Food, Weight & Me In Midlife

Sarah (00:00:00) - Halfpeeps. I'm happy you're here. Before this episode starts, I have a really quick announcement. Next week I have a free three day workshop called It's Time to Talk Midlife. If you are craving connection in midlife, if you are craving answers to some of your top midlife questions of like, What the fuck am I going to do now? I'm an empty nester or me A recent half empty nester with one kid left at home. If you're wondering what's next for you, how are you going to talk to your spouse now that your kids are gone and you've you're basically done micromanaging them on a day to day basis and you actually have to like get back to your marriage. We are going to talk about all of these topics that are on our hearts and minds. Three days with me on Zoom, one hour a day, you, me and a bunch of midlife women all wanting to be together to talk about these topics. It's basically a don't mess. So many women have signed up. I promise you, I know how you are feeling because I'm you and you're me.

Sarah (00:01:10) - We're all in this midlife journey together of wanting to figure out how to take ownership in midlife, feel like us again, feel relevant, feel visible and feel purposeful. So if you're wanting to sign up for this workshop, I'm telling you you will not regret it. Go to w w w the flexible neurotic.com/free workshop. Okay. If you didn't get that, I'm going to say it one more time. W ww dot the flexible neurotic.com/free workshop even. I'm like, wait, what? Okay. And if you can't get that, I totally fucking understand. Just go to my Instagram at the flexible neurotic. It's in the link in bio, it's in the linktree. It's at the top of my website. You can fucking find it, I promise. Okay, you guys, here we go with this amazing episode.

Kim (00:02:08) - So most people will say I'm here to lose weight for this event or I want to lose £30 because, you know, my doctor said I should, and so I want to change the Y from losing weight to keeping weight off and to having a normal relationship with food.

Sarah (00:02:29) - Halfpeeps. Welcome to the Flexible Neurotic podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Sarah Milken. Yeah, you heard that right. I'm a real PhD doctor. Long, long ago. Like last fucking year I was sitting in the midlife funk wondering, Was this it for me? That day I realized I needed to get off my ass and start my midlife remix. I dusted off my PhD, wiped the menopause, sweat off my forehead, grabbed my golden shit shovel and started digging deep to all my midlife bitches. It's not just luck, coffee and hormones that get you through your midlife remix. It's action steps. Let's do this. Hi, good peeps. This is the next episode of the flexible, neurotic podcast. I'm Dr. Sarah Milken, the flexible neurotic. Today I have a guest who's on many short lists of celebrities and just regular everyday peeps like you and me as a nutritional therapist and registered dietitian. She has a bachelor's of science in kinesiology from Tulane and a master's degree in human metabolism and clinical nutrition from Boston University.

Sarah (00:03:37) - She has spent 25 years, even though she doesn't look at helping people lose weight and keep it off. This guest is a fellow mid lifer. She's the author of a brand new book called This Is What You're Really Hungry For six Simple Rules to Transform Your Relationship with Food to Become Your Healthiest Self. And her biggest goal is to help her clients change their relationship with food to create their own healthiest lifestyles. She's often a guest on Just Jenny, Sky News, Vanity Fair, PopSugar podcasts and more. Her name is Kim Shapira. Hi, Kim.

Kim (00:04:15) - Hi. That was so good.

Sarah (00:04:17) - Oh, my God.

Kim (00:04:18) - I'm so.

Sarah (00:04:18) - Excited you're here. And as I told you before we started recording, you sent me the electronic version of your book. And I'm so old school and nerdy that I was like, How the fuck do I read a book online? I don't get it. So I literally had to take notes in a spiral notebook because I couldn't post-it note the digital version.

Kim (00:04:36) - But I did it funny.

Sarah (00:04:37) - Yeah, got through it. New shit. We got it. So I'm so happy you're here. And basically Kim believes that health is the goal. But people being triggered by life's storms knock them off their journey. And Kim is here to stay. Help people stay on their journey. And we're going to get into it. You ready, Kim?

Kim (00:04:56) - I'm ready. I'm here. I'm ready for it.

Sarah (00:04:58) - So good. Okay. I'm already fucking sweating because I told you the air conditioning is like, I'll have to yell at my husband later. It's okay. The intention of this episode is to dig deep with our golden shovels. I'm sure you have a few. You have three daughters, which is a whole other story. Three teenage girls. I have one, and I can barely even handle that. And we're going to dig with their shovels to find out about the key components for weight loss while not torturing yourself and still enjoying food. We're going to talk food, lifestyle, Moss and Kim's method using six simple rules.

Sarah (00:05:31) - These six rules help people journey into a normal relationship with food, which improves their confidence, their health and their well-being. And these rules are based in science. And Kim says they're simple. So let's see. So anyone listening to this podcast is probably on the menopause spectrum perimenopausal menopausal postmenopausal. And you and I both know, Kim, there's every expert in the world, every doctor in the world, all over social media, Eat this, don't do that, do this, blah, blah, blah. And you're like, Holy shit, where do I even start? But what I love about you is you kind of have a different perspective on the situation. You sort of incorporate science, client experience and even your own personal experience with food, your addiction to shopping at one point. And so it's kind of not just like this is what the science says or this is what my grandma says. It's literally like science based on all your heavy, heavy research and education and based on real people coming into your office.

Kim (00:06:40) - Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it all really does start from thinking I knew everything when I started my practice, right? So just like what we're hearing on every other podcast or anybody else kind of talking about it, do this and you will have this result. And when I started, I realized I really didn't know anything about what was going on inside of people's bodies or minds necessarily compare to how I knew food was affecting their body. And so it really made me take a step back and say, okay, in order to have people sustain weight loss, which is not something people talk about really like they talk about here, do this to lose weight, do this to get healthy. But we're not really talking about how do we stay there. Right. And so I really had to dig deep. And it was at that point I started really recognizing my clients are totally eating the way that I shop. And it's for every emotion on the spectrum.

Sarah (00:07:41) - And I'm guilty of that, too.

Sarah (00:07:43) - I probably have the snacking problem and the shopping problem. My husband's like, What's happening here? And I'm like, Well, shop pay is happening. I don't even have to type my credit card in anymore.

Kim (00:07:57) - Yeah, yeah, it's it's true. But it really does come down to like, where is our mind? Yeah. Yeah. I love how you say that.

Sarah (00:08:05) - Now, what about the word diet? Like, I know that like, when I hear the word diet, like every fucking alarm in my body goes off. Because once you tell me I can't have something, I'm not one of those good people who can just be like, okay, sure, I'm not going to eat sugar, okay? I'm not going to eat starch or a bagel or whatever. Why do diets fail?

Kim (00:08:23) - Well, first of all, nobody can be restricted. Our mind doesn't feel safe in any restricted or constricted environment. And our minds job is to help us survive every moment in the most pleasurable way. So if I said you can never have a piece of bread again, you immediately think I'm just going to have one more? Or how long is this going to last? Right.

Kim (00:08:43) - So it has to we have to change the way we think about food and diet. And the truth is, diet does not mean restriction. Somewhere it got lost in translation. But diet means lifestyle. The way that I live, the way that I eat.

Sarah (00:09:01) - Right. That's not. And there nothing about it is always the same or always perfect.

Kim (00:09:05) - I mean, I could be in Italy on 1 in 1 day in North Carolina, and the next day it could be at the beach one day and I could be, you know, having Italian like nothing is the same. Nothing is the same except me. And so I have to have a whole set of values that I take with me wherever I go. And that's just as simple as it is.

Sarah (00:09:23) - So you don't call it cheating, Like, let's just say on a regular basis, you don't eat spaghetti and meatballs for dinner, right? You go to Italy. Is that considered a cheat meal for you? Kim, is that considered like how do you how do you define that?

Kim (00:09:39) - I call it spaghetti and meatballs on a random night.

Kim (00:09:43) - And I call it normal eating. God call it normal. And I think normal is kind of triggering to and scary. And I think it's really important and I hate to say it, but to normalize food. Right. So I think of all food is a banana and anything that has a calorie is a banana. And like, let's just say I said to you, here's a banana. What do you what would you actually do if I handed you a banana? What would you do?

Sarah (00:10:09) - I'd probably just put it down on the desk.

Kim (00:10:11) - Right. Somewhere You thought you had a thought. Why is Kim handing me a banana? And second, am I hungry for a banana? But you were mindful enough to recognize I don't need a banana now, so I will put it here. Nobody just takes a banana and eats it. Everybody goes through this process. When they are handed a banana, you really have to be hungry for a banana. So if we start thinking all food is a banana, then we start going through this process.

Kim (00:10:36) - Do I want a banana right now? How hungry am I? How much banana do I need? But if I think I'm going out for a girls night and everybody's going to have wine and dessert and I don't usually let myself do that, suddenly I'm sensationalizing food and it's something bigger than it really is. And I've been restricting. So now I have no power because I don't want to miss out. I have major FOMO. But if we start thinking of everything as a banana, what happens is it just becomes normal. And then we start getting inside of our bodies and listening to what the messages are. You're hungry, you're satisfied, you're tired, you need water, you need a hug, you need a breathe.

Sarah (00:11:15) - Right? It's so many things. So if you're going to a party and you normally are not a, you know, kind of eat off the table, drink wine, eat a bunch of cheese kind of girl, are you going to have a strategy of like, hey, let me not go to that event starving?

