Weight Is a Symptom, Not the Problem: Breaking Diet Culture & Emotional Eating with Jennifer Powter

We're not talking about food sourcing, organ meats, or ancestral rituals. We're talking about something very modern: diet culture, body image, and the mindset patterns that shape how we eat and feel about ourselves. Here's the thing: if we truly want to reconnect with our ancestral selves, to be intuitive, grounded, and at peace with our bodies, we have to address these modern struggles head-on. We can't live ancestrally while thinking like a dieter or constantly battling our bodies. That's why I invited Jennifer Pauter. She helps people break free from diet culture and build a healthier, more compassionate relationship with food and body. Because diet culture isn't disappearing anytime soon, we need the tools to navigate it without losing ourselves. Jennifer, thank you so much for joining me.

Oh my God, James, I'm so happy to be here. And that is just such an awesome intro. Um, I love it because, like, it speaks to the truth right off the bat, which is we are so focused on food and this relationship to where I really believe we need to get back in touch with the relationship we have with our own self, our own feelings, our own state of stress, the operating systems and belief systems we have around food. And that is what diet culture does not dig into. So, I'm glad we're going to get the chance to do it today.

Yeah, me as well. Well, you— one of the things you say though is that, like, weight loss is really not about the food, right?

Never.

It's the why.

Yeah, it's not about the food. Weight loss, well, let's talk, so the problem for so many women, and for anybody listening, I've been overweight. There's a reason why I'm so passionate about being in this industry, which I think the weight loss industry in itself, it can be a very toxic industry. And the weight is a symptom. If you are carrying excess weight on this, your perfect, beautiful body that functions, when we treat it well, it functions as it should. But when we carry excess weight, we view weight as the problem. And then we try to treat this as a problem, and for so many of us, it's a symptom of so much else that's going on in our life. And for some, you know, sometimes it's food misinformation. We've been bombarded with diet culture about how to eat and diet dogma and good, and we've got shame on food and red light, green light, orange light. A lot of times, it's around not recognizing our own inherent patterns with food, belief systems around food, the way that we use food to emotionally cope when we're suffering in our lives. And so, it's a much more complex problem than just eat this, do that.

Emotional triggers though, and this in food culture, they're just kind of hijacking our capacity to live in alignment with ancestral rhythms. So yeah, how do, how do we, like, how, well, let's first identify how they are doing that, but then how do we break free from that?

Okay. I love this. So let's talk about what you and I are probably gonna be super in alignment on and agree is food production has changed dramatically since World War II, but really in the 1970s, right? We know that companies and food companies became very interested, I mean, in how to get food shelf-stable, last longer, be quick and convenient, convenience foods, because women were now going into the workforce. And, you know, we watched this rise of food production while the war on fat began at around the same time, which meant sugar was being madly poured into our food to make it taste good. We have this bliss You know, basically food started to become a chemical composition of stuff that we could buy off a shelf, and no longer the way we were meant to eat. Now, at the same time, we have this emotional dynamic of technology that was supposed to make our life easier, have more free time, which is the exact opposite. I know your life, I know mine. We are often now wired in a way that we were never meant to be wired, and living in a state of chronic stress that many of us were never designed, well, most of us were never designed to live in. And so, Life became hard, food became easy. We also have the increase in plate size, bowl size, portions have increased, and then all of a sudden, we all think we have weight problems. Instead of recognizing the how, the when, the why, we turn to food. And this is— I love this topic because knowing better does not equate to doing better. I think every single one of us knows that carrots at 9:00 PM are a healthier choice than chips, but is— are you really going to grab the carrots? Even when you know, so how come? Why not? And that's the deeper conversation.

Yeah, yeah, it really is. You know, one of the tools I am always recommending to people, and I'm curious which ones you would add to this, is, so I know myself now at this age, I'm like, look, I have no willpower. If it's in the kitchen, I will create an excuse to eat it. And the excuse doesn't even make sense. It doesn't, like, it doesn't matter, but I will make an excuse to eat it. Like, and one of my big ones is it's gonna get, it's gonna go to waste.

Yeah.

'Cause it's gonna go bad, right? It's this, that, that's one of my big ones. But so what the, the tool I'm always imparting to people is like, just don't bring it into your kitchen. If it's not there, you're, you're now making it harder for yourself to get access to these emotionally triggering foods. Or these foods that are triggered by the emotions we have, you know, however you want to word that, right? So that's one tool that I always imply to people. What are some other tools people can have to immediately, like, just not even, like, take, take it the option off the table? So then that way you're kind of forced to just be in the emotions or, or whatever state you're currently in when you're craving those trigger foods.

So, I love it, and I'm hoping you're okay if I add in.

Oh, yes.

