What Is My Healthy Weight?: Dietitians Coffee Chat

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Things we dive into in this episode: 

1. The nuances of set point theory

2. Defining health beyond the number on the scale

3. Letting go of the pursuit of weight loss

   
   

📘Resources

• ⁠⁠Whole, Full, & Alive Retreat in Portugal⁠⁠

• Full Soul Nutrition Membership⁠⁠

• Intuitive Eating⁠

Cynthia Donovan is a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist with over 10 years of extensive experience in the field. Her primary focus lies in serving women with Hypothalamic Amenorrhea, employing her expertise to assist them in regaining their period, restoring their fertility and truly becoming healthy. Passionate about this cause from personal & professional experience Cynthia established the Eat to Regain Your Period Program in April 2020, where she has successfully collaborated with hundreds of women, helping them reclaim both their period, fertility and overall well-being. When she’s not serving women with period recovery you can find her in nature, travelling and having fun with her 5 & 7 year old boys! Website | Instagram | TikTok

Thanks for listening! 💖 Stay tuned to Caitie’s website for more episode updates and other exciting programs and resources.

Transcript

Caitie: All right, dieticians coffee chat today about weight and set point. And how do you know when you're at your healthy weight? Very sticky conversation. Yeah.

Cynthia: Very, very, very sticky and something I think both of us can relate to in, you know, in so many ways.

Caitie: Yeah. Yeah. What, so you, you texted me about having, about recording a podcast about this topic. What inspired you to want to do a podcast about this topic in particular? think even though you were the one who sparked it, I have my own answer to this question, but I'm curious, like what made you, what's coming up for you right now for clients right now? Like, why do you want to talk about this?

Cynthia: Well, I can tell you it's something that's been on my to-do list to record for a really long time, really, really long time for the mere fact of it is a question from almost every single one of my clients and audience members to the ask like, you know, when when is my weight just going to stabilize and when am I going to get to the set point and the set point weight has just it's so variable.

And I'm like, need to bring more truth to it and some more ground mint in it. that's not like such an area of fixation. Cause I believe in my clients when they bring it up, it's it's a big area of fixation when it comes to what our weight's doing, when we're trying to recover from disordered eating or more specifically a missing period.

Caitie: Yeah, I think that we're all conditioned to police our weight in order to feel a sense of safety. I don't, it sounds very maybe like extreme to be like, we're all conditioned to do this, but I do feel like most of us grew up in environments and obviously are exposed to the same larger culture of pop culture and thin fixation and all of that stuff. So we're all sort of like, condition to police our body weight in order to feel safe and secure. And I think the problem with, or the problem that a lot of the clients we work with are facing is that they're like, well, I don't really feel safe eating more and resting more unless you tell me that I'm not gonna gain a bunch of weight. Unless you tell me that eventually I'll stop gaining weight. Unless you can assure me that my body weight won't fluctuate forever. And...it's such a sticky conversation because I think on one hand we can say, yeah, your body weight won't just keep going up and up in perpetuity in some cases. Like, yeah, it's not the way bodies really work. And also we're not going to use that promise as a motivator because your body weight is probably going to fluctuate, right? Like when you nourish yourself consistently and adequately, your body will go to it's healthy set weight range which might not be the exact way you've decided you want, which is really hard.

Cynthia: Absolutely and well said and would you say Caitie for you what was the thing that sparked you wanting to talk about this?

Caitie: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think what I just shared kind of is it. I do feel like I constantly get questions from clients too of, can you reassure me that this won't happen? Can you reassure me that I don't need to like fight to, you know, maintain a healthy weight? Like, can you reassure me that it's okay to let go? Can you reassure me that it's okay for me to flow with food and to… rest a little bit more and that my weight won't just spiral out of control. So I do feel like it's inspired by similarly, like a lot of the reassurance seeking that I get from clients. but also I can share for myself that I've had a very long and winding road with healing my own metabolism and my own hormonal health and my own relationship with food. And, personally for myself, I think I used to just have a lot of question marks about like, what is my healthy weight? How do I know when I'm at a healthy weight?

Cynthia: Yeah, absolutely. And same here. I just remember when it stuck. Well, when did I learn about SetPoint? I'm just trying to think when that word even came in to my aura, my being, you know, I want to say maybe when I was going to school as a dietitian, I don't know. I may have learned about what I thought SetPoint was when I went to college to be a dietitian. I can't truly remember.