Kim (00:11:31) - It's a good question.

Kim (00:11:32) - And I have to think about let me let me think about how I would answer that. So again, I want to have seamless transitions, right? So instead of Monday through Friday, where I follow a certain type of eating plan, I want to eat the way that I want to eat Monday through Sunday, and I want to do it Monday morning at 9 a.m. all the way until I go to bed. I don't want it to be until 5:00 when I start thinking wine is a good idea or I'm so excited that I get the kitchen to myself and my kids are asleep and now I'm entitled to eating because I was good all day, right? I want to have seamless transitions so every moment rolls into the next, and what stays the same is my relationship to my body. What do I need right now? I see bananas everywhere in front of me, and that's great. I love bananas, but let me see what my body needs. And it's a bummer that I'm not hungry right now, but it's a good thing that that buffet of bananas isn't going anywhere.

Kim (00:12:27) - And so I'll have it later. And right now I'll socialize because that's what the entertainment is. The entertainment is not the food in front of me. The food in front of me is fuel.

Sarah (00:12:36) - See, And I love that you talk about that so much in your book, and we're going to get into that. But it's very hard for us to think of food as fuel because we're constantly thinking about like, what are we having for dinner? Who's going to be there? Where is the reservation? Will we get off the wait list for the reservation? And it's like all this hoopla about the food and now it's like people look at pictures of the food online before they get there so they know what the meal is going to look like. And I'm like, Oh my God, that's like, that takes it to a new level. Like my kids do that. They're like, Oh, no, that like, looks like we're a weird food place. I'm like, What are you even talking about? They're like, Oh, we looked at the pictures.

Sarah (00:13:13) - I'm like, Yeah, everybody's so fucking focused on the food here.

Kim (00:13:16) - Yeah. So if they're focused on what they're going to eat in four hours, they're not actually in this moment, right? And so the practice is to recognize like, okay, I've literally eaten 21 meals every single week of my entire life. There's like the history to tell me that I know that I don't have to worry about what dinner is going to look like next Thursday. I know I'm going to eat, but what I need to pay attention to is what I'm feeling in this moment, not worrying about what's coming later because I don't even know how I'm going to feel later. So back to the idea of being at a party with my friends. I really do have to get good and knowing where my mind is versus my body. And so that's the practice. And so like even saying to your kids when they're like looking or anyone when they're looking ahead, what time zone is your mind is. And if they find that it's a few hours ahead, their job is to bring it back because they don't really need to worry about what they're going to eat.

Kim (00:14:08) - You know, they they have the time to worry about that before they order, Right after they've established they're hungry. Yeah.

Sarah (00:14:16) - I get what you're saying. Now, when you talk about this idea of like, we all need to go back to kindergarten.

Kim (00:14:22) - Yeah.

Sarah (00:14:23) - Tell me about that.

Kim (00:14:25) - Yeah. So, again, this is a lot of diet culture. And I used to say to my clients, Let's forget everything you've ever learned and start right here, right now and let me retrain you. And so that's the idea of kindergarten, right? Because so many people that you and I both know, I'm sure, and everyone who's listening to this knows somebody who's tried a diet that failed. And what that looks like is they've lost £10 and they gained it back or they managed to follow it for two days and it was a 30 day plan. Right. These these things don't really stick. And the reason is there may be trying to advance themselves into a type of eating without a solid foundation. And just like if we're building a house, if our foundation isn't solid, that house will break.

Kim (00:15:11) - And so we really need to stay just on the ground floor, practice building the solid foundation, which looks like, why am I eating? Just stay right there for a minute. Why am I eating? Is it because someone else is eating? Is it because someone else told me it was a good idea or that could be healthy? Or is it because my body is hungry?

Sarah (00:15:30) - Oh, my gosh. Hunger is such a huge thing. I can't like you talk about it so much in your book. And I was like sitting there going and my fucking hungry. Should I get the grapes? Am I really hungry? No, I'm not. And like, I'm playing all this, like, mental gymnastics in my head. But it's good practice because I don't think I think a lot of times it's like, okay, it's breakfast time, let's eat breakfast. Okay, it's lunch time, let's eat lunch. But what you're saying is, yes, there are those time frames that are designated as when we're supposed to be eating, but maybe we're not hungry.

Kim (00:16:06) - People gain weight when they. When they eat, when they're not hungry. That's our body. Like, our body is listening to everything that we're telling it and we're giving it. And if we're eating food when we're not hungry, the message we're giving is store this for the winter right? So, of course, it's going to be so efficient, it's going to store it and we're going to gain weight. And we are in the middle of an obesity epidemic, even though, you know, we have weight loss drugs or whatnot. The average American gained £29 during Covid. Right? Right. Airlines are changing their laws based on the weights of our bodies. We are in an obesity epidemic because our portions are bigger. We're eating because for other reasons than hunger.

Sarah (00:16:44) - Yeah. And and you really dive into that in the book and talking about how it's so important for us to really think about ourselves as like the physical self and the emotional self. Yeah. And I love how you break that down. Will you explain that?

Kim (00:17:00) - Yeah.

Kim (00:17:01) - So there is let's say me, I'm here and I have an emotional body and I have a physical body. And so the important thing is to be able to separate the two and be able to recognize that our physical body, it's like basically been giving us signs and signals through hunger and sleep and having to pee all these things that it's been telling us our emotional self is, you know, how can I explain it? Like I would explain rational versus irrational when I think about emotional and most people would say a rational mindset. They know food is fuel. We know that food has nutrition and food is nourishment. It's when we become emotional or irrational, when we start thinking food is comfort or entertainment or even the enemy. And so any time that we think food is anything, actually as soon as we start thinking about food is when we should start seeing that our mind has gone into survival mode and we have to check in with our body. So like, like almost like to say every single time you have a thought food is a good idea, you say, let me check in with my body.

Kim (00:18:08) - Kind of like if your alarm was going off in your house, you would say, What is going on? Let me check. Then scan my surroundings to make sure I'm safe, because our mind job again is to help us survive in the most pleasurable way. And any discomfort is not pleasure. And so then our mind says food is more fun than the way that I'm feeling. And if this is a practice that we've had for a very long time, then we are trained every single time our chest is tight or we get nervous or overwhelmed to think food is a good idea. If we can get in the in the practice of separating our mind and body and knowing where our mind is, making sure it's present in our body, then we can actually see what is going on in our body and what we need. So like if I said to you, what happens when you have the thought you have to pee, what do you do?

Sarah (00:18:58) - I go to the bathroom after I find the bathroom.

Kim (00:19:01) - Yeah.

Kim (00:19:01) - So most people would say that, but I would say that they then scan their body to see why they're having that thought. So there's that alarm. Then there's the scan. Oh, my bladder is filling up is what? Then what happened? And then they recognize I can probably finish this conversation or I actually start I need to start looking for a toilet. But most people don't wake up in the morning and think, Shit, I'm going to have to pee six times today. Where the fuck is a toilet?

Sarah (00:19:27) - Right? Like you're the midlife bladder, right? But they totally.

Kim (00:19:32) - Don't freak out about it. But they're going to have to pee six times today and sometimes it gets uncomfortable, but we totally forget. It does. And hunger is also coming. It's going to happen. We're going to need to eat 5 or 6 times today, and we don't need to be stressed about it. We need to be in our body trusting that the food is on every corner.

Sarah (00:19:53) - Yeah, no, I like that.

Sarah (00:19:55) - Because the whole idea and I know you talk about this a lot in your book, it's like at the base of living. We we want to know that we're safe.

Kim (00:20:03) - That's it.

Sarah (00:20:04) - Are you fucking safe? Yeah. And if you can tell yourself, if you can check in with your body and your mind and say, yes, I am safe, then everything else becomes less important and less charged.

Kim (00:20:17) - Yeah. And like, if we're worried about. Dropping our kids off at school. There's a time and a place for us to actually spend time worrying about it, right? Like we're going to plan and we're going to do all the things. But we need to be in this moment trusting that we're safe. Actually, right now, I mean, right now we're not so safe. I'm I'm going to take my daughter to school in a couple like next week. And it's not the most safe feeling. But the reality is, in this moment, I'm safe and I need to find joy in the journey and appreciate this moment trusting that it's all going to be okay.

Kim (00:20:48) - Now I can feel, you know, sad, worried, all these things because this is happening and excited for her. I can also feel hunger. So I could be having both of these things going on. But it's important to recognize that just because I'm worried or I'm sad or overwhelmed doesn't mean food is a good idea. It's only a good idea when I'm hungry in my stomach. And that's not scary. But your body interprets it as discomfort because it's basic survival and it's how it communicates to you. It's time to eat. And when, like when you were talking about grapes, if you thought about grapes and then you didn't eat the grapes, what would happen with hunger is it doesn't go away. It gets stronger, gets louder, it gets more obnoxious because, again, it's basic survival. And so it's really important if you're not sure if you're hungry or not to just not eat, you will know soon enough if you need the grapes.

Sarah (00:21:47) - I know and it's interesting that we have this feeling of like, oh my God, I have to eat, I have to eat because our access to food right now is so almost immediate.

Sarah (00:21:57) - You know, it's like Postmates vending machines, Instacart, all the things we can get food when we need it. It's not like we're in the North Pole and we don't have access to it or we're never going to see food again. So it's kind of interesting that it's like so accessible, yet we're still so hyper focused on it. At the same.