Because one of the things that we teach in the academy is trying to create or live in a perfectly sterile environment where your trigger foods are not around you still gives your power to the food, not to yourself. And it means that your success will be conditional. It'll be conditional upon your environment, it'll be conditional upon the friends you're around, it'll be conditional on your social situation, or if you're traveling or on vacation, which then, if we can't or don't feel like we can control that, we lose our ability to stay or remain disciplined, successful, committed. So, I like to take a second part of that, and this goes to my own story of, you know, back when, again, I had master's level, upper level training in nutrition, physiology, et cetera, I knew better and did not do better. So, I knew that the chocolate chips and the wine at night were not the best choice, but I wanted them. And I think this is where diet culture is failing people so much, is we just try to give people this rigid set of structure and rules to live by, which is how diet culture creates the narrative of, deprivation, restriction, can't have, don't get. And the minute somebody hears that, what do they want? What they can't have. We were probably meant to, and we want the thing. And so, what I often ask, and a tool I would so invite any listener to ask themself, is, I want the thing, the food, but what's the thing under the thing? And every single time, it is for the emotional reward that you are craving, that you do not know how to meet, or regulate, or satisfy, or give to yourself in a non-harmful way. And that becomes the emotional resilience work that we get to do at this point. You're self-aware, me too. And I still had to skill build to handle the triggers of my life because life, frankly, it's not getting easier, James. There's like the stress, the kids and the pressures. And so, if I kept using food and outsourcing my feelings to food to soothe, cope, numb, distract, it's pretty possible for me to be 200+ pounds. And not that there's anything wrong with that if you feel good there. I just didn't feel good there.

Well, you know, and, and I know this is controversial given that we're trying, you know, in this— and please, no one listening think I'm body shaming— but I actually don't think you should feel good being 200 pounds overweight. Because the reality is, is we treat people how we feel. And I'm— I've witnessed it in my 20+ years, you know, in this field of just seeing people not feeling good in your body. And so So I'm not saying that 200 pounds means you're not going to feel good. I'm more just saying if you don't feel good in your body at an underweight, uh, being underweight or overweight, then that to me is the issue. Like, we totally feel good in our body.

I think totally. And that's why I certainly don't prescribe a weight for somebody to be at. I think BMI and all of the stuff that's out there right now can be really harmful for some people. I've got some clients whose starting weight is other people's end goal, but at the end of the day, we are very clear. I know you have a research background, so do I. There are certain indicators that say when we are X percent over our typical healthy body weight, we were gonna have comorbidities, and excess fat mass on a body frame, and our body composition matters most, and right now, a lot of us are overfat and undermuscled, and that is because we're so sedentary.

Yeah.

And then we're tired, and then we're not eating well, and then we're jacking up on coffee and calming down with wine, and we wonder why we don't feel good when we're, you know, if we take a look, and I love this because of the way you talk about ancestral living, you know, the conveniences and comforts of life, which have created our misalignment with our health, they didn't exist way back then. Life was harder. There was more natural hardship, and we adapted to that. Now we have a lower level of emotional resiliency, and we've adapted to being comfortable.

I love that you're talking, uh, about emotional resilience because to your point, resilience is, I, I believe what we should be putting in front of us. Like we have to be more resilient.

Yeah.

Entering the, the, the modern, the, the current modern society we're in, but just entering the future, resilience is key. Resilience from viruses, resilience from, you know, anything that comes your way, whether it's, uh, Frankenfoods or now they're even talking about You know, putting— there's already experiments happening where they're putting vaccines in foods, which is crazy. But then also there on the flip side of that, there is, you know, basically where you can genetically create the child you want, which to me, that's a Pandora's box because it's like, well, then what does resilience look like when you think you're in control of things? Because the reality is, is what we're talking about is we're never really in control of things.

It's an illusion. Totally. 100%. We're not, but we're not in control. We're not. And I love that this, because I'm not in control of what you do. I'm not in control of what my children do. I cannot micromanage everything out there to make myself comfortable, which is why, and I say it, I always tell women I work with, predominantly women, listen, no one's coming to do this for you.

Yeah.

If it is to be, it's up to me, my health, my life, my happiness, the quality of my life. I get to be the one that creates that. And if I'm living an outcome right now that I do not like, let's just say I'm overweight, or I don't have the bank account, or the relationship that I desire, the only reason is because of the past and previous decisions. That's it. And your future is completely unwritten. So being stuck becomes choice, especially if you believe that it's just around, oh, I just need to know more. Most people could write their own health book, or diet blog, or something. It's not— the knowledge that's the problem. I mean, sometimes it is, it's the application of it, and the application of it consistently over time, because health does not change in a day. There is no 365-day cleanse. There was no Whole365, right? There are short-term things that allow people to pretend that they can try for a period of time to get them a result, and then it gets too hard and they quit. And so, I'm a big fan of bringing stuff in, and why I love so much about what you do is you're making it easy so we can add every day good nutrient, or good nutrients, Dense nutrients to our everyday foods. And, we're missing the boat on that in a big way.

Yeah, I agree. Okay. So, for the people, the listeners that are entrenched in this busy modern life that we're highlighting, the high stress, the processed foods, the digital overload that we're highlighting, how do you guide them back to the ancestral principles of nourishment, rest, movement, and recovery? How do we guide them back?

