Break Free From Food Obsession and Orthorexic Behaviors

Welcome to the Satiated Podcast, where we explore physical and emotional hunger, satiation and healing your relationship with your food and body. I'm your host, Stephanie Mara Fox, your Somatic Nutritional Counselor.

When I first started learning about nutrition after years of the binge restrict cycle, I became highly fixated on that there was a "right" way to eat and that every single meal had to be this perfect ratio of food my body needed. Along with navigating digestive issues at the time, I was brought to believe that food could heal my digestion. Now, I don't want to diminish that changing up how and when I was eating did make a huge difference in no longer experiencing digestive pain, but as I've shared here, there was a whole nervous system aspect that was never addressed, and that digestive struggles are body communication of a lack of safety. When a focus on food and nutrition feels like it starts to take over your life, where you're not eating if you can't find what you've been taught are the cleanest, purest foods, and experience high anxiety whenever interacting with foods outside a set list of internally approved foods, you might be navigating orthorexia.

Orthorexia is not just caring about what you eat and wanting to feed yourself well. This is when you feel like there is an obsessive focus on eating "healthy" to the point that you find yourself not eating when you need food because there is nothing available that is approved as healthy enough. This can lead to malnutrition as your body is not receiving all the nutrients it needs to function well by eating a diverse array of foods. I've brought Sabrina Magnan onto the podcast to chat about this some more.

Sabrina is a Certified Holistic Health Coach, founder of the Food Freedom Academy, and host of the Live Unrestricted Podcast. Blending psychology, energetics, intuition, and behavior change, Sabrina helps women heal the root cause of their difficult relationship with food so that they can finally eat without obsession, guilt or loss of control. We chat about the impact of orthorexia, identity and control that gets wrapped up in food, intention in food decisions, navigating fear and change in food recovery, understanding the cycles of food healing and so much more.

If you've been loving the Satiated Podcast and want to give back to the show, consider joining Satiated+ and donating a few dollars to the show. Being a part of the Satiated+ community, you will receive Ask Me Anything emails once a month to ask me any questions you have. Thank you so much to those who are a part of the Satiated+ community and helping to keep this podcast going. To join, click HERE. Now, welcome Sabrina!

I am so excited to have you here today and to reconnect with you. For those who are listening, I was actually on your podcast. We'll be sharing that when it comes out, but I'm excited to have you now on my podcast to talk all things food recovery, and I love to first, just get started to learn a little bit more about you and how you got into the work that you're doing today.

Sabrina Magnan 03:46

Most people who do our kind of work, it came from a personal experience. And so when I was growing up, I was a competitive synchronized swimmer. So it's a sport that is very, very much focused on perfection, looking a certain way, body image and strict control. It's a very intense sport, and so when I retired from the sport at 16, so much of my worth was tied to the way that I looked and being judged, always being in a bathing suit. And so my biggest fear was gaining weight, because that meant that it was affecting my worth and my sense of identity. So I did what anyone else would do. I started eating the healthy versions of food, the low calorie foods. I started being scared of eating carbs, over exercising, tracking my calories, and just as most of these things do, it quickly snowballed into years of thinking about food 24/7, binge eating, emotional eating, eating in secret, all of these things that I had never struggled with growing up, and I started to feel so ashamed because I was this like very type A organized good in school, good in sports, and the fact that I couldn't get a handle on this food thing made me feel like such a failure, and it made me feel so much shame. And then I would, you know, go through these periods of intense binge eating, and then I would reign in and go on some kind of like, no dessert January or restrict and then when I got to university, things kind of shifted, because I got my Fitbit, and now I was able to track and count everything, how many steps I was taking, how many calories I was burning, and I was tracking everything I was eating in My Fitness Pal and being a very competitive person, I started competing with myself, how much can I burn? How little can I eat? How much time can I spend in the gym? I started doing half marathons, and slowly but surely, it started consuming every aspect of my life. I wasn't going out to eat with friends because I was scared of what was in my food, I look back and I had this sense of being superior. I would look at people and be like, you're gonna eat white carbs, white flour, like you clearly don't care about your health. And I really, I thought that what I was doing was the right thing. I thought that I was taking care of myself. I thought that on the other side of some arbitrary goal weight, even though it kept moving, the goal post kept moving, I thought that I would feel this sense of happiness or confidence, and people would feel loved and accepted, and my rock bottom really hit when I was like, 30 pounds underweight. I, no period, hair was thinning, cold all the time, and it was my sister's baby shower, and I was becoming an aunt for the first time. This day that was supposed to be so beautiful, and I just binged the entire day. I just was stuck to the buffet table and then the bathroom, and then the buffet table and the bathroom, and I remember they were opening the presents. There's a picture of them opening the presents, and I'm on my phone tracking everything I had eaten that day to try to, like, I know you, you used to struggle with binge eating, you kind of like, try to make yourself feel better. Like, okay, maybe it wasn't that bad. And I was so I was tracking. I was on my phone while all this was going on. And that night, I just started, like, looking at everything from this perspective of the 80 year old version of me and thinking, is this how you want to live the rest of your life? Is this giving you the happiness, the confidence, the love that you thought that this was going to give you, and it was really this eye opening moment that something needed to change. And so, long story short, I ended up going to Italy that summer as an au pair, and they have such a beautiful relationship with food there. And no one was talking about calories or guilt or burning off their gelato. And it planted the seed that there was a different way to do things, because when I started adopting that, I felt better. I was eating more. I was eating the foods I love. I wasn't binging, I wasn't thinking about food 24/7, and I felt the best that I had, physically, mentally, emotionally. So I came home after that I really was so committed to saying, I'm going to heal this, I'm going to figure this out. I'm going to do things differently, I'm going to look inwards and because over time, I started healing and I was changing in all aspects of my life. I saw how many people still don't see how important your relationship with food and your body is, how that is at the root of everything that you struggle with when it comes to food, figuring out why you turning to food, it's a symptom, it's not a problem. So that is a long winded answer as to why I love doing this work and why it's so important to me.

