E17- Is My Weight Really the problem? A Discussion on Intuitive Eating with Sarah Burby.

Click on the button below to access pie chart website Sarah mentioned in our discussion today. This is a really helpful graphic for seeing clearly how we are spending our time and whether that investment of time aligns with our deepest values.

Episode Transcript

Amber Sobrio-Ritter (00:00):

Hello, welcome to the Divergent Fitness Podcast. It's so exciting because today we have our very first guest. Sarah's a Behavior Analyst in New Jersey and an expert on intuitive eating. And she's joining us today to have this really interesting conversation about intuitive eating and how she's really blended the science of applied behavior analysis with intuitive eating. So Sarah, can you just start with a brief overview of what is intuitive eating and your journey to get there?

Sarah Burby (00:58):

Sure. So I'll try to keep this one brief. But basically intuitive eating is really the self-care framework that helps you repair your relationship with food, helps you repair your relationship with movement and it's helping you unlearn a lot of unhelpful things that you've learned probably for a really long time, from a very young age about food, about body image, all of that kind of thing. So it's really trying to unlearn a lot of unhelpful things that you might have learned in the past, through this self-care framework. And I found intuitive eating accidentally because I am someone that struggled a lot years and years ago with body image issues and having very rigid eating patterns and never feeling like I looked good enough or I was doing anything that was good enough. And really, I credit a lot to intuitive eating to helping me just really make a huge shift in my behaviors and not just eating but how I live my life. So I'm just very grateful for that and that's where I first learned about intuitive eating.

Amber Sobrio-Ritter (02:04):

Yeah. So I've heard you talk a little bit about body neutrality. So what is body neutrality?

Sarah Burby (02:11):

Yeah, so it's basically having an understanding of, you're not necessarily going to love your body every single day. And I think that's something that we're told, I don't know, either through societies or diet culture, that once you get to X amount of weight or you build this amount of muscle, then you're just going to wake up in the morning and love yourself, love the way you look every single day. And that's just not realistic,. We're all human beings and we're going to have some days that we might wake up and we just feel icky or we feel blah and that's normal and it's okay to feel like that. But there's a difference in having a bad day and having a bad body image day versus talking unkindly to yourself. And that's where the difference is, is you don't have to love how you look or how you feel every single day but you also don't need to break yourself, you also don't need to hate yourself, you also don't need to shame yourself. And that's really the whole concept behind body neutrality.

Amber Sobrio-Ritter (03:04):

Right. Yeah. This reminds me of when I was on a body building program and I got super lean and honestly just found new things to talk negatively to myself about. I mean, it was just like, "Check that box." Of now I can see my abs but now my stomach skin after having children looks this way or this is another thing, it almost feels like a wheel that you just get stuck on.

Sarah Burby (03:29):

Exactly. And I think that's a great point because a lot of times we will say exactly we want to tone our arms or we want to have the perfect thighs or the perfect booty but then we never stop there. It's this vicious, never ending cycle and we're never going to, unless we accept our body and we learn to accept our genetic blueprint, we're always going to find something. And our bodies are constantly changing literally every single day, what we look like today is going to be very different than what we looked at five years ago and that's going to be very different than how we look five years from now. So if we're constantly obsessing about how we look in certain body parts, it's just setting ourselves up for failure.

Amber Sobrio-Ritter (04:07):

Why do you think we do this? Why do you think we have in our minds, "Okay, I want to access whatever." What do we think we're going to access by having the perfect butt or the perfect abs? And is it really about those abs or that butt or is it about something different?

Sarah Burby (04:25):

I think it's about something different and I think it starts, unfortunately, at a very young age from society and from what's modeled for us. I'm sure a lot of us and a lot of your listeners can relate to this growing up, people that you looked up to are probably constantly dieting or maybe your friends are constantly trying to look a certain way. And that behavior was modeled for us at a very young age. And if you look on any social media or TV or magazine, what is highlighted and what is deemed to be successful is having this, "Perfect body image," that's probably edited and touched and it's very unrealistic. Or you look on social media and you have this person that has a very strong physique or maybe looks a certain way and that person's like, "Oh well, I just exercised 20 minutes a day and eat this food."

Sarah Burby (05:17):

And you're like, "Okay, that's definitely not the truth." But that's what's portrayed and that's what's seen to be as realistic. So I think a lot of it is from, again, what we see and what's modeled for us and shapes our behavior now in what we're trying to get. But again, what we talked about is, it's chasing this never ending... It's just a never ending race because we're never happy no matter what we try to do or what we try to change, we're never satisfied with how we look.