Well, I think that's the perfect word is, listen, if you're at a point in life where you're not feeling awesome, you probably do need a guide, 'cause you got lost.

Hmm.

Like, I love that you use that word. Maybe I might use the word coach, somebody else might use a different kind of word, but if you are not living the life, or if you do not have optimal health the way that you wish, then you are gonna probably need some support in helping you skill build. I went to school for a long time to become an expert. So many women believe in, or people believe that they can and should be experts in this one particular area of life, And yet, the knowledge hasn't been passed down. Cooking practices. Do you know how many women I work with who don't like to cook, never got taught how to cook? Basic skill sets. And so, we're expecting that we should be an expert in nutrition, an expert in physiology, an expert in fat metabolism, an expert in hormone regulation, an expert in our own cultivation of emotional resilience. I work with a majority of 50s and 60s population who've never been to therapy. We don't sometimes know our own stuff. And so, being guided to get tools, And not just teach the tool. I always say it's like my husband's a contractor. You know, I could have a picture on my desk and be like, I really wanna get the picture on the wall. And there could be a hammer right beside it. And he could be like, oh, well, just pick up the hammer and put the nail in. I could be like, mm, I don't really feel like I'm good at hammers. I don't really feel like using a hammer. Right? So sometimes the tools are right there and then we get hijacked with our feelings. And it's like, who cares if you feel like using a hammer or not? Pick it up and put the tool, like put the nail in the wall and hang the picture. Like, get over your feelings and take the action, but you gotta know the tool exists to even do that. You're smiling.

I love that. The way I bottom line it is, it's not about one day, it's about day one.

Yeah.

Start now.

Day one.

Like, just do it.

Oh my God, James. Yes. Like, I just, you know, my mom, uh, 85, completely wheelchair bound. I've been a caregiver since, uh, she was 72. neuropathy got to her and diabetes, and she was a smoker and high cholesterol and high blood pressure and all the things, sedentary woman. And I always say, listen, if you're somebody out there right now who wants to be able to get to a toilet, get off the toilet when you're 85, start now. Start now, because we're going to be taking massive deposits out of our health bank account, and most of us aren't putting deposits into it. And You know, what we do now at this stage of life, it'll never get easier to change than right now, day one. And so we have to take a look at what blocks us.

Yeah. And I want to let, let's talk about some of those blocks because, you know, really what we're talking about is probably people have heard a lot in this way, you know, that you can either spend the money now on your health or you can spend it later in hospital bills, right? That's the kind of phrase people hear a lot.

Yeah.

So let's identify what can people do right now that will help them change this mindset, to help them change these kind of sedentary patterns?

The answer is we've got to get radically responsible. We really do. We lie to ourselves. Let's be honest. We pretend we're going to start tomorrow. We're going to start next Monday. We're going to start January 1st. We lie. And my second book I wrote, Self-Sabotage or Stop Sabotaging, because knowing and doing, the gap in between is sabotage. And until we can recognize our own unique patterns of sabotage, we keep chasing and trying to solve the wrong problem. Most of us have a sabotage problem, and the sabotage, what it looks like for so many of us is self-neglect. You get habituated to neglecting yourself. Often it's, you're busy, you're a young family, you're running, you're careering, you're parenting, you're husbanding or wifing, you're volunteering, and your own self-care really slowly falls off the priority list. Self-betrayal. Anybody who said, I'm gonna start eating better tomorrow, I'm not gonna drink tonight, you drink tonight. We have, the impairment to our health is like death by a thousand cuts or a thousand white lies made every single day and repeated. So when you start to become radically honest with where you're lying to yourself, why, for me, I indulged in over-consuming alcohol and chocolate chips because I was in the lie that my marriage was okay and that everything would be fine when the truth was it was falling apart and I was lonely. But it was easy to make my weight the problem, not the bigger life circumstance that I didn't wanna admit to ourselves. And so I think a lot of us stay in denial because it's easier to have a problem that's out there That we think we can solve out there versus as to what's really going on with me right now. And self-worth is also part of that, low self-worth, that we get our worth out of chasing our productivity and forget that it's— we get to spend our own time, energy, money on ourselves. It doesn't have to be for the house or the family or the vacation. And for so many people, that is where we— We spend, we spend on what we value.

Isn't a lot of this sabotaging really trauma response in a way?

Yeah, it really can be. You know, James, if you had told me 15 years ago when I entered this industry how many women would share with me stories of trauma, and I mean, for sure, the big T stuff I wasn't prepared for, early childhood sexual abuse, physical abuse, incredible emotional abuse the neglect, abandonment. But what's more interesting too is I call it little t, and all of us have it. It's all of the little traumas, which really would be all of the needs that you had as a child that did go unmet. Be seen, not heard. Show up, conform, contort yourself. Don't express those negative feelings that aren't acceptable. Just be polite, be pleasant, be kind, be sweet, be beautiful, whatever it is the messaging was in a family system. And so, yeah, it really is a huge trauma response. And I definitely had to build my skillset up. I'm not a therapist, but I would be remiss in my professional duty if I did not have emotional intelligence. And why are we the way that we are if I didn't do that work to support the change?

