EFR 851: 6 Simple Rules to Transform Your Relationship with Food & LOSE FAT in 2025 with Kim Shapira

00:00 - Chase (Host) The following is an Operation Podcast production.

00:03 - Kim (Guest) It's going to be an unpopular opinion at the beginning of your podcast, but I'm going to say I think of food as fuel.

00:09 - Chase (Host) I don't disagree.

00:10 - Kim (Guest) I'm a registered dietitian with a degree in human metabolism and clinical nutrition and I believe that food interacts with everything and, you know, on a cellular level we need it as fuel. I do think that birthday cake and candy and alcohol has a place in our diet. I think that is called normal eating. I think if you do it multiple times a day, feel bad about it, or multiple times in a week you have a bad habit. But I think a lot of people are confused or are hearing lots of noise from the world outside of themselves and they're not concentrating on what their body needs and so it causes a disordered you know relationship with food so to speak.

00:47 I'm going to help them heal their relationship with food.

00:50 - Chase (Host) Is weight loss really a matter of discipline?

00:53 - Kim (Guest) No, I think it's a matter of hey everyone, I'm Kim Shapira, an author of. This Is what You're Really Hungry For. This is Ever Forward Radio is Ever Forward Radio.

01:13 - Chase (Host) Hello and welcome to Ever Forward Radio. Welcome to 2025. I'm dropping the first bonus episode for you here, january 2nd 2025. I thought what better way to kick things off with the wellness perspective than with celebrity dietitian Kim Shapira. Kim is a celebrity dietitian and nutrition therapist and author with almost three decades of expertise under her belt, including working in hospitals, sports clinics, addiction centers, universities and so much more. She holds a BS in exercise science just like me Actually, I've got the same undergrad degree as well as a master's in human metabolism and clinical nutrition.

01:47 She is here to teach us what we are really hungry for. She has six simple rules to transform your relationship with food to become your healthiest self. In our conversation today, she's going to break down the science to get your brain and your body on board. She's going to help you replace fad diets that do not last with a sustainable method that encourages you to eat what you love and, more importantly, empower you to be the authority in your own body. Today's episode can help you lose weight or maintain your current weight, resolve blood pressure issues, improve energy levels, reframe your beliefs about food and even why you eat, as well as help you identify foods that don't love you back. And, even more importantly, in my opinion, she's going to help you manage your emotions in authentic, healthy ways to keep you moving forward in whatever your nutrition or wellness goals are, so that you can keep living a life ever forward. That's what the show is all about and that's exactly what Kim is going to help us do here today.

02:49 And if bringing more attention to your nutrition is a part of your 2025 goals, then I cannot recommend today's sponsor, legion Athletics enough. At legionathleticscom, you can check out their entire range of natural sports supplements, one-on-one coaching services, even meal plans for building muscle and losing fat, men's and women's apparel and accessories, and so much more. And as of right now here today, january 1st 2025, everything is also on sale. Bogo you got 50% off coming your way. You can head to legionathleticscom. Check out the bogo deals going on right now.

03:26 Scoop up their amazing pre-workout creatine multivitamin fish oil my personal favorite, their whey plus whey protein powder mixes so easily, tastes amazing and it's lactose free. So if you're like me and traditional whey protein powders make your stomach feel some kind of whey with gas, bloating, indigestion or just kind of uncomfortable, I have not experienced that at all with Legion's Whey Plus Protein Powder and if this is your first order, you can use code EVERFORWARD at checkout to save 20% off of your entire first purchase. And then make sure to keep using code EVERFORWARD every time you come back to LegionAthleticscom because you get double the loyalty points good towards future savings, deals and exclusive access offers. Again, that's LegionAthleticscom code EVERForward to save an additional 20%, linked for you, as always in the show notes under episode resources.

04:22 - Kim (Guest) There was this one time when I was invited to speak on a stage with a bunch of different amazing speakers and I said food was fuel and a therapist told me that she couldn't be on stage with me, if I believe that to be true. So I am very sensitive to it and I do 100% believe it to be true.

04:41 - Chase (Host) Oh, I mean, I immediately kind of go to my old exercise science brain here. And yes, absolutely Fundamentally, food is fuel. How could someone disagree with that?

04:51 - Kim (Guest) Because she wanted me to say that food is comfort, it's entertainment, it's joy, and it was okay to eat for emotional reasons, and I think that it's A therapist said this yes, actually, yes.

05:03 More intuitive, and I'm not an's A therapist. Said this yes, actually, yes, more intuitive. And I'm not an intuitive dietitian. I'm a registered dietitian with a degree in human metabolism and clinical nutrition, and I believe that food interacts with everything and, you know, on a cellular level, we need it as fuel. I do think that birthday cake and candy and alcohol has a place in our diet. I think that is called normal eating. I think if you do it multiple times a day, feel bad about it, or multiple times in a week, you have a bad habit, and so I really want people to understand what their body needs and when they need it, so to speak.

05:40 - Chase (Host) Yeah, I don't disagree with all of that. I think it all has a time and a place. It is fuel, it is comfort, it is release, it is escape, it is enjoyment, it is happiness. But all of those things can be true at the same time, but they all can be detrimental or supportive to our goals, or even I would say, just general health.

06:04 - Kim (Guest) Yeah, I mean I want people to love what they're eating. I don't want them to eat what they don't love, because that creates a whole other stress in our body, right. And I don't want them to eat food that their body doesn't love back, because that creates stress in their body as well. So I do think food can be something you love, but I don't think it's comfort, I don't think it's your entertainment. I think the comfort is around the table. I think the entertainment is in who you're with and what you're seeing. I think food is fuel.

06:33 - Chase (Host) Okay, let me paint this picture for you. Maybe some people out there can relate. This is how I would describe food as comfort for me. Okay, I eat a pizza every Sunday. Love pizza Large pizza.

06:44 - Kim (Guest) Okay.