Amber Sobrio-Ritter (05:44):

Right. And I think there are people that can eat, generally, whatever they want and exercise 20 minutes a day and look a certain way but they are not talking about potentially just genetics, this their body type. Maybe they've been athletes for their whole life and so they've just built this physique over time and now they don't have to do much to maintain it. Muscle building is really hard but maintenance of muscle mass is pretty easy.

Amber Sobrio-Ritter (06:10):

Surgery, people are not talking about that, like, "Yeah, this is how my butt looks from all these squats." And it's like, "What kind of squats are you doing, girlfriend? Because that's not easy to get that kind of size." So maybe people aren't being as forthcoming about the other factors. And so everyone thinks if I just worked harder, if I was just more disciplined, if I just had what it takes, I could look like that. And I think you and I have talked a little bit just about genes and your genetic blueprint and how you are helping people embrace what that means for them. Do you want to talk a little bit about that?

Sarah Burby (06:51):

Yeah, totally. And I think that's a really important concept to understand is that you can have 20 different women in one room and all 20 of those women could eat the exact same way, all 20 of those women could exercise the exact same exercise routine. And the reality is everybody is going to look a little bit different because that's just how our bodies are, our bodies aren't programmed to be exactly the same. And I think if we understand that and that's not something that's glamorous or something that's talked about a lot. And again, in social media or however it's portrayed, it's not talked about that everybody's body is different and everyone can move the same way or eat the same way and their bodies just are going to look different, that's just the way it is.

Amber Sobrio-Ritter (07:37):

Right. I think that what they're selling is this specific body and that most people when they can't access that, like abs are not generally accessible to most people, I mean, period. And if they are accessible, it's going to require potentially a lot of unhealthy, really damaging behaviors to get there. And so, it's so toxic, we are holding ourselves to a standard that not only isn't accessible but also is dangerous potentially. Do you ever have clients who are trying to recover from just some disordered eating or?

Sarah Burby (08:20):

Yeah. So I would say 90% of the clients that I'm working with are recovered from either restricting eating, some sort of restricting and then binge eating and this exact same thing. It's like they are trying to strive for this unrealistic expectation. And I think a lot of that comes, again, from what's being reinforced. So accidentally, I think a lot of times those unhelpful or really unhealthy behaviors are reinforced accidentally through friends, through coworkers. So for example, I talk a lot about how someone might lose 10 pounds and then they get a lot of compliments like, "Oh Sarah, you lost weight, you look great." Or, "Oh, Sarah, I really noticed your arms are getting really toned." And that can be really harmful and that's why I say, I don't ever want anyone to comment about my body because you don't know what behaviors that person had to engage in to get to that point.

Sarah Burby (09:27):

So you're assuming that they engaged in maybe healthy exercise, maybe they modified some food choices or things like that. But you also don't know if they were going to the gym for three hours a day and eating 1000 calories. So I think that a very dangerous thing to do is to comment on how other people look and specifically weight loss and/or weight gain because you really have no idea what you could be accidentally reinforcing. And I talked to a lot of people, who there be their unhealthy behavior was reinforced by friends, by coworkers and that's why they continued to do it. And they felt like, "Well, now everyone was telling me how great I look or all this stuff and now what happens if I gain five pounds again, are they going to think differently of me?" And they're afraid to stop engaging in these unhealthy behaviors.

Amber Sobrio-Ritter (10:19):

Right. That's so true, it's like letting people know. I think when a larger bodied person engages in behavior to lose a bunch of weight and they get all that reinforcement, it just confirms that they weren't good enough. Like, "Oh, now I've met someone's criteria for acceptance." And even though you're finally accessing all the things that you thought you wanted this whole time, it's like this really painful realization. When I've seen people talk about this like, "Wow, I really wasn't good enough for people and now I am."

Amber Sobrio-Ritter (10:50):

And then like you said, there's this fear of, "What happens when I'm not again?" And there's one podcast episode that I did on self-acceptance and the difference between self-esteem and self-acceptance and it's similar. Self-esteem is when I'm doing well, I'm like, "Wow, Amber, you're amazing. You're doing all these great things." But what happens when I'm not? And so you're riding this roller coaster. Whereas self-acceptance is, I value myself as a person and it stays stable. I'm doing well, I'm not, I'm doing well, I'm not, it doesn't rely on performance or success or whatever. It's like this real, constant place that you can go for self-love.

Sarah Burby (11:35):

Totally. Yes. And I love that analogy, I think that's perfect.

Amber Sobrio-Ritter (11:38):

It's a hard thing to cultivate in yourself and I also think it's hard because people around us don't usually model that behavior.

Sarah Burby (11:45):

Exactly.