Stephanie Mara 09:38

Yeah, thank you so much for sharing little pieces of your journey. I resonated with so many of them. I was like smiling and nodding along as you were speaking, just because I really resonated with that experience of, you know, what we're talking about is orthorexia, which is, you know, I know a lot of people aren't familiar with that, it's kind of like an obsessive focus on on nutrition and what you're putting in your body, and that it has to be the cleanest, purest form that you feel like food could be in. And I did struggle with this for a period of time as well, especially I think that when you're dealing with other symptoms, like I know for a lot of people who have a history of struggling with food have also digestive issues, like I did, because also, like, you're living in this stress response and I kept thinking, if I just got my food right, like, then I would, like, heal everything in my body. But it's similar to you, it just kept making everything worse. And I'm curious if you could speak more to once you started to realize, oh, actually, this obsessive focus, and I say obsession, not in the societal way that we think of like, oh, you gotta get that obsession under control. Like it is protection, like you are overly focusing on this for a reason. What did you find once you started to take a step back, and what did you realize in like, oh, I don't actually think that this is giving me what I thought it would.

Sabrina Magnan 11:08

Yeah, okay, I want to speak to that digestion thing, because I had the same thing of I would feel bloated, and I just didn't feel good in my stomach. And so I went down the Paleo rabbit hole of, oh, it must be in the beans that I'm eating, in the oatmeal that I'm eating. Maybe I need to go gluten free, right? Like, I really thought that it was about the food, and so I wanted to highlight that, because that really resonated with me. But when I was in Italy, what was so interesting is that I had this belief about foods that you cannot eat, like foods that are inherently unhealthy if you eat them, especially in diet culture, they make you hyper focus on the specific single food, to a point that if I had an extra almond, I would freak out, I knew how many calories were in a singular almond, and so you're so zoomed in, and that is what happens when you're in survival mode. You're so zoomed in, you are in the minute, little details. And when I was in Italy, I remember the first week I was in a group of au pairs, and everyone was eating their gelato. It took me about a month and a half of living in Italy to have my first gelato, but when I first got there, everyone was eating their gelato. And it was so interesting to me, because no one cared, like no one, no one was making any comments about feeling guilty and how much sugar was in it. And in my mind, that's all I could think about, is like, are you not concerned about how much sugar you're eating right now? And what I realized as you really surround yourself with people who enjoy food, it's not a stressful experience. It's you slow down. You're there to connect. You're there to talk about the food. I realized that, oh, maybe there's some foods that it's just there to be enjoyed, like, give it a try, try having that gelato and just enjoying it. And I'm sure you talk about this a lot, that your nervous system learns through experience. And I didn't have many experiences of having those foods and having it be a good experience. Like, if I eat ice cream, it was I would over eat, and then I would feel like crap. So there's a video of me eating my first gelato, and I'm having it, and my friends videotaping me. And I'm like, wow, this is so good. I'm like, oh, this is really good. And you can tell in my demeanor that I'm like, not feeling bad about it. It was about enjoying it. And after that, I felt great. I didn't have a stomach ache, I didn't feel like crap. And so it's all of these small little experiences where I would have the pizza and I would feel good afterwards, and I was like, oh, okay, maybe you can eat pizza and still feel good, then I would have the bread. And so it was all of these small, progressive experiences of having good experiences with these foods that I deemed as quote, unquote bad and even feeling physically better that I was like, oh, maybe it's not about the food.