06:45 - Chase (Host) Every Sunday. Okay, I've maybe missed a few over the years and let me paint the full picture for you. So it's Sunday Typically. I'm doing as little as possible. But it's just kind of like that day for me, for and for my wife, where we're chilling, we're recovering, we're taking it easy. Maybe we're going out to meet friends for like breakfast or lunch Usually we're meeting with family but then, like the evening time, we kind of just sit, we watch a movie on the couch, we watch a TV show and we order pizza, and it's kind of like this weekend ritual. So for me, that whole experience but definitely the pizza, is comfort for me.

07:20 - Kim (Guest) Okay, I'm going to. I'm just going to tease out a couple of things here.

07:22 - Chase (Host) Okay, I'm going to.

07:23 - Kim (Guest) I'm just going to tease out a couple of things here.

07:24 - Chase (Host) You said you order?

07:24 - Kim (Guest) a large pizza. Okay, do you always eat the same amount of pizza every single time?

07:29 - Chase (Host) Always at least the same amount, sometimes honestly more.

07:32 - Kim (Guest) And sometimes maybe less. Could it be that you just order the pizza but you really listen to your body? Even though you're distracted, you don't eat past the point of too much because you're more in tune.

07:44 - Chase (Host) Yes, and to kind of backtrack a little bit, I'll say because I pretty much always have this pizza in same amount every Sunday, I'm very aware of the rest of the foods I'm eating the rest of the day. So it's usually I'm really decreasing calories, I'm usually I guess you could call it intermittent fasting. I go much longer in the day until having my first meal.

08:05 And honestly, that's usually well, it's always. I have coffee, my strong coffee, in the morning, which technically has a little calorie, so it's breaking the fast a little bit, and then I'll have light fare, maybe a protein shake, because I know the bulk of my calories are coming later.

08:18 - Kim (Guest) Okay, and you're consistent with this practice and you trust that there'll be pizza on Sunday.

08:23 - Chase (Host) Yeah, yeah, barring any other commitment.

08:26 - Kim (Guest) Many people fear that if they have pizza on Sunday, they don't know when they're going to have it again, so they're more tempted to overeat it because of this fear-based thinking, but you're consistent in your practices oh wow.

08:38 And you're also very trusting that you can have more. It's right there. There's a big difference in that. Does that make sense? It does, it makes a lot of sense. So food is really fuel. You should love what you're eating. It should love you back, right, which means it's not making you sick, You're not having diarrhea, you're not getting headaches, you're not burping and bloated and having heartburn, eczema, psoriasis, right. So we know that this pizza is not harmful to you and you don't think it's harmful. So these are really great positive things. And you also know, next Sunday you're having it.

09:08 - Chase (Host) Yeah.

09:09 - Kim (Guest) So you don't need to overeat it.

09:11 - Chase (Host) Yeah, I guess we all have our own unique approach to pizza and this is where this is just my personal experience and my choice to eating that meal and, like I was sharing with you before we hit record, I've gone through damn near every diet and, I'm sure, a lot of people have over the years to really try to find the thing that feels right for them and their personal goals.

09:31 And yeah, I'm at a place now to where that choice is. Just it's kind of like a choiceless choice. I don't need to really think about it.

09:36 - Kim (Guest) I mean, I like what you're saying, but you don't have to think about it and many people don't have to think about it and unfortunately they're overthinking about it, and our body doesn't know the difference between you know, being in physical pain, worrying about what I'm going to have for dinner next Sunday night, or if I'm scared, walking across the street cause somebody looks a little terrifying. Our body interprets stress as the same in all three different scenarios, and so the way it's responding to stress is really the bigger problem. It's more of a problem than what we're actually eating right now.

10:05 - Chase (Host) So it's kind of brings up the topic of mental health. For me, and actually one of my first questions for you was is poor mental health the real root cause of eating disorders, disordered eating, poor nutritional choices?

10:17 - Kim (Guest) Yeah, yes and no, actually. Okay, I'm going to reframe that. So, um, when we have a poor diet, or when we have a lot of stress, or when we take a lot of antibiotics, it wreaks havoc on the mucosal layer of our digestive tract and it makes us more prone to leaky gut, which makes us more prone to anxiety and depression. So which came first? It's hard to know, right? There's a lot of trauma, a lot of stress in people's lives, and so could it have been the poor diet, could it have been the trauma, who knows? But either way, it's existing, and so a lot of disordered eating is anxiety.

10:55 - Chase (Host) There's a lot of new science coming out showing how much of our air court here brain is actually in our gut.

11:02 - Kim (Guest) Is this what you're?

11:02 - Chase (Host) talking about Like a level of, like our immune system, um our gut, is this what you're? Talking about Like a level of, like our immune system um gut brain connection.

11:08 - Kim (Guest) Yeah, so, um, the vagus nerve, you know, from our stomach to our brain. It's like a two way highway, and our brain is getting about, you know, all the information it's getting. It's from our stomach, and so 80% of the information is in our stomach, giving it to our brain. And so if our stomach is not intact and there's lots of ways it could be in like in not intact, so to speak, right so it could have, the pH balance could be off, and so now you're really burpy and bloating and your stomach's making noises and maybe you're farting. You know airy farts all day long. Or you know, maybe you're eating foods you're sensitive to and you're getting inflammatory responses. Or you know, maybe you're eating foods you're sensitive to and you're getting inflammatory responses. Or maybe you're having, you know, too much bacteria that's coming from your small intestine. There's so many ways in which your stomach could be needing support that is then affecting everything else.

11:56 - Chase (Host) Yeah, yeah, I, um, I really believe that I think the stomach in many ways for many people, until you get into, like a true homeostasis for you.

12:06 - Kim (Guest) Yeah, the stomach is really the brain but you know it's remarkable, we can turn it around very quickly.

12:12 - Chase (Host) Exactly.

12:13 - Kim (Guest) We can reverse it all, like that's the amazing part of the whole thing, quickly.

12:19 - Chase (Host) Quote I wanted to make people healthy as a profession is a direct quote from your work. But you have said that this was not your responsibility. Isn't it a responsibility as an RD?

12:32 - Kim (Guest) Yeah, so I learned really early on that it's a personal responsibility. I'm only the teacher, but the actual person themselves is the healer.

