Elise and I pick up our conversation from part one of her instant New York Times bestseller On Our Best Behavior: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to Be Good. In this episode, we take our conversation further and deeper, unpacking the sins of Envy and Sloth and their effect on women. It’s rare I can talk to someone who understands the various perspectives on body image (including the ones where it has nothing to do with one’s body size) so it was a real treat to go to the depths. This includes why body positivity often misses the mark in supporting women’s relationship with their body.    In our interview today, we discuss: The changing nature of what defines enough food “restriction” (Kate Moss’ 90’s heroine chic wasn’t the end!)The unconscious yearnings in feeling light and “high” from restricting food to feeling heavy and “low” from bingingWhy it’s important to pay attention to your envy and judgment of other women, including their bodiesHow scarcity and the sin of Sloth drive women to rush, overwork, and overdoThe two sins no one has asked about in all her interviews and what’s the one thing she wishes would happen with her book that hasn’t.   About Elise Elise Loehnen is a writer, editor, and podcast host who lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Rob, and their two sons, Max and Sam. She is the host of Pulling the Thread, a podcast focused on pulling apart the stories we tell about who we are—and then putting those threads back together.  She’s also the author of the instant New York Times bestseller On Our Best Behavior: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to Be Good (Dial Press/PRH). The book weaves together history, memoir, and cultural criticism to explore the ways patriarchy lands in the bodies of women and embeds itself in our consciousness—and what we then police in ourselves and in each other.  Regardless of our religious provenance, the self-denial implicit in each of the Seven Deadly Sins—Sloth, Envy, Pride, Gluttony, Greed, Lust, Anger—reads like a checklist of what it means to be a “good” woman. With awareness, we can begin to recognize these patterns of self-restriction, break the story, and move ourselves and each other toward freedom and balance. Elise is a frequent contributor to Oprah, and has written for The New York Times, Elle Decor, Stylist, and more.   Mentioned in this Episode Truce Coaching Certification (TCC) Free TCC Sneak Peak Why Am I Eating This Now Live? A Cookie Isn’t Just a Cookie: Stop Stress Eating (free workshop on September 13, 2023)

Annually, Elise Loehnen’s parents would weigh themselves in a vigilant effort to stay within five to ten pounds of their marriage weight. When Elise went away to boarding school, this culture further normalized eating vigilance and restriction as necessary.  Then in her early career at Lucky Magazine, where she was often photographed, restricting her food in attempts to be a sample size at 5 ‘10 seemed like the obvious choice to stay on the path of acceptance and “goodness”.  Then came a stint as goop’s content manager where she was immersed in the wellness industry’s gospel of “clean eating”, today’s socially acceptable term for restriction.  And now, in her instant New York Times’ best seller book, On Our Best Behavior: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to Be Good (Dial Press/PRH), Elise brilliantly connects how the sin of gluttony - not science - forms a tapestry of misguided restriction norms that have serious consequences for our food, bodies, and health.    In our interview today, we dive deep into Elise’s Gluttony chapter to discuss: The meta-physical invitation in Elise’s breathlessnessThe placebo and nocebo influence of the BMI, exercise that counts, and thinking about your weightThe difference between hunger instincts and intuition to more clearly hear your appetiteHow the cultural “good” body story creates blindspots and accompanying health risks no matter what your body size (and how to think differently to see these blindspots)What’s up with wanting to look disciplined yet effortless with your food and physique (asking for myself after not effortlessly losing my pregnancy weight)?About Elise   Elise Loehnen is a writer, editor, and podcast host who lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Rob, and their two sons, Max and Sam. She is the host of Pulling the Thread, a podcast focused on pulling apart the stories we tell about who we are—and then putting those threads back together.  She’s also the author of the instant New York Times bestseller On Our Best Behavior: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to Be Good (Dial Press/PRH). The book weaves together history, memoir, and cultural criticism to explore the ways patriarchy lands in the bodies of women and embeds itself in our consciousness—and what we then police in ourselves and in each other.  Regardless of our religious provenance, the self-denial implicit in each of the Seven Deadly Sins—Sloth, Envy, Pride, Gluttony, Greed, Lust, Anger—reads like a checklist of what it means to be a “good” woman. With awareness, we can begin to recognize these patterns of self-restriction, break the story, and move ourselves and each other toward freedom and balance. Elise is a frequent contributor to Oprah, and has written for The New York Times, Elle Decor, Stylist, and more.   Mentioned in this Episode Truce Coaching Certification (TCC)Free TCC Sneak Peak Why Am I Eating This Now Live? A Cookie Isn’t Just a Cookie: Stop Stress Eating (free workshop on September 13, 2023)