Stephanie Mara 14:20

Yeah. Thank you for naming all of that and just reminding everyone listening that we make change through repetition. And so when all of the repetition has been I don't trust myself with this food, I'm going to have a really overwhelming, stressful experience with this food, like that's what we repeat over and over and over again. And so when you get into relationship with like, something like ice cream, all your body has ever known is, oh, are you in danger? Okay, we're gonna turn that sympathetic nervous system on for you, even though it's like, this is just ice cream, like you can logically, kind of cognitively understand this is just ice cream, but your body doesn't know that because of all of the repeated exposure previously that you've had with that so I appreciate you reminding that it's not that the food is actually dangerous. It's all the experiences that you've had with food that are shaping your reaction to the food.

Sabrina Magnan 15:19

Absolutely.

Stephanie Mara 15:20

Yeah, I'm curious. I put out a post the other day that was like a little bit in line of sharing a little bit with my history of how much I also felt more and more disconnected from myself, the more that I focused on nutrition, and the more that I was trying to get it perfect, and the less healthier I actually felt, the more that I focused on trying to get all of my food, like, perfect, right, all of that. I'm wondering if you could share more about how do we know the fine line? Because someone mentioned in the comments, they're like, I get this, but you might need to be more restrictive if you're dealing with an illness. And I was like, okay, not every post on social media could cover all the nuance of this, but I was like, you know what, I'm talking to you tomorrow. So like, let's get into it on the podcast, because I do feel like there is nuance in this and that a lot of people get scared of well, am I in orthorexic behaviors if I care about what I eat? And I think that I'd love to chat a little bit more of, how do you tell the difference between just caring about your food and your nutrition? And where does it get into the sticky place of, I'm caring a little bit too much that it's actually taking away me feeling like I can have a connection with food.

Sabrina Magnan 16:35

I love this question so much. I even recorded a podcast episode on it this morning, because this is where the importance of intention comes in. I actually care a lot about how I feed my body. I am very intentional about the way that I nourish my body. The biggest difference between now versus then is the intention behind it. Now it's coming from a place of genuine, pure love. There is not a single negative emotion associated with it. There's no anxiety, there's no stress, there's no guilt driving it. I'm doing it, when you ask yourself, the big why behind it, it's because I know that when I make sure that I have a great filling breakfast, that I am eating my fiber and my protein and my carbs, I know that I feel my best, that I feel clear headed, focused, that I'm able to move my body. I'm able to show up for the people in my life, and I also know that that leaves room for those fun foods that I love eating as well for connection, and I love eating the way that I do, versus when you're coming from a place of pressure, anxiety, of this is what I feel like I should be doing, and there is a lack of flexibility. There is a anxiety that comes on when you cannot eat in that way, when you can't go on vacation because you have to bring your own food. You can't go to a party because you can't have the cupcake or the hamburger, it's when it's interfering with your life, instead of adding to your life.

Stephanie Mara 18:30

I completely agree with that, and what you're really pointing to is also that we need to take this inward. That it's okay, what's my intention going into this and also bringing in the context of the situation and the moment and the day? I agree with you like I really care about what I'm feeding myself throughout a day, because I want to feel as clear headed and present and embodied and regulated, so that I can be the person that those that I work with need to be to show up for them. And so that means that nutrition is going to help me be the person that I want to be in my day. But I agree with you that when it gets to the point of inflexibility, now there's intense fear that you need to, like, eat that way all the time. I don't eat the same way every single day because my day looks different every single day, and my body needs something different every single day. But when it gets to those rigid rules and that fear that you're pointing to where it's like, oh no, but what's gonna happen if and I'm wondering if we can even chat a little bit around what we're actually fearing. So I know for myself, what I was actually fearing was, sometimes it was a digestive upset. I really didn't want to be in as much pain as sometimes I would feel when I would eat certain foods, a little bit of that, as I've shared already here was being fueled by living more in that sympathetic nervous system, so anything I was eating wasn't really digesting very well. But I think there was also something about that focusing so much on my food and what I was eating was kind of one protecting me from other areas of my life that I wasn't ready to look at yet, and two that I didn't have to kind of start getting comfortable with discomfort and the unknown, because I was so focused on and I don't love using the word control, because I find that like control is just in service of feeling safe. But I was so focused on what I could control, which was giving some sense of safety in an environment that, at the time, felt very much like there's too much that is not within my control. I'm curious about your experience, or what you feel like, you know, when we're really overly focusing on food, what is that doing for us?

