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What is the Worst Diet Trend, Plus How to Get Started With Intuitive Eating



The treadmills at the gym are a hot commodity right now. Why is that? I suspect that with this warm burst of weather, people suddenly have the urge to shed that “quarantine 15” and get their “summer body back”. Along with spending hours doing cardio, trendy diets are all too common with this type of thinking.


This is toxic diet culture, it’s not sustainable and unfortunately very common. In this week’s podcast episode we debunk the most dangerous nutrition myths, the worst tasting “health” foods and how to be more intentional with our eating and our lives. To listen to the full episode click HERE.


Sometimes it feels like there are more diet myths out there than diet truths and it seems like everything is a contradiction.

  1. Don’t eat carbs and also don’t eat fats.

  2. Eat tons of protein but too much protein will make you constipated

  3. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day but also intermittent fasting is the key to weight loss

  4. Don’t eat too many calories but foods that say “low calorie” are full of chemicals, salt, and sugar.

There is so much information out there and even the experts get it wrong sometimes.

Here’s what we definitely know, “Diet Culture” perpetuates unrealistic and unhealthy body image issues by encouraging unreachable standards which means failure, low self-esteem and body distortion is inevitable for millions of people.

We have all tried a crazy fad diet or two, just to accidentally eat a Cheeto, and feel terrible about ourselves. Then, we say “screw it, the rest of the day is done for. I am going to eat whatever I want.” When Monday comes around and we feel even worse than before.

This got me thinking what is the worst thing you have ever tried in an effort to be healthy?

I polled the “Cultivate Balance Community” on Facebook as well as my Tik Tok and Instagram audiences and Kale pretty much wins by a landslide for the worst diet food. A few honorable mentions were: anything Jenny Craig, apple cider vinegar, beets, hummus, Brussel sprouts, seaweed, chia seeds, tofu, fish, eggplant and my personal least favorite food lentils.

While diet culture is happily avoided for lots of people, getting to a healthy weight is still a common goal. For most people, it’s not because we want to be a fashion model or super thin we are simply tired of feeling uncomfortable in our own skin.

According to the majority of registered dietitians, intuitive eating is the most widely recommended method for nutrition and weight management.

3 Steps to Start Intuitive Eating

  1. Use a 1-5 hangry-fullness scale to rate your fullness or hunger level throughout the day

1 Hangry

2 Hungry

3 Content

4 Satisfied

5 Stuffed beyond belief.

Instead of letting ourselves get to a one or a five, if we stay satisfied then we are more likely to control our portions and not over-indulge.

2. Ask yourself what you really want. This goes for emotional and nutritional needs.


a. Part of intuitive eating is being able to identify when we are bored eating, eating to avoid something, eating to numb our feelings or other non-hunger related eating.


b. This also goes for identifying the foods we really want. Have you ever noticed that when you really want a brownie, but you know you “shouldn’t”, so instead, you try to eat your way out of the craving and you end up eating way more than the number of calories the brownie would have had? Just eat the brownie and enjoy it

3. Practice mindful eating


Enjoy the food you eat, savor it, relish in a good dessert or a great piece of fruit. We tend to mind numbingly shovel the next handful into our mouths and that leads to overeating and over indulging. Practicing mindful eating will help us to slow down which makes stopping when we are satisfied easier.

Bonus: Pay attention to the things you tell yourself about food.

Avoid saying things like:

“Good and bad”

“Smart and bad”

Or even things like “I am addicted to carbs” . . . you know what else you are addicted to. . .oxygen, water, and warmth.

Intuitive eating is all about enjoying food, making peace with the scale, our bodies and our emotions tied to eating. This is a practice so remember to give yourself grace and reward yourself along the way.

If you want to learn more about intuitive eating Jennifer D’Amato on episode #17 and Heather Cook on episode #28 both are intuitive eating health coaches. These episodes are full of great information.

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Thanks for listening!


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