112: 5 Lessons on intuitive eating from an ex-dieter - Brooke Palamo's real story

Speaker 1: 0:02

No one ever stays on a diet forever.

Speaker 2: 0:06

I find it wild how diet companies are allowed to use those highly curated before and after photos.

Speaker 1: 0:13

I just got to the point where I was like I don't have the emotional capacity to do that anymore. So that's when I needed to change.

Speaker 2: 0:23

A piece of toast with avocado is cool and all, but it's not as grabbable. Yes, it'll take an extra five minutes, and that is just perhaps five minutes too long sometimes.

Speaker 1: 0:33

One thing that made me want to snap out of it was I saw my four-year-old get on the scale and I was like okay, we're not doing that so I've hidden it away in the wardrobe. I've gotten to a point where I'm enjoying how I'm feeling, I'm enjoying eating, I'm enjoying my exercise, and that thought of the scales is fading away.

Speaker 2: 1:04

Hi everyone and welcome to no Wellness Wankery. What you're hearing right now is a conversation between a real person, brooke Palamo, who went on a journey from dieting mayhem something you probably feel very familiar with to discovering intuitive eating non-dieting and in today's episode she is sharing some of those really key insights that she learned, stuff that I really want you to know, that I'm so glad that she shared with you. So thank you, brooke, for sharing your story, and I hope you enjoy this real conversation.

Speaker 1: 1:42

So I was thinking back to when did this all begin? And I don't know if there's a particular moment in time, but I recall when I was in primary school, grade four, so I was 10. We had an activity in the classroom. We were learning about statistics, and I remember it so vividly. And so in this particular instance, the teacher wrote on the chalkboard 20 to 29, 30 to 39, 40 to 49, like in columns, and then what we had to do? Each child went up to the front of the room, stood on a scale, weighed themselves and then had to put their tally where they fell.

Speaker 1: 2:21

And so I'm a tall person. In general at school I was always a. I wasn't wasn't fat, I was just. I was that kid that was like just solid, like I was taller and I was just built a bit more solid. I, from the get-go, was like I'm in the category here of the bigger boys in the class, and so I remember I went up to the front, I put my foot on and off this because I knew where I was.

Speaker 1: 2:48

I'm like probably in the 60s or 70s or war, probably late, I don't know 60 to 70 kilos. And so I just went on and off and was like put the tally up there, like I just I didn't even, and I don't remember what happened after that. I don't know if she asked me to redo it, but I was was just like, and then I'm looking at the board, after 30 kids have gone up, there's all these tallies together in this bunch, and then I'm like the outlier on the end and I've just been like, well, if I like I've had internal weight issues, being the bigger kid, and then I'm like and there it is in all its glory on the board for my whole class to see, and I was just remember, like that's just stuck with me and something I've reflected on a lot since we've been speaking.

Speaker 2: 3:34

It sounds like before getting on the scale, you were already aware of the fact that you felt like the bigger kid, like as though you knew that in the scale was going to give you the wrong answer. Was that moment, then, just bringing it all home, and did you do anything differently as a result of hopping on the scale?

Speaker 1: 3:52

I don't think I did anything differently. I just I've just felt different and like I was never excluded and I was always in like good groups of friends at school and all that sort of stuff. I was never excluded from being like I wasn't overly an overly big kid, I was just. I just knew that I was what was back then like the solid kid, and I just remember thinking like this is not, and I'm probably feeling the way now that I did back then, like I'm not comfortable, I'm like shallow breathing, I'm just going. It's just not a very fond memory, what with the teacher probably thinking oh, it's an innocent task and it meets the purpose of what we're trying to do here, but they don't understand. Just by doing that, that can just set you off for the next 20, 30 years, rest your life, like things like that can just mold you in such a way in your formative years. Yeah, so it's one thing that I've chalked up.

Speaker 2: 4:43

When you wrote to me, you said I'm now 35, got two kids and I've had a life of fat burner tablets as a teen, tony Ferguson as a teen, weight Watchers as a teen, many and varied shake diets with a vomit emoji, excessive training with restrictive diets, steak for breakfast what HC? Hcg diet, which is dangerous, and I can't believe. This is legal. And you said that I lost 10 kilograms in a month and I only ate a very small number of calories a day. And no one busted an eyelid and of course you did, jenny Craig. You had then went on to have this rich I don't know if that's the right word rich and varied diet history for many, many years. Do you want to tell me about that?