But what I can remember what stands out so like hard in my mind is when I knew I had to eat more or eat differently that I felt that same way. I needed that reassurance that my weight wasn't just going to keep going and going and going and going until I don't I don't know, you know, until I was, you know, maybe on one of those shows on TLC. I don't know if you're familiar with those shows where they don't even, I can't even remember the name of them, but they would, they would really, I feel it was a big shame show, but that's my opinion. But we think we're just going to keep continuing to gain and gain. And I think where I felt like I had that proof was when I went to school to be a dietician, I learned all these calculations of your BMR, your RMR, and I can't even remember, BEE. where it's like, if you are five one, which I'm barely five one, and if you are this weight and this age and whatever, this activity level, plug that all in and that's what you need. That's what your body needs. And that if you eat more and you don't move as much, you're going to gain weight. And so for me, in essence, it was like, okay, well, I know what I need to do for period recovery now. I need to eat more and I need to rest more, which was really, really hard for me, Katie, because my weight was quote unquote normal. Like I wasn't at a low weight. I was at even close to maybe an overweight BMI. So, because I had a lot of muscle mass on me. So that was really difficult for me to like fathom in my mind from all that I learned, like, okay, this is actually like, I'm not going to continue to gain and and and gain because Keller's in versus Keller's out and all these equations that I learned in school. I was just, that was really, really hard for me.

Caitie: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I can tell you when I first learned about what the set point weight was, I was two years into anorexia recovery and I was, I guess I was 20 years old. So I was two years post like having treatment for anorexia and I just felt like, so out of control with food, like absolutely out of control. I still didn't have a healthy relationship with food. Obviously I was in university at the time. I had a roommate from Norway and I would just like see her make her little snack plates for herself and just like eat these like balanced meals and just like move on. Like it was no big deal. And I was still feeling so out of control with food. was like,

What is it like? What does she do? Is it because she's Norwegian? Like are Americans just fucked up? Like is it true what they said about Americans that we have no portion control and all this stuff? And then I remember doing research for one of my classes for a research paper and I stumbled across Intuitive Eating and Chrissy Harrison's Food Psych Podcast. And the first episode that I listened to of Chrissy Harrison's Food Psych Podcast, she talked about this set point theory, which is basically that all of our bodies have a healthy set point weight range, right? It's not like one weight. My set point isn't like, you know, a hundred and fifty pounds and like that's it. It should never range from there. It's like a 10 to 15 pound rate for what I understand. And it's determined by a combination of genetics and your metabolic history and your dieting history and a few things that have impacted like, you know, your set point over time. And you could try to fight your body being at the set point, but no matter what your body's gonna try to fight back to go back to that set point. I remember realizing when I listened to that episode, I'm actually not at my healthy set point. Wait, I'm definitely suppressing my body weight and it's like a thermostat, right? If you set it to 65 degrees, if it gets hotter in the room, like the air is gonna kick on and it's gonna try to get it back to 65 degrees. If it gets cold in the room, the heat's gonna kick on and it's gonna try to kick it back to 65 degrees. And our bodies more or less do this. Set point theory is not like a perfect theory. It's not a flawless theory. Like we don't have like all of the research that we need, but I do believe we have enough research to like pull different things together and affirm this, that it's true and that our bodies will fight to get back to their genetic, predetermined kind of like healthy weight range and your body's not designed to like balloon past that. It's not. And the way that that happens is usually from excess restriction, history of dieting, we can go into all of these different things, right? 

But the crux of it is that like, this is such a sticky topic to talk about because on the one hand, like, I feel like so many times we say, how do I know I'm at a healthy weight? How do know I'm healthy weight? And it's like, I mean, your weight doesn't necessarily determine your health. So like, why would we even call it healthy weight? But also it is a vital sign that kind of tells you a little bit about your health. And so, yeah, I feel so it's hard to talk about this. What do you think?

Cynthia: It is so gray. It is such a gray area. It is not black and white. And I think most of us that struggle with disordered eating or eating disorders, we tend to try to get to that black and white. but this is, and I don't even want to call it gray because that kind of sounds like it's colorful. Like there's so many different, yeah, there's so many different ways and things and everybody is just so individualized. And I think there's so many thoughts that have been drilled into our heads about what a quote unquote healthy weight should be. We have BMI, we have all these calculations to determine energy needs. And, you know, there's what the ideal body weight, right? I learned that in college, the IBW, which I think was invented in, I would have to like Google it really quick, but it was invented a really long time ago and where they had come up with this system of like, all right, if you're five foot and I can't tell you how many times I hear, you know, people comment on my Instagram posts of saying like, well, of course you should have more because or I shouldn't have had that much because I'm only five foot. And then I'm like, well, I'm pretty much only five foot two. And I was eating 1500 calories at the time and thought I was eating enough. But anyway.

