Episode 251: On this episode of Real Health Radio, I'm chatting with Michelle Viña-Baltsas. We speak about Michelle's decades-long struggles with food and body and how she healed her relationship with both of them. We also talk about body image, ageism, menopause, hormonal and physical changes, exercise, self-worth, and some of the positives that Michelle has experienced through ageing.
Michelle Viña-Baltsas is a professionally trained coach, facilitator, and certified intuitive eating counsellor. For 10 years she’s been coaching women transitioning into midlife, helping them recreate more peaceful relationships with food, their changing bodies, and movement. Her compassionate approach helps women embrace their true essence beyond unrealistic cultural beauty expectations so they can accept and care for their bodies during this season of life and beyond.
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Chris Sandel: Welcome to Episode 251 of Real Health Radio. You can find the show notes and the links talked about as part of this episode at www.seven-health.com/251.
Before we get started, I just want to mention that I’m currently taking on new clients. I specialise in helping clients to overcome eating disorders, disordered eating, chronic dieting, body dissatisfaction and poor body image, exercise compulsion and overexercising, and also helping clients to regain their periods. If you want help in any of these areas or you just want to have a better relationship with food and body and exercise, then please get in contact. You can head over to www.seven-health.com/help, and there you can read about how I work with clients and apply for a free initial chat. The address, again, is www.seven-health.com/help, and I’ll also include that in the show notes.
Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Real Health Radio. My name is Chris Sandel. I’m a nutritionist that specialises in recovery from disordered eating and eating disorders, or really helping anyone who has a messy relationship with food and body and exercise.
Today on the show, it is a guest interview. Today my guest is Michelle Vina-Baltsas. Michelle is a professionally trained coach, facilitator, and Certified Intuitive Eating Counsellor. For 10 years, she’s been coaching women transitioning into mid-life, helping them to recreate more peaceful relationships with food, their changing bodies, and movement. Her compassionate approach helps women embrace their true essence beyond unrealistic cultural beauty expectations so they can accept and care for their bodies during this season of life and beyond.
I became aware of Michelle from an episode that she recorded with Summer Innanen on her podcast. It was a discussion about mid-life and aging and how this can affect clients. Considering that many of my clients are at this life stage and that this can impact things like recovery and intuitive eating and hormones and other life changes, I thought it would be great to have Michelle on the show. If you listened to last week’s episode, my AMA show, there were a number of questions about mid-life, so I think this conversation is very relevant.
As part of the show, we talk about Michelle’s relationship with food and her body and how this has changed over the years and decades from dieting to binge eating to Overeaters Anonymous to then finding intuitive eating and finally the healing that she was after. We talk about many of the trainings that Michelle has done, and the insights and benefits she’s got from them – the Certified Intuitive Eating Coach training, the Playing Big facilitator training with Tara Mohr, her professional mentorship with Summer Innanen, and grief training with Bri Campos. We also talk about ageism and menopause and hormonal and physical changes, exercise, self-worth, and some of the positives that Michelle has experienced through aging.
I really loved this conversation, and I think there is plenty to learn from Michelle’s life experience as well as the knowledge that she shares. I’ll be back at the end with a recommendation for you, but for now, let’s get on with the show. Here is my conversation with Michelle Vina-Baltsas.
Hey, Michelle. Welcome to Real Health Radio. Thanks so much for joining me today.
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: Hi Chris, thanks for having me.
Chris Sandel: You are someone who works a lot with clients who are in mid-life. And this is an area that I’ve been working on more and more in the last handful of years. I’ve been reflecting and noticing that much more of my clients than really at any other point are now in their late forties and fifties and sixties, and I think there are things that occur at that point, whether that be things to do with how the body changes, whether that be to do with how life changes, that I think are really relevant and it’s useful to have a conversation about. So that’s one of the main reasons why I wanted to have you on the show today.
And I also know you have your own background and story with issues around food, and I think it would be great to be able to talk about that as well.
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I guess as a starting place, let’s start with you. What was your relationship with food like growing up, or what are some of your earliest memories connected to food?
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: Oh wow, that is a loaded question. [laughs] Food for me as a young person was really challenging. I remember it being very shameful, filled with a lot of embarrassment. To be honest, it was also very confusing for me because I was able to – at a very young age – the earliest memories I think are four or five, and of course, they’re just flashes; they’re not fully formed, but they are there, of being able to eat quite a bit more than people my age.
One of my earliest memories was asking my parents if I could order off the adult menu and not the kids’ menu because I always felt like I was still hungry. They looked at me like, “No. You’re too young to order an adult-sized portion”, whatever that is. They wouldn’t allow me to. I remember just feeling really embarrassed that I felt the need to have more and I was told that it wasn’t okay. So I felt very isolated, and it was hard. It was very hard for me.
Chris Sandel: Was that also happening at home? You were at home, and what was plated up for lunch or dinner was then also not enough for what you needed?
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: Yes. Looking back, food was definitely policed. How much food I had, how often I had it. Comments were often made if I ate ‘too much’ of something, specifically like deli meats or things like that. And it all got a little complicated because there was some food scarcity there because my father had passed away when I was seven. So my mother was in a difficult financial situation. We did have to, to some degree – I don’t want to say ration, but we had to be a little more mindful. And that was hard for me because I was hungry.
My mother was also a medical professional and was very into eating ‘balanced’ meals. I have no memory of us ever having what we say in intuitive eating ‘fun foods’ in the house. That was forbidden. So I would go to friends’ homes who had all of that kind of stuff and I’d want to eat it all because I didn’t have it.
There were a lot of things going on. Of course, now as an adult, I can see that, but as a child it was just, “Why don’t we have these things? It’s not fair. I want them” and just feeling all the time like “This is not working for me. I need more than this, and why am I being made to feel that my hunger is a bad thing and that I’m not supposed to feel this way, and I’m certainly not supposed to speak about it” – especially when, again, we were strapped financially. It was a very complicated time, a very challenging time for me. And I see how it all played out with my food.
Chris Sandel: Totally. Was there another incident where you tried to vocalise this to your parents or to your mum – obviously you mentioned the issue the time at the restaurant, but was there another attempt where you tried to explain your side of things?
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: Yeah, there were. I specifically remember deli meats and my mother saying, “How did this pound of (blank) disappear? I just got this X number of days ago” and her looking at me like, “What is wrong with you?” So saying I was hungry, and just her not really understanding that I was hungry, and “Please don’t look at me that way.” Because I felt like an alien. Again, the shame was profound. I got the impression from a very, very young age that having an appetite was a bad thing. Of course I know now that it’s not, but at the time I didn’t have this knowledge.
That continued to grow as I got older, so I continued to try to suppress that hunger. And of course, in doing that, that led to dieting and to continuing to believe there was something wrong with me, that nobody can eat this much, nobody should eat this much, and that there must be something else ‘wrong’ with me that I would want to have that much food.
Chris Sandel: It sounds like that was very much a learned belief. Even with you just retelling the story, it sounds like in the early part, you noticed “I have a large appetite” and that’s more just an objective fact as opposed to it being a problem. It’s like “How can I get these adults to understand that that is the case and there is nothing wrong with this?” And then at some point, over incidents and years of being shamed and told that this is wrong, whether through actually being told or the actions of others, then it became internalised of “Oh, this is obviously a bad thing.”
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: Right. Even when I’m hearing you say it and when I said it, I’m thinking that I had a large appetite, and that’s really a judgment. An appetite is what it is. I was judging myself then. And again, I think some of that gets into, how much does a person need to eat? The answer is, of course, that varies day to day, hour to hour. It just really depends.
Again, not having that kind of language at that age, it was a completely different time, and my mother was going through a lot. So this is certainly not any way for me to blame her, but she certainly didn’t have the tools that a lot of parents have now. At that time, it was “Children are only supposed to eat this much, and you’re eating more than that, so that’s not normal.” And that, of course, was not the case, but that’s what I was told.
Chris Sandel: Did she have her own dieting history? I know you said she was in the medical profession. Outside of the medical profession, was her own dieting informing some of her thoughts on this?
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: Absolutely. My mother was always very critical of her body, especially her belly. As for many women that I coach and just hear talking, the belly is a big area of contention for a lot of people. She longed to be a specific weight, and she would give a number all the time. Of course, I wouldn’t give the number here, but it was always this magical number that she thought all of her worries would go away when she was able to reach this number again.
She would often say, “Well, my body was so much blah, blah, blah when I was this” and she pined for it all the time. I remember the number, I remember everything. And my grandmother, although she didn’t quote a weight, was also very body-conscious. She wore a girdle. Part of that, again, was the times; she also said it was to help her back. But I also remember her putting it on and saying, “Oh look, I look so much ‘better’ when I have this on!” So she clearly was also very body-conscious.
And they were both very aware when there was a person in a larger body nearby and would call my attention to it. My mother was from Puerto Rico, so she would say in Spanish, “Mira, gorda”, which is “Look, a fat person.” And gorda with the ‘a’ is ‘woman’. My mother would, as subtly as she could, tilt her head or whatever so I would look. The language didn’t exist then, but she was very fatphobic. She really had no idea.
