Episode 164: Welcome back to Real Health Radio. This week I sit down with my former client Claudette and we chat about her history with dieting and weight loss. We chat about what it was like working together, examining her beliefs about herself and her weight and how that changed how she felt.
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Chris Sandel: Welcome to episode 164 of Real Health Radio. You can find the show notes and links talked about as part of this episode at www.seven, so the word spelled out, S-E-V-E-N, hyphen, health.com/164.
Welcome to Real Health Radio, health advice that’s more than just about how you look. And here’s your host, Chris Sandel.
Chris Sandel: Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Real Health Radio. So this week on the show I’m releasing a conversation with Claudette, who is another past client of mine. So, a couple of weeks ago I opened up my practice to new clients, and at the time of recording this intro, I have just one spot left.
So Claudette is someone I started working with at the beginning of the year and finished up with rather recently. And as you hear, as part of the interview, Claudette is someone who has a long history with dieting. And so for her, the work she wanted to do together, was to help her get off of that roller coaster once and for all and to learn how to listen to her body. And as Claudette talks about, she’s someone who lives in a large body, and this has impacted on things like body confidence and self image. So a lot of the work, again, was around her beliefs and her self talk and how this affected how she felt.
And these interviews are never as polished as my regular guest interviews. My clients are very often not used to doing presentations or speaking in front of a large group of people. And that’s what it’s like being recorded on a podcast, or at least can feel that way if you’re unaccustomed to it. Especially when talking about personal areas of struggle.
So I’m really thankful for Claudette for agreeing to record this with me and for sharing her story. If Claudette’s words or experiences sound like you, and you’d like help with this stuff, then please get in contact. You can head over to www.seven, so the word all spelled out, S-E-V-E-N, hyphen, health.com/help, so H-E-L-P. And there you can read about how I work with clients, and apply for a free initial chat. And the address again is www.seven-health.com/help, and I will put a link to it in the show notes as well.
So with the intro out of the way, let’s get on with today’s show. Here is my conversation with my past client, Claudette.
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Chris: Hey Claudette. Thanks for joining me on the show today.
Claudette: Oh, thanks for having me.
Chris: So to start off with, do you want to explain a little about your background and why you first got in contact with me?
Claudette: So I guess I’m a large woman, living in a large body and I was kind of… there’s so many things going on in life, right? Like with regards to fatphobia and social media, and I wanted to be the best person that I can be and not be worried about all that stuff and enjoy my life.
And yeah, so many things occupied my time and energy that I don’t think were worth my time and energy. Worrying about food restriction and dieting and what I was wearing and what people were thinking, and all that sort of stuff. And so I kind of wanted to get past that and live a more fuller life and be healthier and to get the most of what I could, accepting where I’m at now.
00:03:40
Chris: And so when you contacted me, like I’m assuming you’d been on a journey for a while, like, or was this the first thing or the first time you, you tried to deal with this?
Claudette: No, I’ve been doing a number of things like probably for the past six or seven years, just slowly, right? Like baby steps getting to where… because I didn’t get to this point in, you know, I got to this point because of 45 years of living life, and it’s just been a slowly, progression of different things of what I’ve needed in my life. And it was just right to say like I’d been listening to your podcast for a while and there was just a sense of safety that I thought I could go there, of non-judgment and I thought, “Oh, this just seems for a good fit for me,” and to just kind of explore things with you.
00:04:30
Chris: And was there, I mean, you said you listened to my podcast, you felt like it was a good fit, but was there hesitancy in getting in contact or hesitancy in getting me to help you with this work?
Claudette: Well, yeah. Well actually what I learned from listening to your podcasts and following some of the things that you do, is that you presented a really balanced kind of… you weren’t one way or the other, right? You know how there’s some extreme, not extreme, I don’t want to call them extremists, but you know, the only way to go-
Chris: There probably are extremists as well, so that’s not a bad term.
Claudette: Yeah. “This is the only way you got to go. You’ve got to follow this diet. You’ve got to do this, you’ve got to…” And for me, I just got the sense from you that it was like that you kind of explore all the different sides and kind of say, “Here’s what this is and here’s what this is,” and you kind of presented a balanced view. And I thought that’s kind of what I needed because I had, I’m exposed to all those different things all the time, right? Like when you open the newspaper it’s like, “This is the new diet, follow this,” or you know, “This is how you… for 21 days just do this,” or you know, like kind of get bombarded. And so I was kind of lost even within myself, of knowing what to kind of do. I guess the biggest thing, and you may not want me to say this, was cost was a big thing for me.
