Foodist With Darya Rose, Ph.d

A couple of times a month Polly is expected to go out for drinks with her coworkers. This is part of the company culture and a great opportunity to bond with her team. Plus, she really enjoys it and finds it to be an overall rewarding experience. The problem is that at these events Polly finds herself drinking three to four times more alcohol than she normally would. This frustrates her because it is out of character and not aligned with her healthstyle values. In her normal life Polly has no problem stopping after one or two drinks and the rest of her healthstyle is very strong. She eats mindfully, cooks every day, exercises, and gets plenty of sleep. Polly has tried to talk herself into drinking less at work events without success. As soon as she arrives anxiety and excitement kick in and she feels the urge to match her coworkers drink for drink, making sure no one’s glass is ever empty. While all over-indulgence habits are hard to break, binge drinking is particularly tough since alcohol inhibits you

Aline struggles with the types of issues many women deal with during midlife. She’s going through menopause, has gained weight and can’t seem to drop those last 10-15 pounds. She eats relatively healthy and exercises regularly, but the tricks she used to lose weight in her thirties no longer work in her late forties. While it is tempting to credit hormones for the extra weight she is carrying, there is more going on for Aline at this stage in her life than just a slowing metabolism. She's also experienced a slowing of her work life and her children are older and need less of her attention. Aline has noticed that she often turns to food to fill in the gaps left by these changes. As a mother, Aline prioritizes her family and wants to be a good role model. She wants her kids to see that it is important to practice self-care and knows that feeling guilty for doing things that bring her joy does not set a good example. Yet she feels conflicted because she believes she needs to compensate for her changing hormone

A fundamental principle of being a foodist is that you shouldn't restrict yourself from eating foods that you love. One of the wonderful aspects of eating is that it is pleasurable, and this is an entirely valid reason to choose to eat something. New and aspiring foodists love this idea, but often find it difficult to balance the values of eating for pleasure and eating for health. Exactly how often is it "okay" to choose foods for pleasure? How much of them can you "enjoy"? And how do you stop yourself from overdoing it once you've started? Katie is grappling with these issues, and can't help but feel that she doesn't have enough self-control to stop herself from overeating junk foods, despite her love of healthy foods as well. Together we discuss how she can develop the ability to choose indulgences that are more valuable to her and stop eating when she's truly satisfied, rather than way past that point. For complete show notes visit http://summertomato.co

You can probably name several barriers in your life that feel like they are preventing you from getting healthy or achieving your goals, but the biggest ones are always mental. Confidence in particular has an insidious ability to undermine your motivation, making it feel like nothing you can do actually matters since no matter what you try you'll always be stuck in the same place. Logically you may know that if you don't try or do something different it isn't likely things will change, but when all your actions feel futile this knowledge has little power to help. Lack of confidence keeps you feeling stuck and overwhelmed, and it is one of the most common symptoms of someone who has tried for years to lose weight or get healthy without lasting success. It's like a Catch-22, you can't succeed with action. And you can't take action without the confidence that comes from success. Or is that too a limiting belief? In this episode, Leslie tells the story of how several small wins in her life built up trust in h

Becky is normally a healthy eater and exercises regularly. She isn't overweight, but would love to lose a few pounds. She also knows that if she stopped her periodic binges the weight would likely take care of itself. Becky has also read Foodist and Summer Tomato, and knows that dieting isn't a good strategy and that she has a tendency to moralize her food choices in a way that undermines her efforts. Yet she doesn't know how to stop and continues trying to use willpower to both change her beliefs and stop her bingeing, which clearly is not working. She often finds herself bingeing at night after going out with her husband and friends, consuming thousands of calories at a time and feeling horrible the next day. Knowing that your beliefs are counterproductive isn't enough to change them, and willpower isn't the answer. Reshaping your beliefs is difficult and you can hear in Becky's voice how hard it is for her internalize the idea that pleasure is a valid reason to eat. Her experience to date has only shown