Part of what’s been hard for me the last three years was I didn’t understand how drastically the hormonal shifts that start for women around 35 and accelerate in our mid-40s affects ALL THE THINGS. And I’m someone who knows that our physiology and psychology are in a constant feedback loop.  Yet because perimenopause and menopause are women\'s health issues, they don’t get the attention they deserve. Nor do doctor’s really understand them all that well (the horror stories I hear from clients ‍). I’m doing my part to change that with this special Insatiable episode. I’m sharing the major nutrition and exercise realities I wish I knew about perimenopause and menopause.  I had to learn about them through a lot of suffering with plantar fasciitis, insomnia, irritation/anger/rage, and grappling with significant weight gain that felt like it came out of nowhere. ​ While some menopause symptoms are inevitable, there\'s also a lot you can do to reduce and better manage symptoms through this profound threshold and beyond.   In this podcast, I discuss: How decreases in estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone affect your nutrition and exercise needs and why what worked before 40 often backfires now (and what I did to lose 20 pounds). The 2 key nutrition shifts I needed to make and why adding more of these foods in is more important than ever for your health and weight Why women need carbs at this stage (especially at night), a starting point of how many carbs you need, and the best time to eats something sweet if you’re struggling with sleep Why Intermittent Fasting (IF) often backfires and things to consider if you want to experiment with IF (and how eating a snack before bed actually helped my insomnia for a year!) The biggest exercise shift I made to support my health, weight, and peace of mind The simple lifestyle shift I didn’t know I needed to support my insomnia   Episode Links Free Health Coaching Disruption Hour for Rebel Practitioners Free Truce with Food community gatherings Truce Coaching Certification On Our Best Behavior by Elise Loehnen

While Laura McKowen is known for her work around alcohol sobriety, her first coping strategy was food. Like Laura, I have many clients who come to me where their first “thing” was food. And after getting sober or soberish, their eating issues return or becomes a “thing”. In this special Insatiable episode, we apply the wisdom Laura writes about in her new book to food, body image, and the overlap with alcohol.   We discuss: How Laura’s original coping mechanism was bingeing and the overlapping and distinct root causes between her food and alcohol strugglesWhy stopping bad habits like alcohol and battling food is different than starting new habits and how you change has to shift to what Laura discusses as “being willing to be led”Grief from the loss of using alcohol, food, and the fantasies they offer How wanting to be saved, desired, and chosen fueled Laura’s alcohol and body image issues and the deep work she did to heal and now be in a healthy relationshipHow Laura views sobriety as an invitation into a “Bigger Yes” (we also discuss the pushback at this suggestion and how it’s even more politically incorrect to say your body battle is an invitation into a “Bigger Yes”)The connection between eating disorders, alcohol use disorder, and sensitive, empathetic, and perceptive people (and their nervous systems), and where they need to push off too. Buy a copy of Laura’s new book, Push Off From Here: Nine Essential Truths to Get You Through Sobriety (And Everything Else)  at https://www.lauramckowen.com/books or wherever you buy your favorite books.

Dr. Michelle Segar, one of the more progressive health behavioral change experts, says sustainable behavior change with eating and exercise is not a product of rule-following. In other words, trying so hard to perfectly stick to a plan is not an effective goal or strategy. Rather, we need to learn flexibility. Because life is much more unpredictable these days. Anyone like me who sends their child to daycare knows this deep in their bones! We also need to learn how to experiment to see what actually works in this stage of our lives. Not what worked 20 years ago when our stress was minimal. Or now, in the menopausal transition.  How does one learn this flexibility and trust in imperfect action, which often just feels like guilt and shame for “being bad”? I brought on my clients Whitnee and Erin to share their Truce with Food journey of how they learned to listen to their bodies to figure out what really works for them now and effectively experiment to reach their health and wellness goals.   In today’s episode we discuss, The importance of finding fun and magic in our goal pursuits, not just the accomplishment outcomeThe Catholic and Christian influences that formed both their stories and struggles to be “good”How Whitnee finally made a “Truce” with her dairy intolerance after years of the restrict-over do it cycle.How Whitnee and Erin both learned to be flexible with their exercise goals given Erin’s back pain and Whitnee’s knee pain, COVID, and then plantar fasciitis The challenge and freedom of growth mindset (ie.“trusting the process”) and how they set and work towards their goals now   Mentioned in this episode SMART Goals: How They Sabotage Eating and Exercise Goals workshop (free, 1/11/23) Truce with Food 2023: Registration runs 1/9-1/20. Save $500 in this once a year program when you register by January 16. Erintusa.com @trainwithtusa