Amber Sobrio-Ritter (11:45):

I mean, it's tricky, even as a parent I'm thinking, "Good job, you did so good on this thing." And yes, there's this really interesting conversation around reinforcing your child's behavior because they engaged in something or they did really well on a test or something. And how does that inadvertently send some message that reinforcement is only available when you meet these expectations.

Sarah Burby (12:09):

Yes. Yep. Exactly.

Amber Sobrio-Ritter (12:12):

That's a hard one. Okay, how do I reinforce? So I guess probably what you would say is don't reinforce based on performance, reinforce based on kindness and other attributes. How do you help clients see other things that are valuable about themselves outside of what society values?

Sarah Burby (12:33):

Yeah. So I do it a couple of different ways. So usually one of the first questions that I'll ask clients is, can you name five people that you really admire that in life, for whatever reason, you look up to you admire, they're a role model? Think of a couple of those people and then write down every single quality about that person that you admire. So whether you admire their kindness, you admire their determination, whatever quality that you admire about that. So then they'll make a list and I say, "So where on that list did you comment or did you admire something about their physical appearance?" And every single time I do this exercise, and I've done it probably 50 times, the answer is always, never. That's not on that list.

Amber Sobrio-Ritter (13:17):

No. "She has a nice ass." That's such a weird thing to... "That's why I admire her."

Sarah Burby (13:22):

Yeah. Exactly. So that's one way that I do it. But I also ask them to think about how other people would describe them. So how would your children describe you or how would your loved ones describe you? Or if someone's at your funeral and they're talking about you and all your accomplishments, how would they describe you? And again, on that list, it's never anything about physical appearance, ever. That's not how people would describe you or that's what they love about you. So doing those two exercises really is a good beginning, I think. And then we can dive in a bit deeper depending on whatever else that they have going on but I find both of those things to be pretty helpful.

Amber Sobrio-Ritter (14:05):

Why do you think we overestimate people's care about that? Do you know what I'm saying? Why do we think it's such a big deal? And then like you said, you do this exercise with people and nobody cares about that. Why do we think that they do?

Sarah Burby (14:23):

I mean, Amber, that's a great question. And I don't know the answer to that, I think it's probably a combination of things. I think it probably is a combination of what we see and what we absorb and what we perceive as being the best in terms of what we look like. Or again, seeing all these filtered, airbrushed, edited photos and on top of that we're seeing supermodels or famous athletes or I don't know, seeing that and feeling like we're inadequate if we don't look like they do is probably a big part of it. And again, maybe just depending on what was reinforced growing up, maybe growing up your parents did reinforce if you looked thinner or your friends did reinforce that and then it's really hard to unlearn that or undo that relationship, especially on your own without the help of a coach. It's really hard to work through all that stuff by yourself, I think.

Amber Sobrio-Ritter (15:22):

Right. Well, essentially you're like a fish swimming in the water, you can't see the water, you're in it. And a coach can look at you and say, "Hey, do you not notice that you're swimming in all of this toxic mindset?" And make you aware in a way that you can't because their objective, they can see it from a different perspective and really enlighten you from the outside because it's too hard, it's internalized and it's just such a part of our culture growing up that it can be so subtle.

Sarah Burby (15:56):

Totally. And I also don't think people realize how much time they actually spend being unkind to themselves or hating themselves, for lack of better words. So something else that I like to do, and I can't remember the name of the website but I'll message you when I think of it, maybe you can put it in the notes or put it on your accounts. But there's a website where you can basically create a pie chart. So you can ask clients, "Can you name your top five values or the top five things that are most important to you? "And they might say, "My family, my job, my health." Whatever it is that you value.

Sarah Burby (16:33):

And if you put that in a pie chart and you look at all the time and mental energy that you're spending on your physical appearance and your health, that's going to be 70%, 80%, 90% of that pie chart. And when you see that visual, I think it can be really helpful to say, "Listen, you're spending all this time on this one value and then you're not having any other time to spend with the value of your family or your friends or work and it's all consuming over you." So I think a lot of times they don't... And then it's like an aha moment like, "Oh my gosh, I didn't even realize I was so consumed by these unhelpful thoughts."

Amber Sobrio-Ritter (17:09):

Right. Exactly. So that goes a little bit into acceptance and commitment therapy, which is really interesting and I definitely want to pivot there. Really quickly, I want to share an exercise that I do with my kids about just trying to make them aware of that water that we're swimming in, where if we see an advertisement of a famous soccer player who's chiseled and he's holding a deodorant stick. I talk to the boys about, "What do you think that this advertisement is trying to tell us?" This is how you're supposed to look if you're a soccer player. This is how you're supposed to look if you want to be successful. This is the kind of product you use. This is what a man looks like. And so to offset that, well, I think first of all, it helps just for kids to know advertising is meant to make you feel like you have a deficit, the purpose of making you feel like you have a deficit is to sell you something that will bridge the gap between who you are and who you want to be.