You know, we have these predisposed things in our head of what quote unquote health is, but let's just get back to it of if you're listening to this podcast right now and you're struggling with disordered eating or an eating disorder and you've lost your cycle. Right. That is definitely not an indicator of health. but it's like, well, well, where do we go from here? Like, how do we, how do we know what our set point is? How do we get there? When are we going to know? How long is it going to take? And so forth.

Caitie: Yeah. Yeah. I feel that because weight is not an indicator of health in order to determine when we're at our healthy weight, we have to ask ourselves, are we healthy? Like, it's like, what if it's the weight at which you are healthy? you know, and how do we define health? Oof, like we can go there. Let's do that for sure. but isn't that like the simplest answer? Like it's the weight at which you are healthy and there's so many different, I think, factors that define health. But for so many of our clients, the biggest factor is, yeah, are you getting a period? Like if you're at that age where you should be menstruating, when your reproductive system should be working in that way, that's one factor. I think for so many of our clients too, it's also like, are you having all of these disordered eating cognitions? Like, are you constantly fixated on food? Are you constantly thinking about the next meal? Are you always fixated on, can't go over this limit, I need my plate to look like this template? Because yeah, then you're not healthy. So if you're not healthy, perhaps you're not at your healthy weight. And yeah, it's the most concrete I could make it because you're right. It's a...multi-texture, multi-color, like very sort of non-concrete thing. And that's the opposite of disordered eating, right? Disordered eating is concrete. It's black and white. It's all or nothing. It wants everything to be defined so easily. But just like so many other aspects of life, your weight isn't defined that easily.

Cynthia: Yeah, no, and it's sort of, I don't want to say completely out of our control, but in essence, and I think most of us that got into the realm of disordered eating or eating disorder. I mean, I know for me, Katie, it was a sense of control. was a sense of like clinging onto something like food and, you know, exercise was the only thing I could really control in my life. So, you know, I just, I just think about that. It's like, now we're telling someone that's going through and maybe recovery processes, whether it's getting your period back or just, you know, healing your relationship with food. It's like, well, I, know, there's a such thing as a theory, a set point theory, but I, I, I'm not gonna, I'm not going to be able to determine what your, your set point is. And I get that question a lot. It's like, am I to my set point? Like I just got my period back. 

And so I,I think I want to think about my own story of how did I get to a stop point because I was the woman that lost her period because I wasn't eating enough and I was exercising way too much. And for some reason I thought I was eating enough, Katie, because, and this goes into metabolism and the whole stop point thing is I thought I was eating enough because I was at this quote unquote healthy weight.

I was eating around, I'm not even going to mention exactly how many calories because it would even go lower because I'm like, well, I'm gaining weight. Like what's going on? I must be eating too much still. And I was not eating too much and I was working out two hours a day, but my metabolism was like, well, the hell with you, Cynthia. I'm slowing this shit down as slow as I can get it. And because I'm in survival mode, I am trying to conserve energy. I'm trying to keep your heart beating, your lungs breathing. And so you know, that was really hard for me to digest. And when I started to eat more, I just, I did gain weight. I can't remember how much weight I gained. It's not really relevant, but you know, for almost five foot one person, I was like, my God, like I'm tiny. Like I shouldn't be this way or eating this much and so forth. But I found out the only way out of this is through it.

And so my body did need to gain some weight. And am I the same weight that I was when I was going through recovery? Nope. And I'm again, I'm not going to discuss numbers, but my body did eventually find its set point, but it took me some time. It took me looking at my relationship with food. took me learning what intuitive eating really was, which I just want to say side note. If you're trying to recover your menstrual cycle right now, there's parts of intuitive eating, like honoring your hunger that is applicable. But not to all the parts of intuitive eating, period recovery as much intentional eating. And then eventually we get to this place of intuitive eating and being able to trust our body again. But it was really trusting my body again, finding movement that wasn't serving me in a way of changing my body, but joyful movement that made my body feel good.

