59. The Intuitive Eating Episode / 3 Powerful Stories

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Reclaim your relationship with food. This episode you will hear 3 powerful stories about 3 women healing their relationship with food, connecting to an intuitive place within the body, and how it reflected back into transforming their lives. Katie Kay Graham, Madeleine Hackett and Katie Barbaro are here on this episode to help you break free of food struggles, and help you see that you can heal by connecting to your intuitive Self within. This episode is powerful!

INTUITIVE EATING WORKSHOP:
Join Katie Barbaro, Katie Kay Graham and Madeleine Hackett for an intuitive eating workshop. Over the 90 minutes we will be journaling to bring honesty to our relationship with food, breathwork & meditation to connect to a deeper place within, and discussion to talk about changing how you see and connect with food. Our mission for this workshop is to help you see how your relationship with food can be filled with joy and intention. We will also be sharing each of our favorite tools as practical takeaways to implement with your own eating habits. We cannot wait to hold space for this powerful transformation to help you experience a new relationship with food!
Click the link to find out more: https://katiekaygraham.com/workshops/intuitive-eating-pcyc

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Katie Kay Graham

Hey everyone, and welcome back to another episode. So today I am diving into a relationship with food. And I feel like this is a very important topic and can be really hard as well, especially if you've had a disordered eating past. Or if you've just struggled with going through multiple diets and trying to lose weight. But it also can be a really empowering conversation, right? Because food is in our lives literally every single day. And once we start to move forward in a direction of eating in a way that's really honoring our body and serving our soul, then this can be a really uplifting and positive experience that just allows us to move farther and deeper into our purpose and our life. And really bring in more joy and enjoyment into our life, and being present and just enjoying all the richness and amazingness and nourishment and beauty that we can really find in our relationship with food. So, diving into this topic, I wanted to first tell you guys that there's this amazing workshop that me and Katie Barbro and Madeline Hackett, us three are putting on. And it's called the intuitive eating workshop. And we will be doing this at PCYC. So PC yoga collective. And we're having it planned for Friday, August 5, that in person is going to be one of the most powerful experiences, I'm just I know, all three of us are just really, really excited. And excited isn't like, we're just like, oh my gosh, like that holding this space is going to be so transformational. So that might be a better word for it. But we're all just like so thrilled to put on this workshop, because we've all three of us have dealt with struggling with our food and having that disordered eating habits and the journey that it took each of us to really find a relationship that made us feel more joy in our life and made us feel like we had more intention with our food. And having a healthy relationship with food really releases that time and energy and consumption when we're struggling. We're just so focused on that one part that we can't use that energy in any other way. We can't use that energy for purpose or for our light or for spreading joy. And so I want you to think about how much energy you spend right now thinking about your food, planning your food, maybe you're counting calories, maybe you're in a diet, maybe there's just a lot of judgments and negativity and you're kind of in this mindset cycle where you can't get out of it, you kind of feel stuck in your relationship with food. So think about all of that energy that you spend in there. What would it feel like? And what would it look like if that energy was released out of that. And you could really spend that somewhere else in your life somewhere much more productive and uplifting. So that's something that when I started my journey to really find a better relationship with my food. That was one thing that just really stuck with me as I was thinking, you know, I can't put my purpose and light out into the world if all my time and energy is stuck in a struggle of what I'm eating every day and counting calories and just focused on that negativity. So what we want to do and our workshop and really our mission is to help you see how your relationship with food can be filled with joy and intention. And so in this workshop, we are going into reclaiming your relationship with food by discovering a new way to approach your food and build healthier habits so that you can reclaim your higher intentions with food and with your life. So over this 90 minute workshop, we will be doing some journaling to bring an honesty to our relationship with food breathwork and meditation to connect to a deeper place within and discussion to talk about how you can change how you see and connect with your food. So we're, like I said, just so thrilled to hold this space for this powerful transformation. And this podcast is going to be a great introduction. Both Katie and Mads have been on the podcast, and they have both shared their story with their food. And just to give a quick introduction, Katie Barbaro. She is the author of fed up an illustrated guide to food freedom. And then Madeline Hackett. She is the owner and founder of breath house, one of the stories I always reference back to because I just find it to be so powerful, and just so beautiful and unique. And to give just a little bit about my own story, I know I've shared this here and there on the podcast, but my disordered eating, and I like to say disordered eating rather than eating disorder, because I feel like a lot of us lives with a disordered eating, if we're following that society norm, if we're looking at diets, if we're looking to the external to give us the answers, then more often, and I would say probably 99.9% of the time, this is not integrating with our own intuitive body signals. And so when that happens over and over and over again, and of course, no blame on each of us, because that is what everybody is telling us to do. And that's what the outside sources are saying this is the right way to do it. But as we do that, over and over and over again, we really do develop these habits that are disordered way of looking at our food and eating and relating to our relationship with food and body. So, for me, I went through the whole routine of diet after diet after diet, I was not eating enough food, I was abusing my body and the way that I wasn't eating enough, I was over exercising. And then I was also abusing myself with all of my negative thoughts just on repeat, and really spiral down. And I think that was a big reason that I fell into a deep depression was because my body wasn't getting the nutrients that it really needed. And my brain wasn't receiving the nutrients that it needed. So of course, my whole hormone system was messed up my gut system.