Amber Sobrio-Ritter (18:01):

So just knowing that and knowing that it's not a truth, it's a marketing tactic, is already really helpful. And then we talk about, "Do you really have to? You play soccer and you don't look like that person. You are really successful. Or let's look at other soccer players, look at all the body diversity within the sport of soccer." And it looks like there's a lot of different ways you can show up and there're all kinds of different men and different bodies. And look at really strong men, their bodies are going to look different from somebody who's a horseback rider or whatever.

Amber Sobrio-Ritter (18:38):

So it's just letting them see that there's a lot of ways to be and they're all acceptable, they're all valid and these are just human bodies. And the point of advertising is not to feed you a truth, it's the opposite of that. And so just letting kids know a lot of what they're seeing is false. It's still hard because when the boys are still getting that messaging from their peers and that's hard to offset. But I think even just providing one other perspective, just one, allows them to be like, "My mom doesn't see it that way." It creates just a little crack in that shell that it's like, they don't have to fully buy into it.

Sarah Burby (19:23):

Yeah. And I think that's so important and so wonderful that you do that with your boys. And I think that's a great message for other moms to start doing because, like you said, it's not taught, no one really thinks to teach it the way that you're teaching it that way. And I think the more exposure you give to them, to that thought process, eventually they can start looking ads and add themselves and without you, they're prompting them to say, "What do you think this is about?"

Amber Sobrio-Ritter (19:48):

Exactly.

Sarah Burby (19:49):

They'll be able do that on their own and be able to not get so all consumed in that culture. So I think that's a wonderful skill for them to develop and it's super important.

Amber Sobrio-Ritter (19:56):

Right. Well, the most painful thing about being a parent is that kids don't do what you say, they do what you do. So it's very important to work on yourself. People who have kids, if they're recovering from some of this, should come to you or else they are going to accidentally, inadvertently pass this on. When you have children, you don't just pass them all the goodness, you pass them everything. All your fears, all your anxieties, all your insecurities, now your kids get it or they inherit it. And if they don't do the work on themselves, they are giving their kids all kinds of inheritance that they don't want them to have. They're going to hear you saying to yourself, even in a quietest voice, "Ugh," when you look at yourself in the mirror. Or just a facial expression you give to yourself or, "Don't take pictures of me," when you're at the beach. Kids pick up on that.

Sarah Burby (20:47):

Yeah. Totally. And I will tell you during an initial intake, when we talk about their motivation and their whys and their values, that is one of the most common reasons that women to come to me is exactly what you just said, is they said, "I fear that what my behavior is now affecting my daughter or it's now affecting my son. I can tell that they're now picking up on things that I do and I want to help myself to help myself but also to help my children so they don't have to go through what I'm going through." Which I think is really important and really powerful and it shows how committed they are to their children and wanting to create this better opportunity and this better lifestyle for them so they don't have to be absorbed in all of that.

Amber Sobrio-Ritter (21:28):

I mean, it's so responsible because a lot of the time when my child's having a problem, I want to hire an outside person to come, "Hey, fix my child, they're having a problem." It's harder to look at yourself and say, "Was there something that I did?"

Sarah Burby (21:43):

Yeah. Exactly.

Amber Sobrio-Ritter (21:43):

That is a painful conversation that you have to have with yourself like, "Did I cause this problem?" Or, "Did I do something?" Is there something that I can be doing to address this problem on my end?" And a lot of the time, there's something you can do, even if it's little, to be helping your child be more successful.

Sarah Burby (22:01):

Yeah. Totally.

Amber Sobrio-Ritter (22:03):

So, okay. Let's talk about acceptance and commitment therapy. What is that?

Sarah Burby (22:07):

Yeah. So basically it sounds like this big fancy process but it's basically composed of six core processes and they all work together. There's diffusion, there's acceptance, there's committed action, there're values and all of these six things work interchangeably to increase your psychological flexibility. So basically to increase your thought processes. We use it a lot in coaching, specifically that acceptance and that diffusion piece, because oftentimes those unhelpful thoughts that you have about yourself, the way that you look, it's a lot of our own verbal behavior telling us that we're not good enough or we can't do this until we reach this weight or we can't apply for this job until we reach this weight.