Yeah. One kind of story I was telling myself, particularly whenever I would travel on my own for conferences or whatnot, it would be like, well, this is my little secret, you know, like that. I'm now traveling, so I'm away from the accountability that my wife and I share with each other. I'm away from my normal life, my routines, so I can eat whatever I want here and not be mirrored back that I'm checking out, you know, or that I'm, you know, not being in integrity with kind of the health promises that I make to my audience, but also to myself. Right.

Yeah.

And so I would do that and then never tell anyone because it was my little secret. And, um, and I was sharing with my wife just about a week ago because I just got back from a trip, and I was like, something's changed because I'm now traveling and I actually don't want to do that. Like, I want to be in integrity With my own health, with my own declarations of what I want my health to be. I want to—I'm holding myself accountable now for for the outcome, my desired outcome, and I'm not wavering. And I'm like, I now see like something I told a friend of mine who was struggling with stuff is I said, "Oh, actually, I may have even been my daughter too." I think I talked to a couple people, but point is is I said, "You already know what a chocolate chip cookie tastes like." You know what I mean? Like, why check out? Like, why check out something that you think is gonna be so grandiose, but you already know how it tastes and you already know how it feels in your body. So what about your commitment to you? And I feel that, like, I feel like I am more committed to myself. And thus, because I'm more committed to myself, I'm more committed to my family, to my wife, to, like, it, it extends beyond, right? But it has to start with me.

I, I love this so much. Can I give like a funny metaphor that I use in my community? I don't know if it'll be off-putting, but okay. Well, just because you use traveling and staying and you shared this. So, um, again, it comes down to belief systems and it comes down to value. And I love that you use the word integrity. We use that word integrity in our community all the time. Are you who you say you wanna be when no one's looking? Right. And I joke and I say, women will say, well, it's just so hard for me to do, do this when I'm out. And I'm like, look, let's just say you're married. I'm married.

Mm-hmm.

I love my husband. We have the agreement of a commitment to each other. And so it'd be like, oh, it's so easy to be committed and faithful when I'm in my house, but God, when I go to the bar, I just can't help it. I mean, I'm just out of control with men. I mean, I flirt, and when I travel, off. But because I have a commitment to him, somebody else, no, I honor that commitment. And it's a very unique spin to recognize that I'm just as worth it to honor commitments to myself too, Around my health. And to recognize the absurdity of our thinking sometimes, like, oh, it's easy for me to be in control in my house, but the minute I'm on vacation, at a restaurant, out with friends, I have no control. No, you've got an excuse because you're saying something else is more important than the commitment to yourself.

Why do you think we do that? I think it's because, let's be honest, a lot of people do cheat on their commitments to their marriage. A lot of people do cheat on their commitments to their health, right? So why do you think that we do that?

I do think it is a huge part of only allowing ourselves to accept what we believe we're worth, and we'll sabotage the good. We'll sabotage it. And I don't believe that there's a lot of people out there who are consciously wanting to destroy. I mean, listen, let's just take a look at the definition of sabotage. To deliberately take actions to make something not work. That's a definition out of a dictionary. Put self in front of it, to deliberately, and I believe it's conscious-subconscious, take actions to make myself, my life, not work, which is Which is why we usually have to go back to those belief systems, the identity that you hold, and go, where does this need to transform? What part of this is not working for me anymore? What part of me at 20 that maybe had, as women, many of us have gone through horrible situations where our personal safety, our emotional safety was violated, and not hold ourselves hostage to the version of us Of when that happened, but to recognize, hey, I'm at a new point. Like, I'm personally, I'm 50, I get to respond differently, and to really get out of being a victim to what happened to us at a point in time, and get radically responsible to how we deal and heal with our own traumas, negative thinking, dysfunctional aspects of our personality that we just say, well, that's the way I am. And we now know you can change. Like, that's the beautiful thing. But we also get really good at what we practice, and many of us will practice breaking our own commitments to stay stuck in a loop that keeps our identity intact, as opposed to getting really uncomfortable and changing.

Yeah, it's the being in the discomfort though, that is so challenging. And to your point, it's if you're not training for it, if you're not training, like if your life is always so comfortable, then of course the uncomfortable is going to be even harder. Right? So if you're not finding resilience in your day-to-day, then how does one step out of that cycle?