This was a cultural thing, because my grandmother was exactly the same way. I was taught at a very young age that being in a larger body was not okay. My mother went so far as to say that in her opinion – and again, I know this is what she was taught because my grandmother said the same thing – it was a result of eating ‘too much’ and, of course, being out of control, and lack of self-care. Again, that language didn’t exist. But it was just at a very young, these are the things I was told. And I internalised them.
Chris Sandel: Totally. You picked those up by osmosis, you picked them up by someone directly telling those things to you, and that forms your beliefs.
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When did you start to then do the policing of your own food? When did you start the dieting?
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: Let me think. I remember feeling self-conscious about my body as early as eight years old. For me, that was third grade. That was really because I started to develop. I was already wearing a training bra when I was in third grade. Nobody else was at that stage. I had grown taller, I was starting to fill in. It was very emotionally and physically uncomfortable because nobody else was like that.
I also had a lot of body hair. On my father’s side, we’re Syrian, and my mother, again, is Puerto Rican. So there’s just this genetic thing where I had more body hair. My mother had almost none, but I had a lot from my dad’s side. That also made me feel very uncomfortable because I was made fun of all the time. So between that and my body being taller, filling out, developing breasts at eight and nine years old, my body was just – like, again, “What’s wrong with me? Why am I developing earlier than everybody else?”
It was just a very uncomfortable period. I wanted to be smaller, so I started eating a little bit less. When I was in sixth grade, which is 11 and 12 years old, I was fully developed. I’d started menstruating already. That, of course, is when – in my case, I was attracted to boys, so I was looking to look like everyone else and be thinner, and that wasn’t the way my body was designed.
I wasn’t in a large body – again, that varies; everybody’s a little different. But I was definitely more developed, and that was not okay for me. So I started to eat less and I started to be interested in, “How can I look more like them?” Of course, ‘more like them’, they weren’t menstruating yet, so their body wasn’t going through those changes. I was always looking to change my body to look like someone else’s. I didn’t look like them for lots of reasons, but specifically around my body type.
Chris Sandel: With the dieting, were you doing this on your own and it was your secret and you didn’t tell anyone? Or you were telling your mum or she was encouraging it, or you were doing it with other kids? What was your experience?
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: It was a combination of all those things, but initially I was pretty open about it because I wanted people to know that I was doing something to fix myself. That was what I believed. Like so many people at the time, I had joined an organisation – I will not say the name. I would go weekly and I would do my thing and reach a specific weight, and then I would be all better. I thought in my mind, “I’ll be at this weight forever now. My problem is ‘fixed’.”
Of course, that was not the case. [laughs] I was young. I was 12-13 years old at that point when I started doing this, so things started to really change for me at that point. Then I started doing it with friends, because then they started to develop and they didn’t like their bodies either. So it was like, “Let’s do this together! Let’s all of us be disordered together!” Which is typically what happens. We all got on the same bandwagon and we all went to the same meetings and we all were ‘accountable’ to one another, and it just went from there.
Then from there, I tried other diets on my own. All kinds of diets. In fact, one time – I’ll never forget, when I was in my first year of high school, I was dieting with the teacher.
Chris Sandel: Wow.
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: Yeah. I would sit there and tell her how much I really didn’t like my body, and she would say, “Oh, I have this (blank) diet for you. We’ll do it together.” Wow. [laughs] At that point I was 14 or 15, freshman year. I would’ve been 15 going on 16 the following year, so I was probably 14-15 at that stage, my freshman year. So we dieted together.
Chris Sandel: Wow. Basically at every turn, it is being reinforced to you of “dieting is normal, this is a good thing for you to do, this is you taking care of yourself.”
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: And “there is something wrong with your body and you need to do something about it.”
Chris Sandel: Yes. Even if that’s not said explicitly, that is what is being implied.
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: Absolutely. That was what I believed all the time. And because I wasn’t getting the same attention that so many other young people were getting – at least in my mind, that’s what I believed – there was something wrong with me. For sure. Because if there weren’t, then at that point, young men would be more attracted to me. So in order to get the male gaze, I would have to change myself. And that was what I continued to try to do.
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<strong>Chris Sandel:</strong> I’ve heard you on another podcast, and I know with part of your story, this turned into binge eating disorder. How long did it take before that started to occur?
<strong>Michelle Vina-Baltsas:</strong> It’s a little fuzzy. I really think part of that is just because I need to protect myself from some of those memories because they are really painful. But a little bit of stuff that has shaken out over the years is probably around – I remember it pretty heavy in high school, so between 15 and 18, around that time is when I think it was at its – I don’t want to say its height, but it was pretty bad.
That’s really when I became very aware of how much I actually could consume. And it was hectic, and it was hidden, and it was shameful, and it was all of the things that we read about symptoms of BED. At that time, of course, it was called compulsive eating, but I knew that – and this time I knew diagnostically, something was a little off. I always felt that way, but as I got older and closer to the end of high school, I was starting to realise, “This is a lot.”
And I meant that because I was so physically uncomfortable. It wasn’t just a judgment of how much I was eating. My body was so uncomfortable because of the amount of food I was consuming, and yet I couldn’t stop. There was that compulsiveness there. And that’s when I knew, I had enough wherewithal, to be like, “Something might be going on here. I don’t know what it is, I don’t know who to go to, to help me, but I’m making note of this.”
<strong>Chris Sandel:</strong> What did you then do with that note? Did that mean that you then did go and find a psychologist or you did go and find someone? What happened as part of that?
<strong>Michelle Vina-Baltsas:</strong> I was in therapy all the way through. I remember being in therapy probably from middle school on, on and off. When I graduated from high school, I was 18. I did have some friends who I was able to share a little bit, and they were like, “Oh, I eat a lot too.” My therapist didn’t seem overly concerned. They certainly didn’t have – of course, a very different time. I’m 56, so this was in the ’80s. We didn’t have the information that we have now about eating disorders.
My therapist was like, “Okay, so you have an appetite.” I don’t know that I was fully clear with them the extent of my eating and the discomfort I was feeling, and the frequency of how often this was happening. Part of that may have just been shame, and part of it may have just been “I don’t really want to talk about this.” I think part of it was, if I’m being honest, “This is one of my coping tools. Don’t take it away from me.” There was fear there of “If this stops, how am I going to cope then?”
<strong>Chris Sandel:</strong> Totally. I know that with clients as well, there can be this ambivalence where “There is this disruptive side to this and I can see what this costs me and this is unenjoyable in many aspects – and I don’t know who to do this without this.”
<strong>Michelle Vina-Baltsas:</strong> Exactly. It’s all I knew. It really was all I knew. And I really thought, for years – I think I had a hybrid type of thing. I think I struggled with ‘emotional eating’. I definitely was eating very often to soothe my emotions. But there was absolutely was binging going on. And I think, again, that was in response to growing up in a home where there wasn’t a lot of food, and when there was, it went very quickly.
I still have visions – especially when Covid hit, it was really hard for me, because I remembered speaking about food scarcity and how that period of the Covid times, especially when we were in lockdown, was kicking that up for a lot of people, and I was one of those people. Because the thought of not having access to food opened something up for me that hadn’t been opened in many, many years.
I remember looking at my mother’s pantry and it being almost empty. Just seeing a few cans, or things that I didn’t want to eat. It was like, “There’s nothing here that I really am interested in eating.” And looking in the refrigerator, again, it being very sparse. Just that feeling. So when it came time to shop for Covid, my husband was like, “We need to get a new freezer. You’re buying a lot of food.”
He wasn’t insulting me or in any way trying to make me feel shameful; he was being serious, like, “Okay, I understand you need this and I understand the reasons why because we’ve talked about it. What can we do so we can help you to not feel like you’re going to run out of food?” This was a very real concern for me, and it kind of shocked me, to be honest, because it had been so many years later. But it’s clear that my body was responding to something that it had experienced in the past.
<strong>Chris Sandel:</strong> It’s like a visceral reaction. It’s your nervous system taking over. This isn’t you logically thinking, “Is there going to be neoguh food in the store?” Your body has taken you to that place before your prefrontal cortex has even come online.
<strong>Michelle Vina-Baltsas:</strong> Absolutely. I was seeing photos online of empty grocery store shelves, and my husband and I decided that I would do the shopping. Our son was home from college. My husband has had some respiratory issues, so he was at a much higher risk than me. So we agreed I would once a week – we were very strategic about how we did the shopping. I would come home and literally strip down in the laundry room. Before we knew that this was – earlier on, it was all so – with good reason; it was a horrifying time.
But my point is that he understood and we worked together. But it was seeing those pictures of the empty shelves, not just of toilet products, but of food, and then experiencing it when I went to the stores. My nervous system was over the top.
<strong>Chris Sandel:</strong> I can completely understand that.
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If we go back to you in your twenties or thirties, how did this start to come to an end? What are the things that allowed you to get to a better place with this?