Kim (00:22:16) - Time, I think it's the way we're hardwired just for survival and it's the same thing. If I said to you, You can never have a bagel again, that immediate feeling of like, I need one right now. Yeah, right. Like it's just the way that we're hardwired and for survival. And it's up to us to kind of see the way our mind is producing this thought that we need food and to say, why take a deep breath, say, you know what, I'm safe. The food is ten minutes away and I don't need it right now.

Sarah (00:22:42) - Love this book so much because it really is a different approach. I mean, there's so many books that are amazing in there, like eat this much protein, eat this much fiber, you know, all of these things, and they're all important things.

Sarah (00:22:53) - But you're like, Yes, yes, yes. And there's also like a whole other filter that we're missing on this. Yes. And the filter is the relationship with yourself.

Kim (00:23:04) - Yeah.

Sarah (00:23:05) - And with food and and hunger basically mean you can't get to.

Kim (00:23:09) - Fourth grade, fifth grade or sixth grade successfully without passing kindergarten.

Sarah (00:23:14) - Totally. And it makes complete sense. And you talk about how we all have sort of like 3 to 5 emotional triggers in the first six years of our lives. How have you found in your, quote, sort of nutritional therapy experience, like how do those play out and what do we do about that?

Kim (00:23:32) - Well, we're all working on mastering them. That's what I think. We spend our entire lives mastering them. We pick careers to master them. We pick spouses to master them. And so, you know, my story is, is that I, I don't I mean, when I look at my physical triggers or my emotional triggers from my childhood, the first six years, my sister was really tough, you know, So I, I have a whole like I can't even remember the word right now, but like sharing situation, like if somebody's at a table and it's not a comfortable situation or somebody can't hear, I'm like, really have mastered not trying to get involved in changing the seating arrangement, right? Like, I want just everybody to have equal.

Kim (00:24:14) - And it's a real issue for me that I'm working on. So I'm aware of it and I pull myself back. But we develop new triggers when we go through something traumatizing like 911. For some of us, every single person during Covid has been triggered. It looks different for every single person, but we will work on mastering that, right? And when I was 12, I got sick and I ended up in the hospital and for spent a good year on and off in the hospital. And so my trigger really became health. And so I really didn't care about food. And as you know, I don't love to cook. So like food is not I just eat it when I'm hungry. I love the foods I'm eating. You know, that's how I feel about it. But for me in my career, like the way that I am working on mastering it is I had to learn that I'm not responsible for everyone's health. Like I quote something in my book you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink.

Kim (00:25:08) - And I couldn't understand even getting my clients to the water and I couldn't get them to drink it fast enough. Like, here are the answers. Right? That's where I'm working on. I'm here. I'm giving you space to grow and I don't need to push you into the water like you'll get there on your own. I really want that for you. But that's how I'm mastering that particular trigger, right? Yeah.

Sarah (00:25:33) - No, it's interesting because I think for all of us mean it's for this platform in the midlife remix journey, as I call it, instead of the midlife crisis, there's this sort of there's a gap between like where you want to be and where you are now. And it's like all those little steps, Yeah, to get there. But the only person who can do that is you.

Kim (00:25:54) - Yeah, yeah. But we have so many insecurities or so many things. Like I was just on my walk this morning thinking, God, I'm learning so much about myself anyway on a regular basis, but it's so hard to see myself so clearly and the way that I'm coming off or if I'm offending somebody or if my intensity is too much and my intentions are so good, but maybe somebody is coming from a triggering place and they can't see it.

Kim (00:26:23) - So it is we do get in our own way and we don't see it. And it's, I think, just taking deep breaths and keep moving. Like don't stop. Like consistency is the key to everything, right? Everything.

Sarah (00:26:38) - And you say that there are four reasons why we eat, so let's go through them. First, you say we eat for emotional reasons.

Kim (00:26:45) - Yes. Do you want me to explain that?

Sarah (00:26:48) - Yeah. We're going to go through each one quickly.

Kim (00:26:50) - Okay. So how can I explain that? So what happens when we're emotionally triggered is where we start thinking food is comfort, entertainment or the party or my best friend. Right. And so this has been when somebody is emotionally triggered and it could be because a phone call, a deadline, any situation could cause somebody to be emotionally triggered and they rationalize eating whatever they're eating. Maybe it's because it says healthy on it or low calorie or their friend lost weight eating it. And these are emotional reasons, not hunger.

Sarah (00:27:25) - Got it.

Sarah (00:27:26) - Okay. The next one was foods in front of us.

Kim (00:27:29) - Yeah. So we tend to eat 30% more food if it's in front of us. For instance, like every single restaurant, the chef prepares the same portion for every single person. Now, some of us are five two, some of us are six two, some of us are kids, some of us are men. You know, we're all different sizes. We're all coming into this meal at a different hunger level, and we're all served the exact same portion. It's really important for us to recognize the chef can't determine our portion. We need to know what our body needs in this moment and that we're not a trash can. We can eat it later, but we will eat 30% more food if it's in front of us. And we are not intentional. Wow.

Sarah (00:28:13) - And then you also talk in your book about how some of us come to the table, the literal and metaphorical table with like baggage, like, oh, my mom used to make me eat every fucking thing off the plate.

Sarah (00:28:25) - Yeah. And then I could have dessert.

Kim (00:28:27) - Yeah. Oh, my God.

Sarah (00:28:30) - Yeah.

Kim (00:28:31) - Mean and really quickly, the reason why I get so triggered by that, if I could say that, is because if you ate what you really wanted, then your body wouldn't be getting an overload of all this extra. And so your body doesn't know if you're eating like a donut or a banana or lasagna, but your.

Sarah (00:28:50) - Cholesterol knows.

Kim (00:28:51) - Well, we're not there yet. And so what's interesting is that in kindergarten, almost every disease is weight related. And so if we lose the weight, then this actually course corrects almost every single disease.

Sarah (00:29:05) - That's a really interesting way of looking at that.

Kim (00:29:08) - Yeah. And so it's really weight dependent. And then you kind of move after you've lost weight and you're like, Oh my gosh, okay, so let's just make sure your triglycerides and cholesterol in general, everything should be fixed. Got it. Yeah.

Sarah (00:29:21) - Now you have an example. Oh, you have several examples, but the one example that stood out to me was the kid with the chocolate shake.

Sarah (00:29:29) - Yeah, And it kind of. So tell me about that.

Kim (00:29:33) - So in that particular case, this family went to a diner every Friday night and always wanted this kid, always asked for a shake. And the parents were worried because the kid was overweight. And so the parents always said, no, you have to eat your hamburger and French fries. Now, I'm assuming the parents thought the hamburger and French fries was a healthy choice. And so if you eat your hamburger and French fries, then you can have the shake after. And so every week he would eat his hamburger and French fries just so he can have the shake. After a couple of weeks, they finally said, okay, let's just try it Kim's way. And they they let the kid have the shake. And what ended up happening is the child found that the shake wasn't satisfying, which is exactly how I thought it would go. And the child never asked for the shake again. And so what was happening was the parent was actually causing part of the the overweight problem because they were forcing them to eat something that they were rationalizing was a good idea.

Kim (00:30:30) - And because they were afraid that the shake wasn't a good idea.

Sarah (00:30:33) - So after two weeks of getting what the kid wanted, they were like, Oh wait, this makes me feel like shit and I'm so starving. So now I'm not going to have the shake again.

Kim (00:30:41) - Yeah, exactly.

Sarah (00:30:42) - It's so interesting. It's such like a it's like the whole food thing is such a mindfuck.

Kim (00:30:48) - Yeah, Yeah. Can.

Sarah (00:30:49) - It's like someone you can have something, they want it. It's like a whole thing. Yeah. It's like mental gymnastics. It's crazy.

Kim (00:30:57) - I always think you should just. If somebody, if you're struggling, just tell them to have a little less and make sure they safely know it's just right there and hold for the next time they get hungry, right?

Sarah (00:31:07) - No, that makes sense. And what about cravings?

Kim (00:31:10) - So that's the third reason why. One of the reasons and what happens is we have, you know, our body stores sugar in the addiction center of our brain. And so we have physical withdrawals when we eat anything with sugar and we get them about 12 to 24 hours after we've had something.

Kim (00:31:29) - And people are very heavily seduced by sugar, they think it's going to be such a great idea in their mouth, they cannot see past this. It's literally like a pulling a need for it and it's not real. It's just a physical withdrawal. And all you have to do is take some deep breaths, ignore it and it goes away. Usually can take 3 or 4 days of avoiding sugar to absolutely get rid of all sugar cravings. I don't know how realistic it is to never have it. And the idea that you would never have it sounds terrible, but to be very aware that if you had a piece of birthday cake yesterday, there's a 100% chance that you will find yourself in your pantry the next day looking for something under every single rock. And just to be aware you're not hungry. It's only because of the birthday cake the day before and tell your mind you're safe and to get out of the pantry.

Sarah (00:32:24) - Now, some people would say, well, if you have oatmeal for breakfast instead of a savory, protein filled breakfast, it's sort of like the same thing.

Sarah (00:32:32) - It's not you get into all of that.

Kim (00:32:34) - Yeah, it's not the same thing. I mean, sugar, any kind of white sugar is going to cause sugar cravings. So oatmeal is not a white sugar.