Sabrina Magnan 21:01

Yeah, I think this is why it's so you know, your relationship with food and with your body is so unique and nuanced, because everyone's gonna have their own thing of the reason why they're doing theirs, and I had a few, so one that really stood out to me that proved to really like rear its head to the surface when I finally started trying to heal and I didn't realize that that was there until I started trying to heal, and it was wrapped around my identity. I had created this identity of the healthy friend, the one who is disciplined, the one, oh, she's at the gym every morning at 6am, she never skips the gym. She never eats the pizza. She's always the one eating the salad. And I truly thought that that was my value. And logically, this is again, like the conscious versus subconscious mind, like my conscious mind was like, I understand that people are not friends with me because I am the disciplined, healthy friend, but that's what my nervous system had coded, some of that that comes from my childhood and the things that were conditioned in me growing up. And so I realized when I started like taking rest days, which I never used to take, and started eating pizza in front of people, it felt really unsafe, because my identity was wrapped into you don't do this, and if you do this, then people might judge you. They might not think you're successful. They might not think you're as worthy. So a big piece of that was wrapped around my identity, and another one was, yeah, like it all comes back to this sense of control of your health, control of your weight, control of your food, because I lived in fight or flight for most of my life. And when it was no longer about food, it translated into overworking, and then I would burn out, overwork, burn out, over work. And it was only a few years ago that I was like, okay, no, no, you need to learn to be okay with sitting with that discomfort, with sitting in that uncertainty of I don't know what's gonna happen, I don't know how I feel right now, and I really don't need to know. I can just sit with this.

Stephanie Mara 23:35

Yeah, thank you so much for bringing in this other perspective, because I actually have had a lot of conversations with those that I've worked with, that their food becomes their identity. The way that we're eating starts to become synonymous of this is who I am in the world, and this is how I relate to people, something that you also just in the way that you were framing it, of like what we're trying to control. It brought in, for me, of also like needing to control other people's perceptions of us when it hasn't felt safe to maybe be in relationship with people and to be vulnerable. And so there is something about, well, if I can control your perception of me, like, then like you were even naming earlier, like, then maybe I'll feel like I belong. Then maybe I'll get the unconditional acceptance and belonging that I'm looking for. And what I found is that the more that I tried to control other people's perceptions of me, the less myself got to, like, authentically show up to connect with people. You know, then it was like, am I really friends with any of these people, like, do they actually even really know who I am? Is this a good connection that we have because they don't really actually know who I really am? So, you know, this lends itself so much to how much you know we are trying to control the narrative, or, you know, our experience and connection with other people. And you know, that's where that just took that for me, that it was like, Yeah, this is all comes back to protection.

Sabrina Magnan 25:10

Yeah, it's so true. Because I didn't realize this until only a few years ago, but I grew up in a family that didn't talk about feelings. My dad is very stoic. There was no I love yous, not a lot of physical contact. My parents are lovely, lovely people, but there wasn't a lot of talk around emotions. And it was almost always like, you keep people at arm's length. And so that came into my relationships, where I was never open and vulnerable. I never told people how much they meant to me and how much I love them. And I remember when covid hit, I was living in France at the time, so when I got back home, I had to do two weeks of quarantine, quarantining in my parents basement for two weeks, where I literally did not leave a tiny bedroom in my parents' basement. That really forced me to slow down. I was in very, very intense survival mode while living in Europe, when the pandemic was happening, it was really, really traumatic, and so when I came home, it was like it all came crashing down, and I had nothing to do but to sit and to be with myself. And it was like this intuitive voice that started realizing, you know you can change, right? Like you know that you're allowed to change. You're allowed to become that person who's more positive, who is more warm and loving, like you can be that person. And I remember when I had that thought, I simultaneously had another thought of crazy, intense discomfort, of like, that's not who you are. You don't tell people how much you love them. You're not vulnerable, you don't let people in. That's not who you are. And it was such a weird feeling to think about how uncomfortable it made me think to how uncomfortable it made me to think about changing in a positive way, like I knew that it would make my life better to be more vulnerable and connected and more of myself, but it made me very uncomfortable, and over the next few years, I truly did a 180. Now I will tell a stranger how much I love them and I'm so vulnerable. People know everything about me. And just to your point, the more yourself you become, the more you attract the most beautiful, loving, connected relationships I have, the most beautiful boyfriend, I have amazing friends, my relationship with my family. I started hugging my parents every day during covid, and it was just everything in my life got so much better when I stopped trying to control the perception that people had and to just be myself and let the people who are meant to be for me come into my life.