12:44 - Chase (Host) What if someone's going? I'm not a healer. I don't know how to heal myself. That's why I'm coming to an expert like yourself.

12:51 - Kim (Guest) Then I'll let them believe that and go them in the right direction. If these people still believe that the doctor is the healer, then they have a lot of work to do on themselves, right? So it's really understanding where their mind is almost a hundred percent of the day. And if they're not believing in themselves, then I'm going to help them learn how to believe in their own power. I mean, we have more electricity in our brain than the whole world. We're so capable of so many things that we don't have access to because we think the power is outside of ourselves.

13:21 - Chase (Host) I'm laughing because you're like the anti-dietitian dietitian. Yes, I, um, I, I, but it had so much with RDs in in my air. Quote here you know, real job, especially in grad school, interesting, and it was just because not real quick, it was just really. The RDs I encountered were very this is what the literature says, this is what the scientific evidence shows. This is what you should only ever do.

13:49 And for me, the reason I butted head was because, well, you're missing the person. Like there's so much more going into this choice other than just, oh, like I need X amount of protein, x amount of carbs, x amount of fiber. You know, this study said that we're kind of missing the personal approach. And then what I kind of got to, what I'm hearing you say, is that that, that mindset and that belief system around the choices we make and what we really want our bodies to look like and to feel like. And so eventually, in my practice, I kind of found myself going to this mental and emotional approach. First, which really blew my minds, blew the minds of a lot of my clients and patients, was because no, no, no, no, like you're supposed to tell me what to eat.

14:28 You're supposed to tell me what to do. Why are you talking to me about my feelings and you know when I eat this and what I feel and all these kinds of like memories and associations to it. It sounds like that's your approach as well.

14:36 - Kim (Guest) Yeah, it's exactly my approach and you know, I learned this very early on with one of my very first clients, who I often share that she was a therapist. I mean, I was 27 and I share that she was a therapist because technically she should have been smarter than me, right? And I put her on a diet because that's what I was educated to do and they work as far as like lowering your cholesterol and your blood pressure and getting off your medications, and so there I was, putting people on diets and I helped her lose 30 pounds and I felt like a superhero, like I did exactly what I set out to do make her healthy.

15:09 - Chase (Host) That's a huge milestone. That's a great accomplishment. It was amazing.

15:11 - Kim (Guest) Yeah. And then she said to me you know what? I'm going to gain the weight back. And it triggered me in every way possible. And I thought why would you do that? And she said because my husband wants to be intimate with me all the time and I was molested as a child. And then I thought, okay, I know nothing about the people inside of their bodies, and kale isn't going to get the job done, and why aren't they eating the kale? And so I had to really reassess, like what I was doing. And then I started recognizing oh my God, my clients are literally eating the same way that I'm shopping. And if I could help myself with my shopping, then I think I can apply that to my clients. And that's what I've done ever since.

15:52 And to backtrack, to go back in time, when I was 12 in 1986, I got super sick. I spent a year in and out of the hospital having multiple reconstructive surgeries and the next four years in high school I went and visited my doctors at UCLA every Wednesday and I was 12 and super shy. And one day I was crying on my way to Westwood and my mom said to me don't cry, we'll go shopping after your doctor appointment and she helped me find a place to put my mind other than the pain and fear and discomfort I was in, and I used that place often. And then all of a sudden it dawned on me oh my God, I do actually use shopping for every emotion, and so do my clients with food. And if I can learn to shop when I need something and put it on hold when I don't and see what happens when I put it on hold, then I can actually change here. And so I just started applying the same method to my clients.

16:51 - Chase (Host) Perfect segue into my next question. Most people don't really know what hunger feels like. What do you mean by that? How do we have hunger wrong?

16:59 - Kim (Guest) Good question. So hunger is isolated to our stomach. It's not painful and it's not scary, and if you ask you know everybody they'll say it's scary, it's painful, it's uncomfortable, and I really refer to it like having to pee. Nobody wakes up in the morning and thinks, oh my God, I'm going to have to pee six times. Where are the toilets going to be? I'm so afraid of leaving my house.

17:22 - Chase (Host) Maybe for unfortunate IBS friends out there.

17:24 - Kim (Guest) Okay, different kind of heat, different kind of bathroom, but yeah and we can fix those people, unfortunately, so you don't have to have IBS. Yeah, so it's really the same thing, like why do we fear being hungry? Why do we fear it? You know where did that come from? And of course, it's our basic need to survive. It's how our body tells us we need, you know, fuel, right, and it doesn't actually have to be scary.

17:48 And as soon as I it was actually really funny I was on the phone with my mom one day and she I said I got to go. You know there's a sale at Bloomingdale's and I got to get this thing and she started laughing at me is way before you know Google, or. And then I was like maybe she's right, could she be right? And it turns out she was right, and so I started applying that same logic to food. There's food everywhere. We can always get food. We haven't starved to death. And it started really working with people and feeling safe. And the truth is, is our mind only needs to know that we're safe, and as soon as we can kind of like take a deep breath and tell our mind that we're safe, everything changes.

18:35 - Chase (Host) It really is that simple but yet that powerful when we introduce a pause into or before any choice we make in life, but especially when it comes to what we decide to eat, what we put into our mouth and what we eat and drink. Um, just that little like that tactical pause I call it is just, it's crucial. It seems so simple but so effective every time.

18:57 - Kim (Guest) Yeah, I mean I. I would put it this way Anytime you think food is anything other than fuel, you're not okay, you're just not okay. And so every single time you think about food maybe now you say I'm not okay, let me check in to see why. So like what would happen right now if you and I were doing this podcast and all of a sudden an alarm went off, what would you do?

19:20 - Chase (Host) Probably vacate the premises or wonder what's you know? Is there a fire? Is there an earthquake? What's going on?

19:26 - Kim (Guest) And then when would you come back?

19:28 - Chase (Host) When I would get the all clear from the fire department or the landlord.