Speaker 1: 5:28

I forgot to add in that I also did the skinny teas. So add that on the list. And I'm not exaggerating or lying when I say that I did all of that. I've been there, I've done it, I tried it, I was humiliated by it.

Speaker 1: 5:42

It made me sick and I think now, mid-30s, with the responsibilities that we've got with working kids and all those sorts of things, I was absolutely exhausted by that like hamster wheel of just not only weight going up and down, but the emotional roller coaster and the absolute guilt that I would put myself under and beat myself up. And then you go great for five days of the week. It'd get to the weekend and you're like, oh, things might go, hey, why here? And they go sideways. And then you beat yourself up and you're like I'm not gonna eat for two days or whatever, and then you wonder why it just goes back around again. And I think I just got to the point where I was like I don't have the emotional capacity to do that anymore. So that's when I needed to change, do you think?

Speaker 2: 6:36

it was clear that going on these weightless attempts was actually not even getting you to lose weight. And keep it off. It's the keeping it off. It got me to lose weight and keep it off.

Speaker 1: 6:44

It's the keeping it off it got me to lose weight, sure, but it was only ever going to last a short while. So it's kind of like I'd be willing to do it for a block of time and then be like, okay, or I'd think that it would be different. Well, this time it'll be different. And so, after the birth of my first daughter four years ago, I got onto Jenny Craig and I was like, yeah, I can do that. And I think it was actually at the time Jelena Dokic was the ambassador.

Speaker 1: 7:15

I don't know what it was, but I saw myself in her and I was like she can do it, I can do it, not to compare myself to like a world-class sportswoman, but I don't know what it was. I was like all right. And so I saw that on the weekend, the next Monday, I went to the journey cake or I sent them an email, whatever, signed up, lost 16 kilos in four months and gained it back in probably half the time. And I've never known a weight loss plan or diet or whatever to last any longer than six months. Because you either see that you're getting all these like, oh look, I've lost all the weight, as I did and I stopped, and then I gained it back. No one ever stays on a diet forever, and so, yeah, that's where I found myself.

Speaker 2: 7:58

Did you see other people having success and wonder why you couldn't um? Or did you? Were you aware of the fact that other people were also going on diets and the exact same thing was happening to them?

Speaker 1: 8:11

I'm not too sure. I would often compare my like, always compare myself to other people in different ways, and I'm not too sure, like I would probably look at some people and go like how can they do it? What am I doing wrong? And I just thought, like, because at the end of particularly in Jenny Craig, at the end of it they wean you off the meal plan, to put you on maintenance, to basically just go and live your life. Now you're free and go, be free. I know we're you, we've done, we're done with you, move on. Um, and I just you learn nothing on a meal. So long as someone says, microwave this box of food, eat it, have an apple, go to bed, whatever. As long as you do that and you don't have to think and you're not learning, sure it'll work.

Speaker 1: 8:57

And as soon as I finished because I'd lost my 16 kilos and I was looking great, I was like, oh, what do I do now? And then, like external pressures and stress would come in. And I'd looking great, I was like, oh, what do I do now? And then like external pressures and stress would come in and I'd fall back into my own ways. Because of four months of doing the journey, craig, I learned nothing. I was back into my old ways already. So there's no education in that. Sure, it does what you want to do in the way of losing the weight. And then I was like I would end that. And then I would look around and go, okay, well, maybe that wasn't the diet for me, like that, okay, that's not the one I can maintain. What's the next one? Sure as hell, tried enough shake diets over and over again, thinking that maybe I can maintain this one, and it would just never. And after a six month period it'd be done and I'd find myself, okay, what am I going to do now? Sort of thing.