Like I was pretty convinced that it would be a good fit, but I thought, that was a big kind of, that’s what took me kind of a while to decide. And my daughter said to me… because I was contemplating, because I did that session with you to kind of meet with you and figure out, and then, which was really a good thing, so thanks. She said to me, “Well, would you spend that much on a vacation? Would you, and then would you regret spending that money?” And I thought, “Not at all.” Like I would spend money going on a vacation, I thought, “Why wouldn’t I spend the money on doing something like this?” And then it just kind of clicked, “Yep, that’s what I need to do.”
Chris: Okay, nice.
00:06:40
Chris: And so you, you mentioned that there were some health issues going on. So what was going on with you from it from a health perspective that made you think, “I want to be making changes or I want to be getting in contact?”
Claudette: You know what, this is going to sound really naive, but I never learned how to eat properly. I didn’t know how… and when I say properly, I don’t mean following all those diets. I mean, listening to my body, seeing how different foods makes me feel when I eat them, how my body feels like when I eat them and how it feels if I eat it before I go to bed, if I eat it before I go for a walk or if I… And having snacks and how, like all those kind of things. And I don’t know how people normally learn them, but that was something that I never, ever got in touch with, right?
And I’ve done lots of diets, and I haven’t actually done a lot of dieting, probably for the past three or four… When I say dieting, restriction and all that… For the past three or four years. And I figured, “You know what? I just need to figure out what my body wants and what makes my body feel good and what makes it able to move and explore different types of food.” And I mean all that kind of stuff, right? Have a scheduled ..And so that’s kind of the stuff that I was needing to kind of learn. And when I talk about that balanced view that you were presenting, I thought, “Okay, well well you have a lot of resources that you could take to pull, mirror to me what I kind of needed to… what would be beneficial for me.” Does that make sense?
Chris: Yeah.
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Chris: And so do you want to just describe the process of what working together was like for you, and what that experience felt like?
Claudette: Well like I said before, there was no judgment with the whole thing, and so I felt very safe. I did have an issue… So I did, got journaling exercises that we did or a story prompts or kind of things that you gave me that we kind of explored.
We did lots of talking, which was really good. Because then I was able to explore. And I guess through all those things that’s when it like, through doing those things and meeting and paying attention to different things throughout the… I don’t know if one of the exercises we did was, well one of the things that, mainly, that I needed was to journal, was my food journal. And I had a lot of hesitancy to do that. And actually, I even changed it from being a food journal. I can’t even remember what we called it but, but just to keep track about my eating so that I could learn. And then just to keep track about different things.
And it’s kind of through that progression of learning that some things would pop up or you know, and then we’d discuss that kind of. And so I know it wasn’t just about the food part of it or the journaling and my communication with my body, but even some of the mental kind of stuff, like a big huge thing was kind of self-worth.
And it was kind of funny because we’d been around that a few times and then all of a sudden, I don’t even know what the exercise was you gave me to do, but it was realizing I was taking on a lot of stuff that, “Well, what are people going to stay? Or what if people… I don’t know, I’m going to go out there and I’m going to feel their comments and be hurt by it and not be able to…” And then I realized that it’s… Well yeah, somehow you got me to see or realize, I don’t even know how you did it, but regardless, seeing that was an issue that it was about my own comments, or my own interior, voices that were giving that self… kind of making those comments.
And so I’ve realized that it was, it was about, I was able to get in touch with my own self-compassion. So I got a spark of what that felt like and was able to have some of that self-compassion. And so now I can identify it, right? So now going forward, when something happens, I’m able to say, “Oh yeah, okay, I can kind of have that little bit and I can make that grow and I can practice,” and so… The other thing too, is just we discussed when you went through the exercises, some things that, I don’t know, maybe became clear to you, like, I didn’t have a schedule. Like with my eating schedule or with my life or my sleeping. Like I was kind of all over the map. And so that was something that kind of… I realized, right, that this was happening. And so I tried it. You, I mean, you would always say, “Well, try it. How does it feel? Did you enjoy it? Did you…” You know, and just kind of asked me questions and pointing me in the right direction.