Stephanie Mara 28:22

Yeah, I'm just noticing just so much warmth in my own body, just hearing your process and something that you're also naming is that sometimes when, again, I know I explore this a lot here so this may be, you know, repeats and reminders for listeners, of like, the more that we focus on the food being the problem rather than the answer, kind of the more we go down the rabbit hole where we're not coming up to the surface for fresh air. And that's also really hard, because what you just described was also okay, let's say that really focusing obsessively about what you're eating, how you're eating, the ingredients in what you're eating, are you eating in the right balance, is this the purest form of food, all those things that focusing on, all of those things, if you stopped focusing on that, that you'd have to start potentially feeling how you feel in your life. And are you resonating with the way that you show up and do you like the person that you are, and the way that you interact with other people, and the way that you spend your time, and sometimes that can feel so painful and so overwhelming. I've certainly been there myself where I was like, I don't even really know what I like, like separate from anyone else, and had to learn and discover that for myself, not even also based on like, oh, do you want me to like this? And so like, a little bit of that fawn response. But, you know, really being like, okay, I noticed, based on my own body's feedback that I like this. I feel lit up when I do this. I feel joy when I experience this, oh, this actual vulnerability and telling people I love them that actually feels good, and it does like nothing bad happened when I do that. So I really just want to name and point out that what you're talking about through, what you went through, and I'm sure a lot of people might resonate with this, that it is actually such a difficult, hard, vulnerable journey to go on to stop focusing on food as much.

Sabrina Magnan 30:27

There's this like this idea that healing and coming into alignment is like rainbows and butterflies. And whenever I talk to people who haven't really, you know, I've been deep in this work for over five years, and so hard. It's really difficult. It is challenging, it is hard work, and there's a lot of shedding, right, like in order to get to where I am now, there's friendships that have ended and really hard conversations and breakdowns, and I always want to normalize that, because everyone that you see that really looks like they're living an aligned life, and they're like pure, genuine happiness. It wasn't this, like snap of fingers. They had to go through a lot of breakthroughs. I can guarantee you, they had to break down over and over again, because on the other side of every breakdown is a breakthrough. So now again, because your nervous system learns through experience, I now know when I'm going through some hard stuff. I know not to be afraid of it. I know not to move away from it. Because I'm like, all right, we're riding the wave, and something beautiful is going to come out on the other side. I know the pattern now. I know that when it's hard, it means things are coming up to the surface, and then they're going to move through me over and over again, and it never ends. You just learn to navigate it better.

Stephanie Mara 32:05

I so appreciate you naming that, and I feel like I've been trying to normalize that more and more with on social media and with those that I work with that we get these ideas from, let's say, movies or, you know, only the snapshots that we get of people's stories on social media, that it's just like I did this thing, and now, like, my life is so great, and it's like, what happened in between there? You know, there was a lot that probably happened in between. I started to look at myself and change these things, and now life is so great because it is actually really, really, really hard when we start doing something new. And I think I even talked about on your podcast that, like, our body doesn't know the difference between, is this new safe or is this new dangerous? You know, especially when we're trying something new, it's just our body doesn't know yet if something bad is going to happen or not, and so, like you're talking about, we need to kind of keep practicing and making, you know, all of the emotions and sensations and reactions just a part of the journey that it's like, of course, this would be scary. Of course, I would be feeling fear. Of course, like I'm feeling doubt or trepidation about doing this thing because I don't know what's going to happen, and so I find like I really had to take it at the smallest baby step that I could personally take, and I practice now with those that I work with in the same way that I had to really break it down, which meant that the I hate saying healing journey, because it's just like we're all on a life adventure, but the path that I had to go down, it took a long time, because I needed to break it down so small. I'm curious about your experience of that.