Sarah (00:32:46) - Even though it's carb and it's more glycemic and not at all the same.

Kim (00:32:50) - 100%. Not the same. Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah (00:32:53) - What about. Okay, so physical hunger is the fourth reason. And that's your favorite, favorite, favorite reason.

Kim (00:33:01) - Why isn't everybody talking about hunger? I mean, because we don't even know we're.

Sarah (00:33:05) - For fucking hungry or not. Because people are, you know, some experts are, like intermittent fast, and then other people are like, don't intermittent fast. And you're just like, What the fuck? I don't get it.

Kim (00:33:17) - So the reality is, is that it comes down to having a good quality of life, preventing disease and being well. And the way we do it is we balance blood sugar and we balance blood sugar by eating every three hours. This tells our body that we're safe.

Kim (00:33:34) - And so it helps us process all the foods we're eating. It helps us keep our blood sugar balanced. And when we eat every three hours and we eat as much as we need now trusting, we're going to eat again in three hours, our body gives up what is stored. If we overeat now, we won't be hungry in three hours, but we might eat something at lunch, but we weren't hungry for it. And we start this process of having not having room in the tank and our body stores that is fat. So we want to be really careful about making sure we're eating just as much as we need now, trusting we're going to eat again in three hours, allowing ourselves to get hungry but not stay hungry. And most people will say hunger is very scary and that's not true.

Sarah (00:34:18) - Do you find that? To sort of mitigate that potential fear of hunger that if, let's say I came to you and I was like, no, but like, what if I'm like at my job and I'm going to get hungry? Like, if I bring a snack with me, am I going to eat that snack or am I going to say to myself, You know what, I don't even need that snack because I'm safe and I know it's there.

Sarah (00:34:42) - Like, what have you found? Yeah.

Kim (00:34:43) - So what if I said to you, You know what? You're going to work all day, you're going to go back to back meetings, and why don't you pee right now? So I'm not going to let you really go the rest of the day. That immediately becomes restrictive, constricting and fearful. And the truth is, is that we can find a toilet when we need to. We trust we'll find a toilet even though we have back to back meetings. It might get uncomfortable. So why can't we have food or snack available? Trusting We're going to get hungry. Why do we have to prevent hunger from coming? It's coming. It's already coming. We already know. Historically, you eat 3 to 5 times a day. I promise you, on Tuesday, next week, you still will need to eat. Same with Wednesday. So as long as you start gaining trust and recognizing I can have a bite, I can even eat while I'm on this podcast with you, nothing is stopping me.

Kim (00:35:35) - We can have a snack. I don't want. I mean, the best is, you know, remember when we were younger and our kids would have these two hour pizza parties? And I remember my clients even saying like, I'm going to a party and there's going to be pizza. Oh, my God, it's two hours. Two hours. You're going to What are you doing before? What are you doing after? Like, can you socialize? Can you enjoy the environment you're in? Like, you can eat the pizza, but do you need the pizza? What is going on?

Sarah (00:36:03) - Right. No, it makes sense. It's like when you pull yourself out and you zoom out from it, you're like, Everything Kim says makes sense. But like, in the moment, you become like, you have no idea what you're talking about or even thinking.

Kim (00:36:17) - So let's say we're like neurotic about it. That only means that our mind is somewhere other than this moment. And in this moment, I'm safe.

Kim (00:36:25) - I'm not even hungry.

Sarah (00:36:26) - Got it. It's interesting. That's why I said, like reading the book, I was like, Do I want the grapes? Do I not need the grapes? Like. And then I started becoming like, grape, hyper focused. Yeah.

Kim (00:36:35) - So don't be hyper focused. That's the opposite was.

Sarah (00:36:38) - Only because I was reading about it and I was because I don't ask myself that much. Like, am I hungry? You know, I have to sort of get my mind into that mode. It's an interesting thing because we do eat because shit is there.

Kim (00:36:50) - Yeah, Yes, we do. But here's what I want everyone to know. We have 60,000 thoughts a day, so our heartbeats, our lungs breathe, our stomach digest. We are self regulating body that does all these things right. Our mind produces thoughts in response to what we see, smell, feel, hear, in touch on purpose to help us survive. It's that simple. Our mind is going to give us ideas to help us have the most fun in this moment.

Kim (00:37:17) - Not every moment is fun. We don't have to have fun in every moment, but our mind is trying to make this moment fun. And we just have to say to our mind we're okay. I'm okay. That I'm slightly boring. Yeah, we we are.

Sarah (00:37:29) - None of us like discomfort mean that's the bottom line on everything. Yeah.

Kim (00:37:33) - And if we think hunger is scary. Oh, boy.

Sarah (00:37:37) - Oh, my gosh. Whoa! Now let's talk about your six simple rules. Okay, so the first part you say before you get into the six rules is you got to figure out what your why is. Yeah, tell me about the wise person.

Kim (00:37:54) - So most people will say I'm here to lose weight for this event or I've I want to lose £30 because, you know, my doctor said I should. And so I want to change the why from losing weight to keeping weight off and to having a normal relationship with food.

Sarah (00:38:13) - Got it. So in your experience, what has been what have been the most successful wise? Is that a word? Is that a does that make sense? Yeah.

Kim (00:38:23) - Yeah. And it should be, in my opinion, I don't love that word should, but I'm going to use it here. It should be for peace of mind. I like to follow these six simple rules. The reality is they help you lose weight and they help you stay the same weight. That's the side effect of following these six simple rules. They improve your health. That's the side effect. And so if you follow them, you're actually achieving your why. If your why is normal, I want to have a normal relationship, which is just like the one we have with our bladder.

Sarah (00:38:58) - Hopefully just. Yeah, exactly.

Kim (00:39:01) - There are a few exceptions.

Sarah (00:39:03) - Now, you say that you want your why you want your clients wise to be their superpower. How does it become their superpower?

Kim (00:39:14) - Yeah. So willpower is very short lived. Inner power is a posturing. Right. So in for instance and I think I shared this in the book, my daughter, we used to go to the mall and she would get a Wetzel pretzel and she would get a stomachache.

Kim (00:39:29) - And so I would say to her as a dietitian, I had one opinion. And, you know, as what I'm practicing, what I'm preaching, what I said to her was, I wonder if it's the pretzel, why don't you try eating half and seeing if you still get a stomach ache? And she did. And she did. She got another stomach ache. And I said, Oh, I wonder if it's the pretzel. Maybe let's try getting a different snack. So what ends up happening is she became empowered. The pretzel makes my stomach hurt and I don't want it now. It hurting her stomach. I could say to her in a couple of months. Try the pretzel again. Right. Like it's not a permanent thing, but right now you're sensitive to it. Let's see how you are in a couple of months. Right. And so what happens is we become empowered and that's inner power.

Sarah (00:40:14) - So. Yeah. And you also talk about how instead of saying to someone or saying to yourself, like, I'm not allowed to have that pretzel, you say, let's try or experiment.

Sarah (00:40:26) - Not having the pretzel. Yeah, see what happens because it's less alarming to tell someone to just fucking try something than it is like, you can't have that.

Kim (00:40:36) - Yeah. Our mind will go apeshit in any form of restriction. And even for myself, I have to experiment. I'm just going to do this temporarily trusting I'm going to have it again. Right? It's very that's a very safe thing. It's very important that we feel safe.

Sarah (00:40:53) - Yeah. I think the inner power versus willpower is an interesting concept for sure. Yes. We're all like, Can we do it? Can we do it?

Kim (00:41:01) - We don't want to do hard. And our mind, that is discomfort and we like to do everything the way we did it yesterday and we sleepwalk through most of our behaviors. And so if now I have to be intentional and alert and awake, that's hard.

Sarah (00:41:15) - Oh, it's so annoying. But in the end it's so good. It's like all of midlife, every single thing I've done is so annoying and so hard, but I fucking love it in the end.

Kim (00:41:25) - Well, staying in the heart and staying in the discomfort is what we realize. Like, that wasn't so hard. That wasn't so uncomfortable. And I'm really proud of myself. Totally. That's in her.

Sarah (00:41:35) - Power. In her power. Okay, so rule number one, Eat when I'm hungry. Oh, my God. But how do I know if I'm hungry? Yeah, if.

Kim (00:41:45) - You don't know, don't eat. But you will know soon enough. Hunger doesn't go away. Gets stronger.

Sarah (00:41:52) - Okay. Good answer. Okay. Now eat half. Wait 15 minutes. Yeah, let's get into that. I do want to say to you that I had a hairdresser once and. And I hadn't seen her for a few months, and I saw her and I was like, oh, my God, like, you've lost so much weight. What did you do? And she goes, I just ate half. And I'm like, What? And this was like years ago. She's like, And it made me laugh.

Sarah (00:42:19) - When I was reading your book, she was like, Yeah, I would like order the fucking enchiladas. I ate half of it and I lost like £30. And I was like, Oh, okay, now and then. Now you're talking about that. I'm like, That's so weird.

Kim (00:42:31) - Okay, so here's how it works. We all have this hormone ghrelin that tells our brain we've had enough food and it doesn't hit for 15 minutes. So we can if we're hungry, we're going to overeat because we're going to eat all our food in six minutes, three minutes, and then we're not going to know for 15 minutes if it was too much. But if we slow down how fast we eat that first half and we wait 15 minutes, that hormone then tells our brain, You've had enough. And sometimes it says you still need more because it's not always the same. But eating half is that fail safe if you want to lose weight.