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: Believe it or not, one of the places that helped me for a period, a chunk of time, actually, was going to a 12-step programme. I think I can say it here?
Chris Sandel: Sure.
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: Overeaters Anonymous. When I graduated from college at 21 – you had asked before, and I noted that my eating seemed to be a little unique. Throughout college, I definitely continued along with the binging. When I left college, I said, “Okay, now I am free to explore a little bit more.” Again, I was in therapy, but nobody seemed to think this was much of an issue.
But when I left college, I graduated, and I said, “Now that I’m done with school, I have time to explore.” I don’t remember how it came into my life, but I found out about Overeaters Anonymous. And when I went and I heard other people speaking, I felt like I had found my home. Because I actually spoke to people who described what I had been doing for like 15 years. I was like, “Oh my gosh, it’s not just me. People can eat as much as I can eat, and they can eat to a point of incredible physical discomfort and yet still want to eat.” And that was me.
So a lot of that shame fell away. I found a place for myself for a period of time, until it no longer was aligned with my beliefs. But for 10 years I was there – I would say for about 8 solid years I felt like, “I want to do this for the rest of my life. I want to be in this programme for the rest of my life.” And then I would say Years 9 and 10, things started to shift. It just didn’t work for me anymore. I didn’t feel comfortable there. I didn’t like the way people spoke of their bodies or about food. It wasn’t giving me a sense of freedom anymore, and that was what I really wanted. So I knew that it was time to shed myself of that and move on.
Chris Sandel: I’ve heard similar things from clients as well, where to find a support group where you can talk honestly, where you find other people who’ve had similar experiences when for so long you felt isolated – that can feel like a godsend. And it can be such an incredible thing, as you said there, in terms of the shame part of it, to be able to hear other people, to be able to share your story. I am fully on board with that aspect of Overeaters Anonymous.
And I think about that in terms of 12-step programmes; I think that is a thing that, as a society, we need. We need spaces where we can talk very openly and vulnerably and tell our stories about situations and things we did that we’ve never told to anyone else and have people be really supportive and non-judgmental. That is fundamentally an amazing thing.
My qualms and issues with Overeaters Anonymous are that fundamentally, I think what it is suggesting – in terms of “these are the things you need to remove from your food and your eating” and being pretty much restriction-based is where I feel is the downside. Because I think for a lot of people, or I’d even go so far as to say most people, that is at least a part of, and for a lot of people a very big part of, where the binge eating is coming from. It’s suggesting more of what has created the problem in the first place.
And I think, like you talk about, in the beginning it can maybe feel like more of a solution, and then with time it feels less like a solution and you start to be like, “This isn’t actually taking this thing away.”
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: Right. Being able to release some of that shame in the rooms and hearing other people speak – like I said, it really was like “Wow, what a relief!” And then I just wanted to stay. But again, things change. We evolve, if we choose to. It took a while, but it just wasn’t working for me anymore. And when I say ‘working’, I mean that I didn’t feel comfortable and I didn’t feel free.
I started to feel, like you’re describing, more restricted. I didn’t like that “you shouldn’t eat that” and the whole thing “don’t eat white foods” and all of that. I was like, “No.” For a while I thought I needed to go into the subgroup of OA, which was even more restrictive. Then I really came to what I’m calling my senses and realised, “Michelle, this is not for you anymore. It’s fine for them; people can do whatever they feel is good for them, but for me, this is no longer aligned with what I want to feel, with my values or anything like that.” So I chose to leave.
Chris Sandel: At the point of choosing to leave, had you already then discovered intuitive eating or had an idea of what was next in terms of what you would do? Or it was just like, “I know this isn’t working, and even if I don’t have a plan B, I’m getting out”?
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: It was the latter. I knew I needed to get out. I didn’t have awareness of intuitive eating until much later. I just kind of free formed for a while. I think during that time, if I’m honest, I’m pretty sure I tried some more diets. I know I absolutely was using exercise or movement as a way to help control my weight. Definitely doing that.
So there was still a lot of disordered behaviours. I was still in therapy on and off. I’m not mistaken, I believe that was around the time I started antidepressant medication, which I’m always very open about to help release the stigmas around mental health. So there were a lot of things going on in my life at that time.
I just wanted to try to understand, still, what I thought was ‘wrong’ with me. I thought that there was just something that, if I could just get to the root of it, “What is wrong with me?”, I would be so happy. I certainly struggled for years with depression, and looking back, I absolutely should’ve been medicated in high school and was not. I would’ve had probably a much, much healthier and happier experience had I been. But it was not an option. It was not even on my radar at the time.
My mother felt very strongly, even though she knew better, about medication. She didn’t believe in antidepressants. Her feeling was, “You just have to dust yourself off.” Very different belief system, and part of that, again, was cultural. But she did advocate for therapy and she did take me, and she supported that, but she did not support medication. But I needed it. I absolutely needed it. I have been on it on and off throughout my life. No shame whatsoever. It’s helped me.
From when I left OA and before I found intuitive eating, I think it was just a lot of winging it, and again, using movement in a very disordered way and just hoping for the best.
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Chris Sandel: When did you find intuitive eating, and how did that happen?
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: It happened in 2012. A couple of weeks ago, I was looking through Amazon for something, and I didn’t realise that they had a history of all the things you bought from Day 1. So I was looking around, and it’s what I thought: I bought the Intuitive Eating book in 2012. With that order – amazing how much stuff they have online – I bought like four other books too, because I ‘stumbled’ upon the Intuitive Eating book because I was getting other diet books. Of course, intuitive eating is not a diet, but at the time, that’s what I was looking for and this book came up. I said, “Oh, that looks interesting.”
I added it to my cart and I got the book, and I said, “This is not possible.” I went so far as to say, “This is not possible for me. They have no idea how much food I can consume. This is a really nice idea, but not going to work for me.”
Chris Sandel: Did you think “Maybe I should give this a try” or just “These guys do not know about my situation, this isn’t even going to fly, I cannot even try this”?
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: It was a combo. [laughs] It really was. But when I looked back at that order, I also had gotten the Health at Every Size book written by Lindo Bacon, at the time Linda Bacon. I remember reading that book and throwing it across the room, literally, and saying, “This is a crock. There’s no way that this research is accurate. Who are these people?” So after throwing it across the room, I put the book away. I said, “This is crazy talk.”
Then I read all my other books that were talking about weight being a spiritual issue and all of these other things. I was still very steeped in that kind of dogma from OA. So I was just trying to find a different approach to it, but using that spiritual undertone – which there’s nothing wrong with for anyone else, but for me, it wasn’t working anymore. I needed something else. I just kept ordering these books because I was looking for an answer, “How can I fix this?” I read the Intuitive Eating book. Again, it was a much older version than it is. I said, “This is really lovely, but it’s not going to work.”
This was 2012, and I said, “But wouldn’t it be nice if it could work?” And by that point I already had my son and I knew that he was getting older and I wanted to model different behaviours for him. I didn’t want him to be stuck seeing me or affected by seeing me have this really challenging relationship with food.
Chris Sandel: So what was your first experience like when you did finally take the plunge?
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: “I’m doing this ‘wrong’.” I felt, “There’s no structure here. How could anyone follow this? I need someone to tell me what to do, because that’s what I’ve been doing basically my whole life.” “This many this, don’t eat that, eat at this time.” So that’s all I knew. For someone to say, “Listen to your body and choose foods that you think are going to be satisfying for you” – I was like, what are you talking about? This was a completely different language to me, and it was very uncomfortable.
Some voice inside kept saying to me, “Yeah, but what if it could work? What if this could work for you? What if you could have the freedom that they are describing in this book?” At that time I was in my forties and I was in a major transition in my life. I was in perimenopause. Nobody told me that. My son was older, and I was starting to get very particular about the foods he was eating. I was making him really anxious, and that made me very scared.
So I found a professional to help me with intuitive eating, because I believed, I hoped, that there was a way for me to embrace these principles and to find something better for myself. I decided that I would hire a professional who could help me, and that’s what I did.
00:42:21
Chris Sandel: Nice. You talking about your son and noticing the anxiety you were creating with him and wanting to model something different for him than you had been – I know for lots of clients, that’s a big pull. Like, “I don’t want to have history repeat itself. I know what my parents taught me, and I don’t want to be passing that on.” Also, you’d had the experience for the previous 20-25 years that you’d been struggling with this thing, and you’re like, “I don’t want to be giving this to my child.”
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: Right. And we – I’m sorry.
Chris Sandel: No, go on.
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: We’ve since, thank goodness, repaired that relationship in terms of food, and we still to this day laugh about white rice, because that was something – “Don’t eat white rice”, and I would attach all of these negative things to eating white rice. And now we still laugh when we order Chinese and he orders white rice. My son is 20. He’s like, “Mom, remember when you wouldn’t let me” – and I’m like, “Yes, honey, I remember.” [laughs] And now we laugh about it. But I realise he could’ve gone a very different way.