Sarah Burby (22:57):

So with diffusion, we try to separate ourselves from those unhelpful thoughts and understand that you can have a thought but it doesn't necessarily mean that thought is true, it's not true until it then dictates your behavior. So we look a lot about how we can reframe our thoughts, how we can detach ourselves from those unhelpful thoughts. And that helps a lot with again, our verbal behavior and changing. That's one of the first steps in changing your whole mindset about yourself.

Amber Sobrio-Ritter (23:26):

So before we move on to another part of that, I want you to share with me, what's your favorite diffusion technique that you use for yourself?

Sarah Burby (23:35):

For myself is definitely singing an unhelpful thought to a silly song.

Amber Sobrio-Ritter (23:40):

Okay. Yes.

Sarah Burby (23:41):

Always take a Taylor Swift song and I always add that unhelpful thought to the jingle of a Taylor Swift song and it makes me laugh every single time.

Amber Sobrio-Ritter (23:49):

Yes, that's my favorite. I would probably say singing or talking in a funny voice. I was talking with a colleague once and having a hard time and she was like, "Come on, use your diffusion." And I was like, "I suck at everything." Or, "I suck at everything." You can't help but then feel separated from that thought and it shifts you [inaudible 00:24:12] that you can now see it like, "Okay, you can come at it from another angle and use language that's more helpful."

Sarah Burby (24:21):

Yes. Totally.

Amber Sobrio-Ritter (24:23):

So here's a tricky thing that I run into with my clients is that a lot of people think unhelpful language or negative self-talk is actually effective. They think, if I'm nice to myself, I'm going to be a slug, I'm not going to do anything. If I beat myself up enough, that's when I'm like "Fine, I'll do it." And they actually go and they do the thing that they've been beating themselves up about. What are your thoughts on that? Do your clients also have that same belief about themselves?

Sarah Burby (24:52):

Yes. Totally. And they use that unhelpful thought as almost this motivation in some way and it's like, "If I'm really unkind to myself, then I'll just get up and do whatever I want to do or make this change."

Amber Sobrio-Ritter (25:05):

Yes. And they make their internal head so aversive and then escaping from that is reinforcing. It's like a negative reinforcement sort of protocol essentially, where it's like, "This is so uncomfortable being inside my head, that then I'm going to do this thing." But what ends up then happening?

Sarah Burby (25:28):

Yes. I mean, it's just so harmful in the long run. I mean, think about it, who wants to spend their whole life engaging in negative reinforcement? Just engaging behaviors because you want to get out of your own unhelpful thoughts. And it's usually not effective in the long term, usually that's a really effective strategy for a couple days, a couple weeks. But eventually you're just going to have so many unhelpful thoughts that you just don't want to do anything. So maybe that motivation, it'll motivate you for a little bit but eventually it's going to have the opposite effect and it's going to be stopping you from things that you really value.

Amber Sobrio-Ritter (26:02):

Right. So what ends up happening is, let's say, I tell myself, "I can't follow through on anything, I'm bad at everything and I'm ugly and worthless." Why is negative self-talk so mean? I don't know. But usually that's where our brains go is like, "I don't deserve to breathe air." It's just so excessive. And so let's say I'm like, "No." Because there's a part of you that's like, "No, that's not true." That's the part that wants to fight against that, that wants to escape from that. "I'm going to show you, I'm going to engage in this behavior." And then you do but what happens usually with a lot of my clients is they want to go from where they are now to perfection tomorrow.

Amber Sobrio-Ritter (26:43):

Because they want that voice to be so quiet that they like, "Look, I'm doing everything I'm supposed to do, I'm meeting all the expectations. Voice, you can't say anything to me anymore." But it's hard to maintain that, it's hard to sustain that kind of activity over time. So then when they do fall off, they're believing that voice. That's the most sad thing when I work with clients is that they usually believe all of that stuff about themselves. They thought, "Yeah, I'm bad at it. I can't do anything, I can't follow through, I can't whatever." They think that's a truth because that voice is like, "See, you didn't do it." And that is one-

Sarah Burby (27:20):

Yeah. I think sometimes it could also be this self-fulfilling prophesy. So they can tell themselves, "I'm never going to be able to follow through on anything. I'll start it but I'm never going to be able to follow through." And then if they don't follow through, it's like, "See, I knew I wouldn't be able to do it."

Amber Sobrio-Ritter (27:34):

Right.

Sarah Burby (27:34):

It's like you're setting yourself up for this failure basically.