Speaker 2: 9:45

I find it wild how diet companies are allowed to use those highly curated before and after photos to endorse their product, which they're capturing a moment in time. They're not showing you what happens after the after photo. There is no requirement for them to show you what happened to that person after the after photo. For example, Yolanda Dockage. She's very much come forward and talked about her binge eating experience, her disordered eating, and she was the poster girl for a diet company, and what they basically do is they're not looking. Okay. Well, listen, a thousand people did this program and here's how many people kept the weight off after five years. They're never, ever, revealing that to you because that would make them look really, really bad, and most people that I spoke to have tried these different approaches again and again and again.

Speaker 2: 10:31

You then ended up having I don't know if it was in a hot moment. It kind of sounds like from what you and I have spoken about. You said around this time you started following me, maybe in 2020. You were still dieting at the time. Can you tell me about that?

Speaker 1: 10:48

Yes. So I started following you, yeah, in 2020. And that was after I'd had my daughter in 2019. So I may or may not have been on Jenny Craig at the time, may have finished it, and was like, okay, here's a healthy structure or some inspiration that I can then follow. And I remember at the time I took a screenshot of one of your lunches that you'd prepared and I was like, okay, I can do that, I like the food in that photo, let's do it, and I would.

Speaker 1: 11:20

Then I started making you know my lunches based on those sorts of things, but we're still still binging, so I didn't ever have that moment of going. I've seen the light. Let's go with what Lindy's doing. I was, I was trying, but I was falling back into old ways and I don't know what it has taken. But I've found that, like external stresses and things like that, when I get stressed or when I get emotional or whatever, that's my sort of my outlet I then go to the club and go. I can't handle whatever's going on and I just shove food in my mouth and so, while it was okay, yeah, my lunches are good, but I get home in the afternoon after work and I'll just eat half a box of chocolate, it's like, okay, that's, yeah, the mix of the binge eating.

Speaker 2: 12:10

Still, I think that's the hardest thing to do. When you learn about intuitive eating and you really like the idea. You like the idea of not dieting but at the same time you've spent so many years, decades, dieting that it's what you know. It's how you know these food rules dominate you. So sometimes I see people they try and do a bit of intuitive eating but they're still doing quite a bit of dieting and then they feel like it's not working, I'm not getting anywhere. And then they kind of feel like I gave non-dieting a shot and it didn't really work. But it sounds like for you. You kind of did this little half in, half out thing for a while, but progressively, the more you learned about not dieting, intuitive eating, the more you went okay, this is making more and more sense to me and it wasn't like there was this big aha moment where you went okay, finally we're quitting diets. We're never going back. It was a slow relearning and switching back into diets, right.

Speaker 1: 13:11

Yeah. And then after the birth of my son, which was July last year, I found myself at that point where you are bigger than you are normally and you probably need to start a diet to lose the baby weight and all those sorts of things. And I was like, all right, we've got two options here. Like I was just exhausted, I'm like I can pick a diet, what's the latest, what's going on? And I'd actually just hung out with a mum friend who had got onto Ozempic and thankfully she told me that it was how many thousands of dollars it was.

Speaker 1: 13:38

And I was like, okay, well, that's probably not an option. And then I was like, or I can just do better than what I'm doing, and if that's not eating half a block of chocolate, then let's just start with that. And I found that if I'm satisfied or if I'm full, I can keep those little like hunger gremlins at bay. If I plan that I've always got snacks on me like nut bars and things like that and get ahead of my hunger, then I don't turn into this crazy binge eating person. That was a bit of a slow realization too.

Speaker 2: 14:16

The strategy number one I'd say is what you're saying is you decided that previous you would have tried to be good all day right, which was kind of code for being on diet or eating like really healthy food that was allowed, and what you're doing now is you go. No, I have to be satisfied by my meals and I can't let myself become overly hungry. Because you saw the pattern of what was happening with the diet mentality you were getting ravenous and, as a result, you were binge eating. So now you are preemptively eating, not preemptively eating. I assume you're waiting until you feel hungry, but then you have those options on hand. You know the nut bars in your pantry that you can easily grab, and I think that's a really key part of it is the grab ability. Like sure, a piece of toast with avocado is cool and all, but it's not as grabbable. Yes, it'll take an extra five minutes, and that is just perhaps five minutes too long sometimes.