Chris Sandel: Totally. My background is studying as a nutritionist, and if I didn’t go down this path, I could also see it going a very different way with my son. He’s very much a picky eater, and it’s interesting in terms of the way that we navigate that. I’m very relaxed about it, like, you know what? He’s getting what he needs. It’s way better that he has a good relationship with food and that mealtimes aren’t fraught. Let’s focus on what’s actually really important here. And I know that it could’ve looked very differently if I had studied just nutrition and had not gone down this intuitive eating path.
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: Exactly. The same thing could’ve happened to me, because I first became a health coach. That was all about “eat organic, eat this, eat that, and that was really when things dialled up for me. And also, at that time my mother was very, very ill with cancer and has since passed. So I became hyper-focused on “Cancer is all over my family, so I really have to be extra careful because of my genetic footprint.” All of that transferred to him.
And of course, I was just trying to be a ‘good’ mother, but what was happening was my child was already starting to develop these behaviours that were very filled with stress and anxiety around food. And I would see that he would do things like hide things from me.
So when I got more into intuitive eating and I really left the whole health coaching thing behind except for the coaching skills it taught me, I elevated myself and said “This is not what I want to do. Coaching, yes, but not telling people what to eat or how to eat.” That was around the same time I was introduced to intuitive eating.
And at the time, I was a vegetarian. I look back 10 years and it was a really complicated time in my life because I was also getting off of a booster medication for my antidepressant, and that booster medication had a huge impact on my weight. Between getting into intuitive eating and giving myself full permission, getting off of the medication, my body was going through so many changes at the same time. I look back and say, “Girl, you made it. You worked your butt off to really make this relationship one that is filled with love and compassion instead of self-loathing.”
But it was a rocky time. It was a really rocky time. But you know what, Chris? I’m grateful for it all.
Chris Sandel: Totally. And I can see how one could then be like, “I’m letting myself go, I’d been prioritising health and now what am I doing?” You could see it through this complete other lens where it was about self-flagellation and that type of thing. But for you to be able to really embrace it and see, “This is a really positive thing, this is something I’ve struggled with for decades and I’m now finally making inroads into getting into a better place” – I think that’s hugely positive.
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: Absolutely. And I think for a lot of people, the beginning can be a little bit rocky. Let’s face it; learning to trust our body is not an easy process. But it’s absolutely possible. I believe it’s absolutely possible. Sometimes we just need someone to hold our hand through it.
00:47:35
Chris Sandel: How long did it take for you – and I know this is one of those things where, how long is a piece of string, because there’s different things that occur at different points – but for you to go from complete intuitive eating novice to it feeling like “this is just me doing this pretty much on autopilot and I’m on board with all of the 10 principles and I feel like I’m doing this”? How long did that transition take?
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: If I’m honest, I would say I started to feel like it was getting easier probably into my sixth month. I felt after a year that I was more on autopilot, like “Okay, I’m asking myself what I want to eat, I’m giving myself that full permission, I’m not stressing as much.” I was still adjusting to my new body, and that took longer.
But the food part and being able to embrace the majority of the principles, I would say six months to a full year before I felt like “I think I’m getting this. I think I’m really understanding” and I didn’t feel as fearful about the ‘lack of structure’. That became very normalised for me. I was like, “Oh yeah, this is just the way I eat now.” I started to feel freedom in terms of my eating, which was really nice.
Chris Sandel: I also would add, I think there’s this misconception within intuitive eating that there is no structure, and I don’t actually think that needs to be the case. I think I’m a very intuitive eater, but I eat my breakfast at roughly the same time every day. I eat a snack at roughly the same time. There is structure that is built in by just knowing, “This is when I tend to get hungry now.” And I think that gets easier as time goes on because you’re better regulated with those things. In the early stages, when you do give yourself permission, you can eat a meal and then an hour later you’re hungry again.
But I don’t think that intuitive eating has to mean no structure. And I know that’s not what you’re saying, but I just want listeners to really understand this because I think that is a common misconception.
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: 100% agree. My breakfast I usually have around the same time, give or take. And also, I wouldn’t say that I eat the same things over and over again, but in terms of what’s on my plate, I do have a nice variety of things, and I have noticed over time that my body does do better when I have a nice variety of various things on my plate.
In the beginning, that was not always the case because, like many people, I was refeeding. I was bouncing all over the place with diets and with binging and with restricting, so of course the things I hadn’t been eating, that I wouldn’t give myself permission to eat, I was eating in abundance – which is completely natural. But when I finally understood and really embraced the principles, things were very, very different. I felt like “isn’t this the way everybody eats?” I just felt very comfortable, and I felt ‘normal’. I felt this is very natural, and that feeling of “this is natural” was such a relief for me.
Chris Sandel: Yeah, and I would imagine it was a very gradual process. I know with clients, there’s less of the ‘aha’ moments and more of the “Oh, I’ve noticed I haven’t done that thing for the last month” and you just become aware because things have started to happen repeatedly, and it just feels normal, or things that you were doing have now stopped, and you notice that they’re now absent and you’re not longing for that thing, or that’s not a challenge that that thing’s no longer happening.
It can sometimes feel glacially slow, but in the whole scheme of things, when you say “I had a struggle with food that lasted 25 years”, to in a lot of ways overcome that in a year, that is a pretty quick transition.
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: Yeah. And you know what, I don’t think we ever arrive. I think we’re always learning. I feel like my relationship and my practice gets stronger and stronger. I feel that really strongly. People are like, “How long does this take?” I’m like, we’re always giving opportunities to learn about our bodies. But when I say that I feel like it took six months to a year, that was where I was able to embrace and be like, “These principles are the way that I want to continue living my life.” That was huge.
And again, like you’re describing, it was slower, I guess. People are so used to diets getting these quick results, with of course very dismal long-term returns. But it was just much more ease. When I was able to keep things in the house without thinking about them or obsessing about them – and sometimes I’d keep ice cream in the freezer and it would be freezer burned because I had completely forgotten that it was there. Back in the day, that was not possible because I would eat it in one sitting. Things like that. It was just like, “Oh, that’s interesting. Look at that. Wow.” [laughs]
00:53:22
Chris Sandel: You said the body acceptance or body image piece took longer. I know this is a very open-ended question, but what did that look like? What was helping you actually get to a better place with that?
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: Certainly befriending my body after decades of self-loathing with food and things like that helped me to realise that being a friend to myself instead of being not so nice was going to help me in terms of accepting my body. Of course, our bodies change and they’re supposed to change, and that’s one of the things I talk about all the time with my clients, especially for mid-lifers. I do have some clients that are not mid-life. But even with younger people, our bodies change.
I keep reminding myself of that and understanding that, in that spirit, things are going to shift around a little bit, and how can we make this easier? How can you be nicer to yourself? How can you support your body? What other things can you do to support your body as it’s going through life? And that’s the way I go through – and I’m not thinking about that all the time, because I’m human. I can’t always be that dialled into it. But most days, I’m asking my body continually, “What do you need right now? How can I support you?”
That relationship between myself and my body as a result has gotten much, much stronger and much more loving and much more compassionate.
Chris Sandel: I think that regular reminder of “How can I support you?” – even if you’re not consciously asking yourself that, even if that’s just “I recognise I’m hungry. Okay, cool, I’m going to go and eat; that’s my body telling me what it needs in that moment” or “I’m feeling pretty tired at the moment. Tonight I’m not going to go for that swim and I’m just going to have an early night” or whatever it may be. But doing things where you’re like, “I’m getting this feedback from my body and I’m going to honour the information it is giving me.”
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: Right. You said that is the feedback. When I was in the dieting world and my relationship with my body and food was so archaic, dialling into my body was something – I didn’t have any idea what that even meant, because everything was coming from outside of me. Being able to go into this new world of intuitive eating and body acceptance is really all about going inward.
Like you said, you may not be consciously asking the question, but all of a sudden your body is giving hunger cues and you’re like, “Oh, I’m hungry.” And then what are you going to do about it? Are you going to honour it? Are you in a position where you’re able to feed yourself at this time? Or caring for yourself. Maybe you can’t eat for several hours, so you take care of yourself and you have something to tide you over. Just those compassionate responses that help your body to be in a better position for you to thrive and for you to feel better.
Chris Sandel: Definitely. I think it would be good to have a bit of a chat about some of the training you’ve done. I know you said you did some health coaching and then wanted to continue on with coaching, but in a different way. Obviously intuitive eating was a big part of that. So some of the trainings that you’ve done that I imagine were both helpful for you personally in your journey but also were then useful with working with clients, I want to go through that.
00:57:16
But before we do that, you’ve talked a little about the clients you work with, but just so I know and the listeners know more, who do you work with? What are they wanting help with? What is it about you and what you offer that you think resonates with people? Just so we get a sense of who it is you’re helping.
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: Most of the women that are attracted to my work are mid-life or a little bit earlier. Mid-life is a weird thing because everyone says it’s a different age bracket. I typically categorise it between 45 to 65, but some people say 50 and older.
Chris Sandel: Sorry to interrupt – it is kind of funny, if someone’s saying mid-life at 50, your expectation is now that you’re living to 100. [laughs]
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: Exactly.