And again, I just want to side note that is you might say, well, this does make my body feel good if you're still caught up in exercising all the time. And I'm like, I get that because if someone told me that back in my missing period days, I was like, well, this makes me feel great. It makes me feel awesome. So it's it's a different, a different feel good, if you will. And I'm not sure if I could even put words behind it. But anyway, I ended up getting my cycle back and that wasn't my my set point quite yet. And so does my body weight still fluctuate? Yep, it sure does. But it's not a big of a bother now for so many reasons, a lot of a lot of inner work, and a lot of looking at why weight is important to us and what what does health really mean to you? What's authentically healthy for you? So you know, I probably left out a lot of the crazy parts. There were a lot of crazy parts. There were a lot of hard parts. But now wheat is not something of an area of focus for me.

Caitie: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's like you become healthy and you have a weight that you are. And it's like, why do we have to keep linking health and weight? There is such a strong and I think unnecessary obsession with, must, I don't, I mean, I have some ideas, Cynthia. I mean, but I will say first that I personally don't believe in losing weight to become healthy. And I never will believe in that.

I never will believe in fixating on weight loss as the goal because whenever we fixate on weight loss as the goal, we end up doing things that are harmful to our body. Like that's the bottom line. When you choose that weight loss as your goal, then you end up doing things that make you inadvertently unhealthy. When you make health the goal and you define health as I want to have more stamina, I want to have more strength, I want to have better sleep, I want to have better digestion. These are tangible goals that as Cynthia said, actually are within our control, like they actually are things that we can sort of have more agency in than our weight, right? Not total control, right? Not all of us have the capacity to go lift weights at the gym. Not all of us have gym membership. Not all of us have all the time that we need to be able to do all of the things that would help our strength and stamina. So I'm in no way suggesting that we have total control. We have significantly more agency in our strength, stamina, hormonal health, digestion, et cetera. Then we will ever have in our weight. And weight loss might happen as a side effect of the pursuit of health, but if weight loss is the goal, it ends up harming you. And I know that because it ended up harming me too when I made weight loss my goal. And so I think what would be interesting to share is because Cynthia and I are sitting here as two people who our weight is at our healthy set point right now, and we've gone through a lot with healing our relationship with food and our bodies and personally needing to let go of weight as like a form of safety or like managing our weight as a form of safety. Yeah, maybe we can kind of just share like what helped us in that process of being more patient and really actually working on our health rather than fixating on the number on the scale or fixating on needing reassurance that we won't gain weight. What helped you break free from that need for reassurance that your weight wasn't going to spiral out of control? Because that's really the question, isn't it? What helps us stop needing that constant validation that we're never going to get, by the way? Because we can never guarantee what your weight's gonna do. But yeah, how did you break free from that?

Cynthia:This is a great great deep question and I'm really looking forward to Looking at that because I don't think I've really talked out loud about it too much And so I think for me the number one wake-up call was I Wasn't gonna be able to have a baby because I Didn't have a period and I wasn't ovulating and it was like, well, Cynthia, you want a baby like you, got to do this. But that didn't, it wasn't like a light switch, like, you're going to have a baby. You want to have a baby. like weight gain is going to be okay. And I think a lot for a lot of women is like, well, I'm going to have to gain weight pregnant and like, just be okay with it because it's for, you're going to get a baby out of it. And I thought that would be like my little thing that would just magically make me okay with the weight gain. It was not by a long shot. But I think for me, Katie was when I decided to pursue fertility treatment after years of trying to figure out what was going on with my missing period. And I went through two rounds of it and I was still very, I won't say very, I was still caught up in quasi recovery where I was like, you know, okay, allowed myself foods, but I was still so freaking scared of weight gain. Holy shit. And fertility treatment did not help the weight gain matter, but that's a different story. And so I was just still controlling in some capacity going through fertility treatment, thinking like, okay, well, at least I'm, you know, I'm going to have a baby because fertility treatment, which FYI is not like guaranteed either, but finally, I let go. I like to call it I let go and I'm like, just I'm done. Like I can't control anymore. Just let it be. And during that, I discovered intuitive eating and I was already refueling my body and resting more and so forth. And so I think for me, I was just like, I can't control anymore. I'm just, done. I'm waving the white flag. Like I'm stressing myself out. 

And then it was like, after I just let go and what let go meant for me was like, I'm not going to micromanage still what I'm eating right now. I'm not going to continue to feel guilty about X, Y, and Z. And now don't get me wrong, like it wasn't black and white, like, I'm just going to turn these noises in my head off. No, that's when I started to dig into other resources such as breath work, such as working with a amazing mental health practitioner.