I love that we're— this is such a great conversation because notice how it's not about the weight or the food, like, right? This is the crux of what we're all up against, which is, you know, one of the very foundational principles I teach is, you know, you— it's our responsibility to have a vision For our life, a vision. You can say dreams, goals, ambition, to have a vision of where we're going. But most of us are so tired, we're just like getting through day to day, and the vision can get muddy. We can lose sight of it, and then we get lost in just the busyness of life, because let's be honest, that's possible. So if we're not taking time to self-reflect or to contemplate our own lives, where, who we are, what we want to still see, do, be, experience, and create, we can't actually live it because everything's created twice. Once up here, next in reality. So we've gotta be brave enough to give ourselves the benefit of our own time to ask, what does my best life look like? And to not look to our past to predicate our future. Most of us will look to our past. Well, I can't do that because my person, somebody told me in high school I was a horrible writer. Oh, I wrote 2 books, but I had to overcome that 'cause I thought I was a horrible writer, even as I'm writing it. But in 2012, I put on a vision board, a little snapshot, I cut it out with a printer, and I put my name on a bestseller list. I had no idea what I might write about, but I knew I wanted to write. And yet I had to overcome the story of someone telling me a harmful story that wasn't really true. It was just her opinion. But somebody's opinion of you does not make it fact, but it does, you know, it can hurt our feelings. So I think that's what we have to take ourselves on, which is why having a guide, a coach, a mentor, a therapist helps us expose our own belief systems and stories. Otherwise, we're just swimming in them all the time. It's like a fish in water. It doesn't know it's in water. It's the same with us.

There's a couple of questions that are definitely popping in my head around this topic, but the first one I'd love you to advise us on is we're talking about guides, right? Like of getting support. But as you and I both know, not everyone provides the same kind of support, you know, the support that is the most helpful. There's a lot of kind of People out there with good intentions, but not great execution. So what should people be looking for when they're trying to figure out who to guide them and who to outreach to? Are there qualities? Are there words? Is there something that people should be kind of specifically looking for?

I think so. I think we don't know to look for it because we hope that the level of affect in our life will come from action. Okay, and let me explain that. So, it's like, we just wanna find the person who's gonna tell us what to do and give us the perfect plan, the perfect exercise plan, the perfect food plan, the perfect list of foods we can or we can't. You probably already know that, but we still search for something to attack our problem at the level of action. And what I believe should be a necessary component of any guide is, are we looking at the level of thought feeling? Are we, is there a mindset component to whatever program or book you're reading? Or, I mean, almost all books will have some sort of mental-emotional component to it to help us with processing. A lot of stuff out there, for sure, in the weight loss space, for me, it's take this pill, take this injection, take this supplement, get your prepackaged food, 2 bars, 2 shakes. Like, it's like, how does that help you when you're emotional and a mess at 9:00 PM? Are you gonna go get your bar and your prepackaged food? Like, no. So, I think that, you know, on some level, you've gotta be looking at yourself and recognizing emotional resilience doesn't come in a product that we've gotta find a way, whether it's even a sage friend or an older friend or a different, somebody more objective to you, because the truth is our immediate circle, they just wanna see us happy and comfortable, right?

Yeah.

Hey James, have a glass of wine with me. Let's just say, oh, what? Oh, come on, let's just have fun. Or, oh, let's eat ice cream together. That'll be really fun to go and do. And then we can shake up, they're not like, oh, okay, let's hold you to a higher level of integrity and honor that commitment you've made for yourself. So a lot of times our family and friends can actually be an external sabotaging force, not intentionally, but they also have a narrative about you. Well, that's what James does, or that's what Jen does. Jen likes wine, let's bring wine, or Jen likes to eat this, or I made this for you, how come you're not eating it? And then we get into the implicit nature of exchange through action. Oh, you made this? I better eat it to show you I love you, as opposed to, thank you so much for thinking of me. I love the recipe. I'm full right now. And keep that boundary for myself and my health.

And on the flip side of that, it's also the projection, right? So the person could be actually, it could be more about them, and they're just trying to get you to be inclusive so that they can justify their desires, right?

100%. Hey, if I think you're a good person and you do what I want to do, you're good. So I'm good because you're doing the behavior I want to engage in. I've now validated myself.

Yeah. Or I want to drink. So if I get you to drink, then that justifies me drinking during the day or whatever it is, right?

Anything.

Yeah.

It's why you become like the people you hang out with, right? You and I know this. We put ourselves into communities where we're around people doing incredible things. It's inspiring and shows us what's possible. If your circle is someone who's, well, just look at your circle, right? With health outcomes and look at our family circle. You know, a lot of times husbands, wives will grow their health together or sink their health together because of the family habits and values. You know, children, when I was going through my schooling, you know, if you had one obese parent, parent, that child, that child had a 60% more likely chance of being obese. If 2 parents were obese, that child's risk was 90%. And then they say it's genetic. No, I'm sorry, it's not. Who controls what comes in the house, right? So there's, it's multifactorial, it's multi-layered. If it was simple, we'd solve these problems. And so I think that's Anything too good to be true is. And when something makes sense in lands, it makes sense. Ancestral eating, going back to whole foods, not shopping chemical-made, food-stable, shelf-stable products. You go to Costco, you take a look at the size of a cart and what's in there, and then you can objectively look at the health of the person. There's a connection sometimes.