Chris Sandel: I’m 40 now, and I’m like, I’m at mid-life or thereabouts.
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: Right. I tend to work with women that are 45 and over, but I’ve worked with women who are 65 or 70, but I’ve also worked with teenagers. That’s pretty rare. But I’ve worked with women in their twenties. It depends. Sometimes I think younger people are coming to me because they’re looking for more of a mother figure. Maybe their mother is not accepting of their desire to try something different and they’re very stuck in diet culture. But most of the women coming to me are usually 45 and older.
They are looking for someone who has been through a lot of the stuff that happens at this period of life, this stage of life, and who has come out on the other side. [laughs] I also speak very openly about the struggles I had in perimenopause and menopause, and now that I’m through that, it’s like, what’s life like on the other side?
Many of them have already stopped menstruating, so they’re post-menopause. This is a whole different part of their lives that they’re exploring, and it’s very new to them. They like to talk to someone who understands, and again, they like to speak to somebody who is very open about it because they feel like many of their friends don’t want to talk about it. They have a lot of shame about their body changing; they think there’s something wrong with them because their body is changing. They need to speak to somebody who’s not speaking that way, because they need to be validated and need to understand, “I really want to try this different path, but no-one in my inner circle is doing this. I need someone who can help me to see that this is okay for me.”
Chris Sandel: That makes complete sense.
01:00:15
With the intuitive eating, I know you’ve done the Certified Intuitive Eating Coach training. What did you get out of this that you either didn’t know about intuitive eating before or wasn’t in the book? What was the benefit you got from this training?
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: The training was wonderful. Certainly working with Elyse and Evelyn was a huge piece of it. You do have to go through some supervisory training after. It really was helping to solidify the principles, helping to see some of the pitfalls. As an example, people making intuitive eating into a hunger/fullness diet. That’s a very common thing that people struggle with. Really helping to understand the role that food satisfaction plays in all of this.
And of course, working through supervision, it was, which of these principles are you still struggling with? It was an opportunity, really, to do some deep diving on some of the areas that were still fuzzy to me and where I still felt like, even though I thought I had embraced them, the training really uncovered some areas that didn’t make me feel very comfortable. So I was like, let’s explore those.
Continuing to peel back those layers and doing it with two professionals that have seen a lot and who are both very loving and compassionate was a great experience for me.
Chris Sandel: Nice. I’ve had both of them on the podcast. I think both of them I’ve had on twice. So I’m a big fan, and I’m in agreement; satisfaction I think is often the missing part that people don’t get, or really is the glue that holds many of the other principles together.
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: Yes.
Chris Sandel: It is one of the areas I focus a lot on with clients. I’ve done a whole podcast episode all about satisfaction. I think if you can truly get that, then a lot of the other stuff falls in line.
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: Agreed. It was great training, and it really opened me up to a whole other world that I didn’t know existed, because again, in health coaching, which was a rigorous year of training, we didn’t tell them exactly to diet, but you were exposed to literally 100 different diets. It was a complete reversal of that. So again, I learned a lot of coaching skills from there. No regrets at all. It was part of my journey. But in terms of the dogma around what they taught, that’s not at all what I do.
Chris Sandel: Same with my nutrition training. There is a lot that I’m very appreciative of for going through that, and I understand physiology and things that I didn’t understand before. It was really my gateway into getting into it. I didn’t have a huge science background. I didn’t do any sciences as part of my last couple of years at school. So I’m really grateful for it, but I’ve disavowed a very high percentage of what was taught. [laughs]
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: Yes, I’ve heard that a lot.
01:03:34
Chris Sandel: And then I know you did the Playing Big facilitator training with Tara Mohr. What were some of the skills you learnt as part of that training?
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: That was an experience. That was a wonderful six-month experience. Tara Mohr is a very gifted author and facilitator, and she is all about helping to see the world differently and how to empower other women. Through her process or her writing, she’s able to do that. She’s a very, very gifted coach.
But what I really took away from that – I had heard of the inner critic before, but not to the extent that she talks about it and how it really infiltrates so many areas of our lives. I just didn’t have that kind of language or knowledge before. I’d heard people talk about the inner critic, but not to the extent that she did, and she really dissected it. We learned, what’s the voice of the inner critic? All that self-doubt that you may be having is the inner critic. And the reasons why it shows up and how to compassionately work with the inner critic instead of against the inner critic, and understanding that it’s really just this very vulnerable side of ourselves that is afraid.
For me, it helped to tie in the compassion piece also. She just really spoke to me on so many levels. There were many, many other things. And also helping us to see that on the other side of fear and self-doubt, there is this intuitiveness inside of us that we can choose to dial into at any time. Of course, I knew that from intuitive eating, but this was next level. It really, again, brought all of that together for me, and I was like, this is a beautiful pairing with my other training. So that was a wonderful experience.
Chris Sandel: Nice. I’ve heard Brené Brown talk a lot about the inner critic, I’ve heard Kristin Neff talk a lot about self-compassion, and they’re the two people who come to mind when you talk about it. But there’s something about doing a programme where someone is like, “There is this six months and we’re going to be doing this thing and then this thing” where it’s so much more structured than just reading a book, and where you’re learning how to use this thing in a very practical and pragmatic way. And if it’s geared towards someone who is a coach and how to bring this into the coaching realm, I think there is so much that you can gain from that.
Especially with the inner critic, I think a lot of people, when you talk about that, they’re like, “But I don’t really notice that I’m criticising myself.” And I don’t think it’s just that. There are these beliefs that are in that subconscious, which is part of the inner critic, which are having an impact here.
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: Exactly. The subconscious piece is huge. Also, she brings in the piece that women are wired this way, to doubt themselves, because of decades where they couldn’t speak. They weren’t allowed to have property. They weren’t allowed to have credit. They weren’t allowed to have any of these things, and if they spoke up, there was potentially a huge price to pay, including divorce, homelessness, and things that nobody really wants to experience.
So she helped us to see that this is not just something that started with us. This is something that is here. And of course, men have inner critics too, but I think it’s something that most would agree, this is a real problem for women, the self-doubt and apologising and not feeling like they measure up.
She helped us really to see the ways that our society continues to perpetuate this, and she does it in such an eloquent way. She’s very equitable. She’s just really a wonderful – I can’t say enough good things about her. She’s a lovely, lovely person.
Chris Sandel: Nice. On that point of how it’s been conditioned into women, I’ve just started watching Mad Men. I know I’m very behind the curve on this because it came out so long ago.
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: I haven’t seen it either, so you’re not. [laughs]
Chris Sandel: It’s set in the ’60s, and it’s actually very difficult to watch because it’s so cringeworthy in terms of how women are treated, how Black people are treated. It’s so hard to watch, and I’m constantly asking myself, was it really like this? Undoubtedly it was because they’ve done the research with this.
Also, I started reading a book called The Carpetbaggers by a guy called Harold Robbins. I’d never heard of him before; I heard a marketer years ago talk about how he likes the books because the guy’s a really incredible writer. I think he was a writer in the ’60s. But I’m having the exact same experience with the book, where it’s just these very outdated ideas around gender and men’s places and women’s places in society. So those two things in very recent memory are having an impact on how I’m thinking about this.
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: It’s interesting because I have not seen the series, and one of the reasons why I haven’t is because of what you’re describing. I’ve heard that it’s so cringeworthy. [laughs] I know that it’s going to trigger me so much. So I’m like, eh, I’m not so sure about that.
But I was just reading something today about in the States – you may have it over the UK – Ellen DeGeneres’s show is coming to an end. She was describing how far she’s come because in the latter part of the ’90s when she came out, the network cancelled her show. It’s just so interesting to see how we have progressed. Because now, speaking of LGBTQ on television or anywhere else is fairly commonplace.
So we are evolving, thank goodness. [laughs] But the ’60s was a rough, rough time, and I don’t know that I could watch the whole thing.
Chris Sandel: Yeah. I’m watching it because I went to dinner with a number of friends and they listed it as their favourite show. This was both men and women. Apparently the arc that the main character takes is very interesting, so I think it’s set with this backdrop. But yeah, TBC of how it ends.
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: You’ve intrigued me, because I’ve heard only good things. So we’ll see. I’ll let that simmer for a while.
01:11:07
Chris Sandel: I also know you’ve done or you maybe are continuing to do mentorship with Summer Innanen. I’ve had Summer on the show a number of times. I’ve had many conversations with her outside of the podcast. I’m a huge fan of her and her work. What are some of the ideas or the wisdom or the things you’ve taken from Summer?
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: Summer is someone I’d followed for years, and I put her up on this pedestal, and then one day I got an email saying that she was offering mentorships. I was like, I have to do this. Even though, again, it was like, “Oh, I can’t talk to Summer.” I was like fan-girly type of a thing, and then literally – and when we talked on the phone I told her that and we both laughed. We just got along really well.