Sometimes it feels like you have everything figured out except for this one, baffling problem that seems to defy all logic. For Nina, her healthstyle has always been rather straightforward. She enjoys eating healthy, she understands the value of indulgences, and can easily adjust her behavior to align with her values in almost every circumstance. Almost. Nina reached out to me because she can't understand why she binges on junk food during her babysitting job, despite knowing it's a bad decision and not worth it. She has tried a few things to stop, and had a bit of success, but still doesn't feel like she has control over her behavior in this one, specific circumstance. As is often the case when a very specific context becomes a trigger for an intractable habit, Nina can lucidly describe her issue and the circumstances that cause it to arise. She knows she'll regret her actions, she knows Cheetos and Cinnamon Toast Crunch aren't special on a random Thursday afternoon, and she knows it'll impact her ability

Adrienne has been dieting since she was 18 years old, but it wasn't until she was in her 40s that she got into bodybuilding. Body building is incredibly strict when it comes to food intake, with several months at a time being very intense. For Adrienne this led to an extreme obsession over food. She would spend day and night thinking about the burger she would eat for her weekly cheat meal and was always thinking about the next thing should would be allowed to eat in three hours. As she realized that her hobby was negatively affecting both her mental health and her personal relationships, she decided to stop training. Yet this wasn't enough to completely break her food obsession. In this episode Adrienne shares how she slowly learned to get back in touch with her body and reform her relationship with food. Anyone who has had experience with intense dieting or especially body building will certainly relate. For complete show notes visit http://summertomato.com

Laura works at a hospital and sees people suffering daily from chronic diseases she knows are caused by unhealthy food choices. Diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, and cancer are all fates she'd like to avoid, but still her love of sweets calls to her. In Laura's mind, foods fall into categories of "good" and "bad," "healthy" and "unhealthy." She knows that moralizing her foods this way makes her crave sweets even more, and that when she does give in she experiences the What-the-hell Effect and overeats them. But because of her job, it's hard for her to stop thinking of sweets as "bad" and vegetables as "good." Not moralizing your food is easier said than done. One huge reason for this is that it feels true that veggies are good for you and junk food is bad you. How can you stop thinking this way when you actually believe it? Food moralizing is very common, and undoing it takes more than willpower. In this episode I walk Laura through the steps necessary to get past the moralizing mentality and into one

Reshanda had a very stressful job that ultimately led her to develop a binge eating habit and gain a significant amount of weight. The weight gain naturally led her to try to correct it with dieting, which instead led instead to more bingeing. In her work to find the solution to her bingeing and weight gain, Reshanda stumbled upon Summer Tomato and started addressing her habits and psychology. As an active part of the community here and on Facebook, I've watched her develop new habits over the years from learning to cook in Foodist Kitchen to mindful eating in the Mindful Meal Challenge. Today Reshanda shares her story of how she overcame bingeing, lost 28 lbs, and more importantly learned how to develop the self-compassion, mindfulness and skill set she needed to live a fulfilling life that isn't dictated by stress and avoidance. Her story is incredibly powerful and full of wisdom and insights into how to develop the psychological tools to build a sustainable and life-affirming healthstyle. It's an incre

Like many of us, Tara has been struggling to lose weight for over a decade. She'd tried lots of different strategies on and off over the years, and had made progress. But it wasn't until the beginning of this year that two things really clicked into place. First, she started the Mindful Meal Challenge to learn to eat mindfully, which helped her notice she was putting more food on her plate than she needed to feel satisfied. The second is that she started becoming more deliberate in her meal and exercise planning, which she calls her healthstyle planning. Tara has a very busy and erratic schedule. She has an international team and has to attend virtual meetings at odd hours throughout the week. She also travels a lot and has events in the evening that often pull her away from home and out of her kitchen. More often than not these obstacles led her to rely on takeout and other convenience foods that were preventing her from reaching her goals. To get around this, Tara spends a few minutes on Saturday mapping