I just thought of something, and I think we should establish it. Together right now on this podcast, because I think this is one of the first times anyone will ever say this, is, you know how we normally look at a plate and we say, oh, let's divide that plate into the categories that we want to emphasize, you know? So we talk about protein should be a certain percentage. We talk about vegetables, fat, you know, we break it down by the plate. Well, what if we did the same thing with a cart? What should the grocery cart look like? Like what percentage of these—

It should look alive.

Right.

Like, it should look alive and not full of things that are in jars, bags, or boxes. Like, even that, simple things like, God, I had— listen, I say this with so much love and compassion because I've done it all. I've been the woman who was 40 pounds overweight, who was an emotional mess, who did not have resilience, who had unhealthy patterns from my past. And so, I've been able to go on a journey of Discovery and of healing and of all the things. And it's probably a forever journey, frankly. But I would go to Safeway, I'd be hungry. I didn't have much money. I would immediately go to the chocolate almond section cuz I'd been running all day and I would get a little bag of chocolate almonds and I would be eating them as I was grocery shopping. And I would just go up and down and, you know, I had to learn, this is ridiculous, Jen, perimeter of the grocery store, shop by a list, do not make Don't put anything in the cart that isn't on the list, because if it goes into your cart, like you said, you're making a commitment to eat it. Anything that you put in, you can pretend it's for somebody else, you can pretend it's for when you have a party, but I mean, let's be honest, how many of us have bought chips and said, oh, that'll be for Saturday, and Tuesday night you're in the chips at 9 o'clock? Like, we're human.

And of course, the size as well, right? Like, we're buying the family size or the value pack because, well, it's cheaper and Well, you know, we'll use it during the week. We won't eat it all in one day. We'll just use it throughout the week. It's like, no, probably you're gonna eat it in one day and/or you're gonna make excuses of why you need to eat it every day if it's too big.

Yeah. You know what I find? I just did a presentation and I had a bunch of food. I had gummy bears and licorice and chocolate and wine and chips and Smart Pop or Skinny Pop popcorn. And the mark— so we looked at the marketing of it and then we looked at the serving sizes. Now, everything has a food label. Food companies are actually telling you, hey, this is the recommended serving size. But for most of us, we don't look at that. We eat to the power of completion, which means the bag is done, the jar is done, the box is empty. And often you're eating 5, 6, 7 servings in an evening of this fake food, but you won't eat a sandwich, right? You won't, you're avoiding the real food. So, you're giving yourself the treat and have no idea that you've just consumed equivalently the, you know, a loaf of bread. of bread in the form of calories, but not nutrition, right? So, it's like, we've also got that misinformation out there where we really just don't know. We don't know how to interpret a label. We don't know or understand about the impact of sugar. We just need to look at diabetes right now. I like, you know, we're— it's wild, this world. And so, when we start to recognize that food can make us sick and healthy, or sick and fat, and not feel good, and have all these biochemical markers of dysfunction, disease, It can do the opposite.

Hmm.

It can make us feel vibrant and healthy and alive and energetic, and it doesn't have to be a pain in the ass. Like, I feel like everybody thinks that taking care of themself is just such a difficult pain-in-the-butt thing to do, and that would be a trauma thing. Why is looking after ourselves such a pain when we look after the things we love, like our children? We'll go to the ends of the world for them, but not ourself.

Do you think that that's one in towards supporting, you know, confidence and accountability is to actually start looking yourself as, you know, maybe putting photos of yourself of when you were a baby and just reminding yourself that you were once, you know, you are that child that you aren't how you feel, but you are a real person who's vulnerable, who's susceptible, who needs love just as much as you are probably giving out to other people.

Yeah, of course. Of course. I think a lot of times, listen, my dad's passed, and before he'd been out of my life for a long time. And one of the things I craved the most was the love and approval of my dad. And I had a therapist who said, you know what, Jenn? Stop asking the questions and get grateful for the lessons, right? Imagine your dad as a little boy who had his own traumas imparted onto him, who then became a man who married many times, had children, did the best he could with what he had, and it wasn't what I needed or wanted. But as long as I was to hold myself to a victim story of, well, I didn't get the love I needed and wanted from my dad or my mom, they didn't show up for me, the whole point is I get to show up for me and to not make my love or my self-worth or my acceptance conditional on somebody else, but to learn how to give it to myself.

Hmm.

And yeah, let me just say, it wasn't, it's not like a switch. All the things that people said would help me, like journaling and meditating and processing, and I was like, well, that won't work for me. I'm too busy to journal. I used to really be arrogant, frankly, in what I thought would and wouldn't work for me. Until my life got really bad, really hard. And you know what that did? Made me humble and it made me willing to try. And that was my entry point into a new beginning.

Do you think that life has to get really bad for us to actually see that light? 'Cause I do notice that with health, or let's say with dietary change, Typically, in my experience, it comes really in 2 ways. Either you get sick or someone you love gets sick, but most people won't leave that comfort zone without either of those 2 things.