Uh, it was also, what else did I do? I, I tapped into yoga. Yoga was something I would never allow myself to do and learn about because I was too fixated on getting that, you know, bone crushing workout in because, you know, if you didn't sweat and get your heart rate up, that wasn't, it didn't count, if you will. So I finally gave myself that, that permission. I also went away on a couple like little retreats to an awesome place in the Berkshires, uh, called Kerpalu. So that's in the US.

And so I was doing that and I just started having fun again. started playing again. I started living again and I started taking the focus off the weight through the various things I was doing and the focus off having the baby and just like lived my life and lived in joy and brought things in my life that made me laugh, that made me play and have fun. And well, that's when I got pregnant as well. then throughout my pregnancy, I continued to trust the process and really hone in on healing myself, not my weight and not my, you know, stuff, but just who, who am I as a person and what has been covering up Cynthia for the various years of disordered eating. And so I continued, you know, therapy. I continued learning about breath work and yoga and meditation. meditation was a big one actually before I got pregnant. I started to meditate for the first time in my life. And again, something I wouldn't allow myself to do, Katie, because I had to get my workout in or I had to check my boxes and so forth and sitting still. Ooh, that was hard, really hard. So I would say in a nutshell, it was all of that.

Caitie: Yeah, yeah. Thank you so much for sharing all that. I felt the truth in what you were saying. And I can so relate to that feeling of when you're trying to control your body weight and you're obsessed with the idea of gaining weight, that's your biggest fear. It keeps you just skimming the surface of life because you can't control your weight unless you keep your life small. In order to stay in control of something that you don't necessarily have control over, you have to keep this like really small kind of life. Like it has to be manageable, right? But then when you say, wait, I'm actually gonna stop trying to control this thing that actually is a bitch to control, because it really isn't under my control. It's like trying to push a beach ball underwater. I can make my life big again. Like my life can be full again. My life can be playful and joyful and vibrant again.

You're not the first person to mention Kripalu on a podcast that I've been recording. Like so many people who tell their recovery stories are like, yes, then I went to Kripalu. Like, I don't know what's going on there, but I do think that they host a lot of retreats at like a bunch of different tiers. Like it's enough to be like the big 10 K retreat. Like I think they have like $200, $300 retreats there sometimes too. So I, if you're in the States and the Northeast, especially like, I think I'd recommend checking that out because it is the stuff that makes you face your shit that ultimately helps you heal. Like we're not gonna be able to intellectualize our way out of this. Like we have to feel our way out of this. And if I could summarize what helped me let go of that need for reassurance, it was sitting still and feeling my feelings pretty much. But it was like what helped me get to a place where I could sit still and feel my feelings. I think it was getting out of the house I grew up in.

I had a very nuanced childhood. There was a lot of privilege and a lot of joy in it. And there was a lot of really positive things about my experience. And I share that because I just want to say that too. And that said, my parents had a really not good marriage. There was a lot, a lot, a lot of disruption in my childhood. And as a middle child between two brothers, I felt very forgotten a lot. And being thin and being healthy and being like a bit athletic, especially in my high school days, was what made me feel like I was doing something worthy. It's what made me feel like I was like finally like worth being looked at by my parents because honestly, like for a lot of my life, I was kind of like a baby bird that was like opening up their mouth for food and like no one was coming to give it to me. Like, and I was just like, I feel very forgotten. and when I left home and I went to university and I had the massive privilege of doing a couple study abroad programs and just like really finding my way like outside of my home. realized like some environments in the world are a lot safer than the home I grew up in emotionally. And I found environments in the world that were emotionally safer than the house I grew up in, which allowed me to sit still and feel my feelings, find the right mentors find the right therapists. I never found a good dietician, which is why I became one. gotta say it, gotta say it. But I did find therapists who really, really helped me. I did find spiritual guides who really helped me and travel really helped me. And I just realized like I could have a whole full and alive life or I could have control over my weight or perceived control over my weight. Can't have both. So I'm gonna choose to have a whole whole lot of life. 

And look, it was a fucking nightmare once I decided to let go of controlling my weight. Like I experienced intense fluctuations in my weight. I will say that very like authentically. I started from a very weight suppressed place and I actually ended up in a much larger body than I'm in now. And I do think that sometimes it's a really hard thing to acknowledge that I'm not in the largest body I've ever been in. And I think sometimes people will be like, oh, your recovered body is like, you you're going to stay there forever. And it's actually not true. Like my weight actually has fluctuated significantly. Um, and now I'm at my, what I believe is my set point weight and it's the weight at which I'm healthy. It's the way at which I'm releasing my emotions, exercising, eating enough, sleeping enough, practicing stress relief. I don't have these eating disorder cognitions. I'm not controlling all of my meals, counting calories and all of that stuff. I have normal labs, I normal bone density. And this wasn't the case for me when I was at higher weight. This wasn't the case for me when I was at a lower weight. This is the case for me when I'm at this weight now.