Amber Sobrio-Ritter (27:39):

Right. Exactly. And I wonder when they're creating goals, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this a little bit, but creating goals that make it impossible for you to be successful or make it really challenging or having a really strong focus on outcome goals. How do you help your clients create goals? That you're pretty sure they're going to be 100% successful? I mean, really close. When we're creating goals with kiddos with autism, we're thinking, "I really want it to be just above your level of challenge." So I want to put something that's going to maybe stretch you a little bit but I'm pretty sure you're going to be successful so that we don't reinforce those beliefs you have about yourself, you can see yourself winning. How do you work with clients to create goals and how do you try to create goals that shift the focus from an aesthetic perspective to a different perspective?

Sarah Burby (28:31):

Yeah. So I can approach that. The way we create goals is typically, always referring back to, okay, what is a big, long term goal? What do you want to get most out of the coaching session? And then we'll break that down into smaller steps during each individual coaching session. And usually what I always do at the end of coaching sessions is when we recap and we set the goal for the next week, I assess confidence level. So I say, "Okay, on a scale of 1 to 10, how confident are you that you can reach this goal?" And clients are honest, they'll say, "I feel like I'm at a six." Or, "I feel like I'm at a nine." And then they say, "Oh, I feel like I'm at a six." One thing I like to do is like, "Okay, what modification or what change can we make so that you feel like you're at a 9 or 10 for next week?"

Sarah Burby (29:13):

And that opens up a whole nother conversation of, "Well, this barrier might come to place or this might happen." And we can say, "Okay, maybe do we need to look at the goal and modify it a little bit having these considerations?" So that could be really helpful but if you're using a role method to see where the client's at and if maybe we can then modify the goal. But that's different than me saying, "Nope, I think that goal is kind of a stretch. Maybe we should step it back a little bit." It puts the autonomy back in the client and they can self-reflect and say, "Oh, because I have these barriers, maybe it is better if I just set this goal." And we're working towards that together versus me telling them like "That goal's terrible, you're never going to accomplish it."

Amber Sobrio-Ritter (29:51):

Right. Yes. Give me some examples of goals that you would use that are not aesthetic based, that you highlight for clients to try and shift that perspective?

Sarah Burby (30:04):

Sure. So I'm trying to think of what goals we just worked on now. So I have clients that want to work on reducing certain behaviors. So a lot of clients want to reduce body checking behavior. So looking in the mirror and either then going off on five minute tangents about all the things that they hate about themselves or constantly pinching parts of their bodies that they don't like, so maybe their stomach or their arms or things like that. But what we'll do is take a baseline and say, "Okay, how many times a day do you engage in this body checking behavior?" And then one of our goals might be, "Okay, what replacement behavior can we engage in to body checking? And let's set a goal to reduce that baseline, if it was happening 60 times a day. What's a reasonable baseline that we can engage in and you can take that on for next week?" So that's one non- aesthetic goal that we look at but the behavior that we want to reduce that will help us with our ultimate end goal.

Amber Sobrio-Ritter (30:58):

Right. And I know you've mentioned also goals like being able to run around with grandkids, being able to get on a ride at Six Flags, things that make their lives more accessible, like movement, how can we increase your movement in a way that you love, that it's not going to feel punishing and it's not attached to some specific aesthetic outcome?

Sarah Burby (31:23):

Totally. And yeah, I should have mentioned that earlier. So one of the first things that I talk about with clients is if I have a potential client come to me and say, "My main goal was weight loss, that's all I care about." So in my coaching sessions, we don't ever focus on weight loss, we don't look at the scale, we don't focus on the number on the scale ever. However, I also wouldn't dismiss that client and say, "Oh, weight loss isn't my thing, go find another coach." But I will have that conversation and say, "What do you value about weight loss?" Or, "What is important to you about losing weight?"

Sarah Burby (31:55):

I mean, I feel like any coach should ask that question anyway because if someone says they want to lose weight, we don't just stop there. We need to know what they value about losing weight. And like we said, it's usually something like, "Well, I want to be able to walk around my neighborhood without getting tired." Or, "I want to be able to walk my dog or play with my grandchildren or run a 5K." So we can work on those goals without having to ever step on a scale. We can work on walking for five minutes or walking for 10 minutes or if they say they want to increase the number of vegetables they eat, sure, we can work on how can we increase more fruits or more vegetables without ever having a look at the scale, the scale doesn't matter. You can still work on those goals.

Amber Sobrio-Ritter (32:36):

Right. Exactly. And you're still making progress in a way that's valuable and making progress on the scale doesn't necessarily equate to health. If I lost weight, I might be no more able to run a 5K than I was before. Weight loss doesn't automatically equal health. And I think you've talked about that before, sometimes in your life when you've been your leanest, you were the least healthy because of anxiety or being really busy in your life or just having too much going on and the way your body was coping with that was weight loss. But people see that and what do they think?

Sarah Burby (33:13):

Yeah. Exactly.