When I surveyed my newsletter readers back In the April, a common survey response theme was: “I feel uncomfortable in my body and feel ridiculous that I am focused on this when there is so much else that is so much more important to deal with.” I sooo get this. I felt this way about my own weight struggles in the 9/11, U.S. invasion of Iraq-era. And today’s world issues feel much more urgent and complex. Yet what I’ve discovered is that tending to our body discomfort is not ridiculous. With a holistic and root cause resolution approach like Truce with Food, our body discomfort reveals a values gap of what we say matters and what how we are actually living. And this values gap matters deeply right now.  Collectively, we understand “normal” isn’t working; “bottom up” changes in how we spend our time, money, and energy matter if we want to create a new, healthier normal. To illustrate what this values-gap driven body discomfort looks like to work through, my Truce with Food clients Charlotta and Margaret Louise are here to share their journey of self-authoring their values for more psychological safety and a radically different relationship to food and themselves.    In today’s episode, we discuss: A deeper understanding of how to embody safety to increase resilience and decrease out of control eating.How systems like capitalism and patriarchy, which value control, unknowingly molded our collective values and the personal values each of us had to change.An alternative definition of valuing discipline (that isn’t about control) to change our food habits and life.The new values that replaced perfectionism, hyper-productivity, “faster, better”, and trying to do everything on our own.How this values revolution evolved the stories that were driving our stress and body discomfort and led to better food choices, a more sacred relationship with our bodies, and more fulfillment.    Mentioned in this Episode Free Food as Safety Gatherings Truce with Food 2023 The Sparkling Mud @thesparklingmud

A Truce with Food foundational focus is learning how to effectively respond to the stress that makes you eat. Because we are often reacting to the past when our sense of safety was compromised, which fuels our current stress. For example, I used to binge on sugar during my cancer “scanxiety” season even though it was 15 years later. Because in the past, MRIs did find cancer (and I didn’t know I could ever not turn to food!). Logically I knew I was probably fine. But emotionally I was a wreck.  To effectively respond to your stress in the present, in Truce with Food, we tend to your body\'s physiology. Specifically, cultivating safety in your nervous system; your nervous system physiology under threat often leads to “Chuck it, F@#$ it” Ubereats, fantasy thoughts like “Diet starts tomorrow”, and binging.  Because your body’s physiology informs your “mindset”.  Anyone who knows how crashing blood sugar fuels their anxiety knows this on one level. To better understand your own nervous system reactions and accompanying food habits, I’ve brought back Stacey Ramsower from Episode 1 of this season.  We discuss how our nervous system picks up on stress, often before our brain, and that leads to out of control eating. Stacey is one of the few people I know who understands how the most powerful change involves your physiology and psychology.   In today’s episode, we discuss: The difference between your body, brain, and mind when trying to change your relationship to food (hint: most mindset work doesn’t address this and yet, your body communicates to your brain at 4x the speed!)How “Diet starts tomorrow” is a fantasy thought and often a sign you’re in a “Flight” nervous system reactionWhat the Flight and Freeze nervous system reactions feel like inside your bodyThe connection between Binging and the Freeze nervous system reactionTwo powerful practices to try and regulate your nervous system to better deal with your present stress and change your eating habits   Mentioned in this Episode Free Food as Safety Gatherings Truce with Food 2023 https://www.staceyramsower.com/ Stacey’s Instagram