Sabrina Magnan 33:56

Yeah, absolutely. Because the thing is that, like you always say, food was the answer for a while, but then when it's not food, it's something else. And so this healing journey, it's this constant up level. And one of the things that I found has was really helpful for me to keep reminding myself, and I think it's going to be helpful for your listeners as well, because when you're going through the hard period, especially if you're just starting to heal, you're starting to work on your relationship with food, and things are coming up, and things might even feel like they're getting worse at first we start to think, oh, my goodness, this is permanent, like this sense of permanence, that you are now going down this downward spiral, and it's just going to keep getting worse and worse and worse. And I always whenever I'm going through because it really is this wave like life is in seasons. You're going to go through a winter where things are going to be hard and you're going to feel lost, and you're going to be that caterpillar in the cocoon that doesn't know what's on the other side. And then you're going to have a spring where things are going to start to feel brighter and you're like, okay, I'm getting out of it. And then summer, you're able to enjoy all of that work that you've been doing, and you're able to reap the benefits. And then there's going to be a fall that's going to bring you back into a winter. And just like there's that every year, you're going to keep repeating those cycles over and over and over again. And so when you're in it, and when you're like things, I mean, I had a really hard actual winter this year, and when I'm in it now, my perspective is, I wonder what lessons I'm gonna be getting out of this. I can't see it yet. I don't know what it is yet, but I know that there's gonna be a lot of lessons that I'll have looking back in hindsight. So being able to remind yourself, okay, this feels tough. This is really challenging. Things are hard, and it's not permanent. It's temporary, and it's going to get better.

Stephanie Mara 36:10

I actually just shared someone else's post today in my stories that said something like, even nature is not in bloom all the time. You know that even nature knows that it cannot be in the same state. And so, yeah, we can't have the same expectations for ourselves, that we are always going to be growing and moving forward and sprouting and evolving. And I love your analogy of just going through the seasons that some seasons are going to be like, wow, I've done a lot of work already, and now I need to pause and integrate before I'm ready to move forward again. And other times you're going to be like, you know what? I've been integrating for a while, and I've kind of been at maintenance with where I'm at in my relationship with my food or my body, and I think it's time that I move this forward, because this is now starting to affect the quality of my life again where I got to I started to feel a little bit more free and a little bit more spacious with what I could do in my life and what I could eat and now I'm starting to notice feeling a little bit stuck again. So I feel like that tracking of oneself, of just being able to be like this is where I am now. This is what I need now, because there is no right look or expression to this path, like you even said earlier, it's really unique about why it's come in for each person and what it's also going to look like for each person. So I appreciate that reminder of also remembering that when it feels so hard, I love that you're naming like, yeah, there's a part of you, and you know your survival response is also going to come in and be like, oh my god, is this is going to be the way that it is forever. And I think there's also another piece of that that sometimes I find that people start to question, does this mean I'm doing something wrong because I feel like, quote, unquote bad. Does that mean that I'm not on the right path? I'm curious if you've noticed that or experienced that as well.

Sabrina Magnan 38:06

Oh, absolutely. And whenever I hear that, I always just default go to, well, no, this is just showing you what needs to be brought up to the surface. It's you're not doing anything wrong, like you were using food for a purpose. It was doing something, and oftentimes it was being used as a distraction, as a way to soothe, as a way to numb, as a way to push down. And so what you're doing now is you're saying, okay, I'm working on this, and some of these things are now coming up to the surface. And so great, like, this means that it's showing me what I haven't been able to see or look at for so long. And so it sucks. Like, we can absolutely be able to know, like, okay, this doesn't feel great. And I've had times where I'm in my winters and we're like, I don't want to feel this way. This is not fun, but I'm going through it, and it means that I'm working through it. And like I said, when those things come up to the surface and it's hard and uncomfortable, once you work through that, you've got something really beautiful waiting for you on the other side.

Stephanie Mara 39:21

Yeah, such a great reminder. I am also wondering, was there anything that, as you look back on decreasing orthorexic tendencies that surprised you, like you weren't expecting that to maybe be a part of the journey, but in hindsight, you're like, oh, that was actually really important that I went through that or explored that, to continue to not rely on these behaviors.

Sabrina Magnan 39:48

So the first thing that came up, which I found super interesting, is that I used to get a lot of pride for how quote, unquote healthy I used to eat, and then it shifted, and I started feeling a lot of pride in how much I could show people what it's like to have a good relationship with food. Now, whenever I have some friends who are like, struggling to eat certain foods, I'm really mindful to be like, no. Like, look, it's okay. Like you can have the bread, you can have the cookie. My sense of I guess pride really shifted. It was no longer about how healthy I could be, but it was about how much I could show people that you can have all foods and still have this beautifully, holistically healthy life.