Yeah. But I sure fought the journaling. I don’t know why. I’m still journaling and it is very good for me, but I’ve set it up so that it is easier to do, right? So, and I do kind of enjoy it. It’s kind of fun to kind of write stuff down and see how life’s going.
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Chris: Yeah. And so you mentioned earlier about, I don’t know, some reluctance or hesitancy to keep a food log or however we rebranded it, I think it was like some kind of a awareness sheet or something along those lines. But what was the concern or the hesitancy about with that?
Claudette: Well, you what, I gave, I was saying that I had this kind of thing, to my daughter and she said, “Well, why don’t you journal about why you don’t like journaling?” So I kind of laughed and I kind of did. And I think part of it is because, you know, when I look back on journals that I did like 10 years ago, and I didn’t even really do general journals. I kept track of food log, right? How far I’d walked, what I’d eaten, and what I…
So to me, it was kind of a fallback to that whole diet thing, right? Like, whether I was having a good day or a bad day or whether I had, you know, eaten the house or… you know what I mean? And so it became kind of a, it was just a negative kind of a thing for, right? Because it brought up all that other stuff.
And so now it’s not about that. Now it’s about learning. And the other thing, too, is… you know, that hesitancy, going, “Oh, what’s Chris gonna say if we knew that I ate that?” And really that was all about me putting that stuff on. And it was about, you reframed that for me all the time and you really, kind of gave me a sense of “Nope, it doesn’t matter to me what you eat or what you… did you enjoy it?” And so I guess it gave me the safety space to explore that kind of stuff with the journaling.
And now, you know what, I must say the journaling, I’m kind of enjoying a little bit, now looking at it. Because there was a growth, right? Like when you were looking at it and wanting to, right? Like there’s always that little bit of tension that, you know, but that’s what growth is about, it’s causing me to be a little discomfort or have a little discomfort, right?
00:14:10
Chris: Yeah. And you also mentioned there about structure and how helpful that was to implement, so what were the benefits for you, that you noticed by having more structure in your day, whether that be around your eating or your sleeping or whatever it may be?
Claudette: I guess what it’s helped me, it gave me more energy because it allowed me to be more consistent with things like when I was starting to get like… I don’t know why, but my morning snack, I always said, “Oh, it’s okay.” I was trying to wait until I was hungry. I didn’t even recognize the signs of hunger, actually. And so even recognizing, like some of the signs of hunger, like I didn’t even realize that I exhibited, right? I thought hunger was one thing that you felt deep in your belly. So, setting up the routine and schedule just, it helped me be more consistent through the day and have a consistent energy level. It helped me be more productive.
It gave me a sense of not having to rely on or needing huge physical cues, right? And I wouldn’t have to think so much about it and enabled me to… not even just about the food, but even just about exercising and setting my life up. Finding out where the things that weren’t kind of working, and then implementing things that kind of were working. Like picking out my clothes. Like I have a huge issue with clothes and fitting them on my body and how they look and blah blah blah.
And so, I mean, one of the things I did, which is a really simple implementation, when I got home from work, I hung up my clothes, put them away, picked out my outfit for the next day, and you know what, so it just, my day was just set up and my day… everything just kind of flowed and I was able to maintain things a lot better, right?
I knew what I had to do, I knew I had to pack… Okay, I know I needed to pack two snacks for work, and so one for the morning and one for the afternoon. And so then I would do that. And so having, and then like a regular sleep schedule, right? Like just having, implementing a routine. Because I would kind of… and how do put it, implement a routine and how to have success at it. Like make it simple or, I mean because I know one of the podcasts you had done with someone was all about how having to do that. And so it was a pretty simple exercise. I mean I did it. I’d come up with what I… I know we had a name for it, I can’t remember what it was. But anyway, setting up the routines, I set it up and it worked really, really, really well.
And so, I mean I’m still doing that even now to this day, those simple routines. Yeah, just knowing how to set up a routine. Because I would just say, “Okay, I’m going to start doing this,” and then it would fall away three or four days.
00:16:55
Chris: So what health improvements have you noticed since we started working together? I know you’ve probably touched on some of them, but yeah, what have you noticed?