Ashley says she's lucky that she was diagnosed with fibromyalgia at the age of 30. It's a diagnosis that isn't always easy to get, but at a young age Ashley felt she still had a lot of options to try to treat her illness without medication. After consulting with her doctor, Ashley decided to adopt a low-inflammation diet (lots of vegetables and fruits, no fried foods and minimal processed foods), along with a low impact exercise regimen of yoga and walking 10,000 steps per day. In this instance, Ashley's history of dieting may have actually been helpful, since she found it relatively easy to overhaul her healthstyle to make these changes, and it only took about three months for her symptoms to start improving dramatically. An added bonus is that Ashley's new habits have helped her deal with stress and emotional issues she has struggled with on and off throughout her life, and she's been able to stay off of antidepressants for four years. This is a fun conversation and we go into a lot of details about her

"It's like 1000% or nothing at all." ~Rachelle Rachelle was in a snowboarding accident when she was 15 years old that cost her the use of both of her legs. After 18 years of battling both illness and body image issues, she is finally in a place where she is healthy and has a better relationship with food, and she's ready to feel strong and fit again. She'd also love to lose 20 lbs. Rachelle believes that being in a wheelchair makes getting enough exercise too difficult and time consuming to be practical for her busy life. She's juggling both a family and a career as a lawyer, so it's clear that both time and physical limitations create barriers for her workout habits. After a little digging in our conversation though, it starts to become clear that Rachelle's psychological barriers are the main obstacle. All her life Rachelle has been ambitious. Her previous attempts at getting fit involved intense exercise programs with personal trainers and sports like boxing––things that take a ton of time, energy and r

With her first pregnancy, Sarah felt a lot of pressure from her doctor to restrict her eating to avoid weight gain and other adverse consequences to her baby. However, she found that abiding by these rules was virtually impossible for her, given how her body responded to hunger and fatigue while she was pregnant. This led to both extra stress and shame. Even though she was warned she might have gained too much weight, Sarah found that losing weight and making better food choices was much easier after the baby was born. So when her second pregnancy came around, she decided to take a less strict approach. This mindset shift enable Sarah to reclaim her ability to manage her own health (and sanity) on her own terms and at her own pace. While this may sound small, it is an incredibly empowering act that snowballs into a successful healthstyle. When guilt and shame are motivators and you feel like you can never do enough, most people will respond by doing less for their own self-care, not more. Sarah's approach

Nicole loves to run, and has recently upped her training to include half and full marathons. While she has never run with the goal of weight loss, she has noticed that when she trains for longer races she has a tendency to gain unwanted fat around her midsection that she isn't happy about. Nicole's hypothesis is that the extra fat is a result of the additional refined carbohydrates (e.g. bread and pasta) that she eats during training periods. She said that she has tried to fuel her workouts with foods that contain fewer carbs, but that she notices a negative impact on her performance. After some investigating of her training and eating habits, Nicole and I conclude that this theory is inaccurate and that most likely culprit isn't the pre-workout carbs but the post-workout hunger and subconscious overeating that results from intense training. Extensive training both increases the body's calorie demands and hunger, while weakening willpower and normal social constraints on overeating. The end result is a sub

Jason is an old friend of my husband's who also happens to be the editor of this podcast. Since he's started listening the show he's become more and more health conscious, and when I launched the Mindful Meal Challenge he decided to give mindful eating a try. Jason is a perfect test subject for mindful eating, because as he was already trying to get his healthstyle in a better place he already has a set menu for breakfast and lunch. This means that what he was eating didn't change, so any change in his eating habits can be directly attributed to mindfulness. He found that his morning three egg omelet was in fact larger than he needed to be satisfied, so he has now cut back. He also found that even though he found himself consuming less for breakfast, he wasn't as hungry when lunch and dinner came around. Simply by eating one Mindful Meal per day in the morning, Jason lost 4 lbs in the first week of the challenge. Although he is still trying to figure out the best healthstyle for himself moving forward (w