Amber Sobrio-Ritter (33:14):

They're like, "Wow, you look so good." And you're like, "I'm really struggling."

Sarah Burby (33:18):

Yeah. I even think back to most recently, I was supposed to get married in May 2020 and we all know it's when COVID first came around, everything was shut down. And my wedding was obviously postponed and we postponed it to that August thinking, "Oh, there's no way the pandemic's going to be around in August." Jokes on us. So August came around and we decided to have the wedding anyway, we had a small wedding with 10 people there. And I remember posting pictures on Facebook and I was really skinny at that point, I don't even know what my weight was but I can tell you, it was probably 10 pounds less than I weigh now. And it wasn't because I was eating super healthy, I was filled with stress and anxiety that I physically couldn't let myself eat. I was constantly thinking about the virus and the wedding and all these other things and people were like, "Oh, you look so great, you look so skinny, you look so beautiful." And I'm like, "Well, you're basically just reinforcing the fact that I was chronically anxious for the last four months."

Amber Sobrio-Ritter (34:20):

Right. Exactly. And it almost feels like sometimes in society, it's like the means justify the end. Is that the saying or? No, the end justifies the means, yes. People don't care how you got there, as long as you got there. And you're like, "Dude, I had to kill myself to get there." And they're like, "But you look good." And you're like, "There's a cost here that matters."

Sarah Burby (34:45):

Right. Exactly. And what is your quality of life? We think about health, we think about physical health or we think about nutrition. When people think about health, I feel like they think about exercise and what they consume. But health is so much broader than that, when you look at the Wellness Wheel, how is your sleep? How is your stress? How is your occupational health? There're so many different pieces of health and wellness and we have kept our focus on just those two things but ignore everything else. I would argue that if you're chronically stressed but your BMI is normal, in the normal range, you're not healthy. But we don't look at it that way and it's like such a scary way to analyze our health.

Amber Sobrio-Ritter (35:26):

Right. I mean, how are your relationships? I mean, that's such a big piece of your wellbeing and yet when I was at my leanest, I was like a starving animal and probably it was like living with a starving animal for my kids and my partner at the time, it was just probably scary. I remember the kids would come up and ask me for a bite of whatever I was eating and I was like, "I already weighed it." They just stopped asking, "Don't ask mom for a bite, she weighed it." And I needed to get every gram of that meal in and I was probably scary. So yeah, you just think, what was that? We'd go out to ice cream and I'd just sit and watch them eat ice cream.

Amber Sobrio-Ritter (36:08):

It was so sad, I think back and I just think it was just a sad way to live. And I was meeting all of these fitness goals but sometimes you have to do the wrong thing to know what's the right thing for you. You have to go through that. But yes, I agree with you, it's not a measure of health at all and it's certainly not sustainable.

Sarah Burby (36:30):

Right.

Amber Sobrio-Ritter (36:31):

What are the biggest criticisms of intuitive eating and what would be your response? What if people think, "Oh yeah, well, that doesn't work because I'll intuitively eat a dozen donuts." Or what if somebody really needs to lose weight to be within a healthy range and they're thinking, well, this is not going to work for them. What's your response to those main criticisms?

Sarah Burby (36:53):

Yeah. The main thing that I hear is always, "Intuitive eating is super irresponsible to promote as a coach because it doesn't have any regard for nutrition." And that's just so not true. I think what people do is honestly, Google intuitive eating, read the first article that pops up, take five minutes to read that article and then truly believe that they're an expert on intuitive eating. And that's just dangerous for so many reasons. A little bit of knowledge is a very dangerous thing. Because when you actually learn about the 10 principles and you see how they all flow together, sure, if you truly wanted to eat five cupcakes then have at it but you're probably not going to feel great after. If you're in tune with your body and you recognize hunger and fullness cues and you recognize how food tastes, my guess is if you're eating, by the third cupcake, my guess is it's not going to taste very good still.

Sarah Burby (37:47):

After you eat that third cupcake, you're going to be pretty uncomfortable. You're not going to want to do that again because you're probably not going to feel very well. So by all means you could but it's very unlikely that you're going to. So I think that gets lost in translation a lot when people are looking at what intuitive eating actually is. And there's also a whole bunch of research when you look at wanting to restrict certain foods. So if you tell yourself, "Well, I'm going to eat healthy and I'm not going to eat ice cream or cookies or chocolate." When you're in that deprived state, you're going to want that food even more. So with intuitive eating, when you can have access to ice cream, and I can't tell you how many treat, "Foods," I have in my house because it's no different than having a carrot or a piece of chicken or whatever. When I'm in the mood for ice cream, I have a scoop of ice cream and I'm satisfied and I move on with my day, it's not a big deal.