Katie Kay Graham

I think it's like 95% of serotonin lives in our gut. So of course, if that's linked to the brain, yeah, my whole system was out of whack. And so going through that cycle, always wanting to lose weight. And then when I got through a few years of therapy and got on some medication and feeling at a more stable place, I still wanted to feel better in my body, I still wanted to lose weight. So I went to a nutritionist a few years later, and we went through the counting calories doing the macros in which was great because I, I lost the way I stayed on top of it. But the thing was that with that was it was just so not sustainable. And earlier when I was talking about that time and energy consumption, oh my gosh, like going on my fitness pal counting all my calories. It was really consuming, it was really consuming my energy. So at that point, I went back to my nutritionist Becky, who also is on the podcast, she's amazing. But I went back to her and I was like, this is not working. You know, I lost the weight. I actually don't feel any happier, which is a good side note to put in there. Finally, after years and years and years of trying to lose weight, and I did it and then you know, like turns out I wasn't any happier. So as much deeper things going on. But I told Becky I was just like I This isn't sustainable. So then we went on the intuitive eating journey. And that was when things really, really started to shift for me. And

Katie Kay Graham

I'm so happy that I was introduced to it when I was and it really helped me connect back into my natural body signals. My hunger and fullness cues. And it changed. It changed everything for me from that point. And once I found that healthier, more stable relationship with my food, then I got to really explore into a lot of different trends and insights. And Ayurveda was one thing that just really I love so much. And so I started integrating different IR Veda and nutrition into my diet and intermittent fasting, I had Brian on the podcast, and I think he's coming up who's gonna come up next week. And that's been really making me feel good in my body. And so it was that intuitive eating that created this stable foundation for me to really rest in that place and find that security and find that state safety. And once I had that home built, then I could go out and explore different eating trends and nutrition and testing, you know, what felt good in my body when I ate this and ate this or, you know, exploring, really just exploring and being curious, but I couldn't have reached that stage until I found that grounding, in my body, in the intuitive eating. But yeah, so we'll get into all of it in this workshop, and so excited. So I really hope you can join us, I will put the info, all the links to sign up to get more info on it in the show notes and all that kind of updates that are happening in real time. Make sure to get on my newsletter because that will be where I'm updating you with information on this workshop. And then we're I'm also doing a body love workshop. And last episode, I have a little intro into that so you can listen to that. That starts Thursday, July 28. And the body love is all about creating a new relationship with your body and the things that really transformed my life and my relationship with my body. So seeing it through a new perspective connecting to spirituality gratitude, mindset changes, we get into all of that stuff. So that's also going to be really fun. So make sure that newsletter get on that bad boy. And yeah, just take a listen here we have some clips for Mads and Katie story. And if you're interested in listening to their full episode after this Madeline Hackett's episode is episode number two. So really early on, and then Katie's episode is episode number 15. Okay, one, one last. Love you all. Sit back and take a listen. Okay, so starting with Madeline Hackett, her full episode is episode number two, I will have the link in the show notes, so you can check out that. But today's clip is all about her story about her healing her eating disorder through finding breathwork sit back and take a listen.