How many times have you thought: why do I self-sabotage with food? If those answers haven’t gotten you very far, I have a much better question for you. “How does my eating protect me?” is a question that will take you far and deep. To guide us with this question and path to your answers, I have the wise Sil Reynolds to talk food, protection strategies, and the root vulnerability in our stories that our food habits are trying, perhaps begging you, to pay attention to.  In this expansive, soul food conversation, we discuss: Sil’s struggle with food and her journey to heal her Motherline to find a sense of home in her body and psyche.The role of the archetypal feminine and emotional attunement in our food and body image struggles, including the symbolism in emotionally eating sweet carbohydratesHow perfectionism is a safety strategy, not a personality type and why we keep trying to be “Good”, even when it feels so bad.How body image isn’t really about the body and a powerful question to ask when you feel fat to shift your mindset by getting to the root of the issue About Sil Reynolds Sil brings 40 years experience to her work as a coach and a teacher: experience as a nurse practitioner, psychotherapist, workshop leader, author, and a Mothering & Daughtering coach. She graduated from Brown University where she majored in Women’s Studies. She graduated from Marion Woodman’s BodySoul Rhythms training in dreamwork, archetypal psychology, and the art and science of listening to the wisdom of the body. Sil explains that “Marion Woodman’s work reflects a unique Jungian lineage focuses on bringing the archetypal Divine Feminine into our embodied, earthly lives. Her lineage is my lineage, it is my spiritual motherline, and it has been my lifeline during difficult times.”   Mentioned in this Episode Food as Safety Gatherings with Ali: Gather with like-minded health rebels who hate small talk to learn how to apply the Insatiable Season 13 podcasts to your life. Ali will teach, provide coaching exercise, tools and coach a few participants stress eating so you can get to the root of your stress eating and work through it. No white knuckling required.  Sil Reynolds

The Wellness culture we see as we scroll through Instagram or listen to in our earbuds on various wellness podcasts often casts itself as the opposite of Western Medicine. And yet, both industries overlap via the same value system of Puritans and Protestantism.  From “clean eating” to failed functional medicine protocols because “client’s aren’t disciplined enough”, Protestantism and Puritanism are alive and well in both industries.  This wouldn’t be a problem except these guiding principles aren’t actually how the body works. As a result, while both industries have different offerings, both limit us because of their blindspots created by these religious values and beliefs.  In today’s episode with one of my favorite writers, Dr. Anne Helen Petersen, we discuss:    A background of what Protestantism and Puritanism are and how they’ve influenced diet and wellness culture and the deeper meaning implied in hashtags #blessed, #highvibes, and #nolowvibesHow Protestantism and Puritanism especially influenced fat phobia and the 80s and 90s body ideal of what Anne calls “aspirational containment”.How wellness influencers and celebrities like Peloton instructors have given us secular outlets to satiate the needs that religion provides.How Anne shifted and continues to shift her relationship to exercise and work by incorporating this value that is considered “bad” in Puritanism yet supports the body to thrive.Anne’s process of first intellectualizing how problematic these religious values are in relation to exercise, the body, and work and then actually making the changes to embody new values that support her feeling great and athletic in her body, now in her 40s.    About Anne Helen PetersonAnne is an American writer and journalist. She received her Ph.D in Media Studies, where she did her dissertation on Celebrity Culture…we will get into why here in the episode.She worked as a Senior Culture Writer for BuzzFeed until August 2020, when she began writing full-time for her newsletter \"Culture Study\" on Substack. I know many of you read it. It’s so so good. Her most recent book “Out of Office” is about the future of work. And she has two new podcasts of her own: Work Appropriate and Townsizing, which is about people living in small towns.   Mentioned in this episode: Free Food as Safety Gatherings with Ali: Gather with like-minded health rebels who hate small talk to learn how to apply the Insatiable Season 13 podcasts to your life. Ali will teach, provide coaching exercise, tools and coach a few participants stress eating so you can get to the root of your stress eating and work through it. No white knuckling required.    Culture Study with Anne Helen Petersen The Millennial Vernacular of Fat Phobia The Quiet Glory of Aging Into Athleticism The Parameters of Peloton Celebrity

“How can I stop stress eating? is a frequent question I get asked. In today’s episode, I share a more powerful question that’s necessary to ask - “What’s eating you?” - to get back in control of food. No white knuckling required. I share my own current story work related to my burn-out that caused my body to fall apart (and keep 30 pounds of post-pregnancy weight on), answer some listener questions, and offer some client examples for you to get crystal clear on your own stress eating.    In this solo episode, I share: The 3 phases of awareness you need to resolve your stress eatingThe “elephant in the room” causing your out of control and out of alignment with your goals eatingThe role our stories play in stress eatingHow story work gets misunderstood and misinterpreted, creating more tools, work, and “feeling bad for feeling bad” that leads to lackluster results.Two powerful coaching questions to get you started on resolving your stress eating today.   Mentioned in this Episode http://alishapiro.com/food-as-safety