Speaker 1: 15:45

Absolutely. And so I got used to being like, okay, you know, our bodies are smart things, I know what they're doing, it's going to tell me when it's hungry. And so first of all, I realized I wasn't eating enough at all. I'd be having a piece of toast for breakfast and then it would get to lunchtime and then I would eat. Like if I was at work, I'd probably go buy like a wrap and chips and like big stuff. So that was way too late Because you were so hungry, right? Yeah, exactly, and it's funny when I'm at work and I'd sort of feel that it's not a hunger pain or anything, it's just like, oh, I could eat now, or like I need to start thinking about eating.

Speaker 1: 16:22

I'd be checking the time and it's like 10.30, 11 o'clock and I'm like I'm gonna eat a nut bar now, because in the next 15, 20 minutes I'm gonna get hangry and I am not pleasant when I'm hangry. So, and then back to having stuff on hand. I would always have snacks and things, because I know that between now and the next 15 20 minutes is when things can go south for me. So yeah, like you said, preparing nice meals is a lovely thing to do and it's great and I do it when I have time.

Speaker 1: 16:56

But there are also times when I'm like I open the pantry and I'm like I need to eat something, when the old me would be like there's a bag of chips there, there's half a bag of chocolate there, there's some sweet cookies or whatever there, where I'm like okay, now, if I have that situation again, I'm like I've got a nut bar, I've got some sultanas, I've got a piece of fruit, I've got something just to put in my mouth and like walk away for a minute, because I've been doing that for so long. So it's yeah.

Speaker 2: 17:24

There are so many good points here. The second strategy you're talking about is intuitive eating. And just a reminder about intuitive eating. It's not just eating whatever whenever it is very much about tuning into your hunger and going oh, am I hungry? And the interesting thing, like you're saying, brooke, is that you develop patterns. You kind of go all right. I generally do get hungry around the 10 am, 10.30-ish and I know myself, I know that it's realized. It's taking me 20 minutes before I become way too hungry, which is actually quite a quick transition period. And you've identified what hunger feels like for you. Because if you've been dieting for so many years, majority of people go. I don't even know what hunger feels like and, as you so rightly said, sometimes it just is. It's just this feeling of I could eat right now, it's just this gut feeling. It doesn't. Sometimes it's not a grumble, it's not hanger, that's too much, it's so subtle, but you're listening out for it and then you are responding to it. And so the third strategy you've talked about is this eat more to eat less kind of concept. So it is about going.

Speaker 2: 18:27

I am done with all or nothing thinking when it comes to nutrition. Old me would have thought I'm only allowed to have a hundred calorie snack right now. It would have said it has to be an apple, it has to be something allowed. What you're saying is I'm going to have something like a nut bar, which, yeah, has a little bit more calories, but it's really truly enjoyable. It's very satisfying to me. So I've added in more calories, but it's going to mean I avoid a binge later. Then you can see how you're sitting much more in that middle in that balanced kind of territory, as opposed to the health pendulum swing, which is what you were doing before.

Speaker 1: 19:00

Yep, yep, you've nailed it. And I think and it goes against what we're told about eat more to eat less sort of mentality, and it's never perfect you've got to know what your triggers are and you've got to know what works and what doesn't for you. And it's got to be enjoyable, like you said. It can't just be 100 calorie snack that I'm allowed or not allowed to have. I get so much pleasure and enjoyment out of eating and it's got to be things that I am happy to eat, not that I am told to eat. Things that I enjoy.

Speaker 1: 19:37

And if there's a day where I'm like I feel like something a bit more substantial for a morning tea, like a yogurt and granola or something that's a bit more like that, I'm allowed to because I'm not counting anything, because that's what my body wants and I know that by the end of the day I'm not going to be binging and things like that. So that's been an adjustment and it's a constantly working thing. It's not just one of these things that just happens and you're a changed person. It's something that you're constantly thinking about. But I think, tuning into that what your body's telling you, because it's a smart thing and it knows what to do. It's interesting to see when I get hungry throughout the day, because for the past 20 years I've not been hungry, because I'm always eating, because I'm always binging and things like that. So I've not known what intuitive is.