Yeah. No, I don't believe it has to get to that. It's not uncommon in my world too. A lot of times it'll be a woman will see the highest number she's ever seen on the scale. Or all of a sudden, she's being told she needs to go on medications and doesn't want to be on medications, like a diabetes medication, or hypertension, or a statin, and they're like, oh, let me just try on my own. What I do see, though, is we ignore the whispers. We just ignore the whispers along the way, and if you ignore the whispers of gut, of intuition, of somebody even telling you, a doctor 10 years ago, you know, you should probably get a little healthier. Then the messages get louder and louder and louder until we're hit with that proverbial 2x4, and we wake up. So how, you know, for anybody listening who is getting messages, and that message could be like, this is how I view it. We have a message of, let's just say it's 9 o'clock, I'm going to go for the glass of wine. I might have a message that says, oh, you don't really need that right now, go to bed. And I could hear it, but I'm going to immediately override it with, oh, it's fine, just go get the glass of wine and enjoy yourself. So it's like really to become discerning of the voices you're hearing. You're going to have a gut instinct, and I call it your heart-of-heart self who's trying to guide you. And you're going to have an inner critic, nasty little voice that just is seductive and is trying to re-enroll you into doing what you've always done and stay comfortable. And I think, I don't think it has to be bad. I think for some people, we don't learn— I was told once people either learn through pleasure or pain.

Yeah.

Most of us will learn through pain. I made a radical decision to start to enjoy wanting to learn through pleasure. I'm in practice. I'm in practice. This is fun. Let's do more of it. As opposed to, this is really hard. I got to fix. And paying attention to the messages. Do you know what I mean on those?

I find a lot of times when we're relying on our headspace to change, that it actually helps. It's even more important to shift your physical space. So do you have any tips of what someone can do when, when they are kind of playing the angel on the shoulder versus the devil, you know, where they're kind of going back and forth mentally? What can they do in that moment to break free from that? Like, is it like leave the environment, go for a walk? Like, what, what do you recommend?

I love this. So, uh, we actually teach our, my community, You actually need to pre-decide. So like right now, while you're listening to this episode or watching or however you're consuming it, is like, you gotta know your witching hours. You gotta know when you're at your weakest, because if you're trying to make a logical decision in the moment your brain is emotionally hijacked, you won't. The brain science tells us you're gonna go back to what's the fastest pathway is the habit you've got, not the habit you're creating. So we have to look at brain science and let that inform us and go, okay. I'm gonna get out sticky notes and I'm gonna write down 5 things that when I feel the beginning of that feeling or the seduction of the voice to go and be engaged in something that's self-harm, let's say, I'm gonna go to bed, take a shower, call a friend, get out for a walk, put on music, light a candle. You need to have your options actually written down ahead of time because we can only be as good as our structures of support. And if we don't have structures of support already, it's like our scaffolding, then we fall. So I want to have scaffolding around me to keep me safe and to support me, but I have to think of it ahead of time.

I love that. I want to repeat that. We are only as good as our structures of support. I love that.

And most of us don't have good ones, right?

And really it ties into the resilience, right? You can't, you can't just one day be resilient. You have to have structure. You have to have practice and learnings that, you know, come with it. So that way, when you are in that environment of like high stress, it's like, well, you've been practicing that meditation and practicing like finding calm, you know, no matter what's going on, you know, like it's not just something you just do one day. It's like you, You are literally structuring your life where every day you're incorporating, you know, microdosing of whatever that resilience you're building towards. Totally. So if it's meditation, that's one thing. If it's, you know, movement, every day you're doing a little bit, whatever it is, it's like being stronger to kill, you know, whatever it is, right?

Yeah. I love it because, I mean, if you think of yourself like an athlete, like, you know, if you're somebody who's in training, any high-performance team, high-performance player, there's coaches, and they don't just play their playoff. I mean, look at the Blue Jays right now. I'm in Canada, you can tell. But like, they practice with a level of intensity so they can play like how they practice. And so they practice the things they're good at, the things they're not, so that when it comes to game time, It's almost autonomic for them. And we gotta look at ourselves the same way. We get good at what we practice. If I, and this is the other part, is if I've practiced self-sabotage for 40 years, what do you think I'm good at? Sabotage, right?

Right.

So, it's not gonna change in a day just because I have a new thought, which says, I'm gonna get healthier, I'm gonna eat better, I'm gonna get more committed to my core values around health movement. It's no, I'm going to have a whole, like, 80,000 worth of thoughts and operating systems that tell me who I've been in the past. So I got to practice shedding an identity that is no longer working for me. And let's just say, like, if you're here right now, like, God, you made it here right now. Stop punishing yourself for anything you did to get here, and recognize you did what you had to do to survive or make it through. And you now have the privilege of new decisions today, and the new decisions today are going to pave— the way, not for tomorrow, your brand new health, but 2 months, 3 months, a year from now. And to recognize we're just, we're cellular beings. Everything's like degenerating and propagating and renewing every single day. And the cellular being you are today, in 9 months, we know you're almost a completely new cellular being. So let's feed those cells today with everything that you want to create for yourself in the future.