Have you ever thought about your birth? If you’re like most people, you probably haven’t. And yet, as Stacey shares, according to Ayverveda’s Sankyha philosophy, 25% of who we are comes from our conception and birth. This makes safety and food intimately connected and tangled from before we even make our Earth-side entrance.  In order to understand food’s connection to safety, we are starting at the beginning. Specifically, our beginnings as we began growing in the womb and then officially made our Earth side entrance.   In this heart-felt, deep conversation, we discuss: Stacey’s tumultuous relationship with food and what she discovered was at the root of her restriction and then binging-purging symptoms.  The role our gestation and support our Mother’s do or don’t receive contributes to our sense of safety, according to Ayurveda’s Sankyha philosophy.How food provides a sense of literal structure to our bodies and thus safety. And if we don’t get the structure or felt presence of being “seen, held, and known” in relationships, we turn to food for safety.  How early stage eating influences what we were “told” about what and how much is available to us. While mainstream emotional eating advice says we binge or overeat in reaction to restriction, we discuss there’s also overeating in anticipation of not having enough food or other forms of safety.  Why we eat during transitions like work to home or Friday night to weekend and how birth as our first official transition can leave an imprint on how we experience transitions today. And some tips for making transitions easier today so we don’t need food.  How Stacey’s healing journey to develop a broader sense of safety beyond food led to her first ever awe inspiring pregnancies post-meeting her birth mother.  Stacey Ramsower is an Ayurvedic Lifestyle Coach, Holistic Perinatal Consultant, Somatic Sex Educator, and mother. She supports women through their transformation to Motherhood through ritual practices, hands on work, and private coaching. Stacey is currently pursuing a doctorate in clinical psychology. She lives in Tucson, AZ with her husband and two kids.   Mentioned in this Episode: https://www.staceyramsower.com/ Stacey’s Instagram Free Truce with Food Mini-Course    JOIN US AT THE FREE FOOD AS SAFETY GATHERINGS?   Do you want to apply the Insatiable Season 13 episodes to your life? Would you love to keep the conversation going with other intrepid health rebels who hate small talk?   Join us for a free, Food as Safety gathering, where you can take the first step in your own Truce with Food by working through your current stress eating. Register below for these three, FREE virtual yet intimate gatherings on November 9, December 7, and January 4.   http://alishapiro.com/food-as-safety

The past few years have tested each of us.  We’ve been immersed in Grief. Loss. Relationship fissures. Children’s developmental concerns. Money stress. And these individual challenges are nesting dolls of the escalating war on women’s bodies, caretaking, and the Earth.  With this, it’s not surprising that stress and stress eating are at an all-time high. In the American Psychological Association\'s pandemic anniversary surveys, COVID-19-related stress was associated with unhealthy weight gains and increased drinking. While there were jokes about the initial “COVID 19”, close to 58% of respondents reported experiencing persistent, undesired weight changes and unhealthy behaviors. And many reported worse mental health, lower physical activity, disturbed sleep, and increased reliance on unhealthy habits. If safety is a primal need and stress is inevitable….Listen to the full trailer for more.