Speaker 2: 20:23

Because when you're coming out of diet world, I think we feel so scared to be hungry. I felt very tainted by the feeling of hunger. I truly believed that food was kind of running out in a way, and so I just felt compelled. Now I think what is also interesting you mentioned in a previous chat you and I have had is how you start to think about exercise differently and you realized I'm going to do the exercise I actually enjoy. Can you tell me about that?

Speaker 1: 20:50

Yeah, what I found that I enjoyed is 10 or more years ago I had a back injury and herniated disc and I had all this rehab and got into the first time I'd ever tried reformer Pilates and I was like, oh okay, this is a injury rehab situation. And then, moving home, I found that there's places that offer that and then so I found a clinic nearby that does it and I love, I truly love doing that. I'm not the traditional Pilates style body but I love that it's low impact and it's constantly a lot of variety in a class and I'm getting weight training. It's not that I can put my head behind my head or anything crazy like that. I'm not a very flexible person. I really do enjoy that and I've done. I've done the CrossFit and I've done all those things.

Speaker 1: 21:40

And you know I'm 35, I'm not that old. But there comes a time in your life where it's like I can't do a lot of that high impact stuff anymore. I don't want to, because I can't afford to be injured, because I've got kids that I've got to run around after, like. So it's just it's something that I found that I enjoy and I find, even even if it's just going for a walk, I throw a baby in the pram and I'm like I'm just going to head out for an hour, and if it's not an hour it's 20 minutes, but it's a lap around the block and I find that walking and Pilates are what work for me and I think you've got to enjoy what you do. Don't just go for the walk or the run or whatever because you're being told or you think that's what you have to do, because you're not going to maintain it. And if you don't have pleasure in what you're doing, you're not going to maintain it. So it's got to be something that you enjoy.

Speaker 2: 22:28

So strategy number five is you have finally gotten to this point where you've realized the importance of enjoyment, the key to sustainability being enjoyment, and being able to ask yourself the question of even if I didn't lose weight, I would still want to go to my reformer class, even if I didn't lose weight, I would still want to pop my baby in the pram and get some fresh air and get that headspace. And that, I think, is why, over the last several months, you have just very slowly but very consistently been getting somewhere where it comes to your health, and perhaps is this for the first time. This has been about where you're kind of going. I can see this is a new way. Do you still feel like you get the idea of going on a diet feels appealing? Will you ever see anyone who's lost a lot of weight and you kind of feel a pang of I'd like to do that as well. Tell me about what's happening there.

Speaker 1: 23:19

No, the thought of another diet like fills me with dread and displeasure and like I'm just. I'm at a point where I have a lot, of, a lot more mental clarity and capacity in my head to deal with other things. That's not constantly worrying about what I'm going to eat, what I should or should be eating I shouldn't have eaten, that, I shouldn't have done that. That's not in my head anymore and that's given me a lot more peace and a lot more clarity and capacity, like I said, to deal with the mental load. That's got enough going on. And so I just find I look forward to going for a walk now, like if it's been three or four days, and I'm like, oh, I'm going out of the house like I'm wanting to because I've set those habits and it's not like I must do it three times a week or I must do it.

Speaker 2: 24:16

Your body then wants to, because it's like, hey, I enjoyed doing that, I want to do it again. What would you say to someone who was still in diet land, who had one foot in intuitive eating but was scared to make the big jump, to kind of go right, I am going to commit, I'm going to finally go, I'm done with that old world. Is there anything you could say to try and convince them to do that?

Speaker 1: 24:33

I do think you have to come to in your own time and I do think that you can't be treating your Lindy's approach, your approach, as a diet. Like you can't be going. I'm going to go on Lindy's diet because what you're doing, that's not a diet, it's intuitive eating, it's going back to what our bodies are made to do and I think you just got to take it slowly like. It can't just be you know the old way of I'm going grocery shopping, I'm only buying fruit and veggies. I'm only gonna eat that for the next week. Still get the foods you enjoy, but just like slowly layer them in each day, like find a lunch or a variety of lunches that you like that you can swap in and out and make sure that you're eating enough to fill yourself up so that you're not binging at the end of the day. I just think you got to take it slowly, because anything that's worth doing long-term or forever like is not worth doing quickly. You got to take it slowly.