19:32 - Kim (Guest) Right. So what if you started realizing and here's that, that pause, right? Okay, I'm thinking about food. Let me turn the alarm off and check in to see what's going on with my body and why I'm having that alarm. Is it because I'm stressed, Is it because my chest is tight, or is it because my stomach is telling me I'm hungry? And so when we can get to that place of recognizing I'm thinking about food, that's an alarm. I'm coming back into my body and I'm checking in with my body. Right, I know where my mind is. It's not on. You know what I'm having for dinner on Sunday. I know it's right here. Then I can see oh, my chest is really, really tight. And the last time I felt this way, I ate ice cream. And now my hippocampus is giving me that memory, because my mind wants me to survive every moment in the most pleasurable way.

20:20 And so it's remembering that ice cream is more fun than the way I feel right now, and then coming to the point of recognizing wait, I can survive every single one of these moments. It's okay to be a little stressed, it's okay to be a little bored, and I can also learn how to take deep breaths, find new, you know, activities that are going to be way more aligned with how I want to feel and look.

20:43 - Chase (Host) Hey, quick break from my conversation today with Kim to bring your attention to something that adds a lot of nutritional benefit to my daily routine and helps me kickstart my day, because it is one bad-ass cup of coffee. Of course, I'm talking about Strong Coffee Company, and I love Strong because they have truly reinvented the latte, adding nutritional benefits and removing all the crappy sugars. They started with organic Arabica coffee and then added grass, fed proteins and healthy fats to fuel your mind and body for hours. They didn't stop there. They added adaptogens to help you fight stress, nootropics to increase focus and eliminate any jitters or crashes. If you are sensitive to caffeine, I can promise you that this product is different. Packed with things like L-theanine helps bind with caffeine, so you have a smooth sailing, kind of like a slow release, if you will, so the caffeine doesn't just hit you all at once. Lastly, their hydration complex sets strong coffee apart from any other coffee or latte drink you've had before. So with strong coffee, you're not only going to love the way you feel, you're also going to love the way that it tastes, because they have several amazing flavors to pick from. But not to mention, no refined sugars. Lactose-free, packed with protein gives you laser focus? I mean, if you drink coffee, if you care about your health or kickstarting your day in any way possible, I don't know why you're not already drinking strong coffee.

22:10 I have been using this daily for pushing six, seven years now. At this point, four or five days a week at least, I've got strong coffee in my cup First thing in the morning. Head to strongcoffeecompanycom to see what the fuss is all about and make sure to use code CHASE that's my name, c-h-a-s-e at checkout for 15% off each and every purchase. Strong Coffee Company is your nutritionally complete, all-in-one coffee mix Code CHASE at checkout to save 15%.

22:44 Speaking of ice cream, I'll share another little story from when I was in practice and I had this one client, super high performer. She was an attorney, if memory serves, and she took like a sabbatical from her practice, went to go visit her sister and her nieces out in the country, in Virginia, and when she came back after a couple months she just had this weird habit. Her words she was was like I just crave ice cream. Every night I have ice cream. I never had ice cream before.

23:11 It's so weird, I can't not have ice cream every night after dinner and we began to kind of unpack it more and more and I was like, okay, well, what are you thinking? Where are you? What time is it? We kind of just reverse engineered that habit and come to find out she had kind of created this new habit of spending quality time. She was the cool aunt Most nights of the week, visiting her sister. She would take her nieces or at home to get ice cream, and so what we did was around that same time and she would have that, that urge, that craving, or think she's supposed to have ice cream. She would just FaceTime her nieces and the craving went away.

23:44 It was this connection component that she was really craving, and so, you know, we kind of just had this instilled, that, oh, by eating ice cream I'm satisfying that need or that want, but it was something not that far off, but just a different connection.

23:58 - Kim (Guest) Yeah, I have a similar story in my book about that A woman who lost her husband and kept, you know, driving to get chocolate before she would come home and also just recognizing she just didn't want to go home I have another story.

24:12 - Chase (Host) Okay, so let's just share our patience. I had this woman towards the end of my practice time she was maybe like late fifties, early sixties and an overall good health and she realized that she just had kind of lost interest in what she normally would do, like these evening walks, and come to find out, oddly enough, her husband had passed away a few months ago from ALS and they always would take this walk after dinner and she realized that, oh, I'm going to have to start taking this walk alone, yeah, and so she became less active. She wasn't walking, she was gaining a little bit of weight and just didn't feel how she wanted to feel, and so we kind of just rerouted that same time, you know, uh, was it James Clear says. You know, habits stack something she already has. So she just found a new way to kind of, you know, build a new habit around that, that old habit, and she joined, I think, like a walking community of other widowers.

25:11 - Kim (Guest) Yeah, that's awesome. That's awesome. It was really cool. Yeah, love that.

25:16 - Chase (Host) I also read that you're fascinated by why people are afraid of fat.

25:21 - Kim (Guest) Yeah.

25:21 - Chase (Host) What's that about?

25:23 - Kim (Guest) Well, I mean, oh God, 1994, uh 1994 snack wall era yeah.

25:32 Yeah, wow, I haven't heard that in a minute. Yeah, so really I didn't. I didn't have issues with food, like you know. I just knew somebody had told me, a doctor had told me in high school, that food could make you sick or healthy. And I was so sick that I just wanted to be so healthy. And we you know my mom had never really talked about food, we never talked about bodies. We had everything in our house like kudo bars, you know, twinkies, pop Tarts, cereals. We had everything and I would see my friends come over and they would overeat it and I never even thought twice about it. And so, as I started kind of growing up and realizing people are afraid of fat and that's so silly. Fat is so important and vital. I mean we we can't poop without it, like we need it to support our nervous system and to be able to sit on rides in Disneyland. What's going on with people you know, just to name a few things you know, to keep us warm.

26:27 And so what was happening? And so I got really interested in just the psychology of why people were afraid of fat, so to speak.