Cynthia: And thank you so much for sharing that Caitie and such well all of it so well said and I just want to circle back to like the childhood stuff like that childhood shit like definitely intertwines itself into our adult Days or even our pre like what would you call it? I don't know. I felt like I wasn't an adult at 18. I don't know about you And so, you know that is a big and that's, it's sometimes bigger than we know. when we're, when we're there and I love how you put spiritual guides. think that is such a powerful, thing to have. And it's something when I say mental health professional, I, I mean, a mix of like mental health and also spiritual guides. so I think that's, that is important. And, you know, I love the fact that right now you said, know what, I am in a different body than I was when I was going through my eating disorder, when I was recovering. you know, that's, if we fixated on that, we wouldn't have that whole, full and alive life, right? And the health, the actual true authentic health. You know, we see sometimes, you know, Jennifer and, you know, walking down the street and she's got this fit, awesome body. And we're like, ooh, I want that. I want to look like that. But how do we know she doesn't have freaking osteoporosis? And that's not healthy.

Caitie: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. And it's, you can't judge a book by its cover. You don't know what's going on with someone just by looking at their weight, which is why it's really hard for me to acknowledge that I've been in a larger body than I'm in because sometimes when I say that, people will be like, so you're saying like you needed to lose weight to be healthy. I'm like, no I'm just saying that my weight fluctuated a lot when I was going through recovery. And also I've been in a smaller body and unhealthy. I've been in a larger body and unhealthy. And now I'm in this body and I'm healthy. That's all I have to say about that. Like it's independent of weight. However, I kind of talk about my weight sometimes just to prove that it's independent of weight. But because people are so latched on to the concept of weight loss, every time I say that I have lost weight from like you I was in a larger body than I am right now, people will be like, so you're saying there's a chance. Like, so you're saying that like I could, I could lose weight from my recovered body. And I feel like it's better for me to talk about this and acknowledge all these nuances and all the little thoughts that I know people are coming up with than for me to never talk about the fact that my body weight has fluctuated because you know, during that time, what's crazy for me is that when I was 17 years old, I was severely anorexic. I went to the doctor and the doctor goes, you know, Katie, you don't have to look like the models in the magazines. I think you're putting too much pressure on yourself. Like you really need to gain weight, blah, blah, blah. You need to eat more food. You're eating the amount of food that they give like prisoners. Like he used like really intense words like that and was like basically like you're unhealthy. You need to gain weight. Went back to the same freaking doctor four and a half years later and he goes, you know, your BMI is in the obese category. Like we're going to need to take that down. How are you eating? How are you exercising? And I'm like, have you no memory of the same conversation that we had not that long ago? And also I want to acknowledge that like, I just know what it's like to be body shamed in either direction. I know what it's like to have a doctor fixate so much on your weight, which is why I recommend working with, you know, dietitians who will help you build a definition of health and you can pursue health rather than pursuing weight loss. And part of pursuing health is, yeah, having that spiritual guidance that helps you understand like why it's been so hard for you to pursue health up to this point.

Cynthia: Yeah, yeah. And thank you for sharing all that. a takeaway to that, I guess I don't share enough about is my body fluctuations that I have had over the years from recovery. And I sometimes I think hold back because where I say I'm in a smaller body than I was when, I don't know, let's say five years ago or 10 years ago, whenever I was going through recovery, right? Because I did gain a good amount of weight. And I think, like you said, I don't want to send sometimes the wrong message of like, like you said, oh, so I can lose weight, you know, so I can. I think similarly with you, Katie, it wasn't that we were focusing when our weight did change and go the other direction, because for some reason going down is just like, this is awesome, like you're the best person ever versus it going up, which is a more shame attached to it. You know, I sometimes, I don't want to say hold back, but I don't want, I just, guess I don't want women to focus on like that as being the end point of like, well, Ooh, Cynthia, you know, says she, she ended up losing weight and Ooh, you know, maybe there is hope. And the way that that happened, was by, like you said, was by fueling my body adequately, resting it adequately, spiritual guidance, being still, feeling my feelings. And you know what? To this day, you guys, I am still like self-developing and working on myself. Not because I have body image issues anymore, but like life's tough. Like no matter what. But imagine if you are able to work through healing this. Life is like, you get to peel that layer off, right? Because you have life, which is crazy for most people, and then you have that layer of like worrying about your weight 24-7. Imagine being able to take that off, which easier said than done, of course, and being able to live your life fully.