Claudette: Well, sleeping better, more energy, recognition of, “Oh,” like recognition of my body signals. So then I’m just able to say, “Okay, oh, this is happening or this is what I need to do.” I’ll make the intervention or do whatever I need to do. And I’m just feeling so much better. But even not only about the health benefits, like even emotionally and psychologically, like, you know what, I’m just feeling or doing so much better, right? I’ve been to water aerobics twice now, wearing a bathing suit, like a that, like just those kind of things like since we last met. So just dealing with things, baby steps of… yeah.
00:17:55
Chris: So body image was obviously something you referenced before. So how has that changed through us working together and, and where are you with that stuff now?
Claudette: Well, okay, so body image has kind of been like a big thing with me. It’s kind of like I got to a point where, “Okay, I can’t really go any further with making a leap before we met.” And it was like I was stuck a little. And so, you know, I was following the proper people on Instagram and all that kind of stuff. And actually it’s kind of funny because I thought, you know, you’ll see these really big bodies that are wearing bathing suits or whatever. And about a year and a half ago, I went on a vacation and I thought, “This is it, you know what I’m going to…” It was a beach resort or something and, “I’m going to be wearing my bathing suit and I don’t care what anyone says.” And I just thought I was going to make that leap right from, you know, not ever showing my body to, you know, wearing a bikini on the beach in front of people, or not a bikini, but a bathing suit.
Anyway, and so I go out there and it was almost like, “Hey this is not going to happen.” And because of what, everything, like all the people walking around and all the beautiful bodies. And so I just retreated right back into my shell, right? Anyway, so it turned back when doing some work with you and just figuring out some of the stuff that was going on internally that we talked about. And so about making baby steps right?
Like, and then I realized, well why do I expect that I can go from one extreme to the other just because, you know? Well not that some people can’t, but it just wasn’t right for me. So it was just about making small, kind of figuring out some of the stuff that was going on in my head and to say… And so, “How can I go about making that happen, doing small steps?”.
And I mean we kind of talked about one woman that, I was reading her book and you know, and just being supported to say, “Well, okay, well try making those small stuff. How did that feel?” And how was it and practicing it. And so I started doing that and yeah, it was just good, right? Just going sleeveless. Yeah, it’s going… today I’m wearing a pair of shorts. And it was just having the support and someone questioning, “Well how did that work and how…” You know?
00:20:10
Chris: And what about from a food perspective, like how has that changed since we’ve been working together? And also how has your thoughts around food changed since we’ve been working together?
Claudette: Well, I guess paying attention and learning what my body does with different foods and eating it at different times. I realized around paying attention to my body and it becomes, “Oh that doesn’t feel really good to do that.” Like, you know, so eating before I go to bed, just… which, if you knew me before… And then that’s been kind of a journey that I was on before, but not even realizing that that was an issue or that it impacted me and how it impacted me, right? So now I realized, “Oh, eating that food late at night, it feels yucky and I don’t sleep well.”
And so now it’s more a matter of… because I know intimately how it feels in my body when that stuff happens. Kind of through the journaling, which I know we kind of… But yeah. So just knowing that, and knowing that if I wanted to eat this, I could go ahead and eat whatever I want and this is how it’s going to feel.
So it’s like I’m making a more conscious choice, right? Now, learning about how food impacts my body, and that was a huge thing for me. And you know, my weight probably has stayed the same. Like I don’t even think that’s changed. And I don’t even think… that wasn’t what I was after, right? Like it’s all kind of about acceptance.
But the other thing too, is just making different choices, right? Like yesterday I made a sandwich and I’d bought some figs. So I thought, “Oh, you know what, a fig would taste good with that,” or, “You know what, maybe sometimes chips would taste good with that.” So, you know, it was just about knowing how it was going to impact me and what did I want, did I enjoy it, and did I get enough? I don’t know. It was more…
Okay. So I made a list about some of the things that… I learned that food I am hungry for at any given time, I know how to figure that out. I know how different foods I desire to eat feel after eating it, and what the repercussions were. Like how did I physically feel good, nourished, energetic, sluggish, satiated, unsatiated? I learned how the timing of food, which we talked about. I learned what foods I even enjoy eating. Like sometimes I’d eat chips and I’d think after, like I’d say, ” Oh, like through that, that would be gross, dude.” I’m even learning how my eating affects my poop. Yep, we talked about poop.