I adore her. I consider her a friend. She’s a mentor. I learned so much from her. I mentored with her and I continue to have check-in sessions with her. She really helped me to incorporate a lot of the Tara Mohr work into body image. Because she had also taken the Tara Mohr course years ago, and she was actually the person that I heard about the programme from. I had tucked it away in the back of my head, and then when I was ready for it, I decided to take the plunge.
So among many other things, Summer helped me to cross that bridge over “How do I take all of these wonderful tools” – and I was using some of them, but it was very choppy. She helped me to really bridge the gap and incorporate more of this into my coaching. Like I said, it was that among many other things, but that was a big piece of it for me.
And also helping me to understand the importance of helping clients and giving me support and more tools around helping clients feel their feelings safely, and the importance of doing that in terms of body neutrality. Because people are, in general, very afraid of feeling their feelings, and I understand that. So how can I do this safely where it’s still within my scope of practice? Very, very conscious of that.
She helped me to gather some tools to do that, and it’s made a huge difference for my clients, and for myself too. Can’t say enough good about Summer. Just adore her.
Chris Sandel: Nice. I think that’s a really important piece in terms of helping people to be able to sit with difficult emotions and to be able to understand how to process that. I think even as a practitioner, I remember an email that Summer had sent about this and it was a really great one where she talked about, as a practitioner, often when someone is talking about how much they’re struggling with their body or they’re struggling with eating or whatever, the natural reflex is to point out all of the good things about what they have going for them or all the improvements they’ve made or whatever.
And it’s not that that can’t be part of it, but allowing them to sit in that difficult, uncomfortable place and being able to explore that as opposed to constantly trying to sweep it under the rug or be like, “Oh, but look at all the silver linings of this thing.”
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: Right, that toxic positivity is really – I could use a very colourful word, but I won’t. [laughs] We do need to feel. The reality is that it does help us to neutralize, but it also takes some of that fear away from feeling, knowing that we can get through it. It’s a muscle that we have to continue to strengthen if we choose to. And of course, we always have a choice here, but to me, recovery really is not possible unless we start to slowly and gently, and preferably with support if that is an option, work through those things.
The feelings will continue to come up. They will, and they will have a different face, but they will come up. The more we can start to get to the root and neutralize that in a safe manner, that’s when we can really start to see the possibilities for ourselves.
Chris Sandel: Yeah, and the importance of validation as part of that, of having someone be like, “That sucks. I’m really sorry you’re going through this. Let’s talk more about this” as opposed to trying to ignore that situation or trying to constantly point out the bright spots.
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: Yeah. The other thing I think, too, that’s important, that Summer talked about quite a bit, which was so helpful, was to continue to help clients to identify the emotion and stop using the fatphobic language. It’s always, “I’m so this”, but that’s really not what it is. It’s something else underneath that. It could be a host of emotions underneath that, and helping to identify what they are.
01:16:37
And then of course, grieving. I did another mentorship with Brianna Campos last summer that also was really eye-opening because she’s coming from body image as a therapist and as an educator, but also as a woman in a larger body. So she’s talking about the grief. Of course, she does it all, but her thing is body grief.
So learning about it from that point of view, there is grieving. There is grief when the body is changing – at many stages, but specifically for women in mid-life, there are generally significant changes that happen not just hormonally, but to the body and how things start to shift. And that’s very hard for a lot of people. Having that training, too, was really helpful. How do we sit with that grief together?
Chris Sandel: Nice. Thank you for mentioning that, because I’ve been wanting – I recently listened to on Audible Brené Brown’s Atlas of the Heart, which I thought was an incredible book. It looks at all of the different emotions that one can feel, what they look like, what it’s connected to. It gives someone a real language to be able to identify what the emotions are. And she had quite a section on grief. It made me think, I really need to get someone on the podcast who is quite an expert on grief to talk about it.
And from the body grief perspective, but also the fact that I’m working with lots of clients who are older who are losing parents, and who are dealing with grief of losing a loved one. That’s something that I don’t have any personal experience with and is something that I want to explore more. I recently read Joan Didian’s A Year of Magical Thinking, which is all about her the year after losing her husband. I thought that was an incredible book. But grief is a topic I haven’t touched at all, really, on this podcast and is something that I want to cover. So thanks for mentioning that.
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: Yeah. I recently added that to my website because I had remembered, “Oh, I forgot about Brianna”, and she’s great. But grief is big.
When I mention the word ‘grief’ sometimes to clients, they’re like, “Oh wow, I hadn’t thought about it that way.” Like a light bulb goes off. Of course, there’s stages, and they transfer to the body and how we feel about it. It’s eye-opening for people to realise, this is a real thing. Just like we have to grieve when someone passes, we have to grieve that our body is changing and that we’re moving into a different stage of life.
With that, there are a lot of things that are not necessarily going to go away, but are changing. Relationships are changing. The relationship I have with my son has dramatically changed. I’m grieving that too. So there’s a lot of things, and it’s changing. It doesn’t mean that it’s bad. It’s just different.
Chris Sandel: I think that was one of the real takeaways from Atlas of the Heart – the importance of being able to label an emotion and the ability that then gives you. In your example, being able to say, “That is grief” and then someone being able to say, “Oh okay, that makes sense. Let me understand grief more so I can understand my experience here.” But if someone only has the capacity to label three emotions – and that’s basically what Brené talks about; most people can do happy, sad, and mad – it really is then a block in being able to understand the nuance of what one is feeling.
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: Right, agreed. I haven’t listened. I also listen to books, and that’s on my list, so maybe I’ll bump it up a few notches because it sounds wonderful.
Chris Sandel: It is a really good one.
01:21:04
So talk about ageism or age discrimination and how this features in your work with clients. I imagine, given the population that you serve, this is something that comes up a lot in conversation.
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: Definitely. I think people are ageist against themselves. They really are, myself included at times. I think it sometimes can be we see ageism and it’s very subtle, but it’s there. I learn a lot from people who are in that area. Her name escapes me right now – oh, Glennan Doyle’s podcast just had a whole episode about ageism, and then she did a whole bunch of things about menopause because I think that’s the phase of life she’s in now. She’s actually peri.
Just hearing these things really makes you become very aware of, wow, this is really here, and people are just so subtle about it, but you feel it. And now I’m much more aware. That makes me grateful that I have the tools now to be like, “What am I listening for?”
But for the population of women that I’m working with, at an older age it gets a little bit harder because they’ve had these beliefs for so long. There’s decades that they have to unpack for themselves. It doesn’t necessarily take longer for them to embrace the principles, but like I said, there are decades – these beliefs have been sitting around for a while. So it might take them a little bit longer to feel that freedom that they’re craving. But not always.
01:23:00
Chris Sandel: Are there particular topics or conversations that you’re having a lot connected to menopause, whether that’s leading up to menopause, post-menopause? And this can be about particular experiences or it can just be about helping clients better understand their body. What are some of the things you’re regularly chatting about?
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: The regular conversation – one is around their body and just how it’s changing. They feel often that it’s their fault, and that they’re not eating properly, whatever that means, and that their body shouldn’t be doing this, and it never did this before. That is sometimes hard for people. Some come with a long history of dieting, but I do have some every once in a while that have never had a problem and don’t have a long history, and now they’re really struggling to accept that their body is different and that they’re not able to work out to make it look a certain way, that it just isn’t responding in the same way. So that’s been hard for them.
So definitely just their changing body and understanding what’s actually happening and the reasons why their fat is now shifting into different areas of the body as a protective measure. So helping them to understand that. Of course, I always refer them to Margo Maine’s work. That is very helpful for them, helping them to see that.
And also helping them to understand what happens during this phase, to the best of my knowledge – and again, staying within my scope of practice – what happens to our bodies when the hormones fluctuate, drop, and then pretty much completely go away. What that does not just physically, but also emotionally, and how that can affect their mental health.
One thing that’s not talked about often enough is the impact of the diminishing oestrogen in terms of depression, anxiety, and all of those types of things. Very, very important that women understand that they’re not going ‘crazy’; there is a reason, especially if they had a predisposition to these things in the past, why these things may be on the uptick. Again, just educating them, because to me, education is really one of the ways to help people to understand, if they’re open to it, and not to feel so alienated like there’s something wrong with them – because there isn’t.
Chris Sandel: I think that mental health piece is super important because at that time of life, there can be other factors that come in and make it look like that’s the thing that’s happening, e.g. a child is going off to college or there’s a selling of the house or there’s changes that are happening, and then it just gets “Oh, maybe you’re having a tough time accepting that” as opposed to “No, there’s been a real fundamental change in hormonal levels in the body and that’s what is now driving this change in anxiety or depression” or whatever it may be.
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: Absolutely. Like I said earlier, nobody explained to me in my forties – I was in the midst of perimenopause and I really was struggling with my mental health at the time. I am great now and I have been off meds for many years, and I feel probably the best I’ve felt in a long, long time. But at that time, nobody said to me, “This may be happening, you may be feeling this pressure or this uptick again in these old behaviours or feelings because of the hormone changes.” No-one said that to me.