Caitie: Yeah. And it doesn't like, think, you know, when we record our separate intros for this podcast, we'll put a trigger warning at the beginning that says, Hey, we talk about weight in a very candid way, right? Because sure, there are some people that are so attached and fixated on the goal of weight loss that they won't even be able to hear us say like, Hey, that's not the point. That's not what we're talking about here. We're trying to acknowledge the nuances here. but if I just, I've just learned in my career that if I like, pivot around potential triggers all the time. I never end up saying anything. So I'm like trying to talk about this in a very real way, in a very real way with nuance. But it's hard to talk about it. But what I will say is that, you know, I'm not in the largest body I've ever been in, but I didn't get here through force. I did not get here through force. And my body weight just fluctuated as I healed. My body kind of found its healthy set point as I healed.

And it just happens to be a smaller size than not. And I'm not that much smaller guys. I'm not really talking about that much, but it was enough that, my clients noticed, you know, I've been a dietician in that time. was working at eating disorder treatment center in that time and people notice I lost weight. therapists that I was collaborating with noticed I lost weight. And they said to me, like, I had a therapist asked me if I was relapsing because I lost weight and that was also really hard because no, I was not relapsing. and it was really sad to kind of be confronted with it in that direction, like to be almost like shamed for losing weight when I hadn't done so intentionally. and this is why it's also so harmful to even approach conversations with that as the focus, right? 

But, yeah, we do. Like we got to talk about this. Like it's, it's sticky. It's nuanced. We've both been through a lot with it. And I feel like we could wrap up this episode with, I do have a list of things that like help you indicate if you're at your set point. Wait, do you want to do that? Okay. so this is a list I share with clients, that I should just like post on social media or something. So don't really give a shit. I'm not a gatekeeper. that help you indicate when you're at your healthy weight. So number one on the list, you are at your healthy weight when obsessive compulsive thoughts about food are not as strong. That's like a big indicator that you're at your healthy weight. Like if you're not obsessing over food, if you don't need to eat within a certain template, if you don't need to think about what's for dinner tonight at 10 a.m., then that's a sign you might be at your healthy weight. Another sign that you might be at your healthy weight is if your weight is aligned with your healthy weight history. If you have a healthy weight history. Some of my clients have been going to the same doctor since they were like 15 or way younger. And they have sort of like a trajectory of like, okay, this like kind of makes sense that your weight would be falling within this range using a growth chart, especially clients who've been going. So I work with clients who are as young as 18 years old and some of them are still working with their pediatricians. And so they have this like growth chart. We can kind of look and make some gestures from the growth chart.

So if you have that, if you've been seeing the same doctor for a long time, that might be helpful. Another thing is that your weight is not fluctuating massively, right? Your weight isn't designed to go down a lot and it's not designed to go up a lot in a very short period of time. And when I say a lot, like, let's just keep it real, like over 15, 20 pounds, like your weight's not designed to just dramatically drop 20 pounds, like sorry, that's not how it works. Like actual, like normal, like healthy weight loss is more of like a very slow and gradual trend. And I would say more of like a normal trend upwards wouldn't just be sudden. Like that's, I think it's like relatively that your weight's not like going like intense extremes in either directions constantly. The next one is you have regular menstruation if you're a menstruating individual.

Consistent and predictable menstrual cycles, if you're not on the pill, right? If you're not on hormonal birth control is a good indicator. Another one is that you have normal labs. So your blood work and other medical tests show healthy results. You have healthy bone density. If you do a DEXA scan, your bone health is within a normal range. This is the most important one. The idea of eating intuitively doesn't feel impossible.