In this special Insatiable podcast episode, I celebrate a major milestone: 30 years as a cancer survivor.  I’ll share how what resolved my acne, depression, IBS, infertility, and out of control eating was learning how to redefine health beyond losing weight and learning to trust in my body feeling satisfied, not sacrificing and suffering.  And how this new orientation led to transformational health results I didn’t even know were possible. Including sustainable weight loss, a Truce with Food, and a relationship of awe and gratitude for my body.    Ali shares: Why knowing the difference between Authorities and Experts is essential for transformational results. Especially if like me, as the first generation of childhood cancer survivors, there’s very little research to go on for your own body challenges.How I got out of the insanity of “I know sugar feeds on cancer” yet would binge on it during “scanxiety” season. If you struggle with health issues that are exacerbated by eating things you know you shouldn’t, this mindset shift helps.How mainstream goal setting, predicated on “You are not your story! Day 1 starts today”” sabotages us exactly like \"Diet starts tomorrow\" and a different approach to goal setting that resolves our root-causes and works in our real lives. The root cause of my bingeing and weight loss obsession that cancer deepened  but wasn’t any more destructive than diets. And a simple practice for you to get to the root of your destructive eating habits.What I now believe about how weight is or isn’t related to health.   And then I answer listener questions, which include What role does diet play in your life as a survivor? Have you put your cancer in the rear view mirror, or does it still occupy your thoughts?Residual worries and things you have to be concerned about that others don’t?How can friends be supportive?    Mentioned in this episode: SMART Goals: How they Sabotage Eating and Exercise Goals and What Works for Deeper Coaching Impact on August 23 at 12 pm.  In this workshop for Coaches, Therapists, and Other Health Professionals, we will cover: The emerging research on why eating and exercise are in a unique change category and how this changes the client goals and coaching for deep impact.The protective role of bad habits and why this understanding is essential for sustainable change (i.e. compliance), including the idea that a client has to “Tony Robbins” their way out of their bad food and health habits.Why more tools that stay on the surface aren\'t the answer and how an evidence-based, root-cause resolution of a client’s resistance to change creates elegant solutions so they aren\'t failing at one more thing“Complexity fitness” and its role in empowering clients by ending the sabotaging, all or-nothing mindset.   I’ll also be discussing my ICF-certified, trauma informed Truce Coaches Certification that opens up again in September, in which we definitely do not use SMART goals and instead, get to the root of client’s food and body issues so you or your client’s don’t need anymore tools. www.alishapiro.com/smartgoals    Blog posts: alishapiro.com/valuesgap alishapiro.com/body-discomfort-first-step/

Confidence is foundational to satiation or as Andrea defines satiation, fulfillment.  Too often, we think confidence comes from weight loss, in a bottle promising beauty or is something we are born with. The good news is confidence is a skill-set and involves as Andrea Owen says in her new book, Make Some Noise, unlearning how we’ve been socialized to think about confidence and what it means to be a “good” woman.    In this episode, we discuss: The 3 confidence mythsHow realizing her confidence was weight-dependent led Andrea to break-up with diet cultureThe root of Andrea’s eating disorder (hint: it wasn’t about food)Reckoning with the complexity of thin, youth and beauty privilege and fat-phobia when beauty is currency and power (and how maybe we are giving into the patriarchy in the name of beauty and when is that OK?)How the Kavanagh hearings led Andrea to examine her own anger and socialization around being an “angry woman”. Interested in Truce with Food, where we challenge the socialization around our hunger and bodies capabilities that make us feel out of control around food? Registration is open now. Taste a free sample with the  Truce with Food Masterclass: I Want to Want to Eat Healthy

We live in a world that teaches us to battle our bodies. Fight your hunger. Battle your weight. The war on mental health. This omnipresent battle narrative makes it appear natural and the only choice is to battle our bodies. Is there another way? Yes. In fact, there are lots of other ways.  My client Kristin Leslie joins us to discuss how challenging her self-doubt story, which included normalizing distrusting her body and voice, led to one of the peak experiences of her life in a home birth she never originally envisioned. This is a story most deeply about unlearning normal, including who you think you are.    In this inspiring episode, we discuss: 1. How Kristin not talking until age four was a driving force in battling herself. Diets aggravated this battle but weren’t the original issue.  2. How the media and stories about fearing birth originally influenced Kristin to assume she’d have a hospital birth (with her legs in stir-ups). 3. The three keys that enabled her to see other birth options aside from “normal” and that can serve any of us looking for more satisfying choices outside of black and white thinking. 4. How Kristin incrementally challenged her body doubt versus self-trust being one big epiphany of “this is the answer”. This was key when COVID hit and all her birth plans went side-ways. 5. Navigating that we do and don’t have control over our bodies and how we can take charge of our stories to no longer feel powerless over food.  Interested in Truce with Food, where we take charge of the stories that make us feel powerless over food? Registration is open now. Check out this free sample of the  Truce with Food Masterclass: I Want to Want to Eat Healthy

Platinum-selling artist Serena Ryder had her worst fear come true when she ended up in a mental hospital. Her recent album, The Art of Falling Apart, invites listeners to join her mental wellness journey and helps us understand the importance of sitting with the uncomfortable moments and the wisdom in their messages. In our interview together, we discuss: The importance of soul satisfaction in the art of our wellness journeyHow our work together was about not being so rigid with her diet and mental health tools (hint: what got us to one level of health probably won’t get us to the next level)How food was her original issue and then how alcohol and drugs got piled on topThe Truce with Food story work Serena and I did together that ended her bingeing, including not having to be an “old soul” all the timeThe nuances of when weight loss does support your health, specifically with her endometriosis (and why she’s glad she did the Truce with Food work first on her weight loss journey)Sign up for Ali’s free, 2-part Truce with Food Masterclass, I Want to Want to Eat Healthy on Wednesday, December 1 and 8th at 12 pm EST.