Peg had a regular habit of drinking a couple glasses of wine every night and felt like it was a problem, like something that she needed. Not only did this habit impact her general wellbeing and ability to be at her best for herself and her work, she also knew this wasn't the person she wanted to be. At the same time, Peg knew that she couldn't just stop drinking all at once. So she decided to try slowly, a method that worked for her in the past to overcome bulimia. Kaizen is the Japanese principle of making continuous small, incremental improvement. For Peg, addressing her problems slowly removed the fear of the idea of stopping completely, which she knew she wasn't ready for. Starting with one small change––not drinking for one night, not purging for a few hours––gave her the courage and empowerment to continue. Her deepest motivation was to ultimately become the person she knew she wanted to be, and kaizen was her method to get there. For complete show notes visit http://summertomato.com

Amy has been working on her healthstyle for over a year. Slowly she has changed her eating, exercise, sleep and mindfulness habits, and she finally feels like she's in control of her health. Now she's waiting for the other shoe to drop. Amy is a natural worrier, always ready for something to come along that negates all the hard work she's done. She knows this is a tendency of hers, yet it's hard not to feel like there's some truth behind her fears since even successful diets have always left her in a worse place. Her question for me today is what: does success look like from here now that everything is great? This is an educational episode whether you're a seasoned foodist or a newbie finding your path, since it will give you an idea of what the endgame looks like. Your brain judges success by what it expects it to look like. One great way to know this is by listening to someone who is already there. For complete show notes visit http://summertomato.com

Rachel knew that having a baby would make it harder to maintain her healthstyle. But it's now been 18 months and she still hasn't found a way to regularly make the best choices and ends up eating out 2-3 nights per week. Her issue is that her old healthstyle––which she loved––required an amount of time and energy that simply aren't realistic for her anymore. She and her husband love to cook elaborate meals, but trying to fit it into their new baby life just isn't working. We also identify a few other invisible barriers that are blocking Rachel from fully utilizing her tiny New York kitchen. Subtle barriers can derail any well-intentioned healthstyle, but when you're exhausted and every single part of your life feels new and overwhelming, identifying and eliminating those barriers is extra hard. Together, Rachel and I come up with a few ways to simply her meals and make weekday cooking more practical. For complete show notes visit http://summertomato.com

Graham started his foodist journey back in 2013 when he borrowed a galley copy of Foodist I had given to a friend. He had just decided to try and start getting healthy and by eating more Real Food, cutting back on processed foods, and being more active he proceeded to lose 40 lbs in a couple of months. Four years later Graham is now down 60 lbs from his original weight, defying the odds of a dieting industry that has a 95% failure rate. Today we talk about how he got started and how is journey has progressed to allow him to maintain a foodist lifestyle for good. I interviewed Graham back in 2013 when he first got started, so this is a follow up to that success story and a look into what long-term weight loss maintenance looks like. For complete show notes and links visit http://summertomato.com

Over the past nine months Agata has had some success in being healthier, but is disappointed that she hasn't lost much weight. She started slowly by being more active and noticed she had more energy and looked more toned. Despite the benefits she felt, her wedding was approaching and she still hoped to lose some more weight. Agata decided to focus more on her diet, although she didn't want to be too strict, so she started eating more vegetables and cut down on processed foods. She enjoyed this and didn't feel deprived, and proceeded to lose 5 more pounds. Her wedding came and went, and she was happy, but she's still wondering why she hasn't had more success with weight loss. She called to ask me, "Am I doing something wrong?" Agata's impatience with weight loss is something I hear often from new foodists, particularly those with a history of dieting who expect rapid weight loss. In this episode I help Agata reframe her disappointment with her results as what it is––success with room to improve––and help