Sarah (00:43:08) - Interesting. But like, do you go through this with clients? Like, I don't know, like if you didn't sleep well the night before or you worked out extra hard one day like that, 15 minutes might feel really different each day.

Kim (00:43:21) - I didn't say it was going to be comfortable. And again, our brain doesn't like discomfort, right? And so it's up to us to then say to our minds like, hey, you're fueled. The other half is sitting right there. I'm just going to experiment to see how I feel. And if you can distract yourself, it's like almost 99% of the time, enough food for right now. Because again, like, if I pee right now, it doesn't mean I'm not going to pee later. Like I'm going to need food again. So I'm only eating what I need now, but I'm going to eat again. I might eat again in two hours. I might eat again in three hours If I eat and I'm not hungry for 4 or 5 hours, I overate. You want to be hungry every three hours.

Sarah (00:44:05) - Interesting. Okay. And then you say, I like how you say that you have this you have your clients repeat this mantra like ten times when they're triggered and they're like, Fuck, am I hungry? I don't know what's happening? And you basically say, I have everything I need inside of me to survive this moment.

Kim (00:44:23) - Yeah, that's inner power.

Sarah (00:44:25) - That's what I'm going to be saying when I'm dropping my son off. And you're right.

Kim (00:44:29) - That's it's true. And again, like, that's so posturing, like the opposite of willpower. Like willpower is like, I need a little bit of everything to survive this moment. We have everything we need in us to survive this one that's.

Sarah (00:44:42) - So.

Kim (00:44:42) - Hard. No, we're not going to like all the moments.

Sarah (00:44:45) - I know. Rule number two you love. Okay, That can be kind of confusing. So break that down for us.

Kim (00:44:51) - Okay, so it's what you love, but make sure the food loves you back. So, again, this is the pretzel for my daughter, right? So she loves the pretzel, but the pretzel didn't love her back. And so anything that causes like headache, problems with your eyes, your nose running, clearing your throat, heartburn, burping, bloating, nausea, stomach aches, sour stomach, diarrhea, constipation, joint pain, things like that.

Kim (00:45:14) - They don't love you back.

Sarah (00:45:16) - Right. What if I eat macaroni and cheese and I don't get a stomachache? And I'm like, Oh my God, I love that.

Kim (00:45:22) - Then whoever's been telling you it's bad has been lying. So I am completely lactose intolerant. That might not be a good choice for me. It doesn't love me back. So maybe I find a mac and cheese that is an alternative that doesn't upset my stomach. Right? This is just an opportunity for you to grow and to get curious. I have a client, the other, who was saying to me, I really just love apples and peanut butter as a snack. And I'm like, okay, is there anything else you'll eat? And he said, Well, that's what I like. And I said, okay, but I'm picturing a supermarket. And like, apples and peanut butter are like 1/1000 of an entire supermarket. Like you're not even looking at how many other things you can have, right? So you can love mac and cheese, but do you have to have it like, I love Hawaii, but I don't need to be there right now.

Sarah (00:46:10) - Right. So you can love it but not have to have it all the time.

Kim (00:46:14) - Yeah. And find alternatives that agree with your body. Because ultimately our job is like, my job is to make you feel or for you to feel. Well, see, I'm still mastering it. Yeah.

Sarah (00:46:23) - No, we all mean honestly. We all are. Okay, so we talked about the chocolate shake. We talked about the banana. And let's talk about the Lucky Charms. You said you almost called your book Eat the Lucky Charms for breakfast.

Kim (00:46:37) - Yeah. Why? You should eat the Lucky Charms.

Sarah (00:46:39) - Why you should eat the Lucky Charms for breakfast. And why is that?

Kim (00:46:42) - So you can see if they agree with your body or not. We can say it's you know why you should have mac and cheese for breakfast or not. It's just basically to see the food that you've been restricting or thinking is bad. Is it bad for you? Is it making you sick? And it could it could 100% not agree with you.

Kim (00:47:00) - But it's more important for you to have the Lucky Charms and recognize I don't really like Lucky Charms. I don't really want that shake. That's not satisfying.

Sarah (00:47:09) - I guess if you eat the Lucky charms and you maybe you don't get sick from it, but you're hungry in 20 minutes, right?

Kim (00:47:16) - There's a lot of things.

Sarah (00:47:17) - Yeah. That's not loving you back either.

Kim (00:47:19) - Right? And so you figuring out what satisfying to you is more important?

Sarah (00:47:25) - Yeah. So you don't. So if your client said to you, I want to eat Lucky Charms every day for breakfast, would you be okay with that?

Kim (00:47:32) - I would. And I would tell them to have a small bowl and start with half and see how they feel. Yeah, Yeah. And I can pretty much guarantee how that's going to go.

Sarah (00:47:44) - Tell us.

Kim (00:47:45) - I don't think that they will end up seeing it as a love affair and they will start craving in their mind something that is more like substantial. Right. So like I they might want to add vegetables or eggs or toast.

Kim (00:48:05) - I could see that that would change. A lot for them. But, you know, I had one client who. Was pretty much verbally assaulted in her house every time she wanted a pastry or something sweet by her husband. And so I said, go for it. You have permission to eat anything you want. And so she just ate pastries for breakfast, lunch and dinner. She lost £10.

Sarah (00:48:32) - Oh, my God.

Kim (00:48:33) - And she was completely flabbergasted because she was eating chocolate croissants and foods that she had never allowed herself to eat. And so she was thrilled that she had lost weight. And after about three weeks of eating the pastries nonstop, she decided she was ready for something heartier. That was more satisfying. And I'm pretty much sure she's never gone back to pastries.

Sarah (00:48:57) - Wow. And what did her husband have to say during that whole time?

Kim (00:49:00) - He had to bite his tongue. I told him he wasn't allowed to police her.

Sarah (00:49:04) - Oh, my God, It's so complicated. Okay, I know.

Kim (00:49:08) - But three weeks of pastries are a lifetime of bingeing on them.

Sarah (00:49:12) - No, it makes complete sense. Okay. Rule number three. Eat without distractions. That's so hard.

Kim (00:49:17) - Yeah. So we have to put away all the things that are in front of us. The physical distractions. Food is really, really, really, really boring. We we love food. It is fuel, but we don't want to be alone with it. Yeah. And so the challenge is just sit, sit and be with your food, taste your food, enjoy your food. And what you're going to find is your hand is already readying the next bite even while you're chewing food. We have a really hard time being with our food and this isn't a permanent thing. You don't have to stay away from distractions. You know, family can be distractions, lots of things. But you have to get mindful. You have to kind of see why am I putting that next bite in my mouth before I'm even done with this bite? You know, where's the reward? Yeah.

Sarah (00:50:04) - And you say you should put your fork down, you should put.

Kim (00:50:07) - Your fork down, you should chew your food a little longer than you think necessary because you're in a relationship with your body and your body needs your mouth to break down the food, to get the vitamins in the food.

Sarah (00:50:19) - And what about leaving the glass of water on the kitchen counter? That kind of piqued my interest a little bit.

Kim (00:50:24) - Yeah. People do a lot of walk bys, like where they go in and they grab grapes and they might rationalize their healthy. I'm not sure for a lot of reasons. They're bored, they're tired, they're stressed. And so I like the idea of everybody putting a pitcher of water with a pretty glass on the counter and creating a new habit that every time they walk into the kitchen, they start with water. It puts space between the thought to eat and the action to eat.

Sarah (00:50:47) - I know my husband said to me, he goes, I realized, like when I actually thought about it, like I probably had three handfuls of cashews.

Sarah (00:50:54) - Yeah. He's like, I didn't even need to eat those cashews. Yeah, and we all have them.

Kim (00:51:00) - Yeah, yeah. And we rationalize them. Maybe we're not aware.

Sarah (00:51:04) - Should be like in a different floor than the main floor that you're on all the time. You know what I mean? Like, needs to be in its own basement or something.

Kim (00:51:10) - Yeah, that sounds about. That sounds like a great idea. If anybody. If everybody had the ability to have that, that'd be awesome.

Sarah (00:51:16) - Yeah, exactly. It's like the kitchen just, like, can't be near me. Oh, my God. Okay, rule number four, 10,000 steps. Oh, my God. That gives me, like, a panic attack.

Kim (00:51:26) - Yeah. So then the average American gets between 3 and 4000. So even if we're getting 7000, we're doing great. And this is like, supposed to be about progress. This is not supposed to be about perfection. And you're you ultimately do want to have those 10,000 steps.

Kim (00:51:43) - You want to be active, you want to move your body. We have a lot of stress. We have a lot of things that need to be moved. And we do that through moving our body and through breathing. So 7000 steps helps people like decrease their risk of sudden death by 50%. It also lowers your risk of Alzheimer's and tons of other diseases. But 10,000 steps is really important for maintaining your weight. And ultimately that's what we all want.

Sarah (00:52:10) - Now is a step like if you're wearing a Fitbit or some kind of wearable and you do a weight workout, Are those are part of those movements?

Kim (00:52:20) - Good question. Yeah, it's a good question. It shouldn't really be.

Sarah (00:52:24) - Steps 10,000 steps like mean isn't 10,000 steps like five miles.