Madeleine Hackett

Right when I was pretty much disgusted with my body, I hated how I looked. And when I was 18, I went away to Thailand. And you can edit this is like a long, roundabout way. But I went to Thailand with my friends. And I remember this friend telling me how much weight I gained and how much bigger I was. And obviously in Asia, that diet culture there and like, it's just so backwards. But she taught me the diet up if you trigger warning, but if you only eat breakfast, that's all you can eat whatever you want, you can eat as much as you want for breakfast, and then you don't eat for the rest of the day. You don't even tell breakfast the next day, you'll lose weight. And so essentially, I was like binging every time I ate breakfast, or that entire summer, and I lost weight. I was like, you know, I lost like 15 pounds, I was really thin. But I was literally like that was when it all began. That's like the binge restrict purge over exercise like that, when the cycle began, and it lasted for almost 10 years. And I got significantly worse and worse and worse and more and more severe and more and more obsessive and like the pendulum would swing so like with any eating disorder, it's like, I would restrict, I would lose all this weight. And then it would be like wash and I was binge and be like completely out of control. And the binges were like so dark. I mean, that was what was most that was what was hardest for me because I feel like you know you say you have an eating disorder and you're expected to be like rail thin, you know, it's like that. That's like the state as much of it, whereas I wasn't, but I was still extremely unhealthy in my eating habits. And when I was 26 years old, I guess you could say, I got like the rug pulled out from underneath me. And my parents realized how severe I was living in South Carolina, as a TV reporter on television every day constantly being fatigued throughout my body and how I look. I mean, like that was the emphasis that was more important than my work. And maybe in hindsight, obviously, hindsight is 2020. But maybe, maybe that was more so the narrative that I was creating in my head because I was so sick. But that's how it felt. That was my story. And my parents realized how severe and unhealthy my eating disorder had become, I was purging every day. And they sent me away to rehab. And so I went away to rehab in Arizona, and I was there for eight months. And again, hindsight is 2020. But I don't feel like it did all that much. For me, I returned about a month later. And fortunately, that was when I that was when I really got emergency yoga, which I think saved me mentally from completely just self destructing. But I returned to those I returned to those habits, but I would turn to those behaviors. And I don't think the new I don't think like the television industry was healthy for someone who has, who's had an eating disorder for that long and who has mental health struggles. That wasn't helpful. Again, having to like maintain this image, maintain this weight, looking back, like I would go on television, and then I would see it that that night and just be like, with how I looked. Even even at my fitness. You know, it's so crazy how like the mind is I was never happy. I was never satisfied with how I look. I was always there was always something to pick myself apart. And,

Madeleine Hackett

and yeah, I mean, I can get into how I'm much better now. But when I say Katie that I tried, like talk therapy, rehab, CBT DBT ketamine therapy? I did, I did, where I like literally tried to like rewire my brain. And it wasn't until breath I found breathwork that ultimately healed me. And then discovering breathwork I like it was so happenstance I met it was my last day of ketamine therapy, actually. And I met this guy in this park. And he's like doing this weird breathing. And I thought he was just meditating. And I was like, Can I sit down? And can I sit down and meditate with you? I don't know what called me to do that. And it was like, so bizarre because I would never just like ask someone. And he was like, super cool. And he's like, Yeah, sure. He's like, I'm actually doing Wim Hof. You know who that is? And I'm like, No, what's Wim Hof? Like, he's like, Well, it's Holotropic breathing, basically, you overall, donate for 30 breaths. And then you hold your breath for as long as you can breathe in for 15 seconds, and then repeat. And I'm like, kind of weird, but kind of on like, on down. So I practiced it with him. And I instantly like with this complete stranger, I felt this like flood of emotions, like, roaming, and I think I was, before I started breathwork, I was a pro at avoiding my feelings. Like, that's what my eating disorder really was. It's never about the food. Right? It was about like, using food, either restricting for control and to feel like a control, or to numb out and not have to feel anything. So I was like, I was a pro at just completely not feeling anything and breathwork made me feel again. And yeah, and I felt this, like flood of emotions run through me, like I've never experienced before. It was by far the most transformative experience of my life. And I was hooked. And I didn't know why. And I didn't know what it was doing. And I didn't even know at the time that it was going to do anything for my eating disorder. But I kept practicing. And I did it. I returned to every single morning doing it every single day for rounds. And, and my eating disorder is like completely lifted. And I think like you got to feel it to heal it. And I never even knew it's not like I have like some dark childhood. I don't have any deep traumas. I think I just had like, a sadness. Yes, that I never wanted to feel like an emptiness that I never wanted to feel. And then I always try to avoid I always had I had to be like, up, up, up, up, up. And I always had to be like reaching for the next time. I'm like, trying to get to a necktie. And when I just finally sat down and let myself feel it heals me.

