[Recast] Ep 68 – Anti-Diet Approaches for New Year’s Resolutions with Erica Mouch

Hola amigos! Welcome back —–

The internal dread of holiday season is common. When it comes to diet culture, Erica brings reason to the season with psychological oxygen.

Highlights of this episode:

• Multicultural experiences help reject diet culture
• Explaining HAES and Intuitive Eating
• Where weight obsession comes from
• Weight-centric care is lazy medicine
• Tips to Avoid Weight Centered New Year’s Resolutions
• Shifting from shame

Introducing Our Guest

Erica Mouch, RDN, CD is a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist with a Bachelor of Science from Eastern Michigan University and a Bachelor of the Arts in Psychology from Elon University. In the nutrition arena for over a decade, Erica advocates and practices from a Health At Every Size® lens in order to support people from all shapes and sizes in healing their relationship with food and their bodies. Erica is also a Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor.

When she is not working with clients or in the kitchen, find her on a mountain, on a walk or listening to vinyl records. In her spare time, she writes a food and vinyl record pairing blog. Music is as central to her life as food and pairing these two together gives her great joy.

FULL DESCRIPTION (not a transcript):

[00:00] Announcements

We have a team of HAES trained RD nutrition professionals and work with a team of psychologists within David’s private practice, Orozco Nutrition. If you are struggling in diet culture or want guidance with nutrition, please do not hesitate to reach out. We want to hear from you.

We are taking a short break to work behind the scenes to bring you, the listeners, even better content. We’ll be re-casting episodes that we think are relevant before that holiday season comes. This episode is originally #68.

[7:50] Erica’s Background and Views on Food

David and Erica met in the Intuitive Eating Counselor’s group. Erica grew up as an “air force brat,” a majority of her time in Tokyo, Japan. Japan greatly influenced her views on food. She loves their culture of respect, which presents itself as care into everything they do. The quality of things is amazing. Now, Erica is settled in Seattle, Washington. Erica’s first education is in psychology, she was fascinated, but it was not in her wheelhouse necessarily. She also loved food and wanted it to be tasty. Combining variety, tastiness, enjoyment, and health was her mission.

Later she founded Erica Mouch Nutrition is named simply. David says, yes, you put your heart into it.

Erica says “healthy eating,” plays into a black and white thinking that there is only one way to eat. Fear of food and fear of being unhealthy has dominated our culture. Food is not simply health or unhealth. Food is nourishment, joy, comfort, and memories are all tied into food. That should be a good part of life.

David shares something he learned from Evelyn Tribole, that the word “healthy” has been co-opted by diet culture, creating a sense of belonging or not belonging. If I am not healthy, I am not in that group. If I am not eating healthy, I am not myself. Erica agrees that this is problematic, especially in communities that are in food deserts.

[15:12] How Erica’s Experience in Italy Developed Her Nutrition Approach

Erica also loves Italian culture and Italian food. In college, she had the opportunity to study abroad. She knew that gaining weight in freshman year was common, so, she decided to lose weight instead. It didn’t feel like a diet to me, I just found it being healthy. But my body eventually let me know that I was restricting. She found herself being unable to control herself around food and eating past fullness. That binge behavior, was telling me that I was not giving my body what it needed.

Erica and David share positive cultural stories centered around food, which is where intuitive eating comes in.

[21:05] What is HAES and Intuitive Eating (IE)?

Health at Every Size (HAES) is a framework that believes all bodies deserve health, it does not matter what size and takes weight out of the picture. Focusing on health in a broader meaning, unlike in American diet culture. Diet culture centers health on weight.  This framework also brings social justice into the picture.

We focus on other things. Weight is not a behavior. What we do impacts health. Every person deserves to be valued and worthy exactly as they are. Their body does not need to change to have value or belonging in the world.

David says he counsels people to eat in line with their values. Family, spirituality, connected, friendships are all examples of true values. If you are living in your values, it does not matter what your weight is. Enjoying your life is what matters. Food is an experience.

What is IE? A self-affirming way of approaching food and the way we care for ourselves. Diet culture is the merchant of self-hatred. Telling us that we are unlovable because of fat rolls, wrinkles, or cellulite.

The satisfaction factor is key into IE. We seek peace in all aspects of life. IE uses the satisfaction factor to find peace with food. David agrees, if we listen to our bodies and our emotions in IE, we combine the physiological and emotional experience of food. Erica helps her clients make sense of their satisfaction. The binge on sweets or fats is usually a result of dissatisfaction, that craving is totally understandable.

If we are focused on body size, that is external, not internal data. And it’s common because of our culture. Everyone is so focused on weight loss. I tell my clients, I do not have a magic ball, I cannot tell you what your body will do.

[29:00] Why do people desire to lose body weight all the time? What is going on?

That’s a loaded question. White systemic racism has been established for centuries. The BMI is the “bullshit measure index” of good and bad weight and it reinforces that weight-centric approach. In 1990, the numbers of obesity changed overnight. There is nothing wrong with being fat, it’s the same as being short, tall, or having blonde hair.

[31:00] Weight Centered Care is Lazy Medicine

David and Erica have heard too many stories from doctors who miss those other human components to medicine. Telling someone to lose weight is truly unhelpful.

Erica’s clients learn to reject the diet mentality and then introduces gentle nutrition. Focusing on what happens pre and post meal with your body and mind is the center of her practice. She still helps clients achieve their health goals with gentle nutrition, like diabetes, hypertension, and PCOS. Medicine is so focused on the reductive perspective, to shame and guilt, no one has ever changed using these approaches.

[36:52] The New Year Madness

 David points out that each New Year, Americans are bombarded with diet culture messages. What can we do?

Erica suggests to tune it out.

Tips to Avoid Weight Centered New Year’s Resolutions

• Know you are not alone
• Be aware of the accounts you follow on social media, unfollow ones that do not
• Protect yourself by removing things that make you feel less than
• Talk about something that is more interesting
• Stay centered in acceptance

[40:41] Shifting the Conversation Away From Shame

Some clients who do not have a privileged weight find Erica’s approach difficult. Erica goes back to the basics – the core of validation. She calls out her privilege and redirects the conversation to the client’s experience. Validation is key. And sometimes, resources from people who look like them sometimes helps. If we have not been practicing self-love, it can be a difficult shift.

David and Erica share some of their favorite people who are also working in the body positive space, such as Lizzo, a musician, and Sonya Renee Taylor, a poet and writer of The Body is Not An Apology.

Erica shares one last message: Weight loss is a mind-based goal, focused on how everyone views us. What is your heart goal, what speaks to you? Psychological oxygen – things that fill us up, that make us feel alive and joyful.

Eric and Dave share some of their own psychological oxygen stories and hope everyone finds that peace.

[55:35] Closing Announcements! 

We are going to be taking a short break, and recasting some really great episodes to guide us through the upcoming months of holiday season. When we come back, we are going to have an even better show, that really invites you to be in the conversation.

Make a free 15-minute phone call if you want to work with us on your nutritional health in a weight-inclusive, anti-diet culture way.  Get the ball rolling by emailing us at info@orozconutrition.com or call 678-568-4717.

Where do I go from here?

I can’t wait to have you listen in and let me know what you think! If you like this episode, hit that subscribe button so you won’t miss an episode, wherever you listen to podcasts Apple, Spotify, Castbox, Google, or Stitcher. While you’re there, let me know what nutrition or health topic you’d like me to cover or leave a review.

Links from This Episode: 

• Erica Mouch Nutrition
• Erica’s Instagram
• Erica’s Facebook
• Food Blog: https://licoricepizzapie.com

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