot of grief, they felt all that grief and now they’re getting pissed off and there’s a lot to be angry about. But also it’s like a release, like there’s a whole chapter in my book that’s on this part. Like once we start to get angry, which we’re not supposed to, especially if you’ve been socialized as a woman, like we’re not supposed to be getting angry and it feels so uncomfortable. But like when we release it, that means it’s not staying inside anymore. We’re not like blaming ourselves or we’re starting to not blame ourselves. So go with it and you know, talking about grief in the holidays. I know from my own grief experiences. There’s been anger too. And so that just is such a like uncomfortable kind of connection with grief, but it is so normal. So I know we need to wrap up. But like thinking about what we’ve been talking about is like, if you experience grief, if you experience a complex set of emotions during the holidays, just know your relationship with food probably will mimic that and that makes you human and that makes you a successful human. So go, you go out well, um happy holidays, Coleen all the things you celebrate. I’ll be thinking about you and your family as you navigate making new memories and you know, take care of yourself. 

Coleen: You too, Julie. Happy holidays, everyone. 

Julie: So there you have it. I hope you got something that you needed today with my conversation with Coleen and we hope you do have a holiday that feels the way that you need it to feel. We know there’ll be some warm fuzzies and some cold pricklies mixed in. But you know, we know we can’t really just say we hope you feel better, but we do hope that you get better at the feeling. All right. So this is the last kind of typical episode for Find Your Food Voice through December. Until January we’re going to do some quick um I don’t know, not quite as nicely edited episodes over December, just some kind of mini episodes. So you can get some little quick bursts of Find Your Food Voice and next week’s episode is going to feature Coleen. So I look forward to sharing that with you, but take care of yourself and I look forward to connecting with you in the mini episodes and also back in January. Take care. 

Julie: Thank you for listening. I am Julie Duffy Dylan 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 Dylan and my team of kick ass folks. I couldn’t make the show without Yeli Cruz, assistant producer and resident book lover 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.