Katie Kay Graham

Wow. Every time I hear that story, I swear it just gives me chills just unbelievable. And isn't it crazy how the universe works, how you like have all this intention and you go through all of these things and then just randomly in a Parkland day, just so amazing uncertainty of life and tapping into that, you know, just randomly things show up in your life that connect with you or intuition and help you heal, really just amazing. So next up is Katie Barbaro. She is just so creative and fun, and her energy just lights up the world. She just shares through her book, but also through her life, of just how much intuitive eating has healed her relationship for food, but also mirrors into transforming her life and how she shows up in her life. And just reading her book is just fun. And she has these little cartoons and she really is vulnerable with how she healed her eating disorder and what helped her to move through it and connecting to her body is really amazing. So this clip is her story about healing her eating disorder and the power of intuitive eating. And her full episode, which I'll put the link in the show notes, Episode 15, we really dive into talking about finding truth within our relationship with food, connecting with that intuitive guidance, that inner guidance system. And then also finding acceptance, finding acceptance within our body, and our approach to food and really bringing in that compassion and kindness. So yeah, this is a great story, I'm so excited to share it, sit back and take a listen.

Katie Barbaro

For me, I had this like obsession with losing weight, because I I started to do it. And then I felt the sense of control. And it like because it worked, it worked for a little bit, you know, restricting my calories, I got to my goal weight, I ran a half marathon and I felt genuinely confident and good like it was. But I was mistakenly thinking that that newfound confidence came from weight loss. And it really came from keeping promises to myself, it really came from like, being mindful around food. It was great at first, but then I became addicted to losing weight. And it was this way I kept trying to fill the hole inside of me with this weight loss where it's like, my goal weight was never was no longer satisfying. And so in my mind, I was like, well, it must not be low enough, let's lower lower at by five pounds. And I basically you know, and I also this, this coincided with a big breakup that I went through, which created a lot of emotional upheaval. And that made me face a lot of really uncomfortable feelings inside of me. Just all of my fears, you know, I had a really I yeah, I just saw my life going in a certain direction. I was like ready to marry and have babies with this man who then cheated on me. And, you know, it was all meant to happen? Is it what you know, like, I'm actually that's probably something that I'm the most grateful for that experience. But it was not something I was grateful for at the time. But it was it put me in touch with this intense aliveness that I hadn't felt before then. And I didn't know what to do with it at first. And so it, it played a really destructive role in my life, because there were things that needed to be destroyed inside of me. And so my my kind of obsession with dieting, which I didn't see as a problem escalated into bulimia during that period have really tough uncertainty and fear and trying to have everything under control, but not right. So it was this very physical manifestation of that lack of control. And so it was, yeah, it was just the way that I had to move through that. And for a long time, I tried to approach it, how I approached everything and have it under control. Like I tried to, like make myself some sticker charts. And I was convinced I could fix myself. I went to therapy, and I was like, she doesn't get me this isn't gonna work. And it was like, I was totally just trying to white knuckle it and do it on my own. Like, oh, I got myself into this mess. I totally blamed myself. You know, which diet culture really, like encourages us to do it's it's quite a hamster wheel of just beating ourselves up and getting it's interesting to see it as a way for our like the darker tones of our emotions to play out. That's like kind of how it felt like it was it really is like being brainwashed by a cult like it is. You're under this illusion that there The reason why I feel so, so bad is because I have a tummy roll. The reason why I feel this discomfort is because, like my, I have a double chin at this angle. Like it's, it's visceral, though, it's because feelings are visceral, they're in our bodies, and I so strongly associated it with with like fatness and that being wrong. So part of diet culture is this weight stigma and fat phobia. That is often times just ingrained into us until we realize like, oh, whoa, that's like neutralizing fat bodies. It's was like a huge part of my recovery of like, oh, the thing that I've been like, so afraid of like, that's not even a bad thing. Right? It's so it's like a mind or there's so many layers of this. Which brings me to your other question. And I was like, going through this process of recovery and seeing through every single layer of bullshit that was laid onto me, I was like, I can't just do this, and then be quiet about it. Yeah. Like this is this, I had no choice but to write this book, honestly, like, it's just, and it's not really, I'm not trying to preach to anybody about the way things are. But this is the way things were, for me, this was my, like, the layers of my consciousness that I needed to pierce through.