Stephanie Mara 40:41

Yeah, how do you sense that you found that balance for yourself? It's going to be unique to each person, but how did you know you had reached equilibrium or a balance for yourself, that you're like, oh, this, this feels like the balance of both wanting to care and respect my body and what it tells me and what feels good to it, while also making space for like, yeah, I'm gonna have the cookie and I'm gonna have the ice cream and I'm gonna go eat these things with my friends, because that also feels good in a different way.

Sabrina Magnan 41:11

Mmhmm, good question. It wasn't an overnight thing. It was a few years of, okay, making some changes to work out less, and then see, okay, what kind of workouts do I enjoy? Ways that I like moving my body and that make me feel good all throughout the week, in the same way with food, it was trial and error. For example, I eat the same thing for breakfast every morning, because as a business owner, I'm sure that you can relate, we make decisions all day long and if I can reduce the amount of decisions that I'm making in a day, and I don't really care about eating the same breakfast every morning, I'm gonna do that. And so it was okay, how do I feel eating the same breakfast every morning, and it feels great. I don't care. It doesn't bother me. And then it was okay, so what about lunch? Like, what's a way of eating that feels good for you? And do you want to have dessert after lunch? Do you not want to have dessert after lunch? And for me, I'll have a similar dessert, which is Greek yogurt with, like this chocolate granola for lunch. And I love that, because I get like, protein and carbs in that, but if I have, like, a very heavy dessert at lunch, I'll feel like a sugar crash mid afternoon and I don't love that, and so I'm not going to do that, but I'll go out for dinner and I'll have my ice cream, or I'll have my dessert, because I don't really care about having a sugar crash if I have it, and usually I don't even so it really was this, like trial and error of always tuning back in. And this is what I do with my clients. And I'm sure you do it too. It's like, okay, try this one thing and see how it feels for you, see how it resonates with you, and everyone's gonna be really individual. So it's this trial and error of picking up all of these little pieces of data and seeing what works for me and what doesn't.

Stephanie Mara 43:17

I love that. Thank you for sharing all of that, because there is so much experimentation and exploration that needs to occur that I don't feel like is talked about enough to be able to discover what is the balance for me of what works for me. Like I agree with you, most of the time, and people see this because a lot of the time I record a lot of reels of me drinking my morning smoothie that was through a lot of exploration around one this is the breakfast that feels the best in my body, keeps me nourished for a really long time, keeps me mentally clear to go through that some of the sessions that I have in the morning, and also, I don't have to think about it anymore. I'm just like, okay, making our smoothie today. You know, it's just something that you get to start to learn, like, okay, this is what helps me feel good. And sometimes there are some mornings where I'm like, yeah, I'm getting the feedback from my body of like, not today, today, on this particular day, we need something different. So that flexibility you were talking about earlier. But there is a certain kind of, I feel like, rhythm and cadence that you learn about what your body needs and when. And I want to come back to something that you also said earlier, just to, like, tie this all together for a second, of our bodies talk to each other on a body to body level. And I hear that you became a role model around your friends who and the people in your life who were maybe still struggling in their relationship with food, or not knowing what to eat and when to eat. And I find that even a lot of those that I work with like eating around other people can be really, really scary. I don't know why we think it's ever appropriate to like comment on what someone's eating, or if someone, like decides to eat or not eat something, or they say like, hey, I was eating this, but I'm not eating this anymore, and then suddenly people feel like they need to judge that person. Like, oh, you're changing up your nutrition again. Like, like, why? I'm sure that's doing something for that person, and there's something coming up for them, you know, if I bring in some curiosity around that, yeah, like, we're all doing something for ourselves, ultimately, because there's always something coming up for ourselves. But you know, like when we come into situations saying, you know what, I feel really confident, and I know how I want to feed myself, and I know what works for me and giving other people spaciousness to be playful and experimental with how they want to feed themselves, we actually can be co regulating each other around food that has become sometimes a very overwhelming, activating experience, especially if your past experiences have been what I'm describing is people judging you or commenting on your food, or you're getting in another helping, or why aren't you eating more? You know, all the commentary that people can make. And so I just hear that that that's also something that I hear brought you a lot of pride to like be that person that's like, hey, you can eat whatever you want to eat around me and I'm like, I'm cool with it. I want you to feel spaciousness, to discover for yourself what's going to feel good to you. So it's kind of like passing it forward, just like to, you know, bring everything you're talking about together.