Kim (00:52:29) - It's five miles. Yeah. So no, the weights are included, right? Like any time I move my hands, I'm stepping it. Just got it. The way we're using steps is not great, the word but movement move 10,000 times.

Sarah (00:52:43) - Because I'm like, God, I hope I do.

Sarah (00:52:44) - Because I mean, if you think about it, walking five miles takes a mean unless you're like really fast. It takes a long time. And unless you're like willing to commit that kind of time every single day to walk five miles, it sounds like a lot.

Kim (00:52:57) - It's a very important part of taking care of you, doing something every day to, you know, have that time. Yes, we need it. We need it.

Sarah (00:53:07) - Rule number five, water.

Kim (00:53:09) - Well, it's a way that we detox, you know, just talking, breathing, sleeping, pooping, urinating. We lose water. And if we don't drink enough, it basically our body sorts, it stores fat and toxins. So it's a way to help our inflammation. It's a way to help our body lose weight. It's really good for every single organ.

Sarah (00:53:28) - Now, what are your thoughts on adding things to water? Because some people say, well, if you drink water at a certain point, it's not really hydrating enough. You should have electrolytes or you add like sea salt or whatever to the water.

Sarah (00:53:43) - So it has some kind of mineral capacity. What are your thoughts on that?

Kim (00:53:46) - I think every body is totally different and some people have a hard time absorbing water. And if you eat a high protein diet, you're not going to be able to absorb water. So you definitely need to be adding salt. So minerals are important for people who are not getting them. And if. For having a hard time absorbing water. And it depends, like if you're living in Arizona and it's 110, you know, every minute of the day or 120, you're going to need help absorbing water and drinking, making sure you're getting enough water. Right. So it really is dependent on what's going on in your particular case. In general, we can get water from the foods we're eating from the sodas or coffee or soups, but those are not what I would count as water. So I just like eight cups. And depending on what's going on with you, you might need a little help. But in general, most of us don't.

Sarah (00:54:38) - Now, do you have a routine for your water where, like, I know some people are like, Oh, well, I drink one cup at the end of every hour or whatever. Like, do you have any mind games that you play with your.

Kim (00:54:48) - I just keep this big thing of water on my desk. And so this is a mason jar with four cups and I just make sure that I drink two of them a day while I'm walking. I try and drink three cups. Like I just try and bring water where I go. It's definitely not an easy thing to do, but I think making sure that you have a plan and being consistent. So yeah, I.

Sarah (00:55:09) - Mean, I can see, okay, rule number six, sleep. That is like, Oh my God.

Kim (00:55:13) - Yeah. So there's lots of sleep issues, but we need to make sure that we're consistent again with what time we go to sleep and what time we wake up. And our body actually will thrive hormonally, physically and in all ways.

Kim (00:55:26) - When we get a consistent sleep system going. If we miss an hour of sleep, it's a little bit like being jet lagged. And we tend to choose foods that are more inflammatory or higher in fat. We we tend to make poor choices and our motivation is lower in all things. So sleep is important. Yeah.

Sarah (00:55:46) - Oh, okay. So of all your midlife female clients, what do you think is the hardest step? Is there one?

Kim (00:55:55) - I think a lot people struggle with to start with the half, but I think I mean, midlife people start the water is hard to everybody, you know, has urinary issues or doesn't you know, might not be able to make it to the bathroom. So definitely do those key goals. There are these amazing drum systems that gynecologists now have in their offices. We need to drink the water. So if you're having a year like a urine issue, you definitely need to figure out what's going on there. But don't get in your own way. You got to figure it out.

Sarah (00:56:26) - Okay. What about boredom in connection?

Kim (00:56:30) - I would say join your amazing program for connection. I think that like when we're eating because we're bored or because we're using it as entertainment, it's an opportunity for us to really find new things that we love to do.

Sarah (00:56:46) - Or if you're always going out for a meal to meet friends, maybe it's like you pick something else to do. So it's not always a meal.

Kim (00:56:54) - I think that's a great idea. Yeah.

Sarah (00:56:56) - Yeah. And in terms of like midlife women with hormones, cravings feeling irrelevant, starting to feel invisible, like, what is your advice for that? All of that, I mean, other than HRT or whatever?

Kim (00:57:14) - Well, definitely talk to your doctor about HRT. I would honestly, it sounds like they need to connect. So find whatever group you can join. Women should be empowering other women. So find a friend that you can either start a gratitude text chain and just grow it. Just start these connections because women need women to connect. Right.

Kim (00:57:37) - So, I mean, I really love what you're doing, so thank you. Yeah. More. More of that, please.

Sarah (00:57:43) - Yeah, I just. I just sort of feel like this idea of, like, the midlife brunch table, it's not necessarily like, are we having crepes today or are we having eggs? It's like we're all together in this space and not all of us are going to have the same exact issues, but they're fairly similar and they might look a little different. But at the end of the day, like I found my live event here at my house, like there were certain women who were like big time career women. And then there were people like me who were, you know, stay at home moms who have been historically stay at home moms. And I think all of us had this idea that at the you know, that our experiences would be so vastly different. And at the end of the day, they weren't. Yeah, it was like we were all whether we had, quote, out of the house jobs or not, we were all craving connection.

Sarah (00:58:32) - We were all experiencing sort of the sense of like lack of relevance and meaning and all of these things. And I think that sometimes it's necessary to, like, really think about like, who your group is. Do you need to add people to it? Do you perhaps need to audit and delete some people out who are kind of like energy zapping you? And it doesn't mean like you never speak to them again or whatever, but we so rarely take that time to do that kind of evaluation. And I think if we felt a little more satisfied in certain relationships and in terms of like joy and pleasure, maybe we would not be so focused on food.

Kim (00:59:13) - I mean, 100%. You are correct. Yeah. One of my favorite quotes is we accept the love we think we deserve from Perks of Being a Wallflower. And I think, you know, we can talk about our outer relationships. You know, we accept the love we think we deserve, but it's really about, am I giving myself the love that I think I deserve and what can I do to improve the way that I give myself love? And it is connection.

Kim (00:59:40) - And I think a lot of women have a lot of problems thinking that they have to please other people or they they want to please other people before they please themselves. And I, I'm all about first please yourself. So you're available to everybody else. And there's nothing selfish about taking care of your body. It's the opposite. So think that that would be a great place to start is be a little bit more selfish.

Sarah (01:00:06) - Yeah, I'd say I have this thing where I'm like, okay, in midlife, midlife self obsession is approved. It's not narcissistic. It's none of those things. It's like we have spent so long taking care of kids and spouses or jobs or whatever that it gets to a point in your life where you're like, okay, this this is like me time right now.

Kim (01:00:26) - Yeah, yeah. You know, it's shocking. I hear a lot of clients say, I have meetings that require me to meet for drinks and they never want to have the drinks, which is really interesting. But I would tell you, in a week I might have ten clients say to me, I have drinks, meetings.

Kim (01:00:43) - I'm not in the mood for, I don't want to have it. It's not like how I pictured my day. Like, think about your you're adding a drink to your day that you hadn't even wanted as part of a meeting, Right? What that does to you? Like, it's basically saying no to me. I'm saying no to me and I'm saying yes to you. That's that. Let me please you because you want to have a drink for this meeting. And and then I say to them, you know, I have lots of clients who are alcoholics or recovering alcoholics who go to the same bar and they have no problem saying sparkling water with lime, please. Right. And it's so hard to make that decision when someone else is choosing a drink to say, I'm going to have sparkling water. I'm choosing me right now because I really want to go home and I want to get on the peloton or I want to go for a walk and I don't want to be. Do I want to have a good night's sleep, Right? We have to start making decisions that are feeling scary.

Kim (01:01:37) - And they're about taking care of us. We have to.

Sarah (01:01:40) - Yeah. Mean alcohol and me. It's like a whole other story because I. I don't drink at all.

Kim (01:01:46) - Me neither. Really.

Sarah (01:01:47) - You know, And I never have. I didn't even in college. So when people are like, oh, my God. And when women are like, I can't give up the wine or this or that, I'm like, that's not my issue. My issue is like the sugar.

Kim (01:01:58) - Yeah. So it's the same too. But sugar is addicting in a different way.

Sarah (01:02:02) - Yes, yes, we all have our vices, but like for me, I have no problem ordering the sparkling water at the drinks meeting.

Kim (01:02:09) - Yeah, but think you should say that louder. Like it's. It's like that right there is so hard for many people and that's. I think it's just because it's.

Sarah (01:02:19) - I don't enjoy it and I don't want it. So it's for me, it's not it's not a charged thing.

Kim (01:02:24) - I'm hearing so many women clients say they don't want it either, but they're still doing it.

Kim (01:02:30) - And it's and we can we can say it's about the meeting and the drink, but it's really also the food that they're ordering or they're allowing somebody else to order for them or to dictate what's going to be on the table. Like we have to have a louder voice and what we want to do for ourselves.

Sarah (01:02:47) - Yeah, no, it makes complete sense. And it's like other people's sort of experiences dictating our own. It's it's complicated. Yeah.

Kim (01:02:56) - And we have to be less people pleasing.