Amber Sobrio-Ritter (38:40):

Right. Well, the other thing it does is when you do fall off the wagon, if you have a restricting mindset, you do fall off the wagon. My thought is, "Listen, I'm going to get my sins worth here. So I'm going to have five cookies instead of one because I've already messed up." So I am going to push myself so much farther until I do feel sick because I'm like, "Tomorrow, these aren't available to me anymore so I'm going to get them all in today. Today's messed up and then start fresh tomorrow."

Sarah Burby (39:08):

Yeah.

Amber Sobrio-Ritter (39:08):

And that's creating this restrict and binge cycle that just feeds into itself. And this is what we're fighting, I mean, there're thousands of coaching programs out there that are just so based on restriction and do you get results? Yes. And do you gain the weight back almost immediately and then also have all of these negative views of yourself because of it? Also, yes.

Sarah Burby (39:28):

Exactly. And that's never talked about is I don't doubt that certain diets work, I know that they work but they're not sustainable long term. And what really disappoints me or upsets me is that no one talks about those clients afterwards, no one talks about their mental health afterwards and that's a big piece to ignore. And like you said, that Last Supper mentality of, "I have to eat everything today." Or exercising for repentance is a big one. It's like, "Well, I'm going to eat a slice of pizza but tomorrow I'm going to do a hip workout and lift." That's so unhealthy and so unhelpful. But that's what it creates when we restrict these certain foods, it creates these patterns of repeated unhelpful behavior.

Amber Sobrio-Ritter (40:10):

Right. Exactly. So really quickly, can you just talk a little bit about your services and how people can find you and the things that you have coming up for yourself?

Sarah Burby (40:22):

Sure. Yeah. So I offer one to one coaching and very small group coaching, two to three in groups of coaching. And my packages are typically either three months or six months. I'm most active on social media so my social media handle is Smallchanges_coaching. So I try to post a lot of just little tips and tricks on intuitive eating on that website. And I also have a bunch of webinars coming out, some of them are tailored more towards behavior analysts but I also have some free webinars just on intuitive eating in general. If anyone wants to learn more about each of those 10 principles in more detail, you can figure out how to get access to that. And yeah, I think that's pretty much it.

Amber Sobrio-Ritter (41:04):

Yes. And I will put all of your stuff, like your handle and ways to find you, I will put it in the show notes.

Sarah Burby (41:12):

Perfect.

Amber Sobrio-Ritter (41:12):

The really amazing thing about Sarah is that she's a Behavior Analyst just like me and so everything is really coming through that perspective of looking at behavior as data and being able to support people in a way that's sustainable over time and really systematic. Focused on systematically building good habits in a way that will be life changing. You can know that after you're done working with someone, you've set them up to be better and healthier and more psychologically well. You didn't just get them a quick 10 pound loss and it's like, "Hey, go live the rest of your life, I have no idea how you're doing." But it's like, "Listen, I have helped shape your life and generations to come because now you are not passing this on." I mean, the value of what you're providing, you can't even put a number on it because of the reach. It's just going to keep reaching through the generations of kids that don't have to grow up believing that they're insufficient because they're larger bodied or because they don't fit some societal norm.

Sarah Burby (42:16):

Totally. And I that's what I always forget to mention too. It's like, that's exactly what I said. I'm giving you the tools and the resources for you to have for the rest of your life. I always joke that after these three months are over, I want to keep in touch and I want to talk to you but I also know if we never talk again, you'll be set. So these tools are not just to use in the moment over the next three months, over the next six months, they truly are things that once are mastered, you can apply and generalize to every other setting in your life. So it's not a quick thing and it's not just this cookie-cutter plan, it is totally individualized and the point of this coaching is to give you those resources that you have forever.

Amber Sobrio-Ritter (42:53):

Right. It's a mindset shift. And like you said, they can take it from this current domain of food, they can apply this to work, they can apply this to parenting, all the techniques that you're teaching them will generalize into their lives in all of the other ways. And so again, the reach is just hard to even quantify what that looks like.

Sarah Burby (43:14):

Yes. Totally.

Amber Sobrio-Ritter (43:15):

It's so wonderful talking to you, Sarah. It's a really great having this conversation and I'm super excited to see behavior analysts doing such cool things and for us to be on the same page mindset-wise. And I really appreciate you being here.

Sarah Burby (43:28):

Yeah. Thanks for having me on, Amber. I always love to chat with you, it's so good and I really appreciate being able to be on this podcast. Thank you.

Amber Sobrio-Ritter (43:48):

Of course. Talk to you later.