So you have the ability to listen to and trust your hunger cues and your fullness cues and your hunger and fullness cues aren't like erratic and intense or unclear. And don't get me wrong, I know there's a lot of people that are neurodivergent, people with ADHD that have a really hard time kind of like tapping into their hunger and fullness cues. And yet I have found a lot of clients with co-occurring ADHD and disordered eating do have a better connection to their hunger and fullness cues once they are within their healthy sort of like metabolic range. If you're weight suppressed, it's gonna be even harder. The next one is you feel a sense of food freedom. You're not engaging in a system of checks and balances in order to maintain your weight. The next one is you have digestive health. You're not experiencing oscillating diarrhea and constipation or GI distress. Your body's like resilient to food. And then you have exercise freedom, right? You're not feeling like you can't miss a workout or must workout in a rigid or specific amount of times per week to maintain the weight. And then finally, you don't have to fight to maintain the weight. There isn't like a fight that you have to engage in in order to maintain the weight that you're at. You know, when you nourish yourself consistently and adequately and you get enough rest, your body will go to its set point weight, which means it's designed to kind of stay within there and fluctuate within a 10 pound range of it. And that might not be the exact weight you've decided you want. I get that. What do you think? Any of those that you disagree with?

Cynthia: Yeah, yeah, 100%. No, I do not disagree with one of those. And, you know, it takes, I just want to say, like, I just remember feeling this way. Like, I just want to just want to be done with this. Like, I just I don't want to worry about when it's like that list. Like maybe if you shared that list with me, I don't know, 10 years ago, like, holy shit, like, I a lot of work to do. And the fact is we kind of do. But that's okay because on the other side, there are rainbows and unicorns. you know, right? There is. And I can tell you that because it's lived an experience. just recently now I've been, if you want to say quote unquote, recovered for gosh. I don't know, 10 plus years now. even today, it is the gift. If you do the hard work, whether it takes you one year or five years or whatever it may be, if you do the work to show up for yourself to become your healthiest self, that while one, your weight is going to be exactly what it should be, whether or not you're happy with it, but simultaneously, if you work through those things that are going to heal you from the inside out, you're going to go on vacation one day with your children like I 10 plus years later and I'm still like, holy shit. Like I'm so glad I can eat out ice cream every night with them if I want. And one of the nights I was like, I'm like over ice cream, but you know, or I can not worry about getting my workout in because my kids woke up early from vacation, you know, on whatever time their little bodies are waking up and now I can't get my workout in. And now my frigging day is ruined and I can't be present for my children. I still think I'm like, like, I am just so incredibly grateful for being in this place today, but it was, it didn't come out with some blood, sweat and tears, right? It wasn't easy, but I think with the right support and the right tools, the rainbows and butterflies and unicorns and whatever it is that you feel a soft connection with is there.

Caitie: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love that you mentioned just, know, that you were just on vacation with your kids and you could like have ice cream every night. Like it is those little moments that it's the whole point, right? It's why we're alive. And I feel like it's so easy to overlook it. The other day I was talking to my friend about how, you know, like I was. It was the middle of the day and we had like leftover cookie dough and my partner and I were just like, let's like bake these cookies in the middle of the day and let's just like eat them like with our lunch, like these super gooey like chocolate chip cookies. And my friend was like, you need to tell that story on social media. And I'm like, why? Who cares? We just ate cookies in the middle of day. And she was like, it's because like people need to know that that's possible for them and that it was, it didn't used to be possible for you. Like even the silliest little thing. And sometimes I do take it for granted for sure. Even working with clients all day, I still take that stuff for granted. But yeah, I think like the promise of recovery is a beautiful one. You know, what's on the other side of healing your relationship with food and your body is really beautiful. And let me just say that if that isn't a reassuring promise for you at this time, I get it. I really do get it because it might feel so much more comfortable to keep policing your body shape and weight. And that's okay. But just listen to these words and stay open. And when you're ready, we're here.

Cynthia: Yeah, yeah. Well said, Caitie. Yes, yes, we are here and totally, totally, totally feel this. And we really hope that maybe this doesn't bring reassurance, but perhaps maybe possibilities, hope, if you will. So, so yeah.

Caitie: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All I want to do is provide hope for people. I feel like that's just what we need. Like in a world that's feeling really dark right now, I hope that it does serve as hope that we both recovered and we've both been really deep in it and through it. And I just know, I just know what it's like to experience issues with binge eating, experience issues with restriction, experience issues with exercise addiction. Like I've been really deep in it. and so yeah, if you liked this episode, please leave us a five star rating. I never know how to transition into that. I'm just like, yeah.

Cynthia: Yeah, as always. Yes. And maybe just share this with a friend that you know might be struggling with weight. And it doesn't have to be they've lost their period or they have an eating disorder because let's face it, the majority of people in this world today are somehow in this realm of fixation on weight. So yeah. So thank you all for being here and thank you, Katie, for this amazing duet podcast together.

Caitie: Yeah, I'm so excited for it to be on both of our podcasts. That's really fun. All right.