26:34 - Chase (Host) Interesting there's um. Have you ever read the book the secret life of fat by Dr Sylvia Taro? I have not. She was an OG guest of mine on the show years ago. But if anyone wants to kind of go deeper there, like to your point, like why fat is so important and it's crucial role in the body, at the right amounts also the right types, you know ground fat, gray fat, um, visceral fat, adipose tissue, all that stuff you know they all have a place and we need certain amounts for a lot of different reasons.

27:02 - Kim (Guest) Yeah, I mean I, that's what I. People are so afraid of the scale also. Like my first chapter is like just on um, talking about why people fear the word fat, why people fear the word diet, why people fear the word you know, calories, um, but it's like really important to, I think, use a proper scale so they can identify their visceral fat, subcutaneous body fat, different things. It's really important to know what's going on inside your own body.

27:28 - Chase (Host) We're talking about food. We're talking about different approaches to food. I think when people think that they're probably going to go to diet next, this is the type of diet that I have. This is the type of diet that I tried. This is the one that doesn't work. This is the one with the most evidence, the least amount of evidence. What do you think is most people's root cause? Excuse me, I'm going to rephrase that. What is the root cause of most people's inability to stick to their diet?

27:57 - Kim (Guest) They think somebody is smarter than them or that somebody else knows more than them. And so, again with this disordered way of thinking Like take a, I have a client. She's 17 and she has a. She's anorexic right now, so she has an eating disorder currently. Her mom has always had an eating disorder and her sister has an eating disorder, and her mom growing up has always said these foods make me sick, this food makes me fat, I don't eat these foods. And so she had a very restrictive household. And so for my client, my question to her is what's yours and what someone else's? What is the noise you're hearing? That doesn't really belong to you, Because this eating disorder is not yours.

28:42 - Chase (Host) Wow.

28:43 - Kim (Guest) Wow, right, it's a projection. And when you spend 60 hours a week with your peers or you're living in a family with all of this disorder, you really don't have time to know how I feel and what, like. These foods don't hurt your stomach. How could these foods hurt your stomach? You're not the same as your mom, so let's just get in touch with what your body needs, right? So I don't even remember your question.

29:07 - Chase (Host) But that was a very interesting response. You know it was what is the root cause of most people's inability to stick their diet?

29:13 - Kim (Guest) yeah, I think it's lack of acceptance to the moment. They're in and thinking that someone else knows more than what they need. Um, I, I I operate using six rules. Rule number two is to eat what you love, and with the caveat that the food has to love you back. And people jump into fear immediately when they hear eat what you love, and they think you're telling me that I can eat coffee, cake and that ice cream is okay.

29:39 Rule number one is to eat what you love. Take your normal portion, cut it in half, wait 15 minutes to see if you need more. So with your science background, you know that I'm talking about ghrelin, leptin and mindfulness in that rule. Rule number two, I'm actually telling you that we're not going to label food as good, bad, healthy, unhealthy, should or shouldn't. What we're going to do is we're going to call food food and now we're going to see how that food makes you feel and if it doesn't make you feel well, you're going to make a personal decision If you want to stay in a relationship with food that makes you sick.

30:08 - Chase (Host) That's so. I'm so glad you said the word relationship with food. That makes you sick because if we kind of take that same approach to food that we have hopefully we have maybe we learn the hard way with people. You know how long would we stay in a relationship with someone that doesn't love us back. You know that doesn't reciprocate that same friendship or relationship or professional kind of you know, not tit for tat kind of experience. But I think most people most of the time get pretty hip to you know what. I'm putting a lot into this and I'm not getting really hardly anything back, so I'm going to move on. Why don't we do the same thing with food?

30:54 - Kim (Guest) It's complicated. So Esther Perel, who's a relationship expert, says that you can have up to eight relationships in a lifetime, sometimes eight with the same person.

30:58 - Chase (Host) And I would say sometimes eight with yourself.

31:01 - Kim (Guest) There's a quote from Perks of being a Wallflower that says we accept the love we think we deserve. And right there you're talking about people staying in a toxic relationship. And if they don't have inner power, if they don't know the difference between you, know willpower and inner power and confidence and they're people pleasers they're totally going to accept love that they think they deserve. On a way lower level.

31:28 - Chase (Host) To shift gears a little bit. I've heard you say that you believe every disease is reversible. Yes, do you really think this is possible, and how? 100%.

31:39 - Kim (Guest) Yeah, so I think it's stress. I think when we start recognizing that we're being impacted by stress and we're not working on resilience, then we're opening ourselves up to, you know, free radicals affecting every part of ourself.

31:56 - Chase (Host) So stress, you're saying, is the root cause of all disease. I do, yeah. And if we check our stress or prioritize working on it, yeah, disease will go away.

32:06 - Kim (Guest) I think that's the number one priority. And so remember, we talked about stress coming from you know, I'm afraid of the person walking across the street. I have physical stress. Hunger could be stress, being full could be stress, being too full could be stress. Right, or worrying about what I'm going to have next week for dinner could be stress. And our body interprets that stress in under 10 seconds and it basically has 1400 different sensations that occur simultaneously that wreak havoc.

32:36 - Chase (Host) And it's unconscious. It's unconscious. This is all happening without us needing to think about it.

32:40 - Kim (Guest) Yeah, and so then our mind goes into like this almost emergency room state, this fight or flight, and we need to get back to you know, rest and digest as fast as we can, and right now we're spending close to 90% of our day in fight or flight.

32:54 - Chase (Host) So would you, would you really say this to a, you know, say, a client of yours? Um, you know, I I want to lose 10 pounds, or I'm struggling to lower my blood sugar, or my triglycerides are high, or you know? Insert any personal health and wellness goal but also like a clear, objective biomarker goal. Would you go stress less?

33:15 - Kim (Guest) Work on stress, not diet. I wouldn't say stress less, I would say I would ask them first to repeat after me. So let's, let's play this game, okay? So repeat after me Where's your body?

33:25 - Chase (Host) Where's your body?

33:26 - Kim (Guest) It's right here, so tap your body.

33:27 - Chase (Host) It's right here.

33:28 - Kim (Guest) Identify that. It's right here, you're fully in it, you see it. Then I would say where's your mind, where's my mind Now go find your mind.