I’ve been on multiple podcasts talking about this because people need to be aware of it, and I don’t think that medical professionals – like you said, they kind of minimise. Again, they do not really speak to the hormonal piece of it. So that bothers me, because it’s not fair. They’re not looking at the whole picture.
Chris Sandel: Totally. Also, in connection to something you said there, in terms of the fact that “I used to be able to work out and now even if I’m working out, my body doesn’t look the same as it did and I’m having fat go to this region and that, and that didn’t use to happen” – again, normalizing that and saying, that’s a part of aging.
I think it is so challenging that what is presented in the media is either very young people who have not gone through that or older people who have but, for some reason, have been able to maintain a body that is similar to that of a younger person. They are then thought of like “That is the norm. That’s what should happen as you age.” It’s like, no, you really are not going to look like the person who is 60 and is on TV because that’s just not very realistic for the population at large.
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: That’s right. Like you said, it’s normalizing these things, because we’re not told this. Because we’re not, we think that there’s something wrong.
It’s a challenging enough time for all the reasons we’ve said, and then on top of it you feel like there’s something wrong with your body and that you’re doing something wrong. It’s really a recipe for feeling crummy. [laughs] Nobody really wants to do that. So I just feel like the more people know about what is happening during that period from perimenopause on, it can be very helpful, because it is a process, and it can take a number of years.
So understanding what your body is going through and then doing your best to support it the best that you’re able to at that time and get support wherever you need it. If that’s a Facebook group that talks about menopause, whatever it is, it helps. Because to feel alone during that time is not fun. I did it, and it was really, really hard.
Chris Sandel: Totally. I also think the added piece here can be, if someone is starting intuitive eating for the first time around menopause, then you have changes that are connected to food freedom and changing the way you’re eating as well as changes that are connected to menopause and understanding how those two things are having an impact on the body.
Because again, if you’re listening to a podcast where there’s someone who’s in their twenties talking about their experience of intuitive eating, your experience might not stack up because they haven’t dealt with the hormonal changes that you’re now dealing with.
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: Exactly. You had asked earlier about the population that I’m serving; a lot of times, like I said, women are coming to me because they want to speak to somebody who ‘gets it’, but also because so many people who are doing this work are on the younger side. It’s hard for them to identify. They’re like, “Oh, they’re so great, they give so many tips and helped me reframe this, but they don’t understand what I’m going through.” And I understand that. It makes a big difference. Everybody has gifts to share. Right now my age is really helping me in a lot of ways.
Some of the other things that come up in conversation are the constant discussions about correlation, not causation, because at this age, with the hormone change, sometimes people will be diagnosed with something, a chronic thing like type 2 diabetes or heart disease or something like that, which is not uncommon when there’s this hormone change. They’re thinking, “What am I doing wrong?” So helping them to really wrap their brain as much as they possibly can around the correlation piece of it, and also to help them understand their genetic background. People are not considering that enough, and I think that’s really important.
Of course, it doesn’t mean that just because you have X in your background, you are destined to get it. But it’s important to know what the history is if you have it available to you.
Chris Sandel: Totally. I think you can then help people to be rational and understand, “What are the things I can genuinely do to help with this thing and what are the things that really are out of my control?” Being able to explain that.
A lot of the clients I’m working with who are struggling with eating disorders, when we’re talking about bringing in this food or that food, they’ll be like, “But I heard that one’s associated with diabetes.” I’m pretty blunt. I’m like, “You have an eating disorder. The most important thing that you can do for your health is not have an eating disorder. The fact that this food might be slightly associated with diabetes pales in comparison to the thing that is most important for you right now.”
So I think being able to have conversations where you’re able to look at the things that are realistic and you can do here that is going to be helpful, and the stuff that’s like very diet culture-y stuff, that actually doesn’t have much scientific validation to back it up, and I wouldn’t be spending your time focusing on or trying to change that habit or that thing because you’re not going to see much of a benefit from it.
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: Exactly, and thank goodness they have you to tell them that.
01:33:33
Chris Sandel: What about exercise? For me and the clients I work with, exercise is such a complicated thing. I imagine that it probably is for the clients you are working with. What are the challenges that are coming up or are most common with your population?
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: Movement and exercise is very often another fraught relationship. Sometimes I’ll have clients that will come to me – they’ve worked through the principles and they’re working on body image; exercise still eludes them. Every time they start to do it, they start slipping back into diet mentality. So I think it is a very common issue.
Some of the things I see happen very often are that all-or-nothing thinking, very rigid – which is leftover diet mentality. That perfectionism about how much time they have to put into this, the frequency they have to do it, the specific types – because “this type is better than this type of exercise.” All of this rigidity around movement in general. That’s one thing that I would say is probably one of the biggest concerns that clients come to me with.
And also having to make that shift from focusing on movement as a way to change the body as opposed to, “How am I feeling when I’m doing this movement?” Going totally, again, from the outside to the inside. People are like, “I did that with food, but I’m not able to do it yet with movement.” I say, it’ll come. There are just some things around it that are a little bit different.
I think also they don’t really see movement as a relationship, a lot of people, and they don’t always see that in order to have a healthy relationship with it like they do with food and like they probably are in the process of doing with food and their body, it takes time and attention. It’s not that they have to be like “I’m going to improve my relationship with movement now”, but just having some awareness around what it takes to have a healthy relationship.
When we are paying attention and when we are more mindful, very often, relationships will grow. That is, I believe, what people can experience with movement. But it does take some shifting that is a little bit different. And of course, permission not to exercise and to rest for some people, because they compulsively exercise. There’s a flipside, which you may see quite a bit with the eating disorders.
Chris Sandel: Yes. This is the thing. A lot of what I’m working on is how to get someone from a place of compulsive exercise, often, to being able to take some time off so that they are able to get the rest and repair that is just so needed. And then they can start to rebuild a healthier relationship with exercise after that point.
I mentioned earlier about the satisfaction piece and that being so key with intuitive eating, and I think it holds true as well with movement. So much when working with clients, it’s about how do we create a healthy relationship with exercise. It’s, how can we find things that you genuinely enjoy, that are fun ways of moving your body, that leave you feeling good after you’ve done them, as well as while you’re doing them? A lot of the time that’s, let’s find things that are not connected to your eating disorder because there’s so much that is there in terms of numbers and amounts and so much connection.
Often, it does take moving to something new that they haven’t done before. And it’s not to say that someone can’t go back to something they previously did, but I think in the beginning, having some time away from that is normally important and necessary. But I think the fun and the joy piece is something I really try and focus on.
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: Agreed. Also, I think it’s really important to say that just like our relationships with food and our body are going to continue to change, so is our relationship with movement.
As an example, things I used to love to do years ago, even in my forties – I used to be an avid cyclist, and now I still cycle, but it’s on a very different level. I used to ride the roads. Looking back, it was pretty dangerous. By myself. At the time I felt okay, but looking back, it’s done. Now I have no desire to do that. I do like to cycle, but not at that same level and not in the same way. And that’s okay. That is very okay. I had a very different motivation back then. I believe, if I’m honest, there was some disorderedness to it.
But now I see it as very different. Now I just move my body and I’m pretty continuously looking for things to challenge myself, but feel good at the same time and not scare myself, but challenge myself a little bit. And it’s fun. I enjoy it, and it’s a huge part of maintaining my mental health for me. So for me, it’s a game-changer. Movement is essential for me.
Chris Sandel: I also think a re-evaluation of what we think of as exercise. I think some people have this idea that “I have to be doing it for this amount of time or this level of intensity or these things are considered exercise and these things aren’t”, and it can be something as simple as going for a walk for 10 minutes or doing some stretching and doing more Yin Yoga.
I’m often really trying to get movement to be a way of having someone get back into their body. It’s not about using energy or the amount of steps or a lot of the tracking type things that people have been thinking about exercise and the way that they’ve thought about exercise, but how we help someone get back into their body.
And again, as you said, this is a process. It doesn’t necessarily happen on Day 1. But that’s the end goal of what I’m wanting to create.
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: Agreed. And I say it all counts. And that was part of what I was saying, the perfection. People think it has to look a certain way in order for it to be beneficial. That’s just not true. If you are rebuilding this relationship, you need to start with “What do I feel like doing?” Unloading the dishwasher, cleaning the house, mowing the lawn, gardening, all of that stuff is moving your body. All of it.
Chris Sandel: Definitely. And just to touch on the point you said earlier about how things change with time, there’s a great Dan Gilbert talk, a psychologist – it’s a TED Talk of him talking about how terrible we are as humans at forecasting how we will feel about some experience in the future, but also what we will like doing in the future. Often, the things that we find amazing and that we think we’ll be doing forever, in a decade’s time we’re like “I’m just not into that thing anymore.” And I think that’s okay.
It’s a lot easier for that to be okay when our identity doesn’t get wrapped up in the “But I’m a runner” or “I’m a this or a that.”
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: Yes. Very, very good point. Are we being defined by these things we’re doing or not doing? Really important.