Sarah (01:02:58) - Yes, exactly. Welcome to midlife. Hell. Exactly. Okay, now, what about I heard you talk on a couple podcasts about, you know, women who are in your practice like antidepressants or the women taking like doing the Ozempic and the Wigo or whatever. And I know you're not super anti it because you have this mindset of like people need to do what they need to do. So where does that fit into your whole scope?

Kim (01:03:25) - Again, I'm all about sustainability. Okay, so even if you said to me like I'm eating a high protein diet, I might I'm definitely not for that.

Kim (01:03:34) - What I want to do is open your mind to more. What more can we do and how can I make you feel safe, right? The Ozempic is here, so we're going to just accept that it's here and now I'm going to help you open your mind to if you don't change it, it was for nothing. Right. So every I just kind of like to meet people where they're at and open their mind. We have to change. We have to change. And change is hard and our mind doesn't like hard and we're going to do it anyway.

Sarah (01:04:06) - Yeah, no, it's true. It's true. And you say that because I mean, you basically say in the book that taking medications is not going to negate bad lifestyle choices. So like, yeah, you might be quote, thinner, but I don't know, maybe you're not drinking enough water or you have all these other issues or you're what is it called, skinny fat?

Kim (01:04:28) - Yeah, Yeah.

Sarah (01:04:29) - You know, where you have a really high, you know, you don't have enough muscle mass, but you're super skinny and.

Kim (01:04:34) - That's a problem. You can also be skinny, constipated. You can also be skinny with heartburn. You can also be, you know, all these other issues. So again, you have to have that solid foundation so you can advance.

Sarah (01:04:46) - So if somebody comes to you and says, Oh my gosh, Kim, I've read all this research on intermittent fasting, you're like, don't care.

Kim (01:04:53) - I mean, I am like, okay, I'm going to try not to roll my eyes here, you know, for real. But the reality is, is we all have this human body that definitely needs to sleep. And so we shouldn't be eating 3 to 4 hours before we go to bed and then we're going to sleep for 7 to 9 hours. And then we should get up and we should be hungry. That's already a fast, right?

Sarah (01:05:15) - So that's like a 12 hour fast versus like the 16 or 18.

Kim (01:05:20) - Yeah, I mean, yeah. And so I've had lots of clients say I'm doing the intermittent fasting and I ran out of time with my cutoff time.

Kim (01:05:28) - So I just went to Starbucks and I grabbed, you know, some biscotti and like a cupcake or like a muffin. Right, Right. So what lessons are you learning there?

Sarah (01:05:39) - Well, I guess you sort of feel like maybe you're turning down the inflammation by the intermittent fasting. I'm not sure. I don't know. Then you're adding it back in somewhere else? I'm not.

Kim (01:05:50) - Sure. So it's right. So I'm. I don't know.

Sarah (01:05:54) - Oh, my God. Now, how do we deal with, like, the whole blood sugar thing? Because there's, like. There's this feeling because I definitely ride the line on blood sugar issues. You know, there's that feeling of, like, I'm hungry, and there's that feeling of, like, I feel kind of shaky and weird.

Kim (01:06:10) - Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you're having low blood sugar, a little hypoglycemic, but not physically hungry, right? So there are actually little glucose tabs that you can get at the pharmacy that are like kind of like little Mentos candy.

Sarah (01:06:25) - I've seen those. Yeah. I don't know what they are.

Kim (01:06:28) - They have like 7 to 8g of glucose, which basically give you some sort of sugar for your bloodstream. So you're not having hypoglycemia. So that's one way because you're not eating food, but you are needing sugar. So basically our liver is what spits out sugar 24 hours a day. We have about a teaspoon at all times going through our system. We have a system in our liver called a glucose stat, so it's kind of monitoring our glucose. And in order for it to be safe and to give up what is stored, this is what needs food or fuel every three hours. And so if you're getting if you're on the low blood sugar spectrum and having hypoglycemia, you do want to balance your food with some protein and fat. So making sure that you're having your food lasts a little longer and holding you a little bit longer. But if you're having low blood sugar, you you need to eat a little bit of carbohydrate.

Sarah (01:07:29) - Interesting.

Sarah (01:07:29) - Okay. Yeah, because I feel like a lot of women in this sort of age zone, midlife zone are becoming insulin resistant.

Kim (01:07:36) - Yeah. And that is usually because they're in high stress. Their hormones are changing all over the place. They're not sleeping well. And our body detects not sleeping as stress. It screws up our adrenal hormones, which is, you know, estrogen, testosterone and progesterone. So it just becomes this fuel cycle and then we start metabolizing sugars differently. And that's where we're insulin resistant.

Sarah (01:07:59) - So do you find that a lot of your clients, based on their medical providers, get a lot of benefit from, let's say, an HRT or something like that to kind of get everything baseline before they're making all these lifestyle changes? Like do you find they go hand in hand?

Kim (01:08:16) - Yeah, I mean, I am a huge supplement fan. I think we, you know, sometimes we need support. A lot of times we need support. It's temporary. So HRT prevents disease later. So we really need to make sure that we're balanced.

Kim (01:08:31) - A lot of people are terrified of it and should probably ask 3 or 4 of their different doctor friends or doctors in their life to see what they think. I think HRT is so important. Even if you're a cancer survivor, I think that you need to really do your due diligence and see what the research is. I think that's one way of getting really good support. So much of our extra anxiety or sleeplessness or weight is related to our hormone imbalance and change.

Sarah (01:09:01) - Yeah, because I would think that if you're sort of like this spraying fire hose of being all over the place, that it's sometimes hard to sort of enact and do those lifestyle changes if you just feel like a hot mess all the time. I mean, for me, I'm on birth control pills. That's not great either, but it is estrogen and I'm not a hot mess all the time. I mean, maybe sometimes, but not all the time. So, you know, it does make it easier for me to, like, get out of bed in the morning, do the dumb fucking weights, you know? You know, do all the things.

Kim (01:09:31) - We really need. The dumb fucking weights mean we're aging and we need that muscle. We really need it. So, like, you need to be getting up and you need to be doing it. So again, this idea of consistency, we if we're inflamed and if we're not sleeping, we're having lower motivation. And I'm just going to like remind you to do it anyway. Like you may not want to do it. You got to do it anyway.

Sarah (01:09:54) - We make our kids do shit they don't want to do, right?

Kim (01:09:57) - How to do it?

Sarah (01:09:58) - This test, do that. Take this extra class like you got to do soccer.

Kim (01:10:03) - Yeah, but do it in the way that you love to do it. But get it done.

Sarah (01:10:07) - Do it. Okay. Getting it done. Okay. So I heard you talk about how that the best way to start this journey is to talk to your ten year old self and your current self. Tell me about that.

Kim (01:10:19) - So, I mean, I often think about my younger self and what what she would need.

Kim (01:10:26) - And, you know, I try and like really think about I think about that, you know, and wow, you know, you know, can I, I want to let her know how loved she is and how taking care of she is. But then even going forward and talking to your older self, you know, what would she say to your current self and what advice would she give you? And I think that's equally as important as going back is going forward and recognizing like, I'm okay where I am. I see where I'm going and I want to take great care in making sure I'm doing that. I'm following through, you know, but also talking to your older self and your older self saying, do this, This is what you need to do. Like have this conversation. Maybe write a letter from your older self to yourself now.

Sarah (01:11:12) - So, you know, I love all of that. And I think part of that, too, is a version of that is, you know, it's like you look at your parents and you're like, okay, where did they not know enough? Where could they have done more? Yeah.

Sarah (01:11:25) - You know what I mean? Those kinds of things. And you're like, okay, what can I do right now? That's that's, that's going to get me to a different result in some fucking.

Kim (01:11:35) - Dumb.

Sarah (01:11:36) - Fucking way.

Kim (01:11:38) - I know we need balance. We need our muscle, right? We don't need restriction.

Sarah (01:11:44) - I know, but it's like the way it's the walking, it's all the things. But, you know, again, it's like, I guess it's just like you said, it's not a diet, it's a lifestyle. And it's like I really try to remind myself. It's like I don't have to work out. I get to work out. But it's really hard to kind of retrain your brain into that mode, you know? Yeah, it.

Kim (01:12:05) - Is. But if you're consistent, what happens is it becomes your new automatic. Yeah. And those are your values. Kind of like, this is who I am now. This is the kind of person I go to a restaurant, I order when I'm hungry, I eat what I need, trusting I can have more.

Kim (01:12:20) - And I don't worry if that restaurant is in Italy. Or at home, right?

Sarah (01:12:25) - My parents always split a meal and I'm like, I used to be like, Oh my God, that's so fucking annoying. But if you think about it, it's probably the better thing to do, right?

Kim (01:12:34) - Eating half. That's so funny. That's so. I'm like, Can you guys.

Sarah (01:12:38) - See each order your own thing? And they're like, No, we're just flooding it. But like, now it makes complete sense. I'm like, okay, Kim would agree with that. Yeah. Can't wait for 15 minutes. I guess you can before you order something else. You know, like when you get sushi, they're like always like, well, do you want to order more? Like you can always order more. So I always try to say to my kids like, let's not over order the sushi because you're going to leave four pieces at the end. Like, let's do it as we go along here, right?

Kim (01:13:05) - Like, and that's the thing.

Kim (01:13:06) - I'm not even kidding. When I was rushing off the phone with my mom one time and to go to Bloomingdales and she was like, Kim, there's always a sale. And I was like, Is that true? Wait, are you serious? There's always a sale. And then. And then I'm like, okay, shit. Now I got to actually pay attention. And there was always a sale and sushi. You can always order more. I mean, that's the thing.