33:41 - Chase (Host) Okay, where is?

33:41 - Kim (Guest) it? Uh, it's here with you. Is it here with me? Yes, it's not all over. No, okay, and I did see you go, look for it.

33:45 - Chase (Host) Yes.

33:45 - Kim (Guest) And some people don't go look for it.

33:48 And some people don't go look for it immediately, and so sometimes it takes them five or 10 or maybe 20 times to find their mind, and so they're making all decisions when their mind is not in the moment, it's not even in their body. So before we can even talk about why are you eating or what you are eating, first of all what's going on? Why can't your mind be in your body? Why is there so much discomfort? Right? And so I would say it starts with knowing where your mind is and then dealing with accepting the moment you're in.

34:17 And you know what. I'm in a really rough moment this season's hard. Okay. What can I do to show myself grace? How can I honor myself in this really like, really hard season, trusting that it's going to pass Because it does right. And you know, when we look at grieving, there's so many stages like seven, depending on who you're talking to, right there's no timeline for when that stage is going to pass, and we're grieving all sorts of moments in our life, and so you know I'm being emotionally triggered all over the place.

34:56 - Chase (Host) So if my mind isn't here, then yeah, it's going to start with stress. Yeah, I like to say, where the mind goes, the body will follow, and if you're not sure where your body is going, it's probably because you're not driving the ship of your mind.

35:08 - Kim (Guest) Yeah.

35:08 - Chase (Host) If your mind's all over the place, no wonder your body is too.

35:12 - Kim (Guest) Yeah, yeah. So does that make sense to you? Like people will say, I feel hungry all the time. Hmm, I wonder why. And where's that hunger coming from? Is that like in your stomach? Because if you ate, you technically shouldn't be hungry all the time, and so if your mind is driving you to have a more pleasurable experience, that's because your mind isn't in this moment, because it can't be in your body. It's painful.

35:38 - Chase (Host) Turns out, the pixies were onto something. I'm going to use that in the background music. I'm going to use that the background music showing my age on that one I guess funny. Um, I would like to dive into a few key diets with you and just you know. This is why I love having the show and sitting down with people that are experts in the field. If you could make a case for the carnivore diet a pro like.

36:02 - Kim (Guest) I mean, I don't think I can oh why?

36:06 - Chase (Host) I, I've like if you had to, if you had to, if you had to justify why the carnivore diet, I totally can't okay, so okay so I have a.

36:15 - Kim (Guest) I have three daughters 20, 17 and 15. Somewhere during covid, uh, my middle child, I guess she was like 12 or 13,. She says to me I'm going to be a vegetarian. And I said to her again, red flags went off in my dietician mind and I thought no, no, no, this isn't going to go. And so I said to her well, what if you didn't label the type of diet you had? What if you had a vegetarian meal and you just moved right on? Because there'll be some days when you're going to want steak, but if you call yourself a vegetarian, you're going to miss out on foods you love. And so, rather than like following a diet or labeling the type of eater you are, I'd rather you just be more curious of what you feel like having in the moment you're in.

36:58 - Chase (Host) Okay.

36:59 - Kim (Guest) So it's hard for me to make a case when I don't, you know, recommend those types of diets or talk about those types of diets.

37:07 - Chase (Host) Could you again put on your RD glasses here? Could you look at the carnivore diet and go? These are benefits I see from someone adopting and eating salt like this. No, none, none.

37:23 - Kim (Guest) I don't love like knowing what I'm going to eat because, okay, like, let's put it this way, you know you're going to have pizza on Sunday and I love that for you, no problem. But I don't love that people are not paying attention to what their body needs on Sunday. I want you to go into Sunday going. I'm getting pizza. I'm so excited. I'm going to just see how hungry I am, for how much I need right now. And so if I start talking about you know, eating steak or whatnot, people are going to be like, well, how much should I have? Tell me what to eat, and I don't do that and I won't do it. Okay, this is a personal choice and you need to know how you feel when you're in the moment.

38:00 - Chase (Host) All right, well, I might know what's coming, but I have a few more similar questions.

38:03 - Kim (Guest) Okay.

38:03 - Chase (Host) Can you make a case for the keto diet, the ketogenic diet?

38:06 - Kim (Guest) Only in the fact that it was created for epileptics and only because it helps your brain not have seizures. But other than that, I think you can eat that way, you know, on Monday at lunch and differently on Monday for dinner.

38:23 - Chase (Host) So, would you say for the general public, there is no need to adopt the ketogenic diet if unless you're epileptic.

38:31 - Kim (Guest) Yeah.

38:32 So I'm going to bring you back to rule number one eat when you're hungry.

38:35 Okay, you take your normal portion not the portion the chef prepared, not the portion on a label and you cut it in half. You smell your food, so you know that your mouth is watering and you're getting the saliva, and then you chew your food longer than you think necessary. So we're breaking it down as a form of, you know, digestion, so we can actually get the nutrients inside the food and we allow our body the time it takes from the food to get from your mouth to your stomach, which is about 15 minutes for your mind, than to tell you how much more food you need. And so I'm more interested in people listening to their body and eating only what they need right now, trusting that they can have more. You know, I think we need a variety of vitamins and minerals and nutrients, and I don't want to go to Europe and think, oh, but I don't eat. I don't eat pasta, or, you know, I want you to be able to eat whatever you want If it agrees with your body.

39:27 - Chase (Host) I heard some wild stories years ago, when keto really came on the scene, about people. They were kind of struggling to make it their lifestyle. You know they wanted. They wanted to do it for whatever reason, and they would still like they would go to the sweets and the carbs and they would inhale it. They would look at it. They would kind of like, adore it and the carbs and they would inhale it. They would look at it. They would kind of like adore it and they would begin to salivate.

39:47 And what most people don't know is saliva has enzymes in it. There's this thing called salivary amylase. That is the precursor to kind of break down starch and kind of also can trigger an insulin response. So a lot of people were struggling to actually stay keto. They were like I don't get it, like I'm not losing the fat, I'm not getting into ketosis, and they were just so fixated on these carbs and sweets and things that they quote can't have, they were actually still triggering this, this thing, to happen in their body and, you know, still not getting into ketosis. And so it's just crazy you don't need to not eat the food for the diet to not work.