Speaker 2: 25:30

Last time you emailed me, you said that you'd lost 10 kilograms in about three months. You were never feeling hungry, but looking at the scale was not a priority, and I guess that's the interesting thing about coming back to this idea of the scale and using the scale as a metric for success. Where are you at now with thinking about the scale and thinking about your weight? How has that changed?

Speaker 1: 25:53

um, I think probably I'm now at the point of having lost 12 kilos, 10 or 12, whatever. I've not stood on the scales for a few weeks now, but when I first started that started noticing that I was losing weight, I was obsessing with that scale and I was like, okay, if I've got the eating right and I've got the exercise in a good space that I can manage. I was finding that that scale was still a bit of a gray cloud over my head. One thing that made me want to snap out of it was I saw my four-year-old get on the scale and I was like okay, we're not doing that.

Speaker 1: 26:31

So I've hidden it away in the wardrobe, was barely getting to seven days before I'd jump on it again. I'm like, oh, what is it now? What is it now? But then I've gotten to a point where I'm enjoying how I'm feeling, I'm enjoying eating, I'm enjoying my exercise, and that thought of the scales is fading away. And, like I said, I've not been on it for, let's say, three weeks now and eventually I'll take the batteries out. But we'll get to that.

Speaker 2: 26:59

It's such an interesting one because you can hear from like the age of 10, like how hopping on the scale we think it's, I don't know. Sometimes it can be motivating, but mostly it can throw us off pathway, it can make us feel anxious. It can make us feel anxious, it can make us feel obsessed with it when it is kind of going in the right way. It can be a very turbulent relationship. But I understand this idea of feeling like people still want to check in on the scale. I think the thing is that if your body's changing, you very much feel it and then for some reason we kind of need the scale to confirm what we already know, and I guess this is the definition of the intuitive part of you kind of going no, I know I don't need validation from a scale to be able to tell me these things. And if you're kind of listening right now and you're going, I am, I'm having a hard time letting go of the scale. I know that that can be scary because in a way it feels like a sense of control so often disordered eating, it's like it's about having a control over something and I think what you've done, brooke, quite naturally, is you have recognized that it wasn't actually that helpful and distanced yourself from how frequently you were weighing yourself, because in the best case scenario I'm saying to you you don't need to weigh yourself, but, as I said, scary. But what you did is you went a longer distance between weighing yourself. If you're someone listening, you're weighing yourself every day, maybe you go all right. What would it feel like to weigh myself once a week? Could I go to once every three weeks, once a month and then, and then move it out from there. Sometimes that can feel a little bit safer and I think that is already a far better move than doing nothing at all and staying stuck in that obsessive kind of headspace. And, brooke, for you, I would love you to get to the point where you don't even think about what your weight is until you have to go to get a blood test or something and they want you to hop on the scale.

Speaker 2: 28:44

And anyone who's listening if you don't already know you can do something called a blind weigh-in. If you do have to go to an appointment with a doctor, you can say listen, I have a history of disordered eating, I'd like to do a blind weigh-in, and what you do is you step on the scale backwards, they look at the number and they do not tell you the number, and that is something you are all able to request and ask for and that is best practice. Brooke, I'm so grateful of the time you've given me. I know you've got two kids. I know everyone listening is going to be really grateful, nodding their heads, going yep. Okay, I can relate and I have probably learned a lot from you. Is there any last story or thought or tip you'd like to leave listeners with?

Speaker 1: 29:22

I just think your life and your mental wellbeing and all of that is more important than putting yourself through any sort of restrictive diet that's such a depressing and sad place to be and can be so detrimental to your mental health. What I wish I had done 20 years ago in my teens is just trust that I knew what my body was doing, like it knows what to do with what I'm feeding it. And if I stick to healthy eating and had gone on to intuitive eating as a teenager, maybe I wouldn't have gone through what I have in the past 20 years.

Speaker 2: 30:04

A scary leap, but so worth it. Brooke, I am so grateful for your time. Thank you for chatting to us and anyone else who's listening. If you want to share your story on no Wellness Wankri, I would love to hear from you. If you could email me, hello at lindycohencom. Tell me a little bit of your story and hopefully you can share what you've learned with everyone else as well. Thank you, brooke. Thanks Lindy.