Sarah (01:13:27) - That's why we.

Kim (01:13:28) - Tell us we're safe. We're safe.

Sarah (01:13:30) - Oh, my God. That's why I love your book so much. Because it's like it's not none of it's rocket science, like in terms of dieting and, you know, getting well, we all kind of know we should eat what we should eat. We should be drinking water, all the things. But it's sort of the messenger and how it's packaged.

Kim (01:13:48) - Yeah.

Sarah (01:13:49) - You know, and I think you package it in like a very digestible, friendly way where you're not like, fuck, like, you know what I mean? Like, I've dumped my whole life and start again.

Sarah (01:14:01) - It comes from a place of of ease rather than complete and utter stress and duress.

Kim (01:14:07) - Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Sarah (01:14:09) - And I hope I hope people buy the book. I got my own free book and I actually can't wait to be able to order the real book and have it in my hands because and I give it as gifts because I feel like it really has like a different kind of thinking, a different kind of lens on it. It takes away that like, oh, fuck restriction. Yeah.

Kim (01:14:29) - Okay. Well, I hope you're going to come to the book signing on September 7th. And the girls, Of course. Of course. I'll be there. Yay! Can't wait to, like, see you in real life.

Sarah (01:14:38) - Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Okay, wait. I want to read this quote from your book that I really liked, and I think that my listeners will like it, too. It says so from here on out, diet no longer means a short term eating regimen.

Sarah (01:14:50) - Our diet is a work in progress or long game that is specific for your body. A flexible plan from day to day and meal to meal that is dependent on your needs. It is not a plan given to us by others. It is a personal lifestyle that we create for ourselves. I love that for so many reasons. I mean, I love it and I hate it at the same time, to be honest. I love it because it's like, have some self agency. Nobody's coming to fucking rescue you. And I hate it because nobody's coming to rescue me at the same time.

Kim (01:15:24) - So yeah. And by the way, like, if we think about like every relationship, we love people for the same reason we hate them. So I love that you just exactly said that. It's like, Oh, my God, it's getting into.

Sarah (01:15:38) - All my crevices. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, my God. Okay, so as we wrap up, I know we could talk for five more hours. What's your biggest piece of advice for midlife? Women really wanting to lose weight, feel more energetic and just get more wellness in their lives?

Kim (01:15:53) - I mean, it's super annoying, but the what I really want everyone to know is they have all that they need inside of them and they just need to take a deep breath, stop all the noise around them, be their own advocate.

Kim (01:16:07) - That's it.

Sarah (01:16:07) - So good. Okay. If listeners want to find you, where can they find you?

Kim (01:16:12) - Everywhere at Kim Shapiro method. So my website, my Instagram, all my accounts or compare method, my TikTok where it's very cringey. I'm not dancing, but you know, trying to.

Sarah (01:16:23) - TikTok is brutal. And it's. Shapiro With an A.

Kim (01:16:27) - With an.

Sarah (01:16:27) - A. Shapiro With an A, okay. I want everyone to start thinking about what they can start doing today. One small step to getting into a peaceful relationship with food lose weight and get your own versions of wellness. I want to thank Kim Shapira for saying yes and becoming a new friend to the flexible, neurotic podcast.

Kim (01:16:48) - Yay! Thank you so much for having me.

Sarah (01:16:54) - Hey, peeps, it's me again. I listened to this episode with Kim Shapira, a nutritional therapist and registered dietitian, fellow mid lifer and author of a brand new book called This Is What You're Really Hungry For six Rules to Transform Your Relationships with Food to Become Your Healthiest Self.

Sarah (01:17:12) - I wanted to summarize the golden nuggets for you to have actionable items to start using today. I know that when I listen to a long episode, I'm like, Oh my God, I love that. But then I can't even fucking remember the specifics. This is why I come back and do a golden nugget summary. In this episode, we dig deep with our golden shovels in a conversation about food, relationships with food, and Kim's six rules Golden Nugget. Number one, you are in a relationship with your body. The basis of Kim's practice as a dietitian is in educating her clients to understand the relationship they have with their bodies. Yes, you heard that right. We are all in an exclusive, intimate and long term relationship with our bodies. And this concept plays a huge role in how we choose to take care of ourselves. Kim emphasizes the importance of getting inside our bodies and listening to the messages we are sending ourselves. Kim explains that we have a physical body and an emotional body and that separating the two will lead to big wins in weight loss being and making sure that your body is getting the nourishment it needs to thrive.

Sarah (01:18:21) - We all know how easy it is to rationalize that cupcake after an emotionally taxing day and understanding our emotional and physical needs more will help curb this type of eating. It's crucial to determine the difference between feeling hungry and feeling tired, needing water or needing to breathe, feeling bored or needing a hug. Ask yourself these questions daily. Your body will answer, and this is how you will strengthen the most important relationship in your life, the relationship you have with yourself. Golden Nugget Number two The Six Rules. Kim's book is all about the six rules to transform your relationship with food to become your healthiest self. Not only are these six rules based in science, but they are designed to help people journey into a normal relationship with food which can improve confidence, health and well-being. Kim says that the side effect of following these rules is improved health. I mean, I know that I speak for so many women when I say thank you, Kim. I need that in midlife. Rule number one, eat when you're hungry.

Sarah (01:19:32) - Rule number two, eat what you love. Okay, I know that sounds backwards, but this basically means eat what your body loves. So if you get a stomachache after mac and cheese, it's safe to say that your body doesn't love that food. Figure out the foods that your body loves. Rule number three. Eat without distractions. I know it's so hard. Like you're eating lunch alone and you just want to be on your phone. It's so hard. Rule number four, 10,000 steps a day. Okay, you guys, we know the incredible benefits of 10,000 steps a day. So let's get our Forest Gump on and start walking. Rule number five, drink water. Rule number six, regulate your sleep. They all sound easy, but they're not. Golden nugget number three People pleasing can be affecting your health. People pleasing in midlife can look like so many things. It can be drinking alcohol at a business meeting when you know that you want to get on the peloton when you get home because you want to just please who you're with.

Sarah (01:20:37) - It can be going to events or hanging out with certain people that, you know, just drain you. It can be eating something that, you know, doesn't sit well with you because you're at a dinner party and that's what you're supposed to be doing. All of these things play into the relationship that you have with yourself. And feeling safe with which Kim mentions is such an important part of food and your body. You guys already know what I'm going to say about this, and that is self obsession in midlife is approved. We need to please ourselves first before we can even be fully present and available to everybody else. And there's nothing wrong with being a little selfish when it comes to taking care of our bodies. Golden Nugget number four It's a lifestyle, not a diet. Kim's mantra is all about seeing dieting as a lifestyle, not about restrictive eating. The reason behind this is actually so genius, because when we hear the word restriction, we associate it with feeling unsafe and rightfully so. Because if someone tells you that you can't ever have something again, instinctively, what are you going to do? Probably go and have as much of that thing like to last a lifetime rather than like just dealing.

Sarah (01:21:57) - This is the type of thinking that restrictive eating causes us to have. When we start seeing dieting as a lifestyle choice, we can look at it as a set of values that follow us everywhere we go. Even on vacation. These values apply whether you're in Italy or at home for the day, catching up on work. And that's because nothing stays the same in those situations except for you. It's important to have these seamless transitions from one day to the next. So think of your eating habits as something that occurs Monday through Sunday, not Monday to Friday at 5 p.m. We want seamless transitions into every moment, and that's how we get consistent with our lifestyle and the relationship that we have with our bodies. And remember, food should be for fuel. Okay, you guys, I want to mention that I have a three day free live workshop with me on Zoom called It's Time to Talk Midlife. It's September 19th, 20th and 21st for one hour a day on Zoom. We're going to go deep. We're going to dive into all the midlife topics that are on all of our hearts and minds.

Sarah (01:23:11) - What's next for us in midlife, midlife self reinvention strategies? What the fuck? Now I'm an empty nester. Oh, my God. I have to spend more time with my husband and I haven't spoken to him in the last ten years because I've been micromanaging my children. All of those things. This free three day workshop is going to be off the charts. I already have so many women signed up. We are all craving connection in midlife. We all want to feel seen and heard. Please sign up for this workshop. Don't miss it. There's an exclusive Facebook group just for this workshop. Okay, you guys go to w w w dot the flexible neurotic.com/free workshop. It's a banner across the top of my website. You can't miss it. It's time to talk midlife. Okay, you guys. The gold is dripping off all of these nuggets and the midlife workshop. I want you to grab it. Use it. There are three things you can do. First, subscribe to the fucking podcast. I know it doesn't seem like a big deal, but when you subscribe, it pushes my podcast up in the podcast algorithm, the platform, you know, the technical stuff.

Sarah (01:24:22) - Second, share it with some friends who like midlife shit. And third, write an Apple Review. Writing reviews is kind of annoying. It's an extra step, but guess what? It really helps the podcast grow. You think your little review won't matter, but it does me, you know, I always respond, of course. Follow my Instagram at the flexible, neurotic duh and sign up for my free three day workshop at. W dot the flexible neurotic.com/free workshop. If you can't remember that, I totally understand. Go to my link in bio in Instagram. It's right there to talk soon.