Sabrina Magnan 46:26

Absolutely. That confidence and that, like, unapologetic way of knowing, I will nourish my body and I will feed my body in whatever way that I need to like I am one who I'm always gonna bring snacks with me. If I'm like, at a concert and I get hungry, I will unapologetically whip out my protein bar and eat my protein bar. And I tell my clients is, sometimes they're like, you know, I'm going to my sister's house, and sometimes we don't eat until 6pm and I'm like, okay, well, if you need to eat in the same way that if you needed to pee, you would just excuse yourself and go pee. We don't hold the same kind of emotional charge to these other bodily functions that we need to tend to and I really look at eating in the same way. I'm like, if I need to eat in front of other people, if I'm going out to coffee and someone else needs to eat, but I'm not hungry, I will unapologetically say, hey, I'm not hungry, but please have something feed your body. Do whatever you need to do, because I know what it's like to be hungry. I have been hungry a lot, and I know that you don't show up as your best self when you are not fed. And so for me, that is number one priority to make sure I am fed and the people around me are fed.

Stephanie Mara 47:58

Yeah, I'm curious as we move towards wrapping up here, you know, coming back to this piece around, starting to just explore and somatically track oneself, to be like, how does this feel to me? I'm wondering if you have any baby steps or suggestions about how someone can kind of move themselves towards this work, or any other baby step that you would offer if someone's realizing, ooh, I think I'm kind of dealing with some of these tendencies that we've been talking about today.

Sabrina Magnan 48:24

Yeah, I would say that the best thing that you can do is to tune inwards and ask yourself some questions. I even do this whenever I'm trying to make a decision or I'm thinking about, okay, I've got option A or I've got option B. I just tune inwards, and I ask myself, How does option A feel? And if I were to go with option A, would it be because I want to, or because I feel like I have to? And if I go with option A, then what might that lead to? So it's like really tapping into why, the why of the decision is this coming from which emotion are driving it? Is it guilt? Is it anxiety? Is it pressure? And you can do this with literally anything. Am I going to have lunch with that friend because I feel like I have to? Am I calling that person because I feel like I have to? And yeah, there are some things in life that you have to do, but there are some things when it comes to your own body, your own choices, around food, around movement, around your body, that you really want to tap into and ask yourself, where is this coming from, and is this choice loving to me? Like that question right there. I ask myself this all the time, would doing a workout right now be loving to me? And sometimes the answer is yes, and sometimes the answer is no, because my body'sasking for rest. Is having ice cream right now, would that be loving to me to go and connect with my boyfriend and enjoy the nice weather? Sometimes the answer is yes, but sometimes I'm like, actually, I'm feeling like a little bloated right now, and I don't think it would be very loving to me to add some ice cream to that. So that very question can be a really good one to guide you.

Stephanie Mara 50:23

I love that, and I really appreciate also, because that's the same way that I work as well, is that it's never just one decision. It's not always No, and it's not always Yes. So I so love that you're naming that too, that it is also based off of your body's feedback in the moment of what is going to feel best to me, based off of how I feel and the context of the situation, so that sometimes you get to say yes and sometimes you get to say no and be more of the kind of like multi faceted human being that you are that needs different things in different moments. So thank you so much for naming that. I absolutely loved this conversation, and I'm curious how individuals can keep in touch with you.

Sabrina Magnan 51:10

I loved it so much. Thank you for having me. They can find me at my podcast where you were a guest, so the Live Unrestricted Podcast. They can find me on Instagram @sabrinamagnanhealth, my website, SabrinaMagnan.com, I'm not on Tiktok. I've tried it, I couldn't keep up with it, and so those are the best places to find me.

Stephanie Mara 51:32

Awesome. I will put all of those links in the show notes, and just thank you so much again for being here and for sharing your wisdom.

Sabrina Magnan 51:39

Thanks for having me!

Stephanie Mara 51:41

Yeah. Well, to everyone listening as always, if you have any questions, email me support@stephaniemara.com anytime, and I hope you all have a satiating and safety producing rest of the day. Bye!

Keep in touch with Sabrina:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sabrina.magnan.health/
Website: https://site.sabrinamagnan.com/
Podcast: https://site.sabrinamagnan.com/live-unrestricted-the-intuitive-eating-food-freedom-podcast/