40:21 - Kim (Guest) Right.

40:21 - Chase (Host) The body. You can't always trick the body the way that you think you can.

40:24 - Kim (Guest) Right and also, like, anytime you're restricting, you're going to end up binging, and what I like about you is that the way that you eat is really something that you enjoy doing, so none of it feels hard, it's very authentic. Are trying to fit into a mold, so to speak. They don't really succeed because it's not like what they want for their body or how their body needs to feel and so they think it's hard.

40:52 and our mind doesn't let us do hard things. It always looks for a way out. But when we start adopting like these rules or you know the way that you live as something fun, then we can do it and stay in it longer.

41:05 - Chase (Host) I have one more for you on this theme. Oh no.

41:09 - Kim (Guest) She's like.

41:09 - Chase (Host) Chase, you know what I'm going to say. Maybe, what about can you make a case for we'll call it? You know um flexible dieting, if it's your macros kind of thing. Where it's, it's less restrictive in terms of the types of foods. But we're really looking at total calories and total macronutrient breakdown.

41:26 - Kim (Guest) No, I think that we need a variety of fruits and vegetables. I think we need a variety of ways to get omega-3s every single day. I think we need whole grains every single day. I think we need fermented foods and I think we need a probiotic. I also think we need to know where our mind is.

41:44 - Chase (Host) I also think we need to know where our mind is, and I think we need to eat when we're hungry. Are there any diets out there now? I feel like you might be more in this world than me currently Are there? Are there any new diet trends, kind of fads in the nutrition space that, uh, you would like to bring attention to?

41:58 - Kim (Guest) I mean nothing that I would pay attention to to be honest, I mean overall, if you look at longevity studies it really is looking at making sure you're not overeating. So then we don't want to restrict, because then we don't want to set ourselves up for binging and um, reducing stress, having social connections and for the last, I think, 40 plus years, the monounsaturated fat diet has been really winning every award as far as like longevity and Mediterranean diet. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What did I say? Did I say Mediterranean?

42:27 - Chase (Host) You didn't. You said longevity, you were just kind of talking.

42:30 We're saying the same thing, even though the words didn't come out there, but actually to that point, what we were talking about earlier when I was making your strong coffee and you pointed out, oh it has five grams saturated fat, and I said I'm team saturated fat and thanks to a lot of the new evidence coming out around C-15 and shout out, dr Stephanie Van Watson and her husband Eric just recently went live with this episode linking one of the links to C-15. They're finding strong evidence for in centenarians over in Sardinia and you know it's really hard, I'll say this. It's really hard to kind of dissect. When we look at longevity and especially centenarians, oh, they live this long and this well because of this thing. When we look at centenarians across the board, all the blue zones or anybody that just lives a long well life, there are several common denominators and I don't think anybody would disagree that if we focus on those that we probably won't achieve a same or similar life quality and lifespan.

43:30 - Kim (Guest) They're not restricted. That's one of the things that should be pointed out. They don't live a restricted diet.

43:35 - Chase (Host) But in them I was saying with the saturated fat, is especially the centenarians in Sardinia have one of the, if not the highest levels of this saturated fat, this essential fatty acid, c15, in their diet.

43:47 - Kim (Guest) Yeah.

43:48 - Chase (Host) Thanks to. It's a particular. They eat a lot of this type of cheese, and even beyond that. This is why it's like it's so kind of it can get nuanced it's yes, there are high levels of this saturated fat C15, in the diet but it's even more specific because they get it from it's a high altitude from their goat pasture, so it's like locally sourced high altitude.

44:13 They're the ones working the field. There's so many contributing factors to this, but there is a really interesting evidence showing that it's this high level C15 that contributes to their cellular membranes, like staying so intact.

44:26 - Kim (Guest) I mean, I would say it's again not restricting any one food group. It's also very, very important, you know we don't want to restrict any one food group, but we do want to have everything in moderation, which is like the fail safe and why I say start with half and wait 15 minutes to see if you need more. There's a fail, safe there that you won't be overeating.

44:46 - Chase (Host) Yeah, can't disagree with that.

44:48 - Kim (Guest) Because I think we need everything.

44:53 - Chase (Host) Is weight loss really a matter of discipline and if so, how can we become more disciplined if we are not already?

44:59 - Kim (Guest) No, I think it's a matter of consistency. I think we're inconsistent and so our body fluctuates and there's so many ways in which it fluctuates. Right, like you're going to have pizza on Sunday. The human body weighs more on Monday, and people don't understand this and they're weighing themselves on Mondays when it should really be on Thursdays. Right, but we have so many ways in which we can fluctuate. We have 100 trillion cells. Our cells are 43% water.

45:26 If I'm dumping in soy sauce or marinara barbecue or carbohydrates, which are sources of sugar and water, if I'm dumping that into my system, then I'm going to have a weight fluctuation.

45:39 And for some people who don't understand this, they're thinking I gained weight and then they're going to say, screw it, I might as well just give up now. And then they're going to say, screw it, I might as well just give up now. And then they're inconsistent. And so this is throwing off our body, because our body is getting signals from what we're doing all day long, and so if we listen to our body and we're consistent, it feels safe. And when it feels safe, it gives up what is stored when we're inconsistent, which means we under eat, we over eat, we change our sleep, we add alcohol. We're just inconsistent. Our body says, oh, I must be in the middle of a war, let me hold on to everything Right. And the opposite. If, like I, under eat, then my body also thinks I must be in a famine. Let me hold on to everything. So, if we can become consistent, that is the whole trick to weight loss.

46:21 - Chase (Host) Can you walk us through a quick high level masterclass, if you will, of of what you just said about what my body feels like? I think I know what that feels like for me and I think I think, if we're being honest, a lot of people know that, but they're just ignoring it or they think it's something else. How could someone listening right now go, okay, all right, I'm going to learn how to listen to my body so that I can make the right choice for me nutritionally next?