01:42:07
Chris Sandel: I know you have a programme called Joyful Movement at Last. I know we’ve touched on a lot of it already, but what else is included as part of that? What are you covering in it?
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: Thank you for mentioning it, first of all. We go through this whole thing of what I call exercise resistance. What is it exactly that is holding you back? We explore some of those things. It’s not lack of motivation. It’s not because you don’t care about your body. There are other things underneath all of that that are putting up this brick wall for you, and oftentimes it’s things like I mentioned – perfectionism and thinking it has to look a certain way in order for it to make a difference.
I help them to understand that we can strive for excellence. It doesn’t have to be perfect. There is no such thing. And also how that mentality is really holding them back. Looking at overwhelm, because that’s real, especially in the world right now. There is so much coming at us from every single direction. Helping them to navigate overwhelm and really get to the root of what they want and how they can build some boundaries around some of that overwhelm so that they can do the things they would like to do, that their heart is calling for them to do.
So many people I’ve worked with really want to start moving, and they just feel stuck, like their feet are cemented to the ground. It’s some of those things. And then – I wouldn’t say goals, but setting some intentions about, what would you like it to be like? What are some of the things that may be getting in your way? Teasing some of that out. Also, what are you not giving yourself permission to do? Are you not letting yourself rest? Are you thinking it needs to be a certain way?
Just exploring all of those things. It oftentimes opens things up for them where they realise that their expectations are very pie in the sky, and that nobody could ever meet them. So when they start to get more realistic – “I’m going to go from working 7 days a week to why don’t we just go for a walk around the block?” – it totally changes the landscape, and it becomes more attainable.
Chris Sandel: Or I would add, I have some of the clients who are doing the things that they are aiming for as pie in the sky, and I can guarantee that it is not providing the results and the life that they imagine that it is going to be providing for them.
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: Yeah, good point. I think movement, again, can be a very fraught relationship for some people, and when they are able to reconcile it, they are so happy. They’re just like, “Wow, I didn’t know movement could be this free and easy.” It’s like, yeah, because you took down all the rules and regulations around it. Kind of like what you did with food. Amazing.
01:45:11
Chris Sandel: The final question I want to ask – and I know we’ve probably touched on some of this already, but what are some of the positives you’ve experienced through aging or being older? You can talk about this both as a practitioner and also just as a human being?
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: Oh boy. [laughs] Aging. Such a great word. I see aging as a privilege. I really, truly do. I think I mentioned earlier that my father passed away, but I don’t think I mentioned that he died when he was 47.
Chris Sandel: Wow.
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: He died very young. So at my 50th birthday, I had a huge party and I said, “I made it. I’m 50 and I’m by no means done.” But I was so happy that I was able to reach that milestone of my life. And I get that it’s just a number, but it was very significant to me. So I do think that aging is a privilege, and I try to live my life in accordance with that. I’m not saying it’s always easy, but I do think the alternative is not very appealing. [laughs] So I feel blessed that I get to be here. I’m still here and I get to see my amazing son and I’m with my husband and my dog and just experiencing life.
I think one of the advantages of aging also is that you can choose to do more of what you want in life. I’m not saying those choices are always easy, and I recognise there is definitely some privilege there. But I think we can look at our lives and dream a little bit and say, “I want more of that or I want less of that. How might I be able to get there? Where might I be able to get some support or who might I be able to speak to who might be able to help me? What people can I listen to, what podcasts can I listen to that are more in the direction I want to go?”
So I think we dream a little bit. I never think that we’re too old to dream. And I also at this stage of my life have less concerns about what other people think. I’m sure we’ve all heard that from people. Again, I’m not implying that it’s easy, and I know I have a lot of tools at my disposal. But a lot of times I’m just like, okay, that’s what you believe, and that just tells me more about your beliefs and your preferences and priorities and values in life, but that doesn’t mean I have to believe that way, or dress that way or act that way or anything. It just means that we’re different. So caring less about that.
And as far as my clients regarding aging, we just talk a lot about softening – first of all, understanding what our beliefs are around aging. Do you think it’s going to be this downhill decline? So understanding what our beliefs are. They have a choice, of course, to rewrite those beliefs based on what they would like it to be more like or moving toward and doing things to move toward more of what they want than less of what they want.
And helping them to see also the role – because some clients also come to me, like I mentioned earlier, about having concerns about mobility later in life because they’re not moving their bodies as frequently as they would like to be. So working through some of those fears of potentially losing independence, and just bringing it back today and what we can do today. Like you said, what can we control today? Because that’s all we have.
Just helping them to see, what can we do now, to the best of our ability, when we are able to, to support our bodies in a loving, compassionate way?
Chris Sandel: Nice. I really like all of that advice, and on the not caring so much or not caring about other people, I do think that is a learned skill. I don’t think that’s just a feature of that happens when you get older; I think that is, as you say, you need the tools to be able to start to learn how to practice that.
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: Yeah. My mother would always say this; “If I knew what I know now when I was younger…” I agree with you. I think people can start to build these muscles much younger. You don’t have to wait until you’re older. Again, these are skills that can be learned at any age. People listening to you, people listening to other people, people getting coaching if they’re able to – whatever it is, wherever you’re getting support, listen to the support that you need, not the other stuff that’s going down the road that most people are going down, which is not very helpful. It just continues to perpetuate that there’s something wrong with us. Listen to people that are empowering and are saying things that are lifting you up.
Chris Sandel: Totally. Look, Michelle, this has been such a wonderful conversation. I’m really so grateful you’ve come on the show and you’ve been able to talk about your own experience and the work you’re doing with clients. Where can people go if they want to find out more about you?
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: Thank you so much for having me. This has been such a great conversation. I really enjoyed it, and I hope the listeners have really taken some important things away about their journey.
They can find me at my name; my website is www.michellevinabaltsas.com, all one word. I’m also on Instagram @michellevinabaltsas_coach. I have a really nice eBook that’s fresh; it’s called The Body Compassion Guide, and it’s 12 steps to help people in mid-life and beyond embrace their bodies. It’s a lot of the things that we’ve talked about here and some other things, too. They’ll have a link to that as well, and I hope that is another piece of support material that will help them in their journeys.
Chris Sandel: Nice. I will put links to all of that, including the eBook, in the show notes. Thank you so much for coming on the show. This has been great.
Michelle Vina-Baltsas: Thanks, Chris.
Chris Sandel: That was my conversation with Michelle Vina-Baltsas. It felt like we got to cover so many areas. For anyone in mid-life, I would highly recommend checking out Michelle’s work. I think it’s relevant for everyone, but especially if that is the stage you’re at. I think Michelle has some very good information and wisdom to share on this.
01:51:57
I want to make a recommendation, and the recommendation is a podcast called Dissect. The tagline for the show is ‘A music podcast that examines a single album per season, one song per episode’. It’s up to Season 10 now, and Season 10 is actually the only one that I’ve listened to. This season isn’t about a music album but is about Bo Burnham’s Inside.
Bo Burnham is a comedian, a musician, and a writer and director. He first rose to popularity in the early 2010s via YouTube, releasing many comedy songs on his channel, and many of these went viral. He then produced a number of comedy specials, but in 2016 he stopped performing because he started to have panic attacks on stage.
Much of what he has written about and sung about is about how the internet is changing us and the negative effects that it is having on our mental health. He actually directed and wrote a film called Eighth Grade that I’ve previously recommended on the show that came out – I think it was in 2018. It is an incredible movie, so I highly recommend checking that out.
His newest special, Inside, was created during the pandemic. It’s just him in this one room making the whole thing. It was filmed across a year or 18 months, and it really shows him breaking down and becoming more isolated and disassociating. So it’s obviously a dark comedy, and it creates this incredible tension, but there’s also a lot of laughter.
So Dissect goes through the whole special scene by scene, analysing it and explaining it in granular detail. It kind of reminds me of being back in school, where we would read a poem and I wouldn’t necessarily think that much of it, and then we’d go back through it line by line and understand the metaphors and the motifs and the references, and by the end I’d understand this poem in really great depth and I could see its true genius.
I thought from the beginning, when I first watched Inside last year, that I really enjoyed it and I appreciated what it was doing, and I got a lot of the messaging and what it was about. But now, having listened to this podcast, I just have so much more respect for it in terms of how it’s been done as a special and from a movie perspective, but also in terms of the kinds of references that are in the songs that I may have understood at a surface level and now have even a deeper understanding of.
So if you haven’t seen Inside, I definitely suggest watching it first and then listening to the podcast, and if you have, I would definitely check out the podcast. It’s called Dissect and it’s in the 10th season. It’s called ‘Dissecting Bo Burnham’s Inside’.
So that is it for this week. As I mentioned at the start, I’m taking on clients. If you are in mid-life and are dealing with an eating disorder or disordered eating or you’re wanting to start intuitive eating or really any of the ideas that I cover as part of this show, then please reach out. You can go to www.seven-health.com/help and there you can find out more information.
That is it. I will catch you next week with another episode. Take care.
Thanks so much for joining this week. Have some feedback you’d like to share? Leave a note in the comment section below!
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