Did being gluten-free used to feel easy and now it feels depriving? Or maybe you’re burned out and getting back in shape sounds great but feels too much. Or like me recently, you’re on a roll and then you fall off track. To the untrained eye, there’s a willpower and discipline problem. Yet when you understand the connection between emotional satisfaction and food freedom, you can unlock powerful energy and motivation to eat well – and like it.   In this episode, we discuss: 1. How knowing your “Why Not” is more important than “Know Your Why” 2. How bad eating and exercise habits are protective 3. What your emotional immune system is and why it matters to our food and health 4. How our stories cause us to eat out of control 5. The connection between safety, emotional satisfaction and our food choices Sign up for Ali’s free, 2-part Truce with Food Masterclass, I Want to Want to Eat Healthy on Wednesday, December 1 and 8th at 12 pm EST.

In her new book, Call of the Wild: How We Heal Trauma, Awaken our Own Power and Use it for Good, Kimberly Ann Johnson gives us the critical language to understand our nervous system and why this matters for us to heal trauma and feel enough. An important part of trauma work is building our capacity to be with pleasure and satisfaction. In our interview, Kimberly shares her perspective on satiation, which is asking the question “What is enough?” and how this question is critical to how we eat and relate to our bodies.    In this episode, we discuss: Why satiation or “enoughness” in Kimberly’s words, matters to our nervous systemWhat safety feels like in your social nervous system, including thinking about who we eat with changes our experience of a mealWeight struggles as a symbolic attempt at “having weight” in what we can create in our lives and for each other instead of being so “I” or “me” centeredIdeas of how to soothe your nervous system when you want to reach for food or social mediaHow being told to “calm down” or “let it go” when stressed can backfire and cause us to turn to sugar, overeat or bingeHow good bodies depend on where you live and the body as an emergent process instead of something to judge

Learning to cook was an important step in ending my food battle. And then post-Truce with Food, I found myself less interested in food, cooking included.  Cooking became “assembling”. We still ate most of our meals at home; it just became some version of frozen vegetable, rice and chicken, give or take some garlic powder. Meh but manageable.   Then we became new, sleep-deprived parents and COVID hit. Cooking was important but even less of a priority. I knew when I did have the time and energy, I enjoyed cooking if it was simple and delicious. How could I get back to a place where cooking was sustainable, simple and enjoyable? I asked Meghan Telpner, founder of the Academy of Culinary Nutrition, to help sort out the jumble of feelings many of us feel towards cooking. Sometimes cooking feels like a chore. And sometimes it fills our soul. How can we make cooking and the food we eat more satisfying? In this episode, Meghan shares: 1. Easy ways to incorporate the flavors and foods that reduce and eliminate cravings for super sugary and salty foods. 2. How the more sugar or salt we eat, the more we want (and how this interferes with feeling satiated from lesser amounts of sugar and salt). 3. An experiment to really get what sugar or salt is doing to your taste buds and body. 4. Why the act of cooking is so fulfilling to our bodies and how knowing this makes me more excited to cook more. 5. Easy ways to incorporate texture and smells, which influence our food satisfaction.

When we think of feeling satisfied from food, we often think satisfaction comes from more and more food and/or sweet/salty foods. Yet with some basic body knowledge, we can decode what’s actually happening instead of thinking more willpower is the answer. And in the end, feel more satisfied from healthy food and in control of indulgences. After some time away from the mic, Ali gives a personal update and shares:  An unexpected root cause of why we don’t feel satisfied from healthy food and how to change this (and why COVID made eating healthier so much harder) The food shift that instantly reduces cravings while increasing satisfaction of healthy food. The three main lifestyle factors that make healthy food and life more satisfying The sleep-food connection and sleep trouble-shooting tips based on what Ali’s learning from her own sleep coach and perimenopause An overview of the stress-pleasure “checkbook” physiology, its affect on how much we think about food, our food satisfaction and how to balance it so healthy food becomes more satisfying and we feel in control with indulgences