46:46 - Kim (Guest) Yeah, I think it would start with. If you're not sure what your body's telling you, don't do anything, because you will know what hunger feels like. It will come.

46:53 - Chase (Host) Okay, as in like don't eat this, don't drink that, don't do anything.

46:56 - Kim (Guest) Like, if you're unsure, if you're hungry or thirsty, don't do anything. You'll know soon enough, right? Like how long you're going to really wait. You'll know within an hour or two. And then also depends on who we're talking to, right?

47:07 So somebody who has a body fat that is high, so for a woman over 24%, for a man maybe over 18%, when you have high body fat you have a slower metabolism. You're not as hungry as a person who has a body fat that's within normal limits, right. And so think about your metabolism like a stovetop, and if it's got six burners, if your body fat's high, you've got two burners going. And in order to really turn on those burners to feel hungry, you need to be moving often, building muscle and be eating small meals often. And so what happens is we have what in our system, like in our liver, we have something called a glucostat, and that glucostat is kind of like a gas tank reading full and empty, and it's responsible for putting blood sugar into your bloodstream 24 hours a day, and you currently have a teaspoon just going to wherever it needs to be sent. At about five hours of not eating, your glucostat says oh shoot, we haven't had enough fuel, let's slow down all body functions and the next thing you eat, whether it's healthy or unhealthy, will be stored as fat.

48:07 Right, that's just what happens, and people don't even understand that. Their body doesn't know the difference between ice cream and strawberries. There's vitamin C, maybe, but we're not talking about that. We're talking about calories and we're talking about just fueling your body. So if we have this gas tank in our body, right, and we are not the kind of person who can have a kind of situation where we can have like I'm going to dump in all the calories I need, I'm going to fill up my tank right now. No, we need like small sips throughout the day to keep our blood sugar even, and so if we're under eating, then your body thinks they're stress. If you're overeating, your body thinks they're stress, and so this is really disruptive in maintaining your weight.

48:49 - Chase (Host) I'll say something again personally, but I think, just knowing what I know, I think this could be a fair, blanket statement. The vast majority of people under-consume calories. Under-consume quality calories, quality food, that that turns into a body composition issue more often than over consuming.

49:13 I think barring, you know a few people that are definitely way overeating. You know obesity, things like that. Um, you'd be really surprised if you actually and this is where I actually am a proponent of food logs, just to get a baseline If you can't tell me, if you have any idea about, maybe on average, how many calories you eat a day or how many meals. You know what does it typically look like? Do you think you're getting, you know, a fist size portion of protein in most meals? Um, track your calories, right, not restricted anyway, but just track, and I'd be willing to bet I'd say most. Most women are probably under consuming calories for their just basal metabolic rate, I'd say at least 400.

49:50 - Kim (Guest) Yeah.

49:50 - Chase (Host) Uh, and, and guys interesting maybe by like five at least. That's kind of like my personal experience whenever I'm like, oh, why isn't my body looking or feeling the way I want it to. I'm around that, mark, and going back to my old clinic days, I think most women we would do like their in-body scan. We'll look at their basal metabolic rate and then learn more about their lifestyle and they would go oh yeah, it's around like 1200 calories and they're like no, you should really be like 1600, 1800, just flatline.

50:15 - Kim (Guest) Yeah, I don't know why people think 1200 calories, I mean that's just basal metabolic rate to breathe, function and sleep.

50:20 - Chase (Host) And you'll hold onto fat a lot longer under consuming calories. It will blow your mind. That's stress, exactly, yeah, yeah, I want to ask one more question. Uh, kind of getting towards the end here before I ask my final question. I don't want to get this number right. I also heard you say that we do. I love this. We do everything 40% of the same way today that we did yesterday.

50:41 - Kim (Guest) Yeah, 47% of 47, 47% of the time. Yeah, so we sleepwalk and we go into this automatic way of thinking, which makes sense because our you know, we already know how to do things, and so to change, you have to be awake and intentional, and that's hard. Or you think it's hard, or you're not having fun, and so your mind just wants to put you back to sleep and do the automatic. And then you realize, oh shoot, I that and I wasn't planning on eating that, and that's because you were sleepwalking through your day.

51:10 - Chase (Host) But then the opposite, or the inverse can be true as well. Think about if you, if today, for example, if you do what you say you're going to do, move your body, you drink your water, you eat quality meals, and then you're worried about tomorrow, well, just know, have faith in that if you did the best you can today, tomorrow about half is already taken care of for you.

51:32 - Kim (Guest) I love the way you put that. I always refer to the quote from the Looking Glass where the White Queen says to Alice the problem with people is they forget their future memories. And Alice says you know your memories from the future. And Alice says you know your memories from the future. And she says we know exactly how this goes if we don't change.

51:50 - Chase (Host) Well, mike, drop right there. What a great way to kind of end the conversation. But I have to ask my last question. This has been super helpful for me and my audience no doubt, to learn how to move forward in their nutrition and mindset around the choices they make when it comes to the foodstuffs and the fuel to keep moving forward, ever forward. What does that mean to you?

52:12 - Kim (Guest) I'm going to probably bring it back to being present. I think that the reason why we fail is because we think we already know what we need to do and we neglect what we need to do. And so I would say, to be ever forward would be to allow myself to be curious.

52:31 - Chase (Host) Could not agree more Lean into curiosity. It has never steered me wrong. It has shown me definite steps to take and definite steps not to take. But curiosity has been an incredible through line in in my personal evolution, and one that I definitely I believe I drive home on the show as well. So I'm glad you bring that up, Thank you.

52:52 - Kim (Guest) Well, Kim, where can my?

52:53 - Chase (Host) audience go to connect with you. We're going to have your information, your book this is what you're really hungry for and the show notes and video description box, but where can they go to learn more about you and your work? They can find me everywhere on all the socials, at Kim Shapiro Method, all of them. Yeah, thanks so much for having me. This was so fun. For more information on everything you just heard, make sure to check this episode show notes or head to everforwardradio.com