Katie Barbaro

I just wanted to be really honest about what it was like for me to go through the process of developing an eating disorder, when I was in massive denial about having any kind of disordered relationship with food for a long time. And then developing bulimia going through the process of, you know, just kind of like dipping my toes into recovery a little bit more each time, you're gonna get a lot of a lot of those back and forth moments. And, you know, also what my experience was like working the steps, if you want an inside scoop to the steps to get this book.

Katie Barbaro

not so anonymous. I'm anonymous. And then yeah, and then after that, like, there was still some, like, ways that I was gripping on to controlling my food, that going through the process of learning, intuitive eating, and how to eat intuitively and going, I also kind of like lay out those steps of intuitive eating, and then also how that translated into my life. I started working with a life coach and like, living, living the principles of intuitive eating in a way that was like, oh, it's not just about giving myself permission, you know, like to eat brownies or something. It's like, I want permission to live a sweet life, like, what? What did it really mean for me? And then eventually, like, translating that into creative expression and how it really like, gave me even greater permission to step into my, my creativity, and what that even is, so yeah, that's pretty much the Yeah.

Katie Kay Graham

Well, you guys, I hope you enjoy this episode. I was just really excited to add in the clips of Madeline Hackett's story. And Katie Barbro story. so profound, and I just want to say that, and I think I can speak for all three of us that we just have this energy about this workshop. And it's almost like this really powerful intention. Just the magnitude of how important this can really be, and how it can actually change people's lives. Each of us have understood that the relationship we have with our food, it's not really about the food, right? It's a mirror into our relationship we have with within ourselves, that deeper relationship we have with self, and really the relationship that we have with living our lives. So by healing our relationship with food, each of our lives have changed because of because of it. And that's really powerful. And I literally every time I think about this workshop, I get chills up and down my body because I just, I'm so excited, but I'm just really, I'm really in this I feel this energy of just really high empowerment. And so that's really exciting. And I don't think I've ever really felt that kind of up leveled energy before in the podcast and so it's just like so exciting tapping into that and, and I really hope that you can join us in person. If you're not are in Park City or can't make it to Park City. I'm sure in the future we will be offering something online or I will definitely always be giving free freebies and insight into Instagram and if you ever need to contact me I have all the contact information in the show notes. Always feel free to email me. DM me connect with me I'm I'm here. I'm here for it all. So yeah, please do that. And if you can, we would just love for you to join us in this workshop. Sending so much love to you guys so much love to your body. So much love to healing your relationship with food. I will see you all next week. love you

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EPISODE REFERENCES:
Episode 2 Madeleine Hackett: https://katiekaygraham.com/blog/2
Episode 15 Katie Barbaro: https://katiekaygraham.com/blog/15
Episode 8 Becky Cannon: https://katiekaygraham.com/blog/28

KATIE KAY WORKSHOPS:
https://katiekaygraham.com/workshops

• Intuitive Eating Workshop (IRL Park City): Friday, Aug 5th 6:30pm-8pm, PC Yoga Collective

• Body Love Workshop (IRL & URL): Thursday's July 28 - August 18, 6pm - 7:15pm, Enlighten Wellness Park City + Online via Zoom

• Outdoor Yoga Class (IRL Park City): Tuesday's July 12th - Sept 5:30pm-6:30pm, Jeremy Ranch Park City

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