00:23:10
Chris: And what about movement? Like how has movement or exercise changed as part of the journey, and both what you’re doing but also how you feel about that or your relationship with it?
Claudette: So I’ve always kind of been a little active. Or I’ve always enjoyed being active, but like through various things I did, A, I didn’t have the energy to be more active. I was kinda healing from a knee injury. So kind of working around that. And so implementing that was always a bit of an issue, right? Like, so I always like, “Oh, I’d love to go for a walk,” but then it would never kind of happen. So setting up that routine that I alluded to before about… and how to implement it in your life, I kinda did that. “Okay, when would exercise work? When would it feel, like when can I fit it into my life and what would feel good and how much?”.
And again, I restarted back into baby steps because I was kind of… physically, throughout my life, I’ve been really active and then, you know, not active and then really… like so kind of on a spectrum of what I was able to do.
And so I was really starting out at the bottom. So just kind of starting out slowly, implementing it when I can. So I like made that routine after work. When I get home, after I changed my clothes, pick my things, I go even do something for 10 minutes, right? Because it just like I’d go for a bike ride or I’d, you know, go do something and set it up in the morning.
And then I’d find… you know what, a big thing you talked about is like, “Did you enjoy it or did you…” Because I think we have to enjoy those things in order to… And I didn’t really realize that, right? Like sometimes I thought, “I’m never going to enjoy this, but I might as well do it. Because that’s what everything says I should do.” But so like I still got my bike out again and like, you know what, I just, we bought, kites, actually went flying our kites last night. So it was about finding things that I like to do to be more active and it gives me more energy and I feel more alive and I feel, yeah…
00:25:30
Chris: I mean you probably covered it all, but is there, is there anything else that you’ve noticed that has shifted over the time working together?
Claudette: No, I guess generally overall I feel like it just is such a really good sense of wellbeing, and that things are going to be okay, and then I’m on a really good journey. You know? Like I just feel set up to continue on. And I really have been continuing on with things. And it just feels like I’m with the flow of things, right?
00:26:05
Chris: So the final question I have is related to why I’m doing this. So I’m taking on clients at the moment. What would you say to someone who is in the same situation that you’re in? Like what advice would you give them?
Claudette: Well, you know what, in my experience, the best thing is to follow where an individual is at, right? Because what’s right for me is not right for other people and people are on different places in their journey or they have different histories and they have different paths.
And for me it was kind of, what I was looking for, was this and it just kind of felt right to do. And like I said, it was a safe space for me to do it. And I just think there was enough background from you or enough kind of breadth of the knowledge that you have, to kind of be able to help people wherever they’re at or wherever they’re needing to go.
So, yeah. Just to keep for people to keep moving forward, right. Because everyone’s at a different place and I think you’re able to meet them kind of wherever they are, based on my experience with you and based on the different things that I’ve seen through, and listened to you through your podcasts. So, yeah.
00:27:35
Chris: Okay. And one of the things you said earlier was it was a big financial commitment. Like are you happy you did it? Did you get out of it what you were hoping to get out of it?
Claudette: Oh yeah, definitely. Definitely. Yeah. I have no regrets about that. And actually that did kind of give me a little bit of accountability, you know, because yeah, okay, I’ve got to do these exercises because… And you know, and I have to do these kinds of things because… Not that it ever felt like that it was hard, it was never, ever hard. But like I said, that whole thing I had with the journaling.
So yeah, it gave me a sense of accountability, and it was definitely worth it, right? I mean your base of knowledge and your, yeah, the amount of stuff that you read and do and, you know, is really evident and it’s, yeah, you are kind of… like, I’ve followed a lot of people in read lots of books and done lots of things with this, but yeah, you are really a professional that has a huge body of knowledge.
Chris: Okay. Well, thank you for that compliment. And yeah, thank you for, for coming on today and for having this conversation and sharing about your journey and yeah, it was lovely working with you and thank you for sharing that.
Claudette: Okay, good luck. Thanks.
00:29:00
Chris: So I hope you found that conversation useful. As I mentioned at the top of the show, I’m now taking on clients and I have just one spot left. If you’re interested in working together or finding out more, you can go to www.seven-health.com/help, so H-E-L-P. And that’s it for this week’s show. I’ll be back next week with a new episode and I will catch you then.
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