Oh, I love it. What I hear you saying too is like, Let's release the shaming and really be present. Just be present. Feel your butt on that chair if you're sitting, or your feet on the floor if you're standing. Feel the clothes on your shoulders if you're wearing clothes, and the glasses if you're wearing glasses against your nose, and just feel the stretch of your face as you smile, whatever it is. But to be—

Yeah.

Identify The physical so that you can really just be present.

Yeah. And make peace with your past, right? Make peace with it. It, it, whatever happened happened. Maybe it wasn't fair. Maybe it wasn't right. Maybe it shouldn't have. All of those things may be true, but it did.

Mm-hmm. You've been working with enough people, I think, at this point where you would, you, you might be able to identify like, What are some of the people when they start your program, like, what are some of the initial aha moments? Like, is it like self-worth, around self-worth? Is it around like food is controlling me? Like, what's the first kind of aha you witness in a lot of the people that do your programs? And I know it's different, but I'm sure at this point you sort of, you see like common themes.

I love it. I love it so much. Uh, the number one is They can't believe they're losing weight and they're not hungry. That's one of the biggest ones, is there's a belief system that to lose weight, I need to starve, be restricted, be miserable, and that, 'cause that's what they've done in the past. So, as we nourish our, like we talk about nourishing our clients, they just can't believe it. And then, the second thing that they can't believe is how much energy they start to have. Like, how good they start to feel. Then, the third thing is the cravings have dissipated. Like, they're just not there as much at night. And we know that that's physiological reasons. We know protein deprivation, we know fiber deprivation, and overconsumption leads to overconsumption later in the day. We understand this. But, I mean, I do, you do. But, for people who are used to not eating all day, and then hoping that they're not going to have cravings at night, I mean, the brain is going to tell you, hey, eat. Hey, eat. You don't have the nutrients in your body to heal, repair, grow. And, instead of being like, oh, I just, I don't really feel like a chunk of chicken. I'm like, I feel like chips. So they start to get nourished, and then they lose weight, have energy, and there's no more cravings. And then they start to get some confidence back in themselves. And then they start to like grow this area of like, I am going to take time for myself. It is okay. I feel better when I do. And those boundaries start to come in.

I love it. And I feel like this goes back to what we started out talking is that surround yourself with people, whether that's the coach you're choosing, the guides you're choosing, or the literal people around you that are reflecting you back accurately.

Yeah.

Because I feel like so many of us are surrounded by people that are either just continuing the shaming piece or the critical piece, or are projecting their judgments of themselves on us, right? It's like, but surround yourself with people that love you and, and see your potential and see what you're doing for these changes and are mirroring them back to you of like, Don't you feel so good in your body? 'Cause you look really good. You know, whatever that may be.

100%. But for a lot of us, we can be isolated. I was. We can find it takes energy to put yourself into new social situations to get that kind of community. And I read something the other day, 'cause sometimes I talk about how I don't have that many, like, in Calgary, in-person friends, but I have a lot of friends cross-country. And it said that to have a good community means to be inconvenient. That you're willing to be there for somebody else, go see their kid's soccer game, go visit their sick mom in the hospital, help them move something or decorate or clean a closet, because you're building the fabric of connection, which isn't a one-way street. And so I was like, oh, it was really powerful for me, James, because I'm busy, my time is tight, I run a tight calendar. And I was like, I've been unwilling to be inconvenienced sometimes, And now I'm opening myself up to what a beautiful thing to have the privilege of being inconvenienced for the sake of friendship and community, to give so I can get that same feeling of support right back. And it changed something for me just about how I want to share myself and my energy and my time, and to also make it productive, whether it's a walk or a coffee chat. I'm not the person who's like, hey, let's go for a glass of wine, or let's go grab a nappy. I do it differently.

Oh, I love it. I'm so enjoying our conversation. Um, and I've really enjoyed getting to know you. Like, me too. I know the last time we saw each other, we had really powerful interactions. And, um, and I— and you had me on your podcast, but like, every time I talk to you, I just, I feel like I get a better picture of you. And you're just such a beautiful person. And I'm so grateful for you, Jen.

Oh, thank you. I felt the same way. Like, I— we had that chance interaction at an event, and I was like, oh my God, like, you know, because we have teams and stuff and people that help us coordinate our calendars, and I was so excited to meet you and be like, you're gonna be on my podcast. And then, yeah, I, uh, you've got my support. I love your mission. I love your viewpoint on it because it's just— well, it's grounded in the roots of health and, and what it takes to be healthy and that we get to do it. So, your message is one I always love sharing. And yeah, it's been a privilege to get to know you too. Thanks for having me on your show.

Well, before I let you fully go, I would love to just get your sense of, like, if someone only remembered one key idea from today's conversation, what would you want that to be?

You said it, actually. It's let today be day one. And go after it. Like, nothing comes to us. You know, one of the metaphors I have, and if you're listening, don't do this if you're driving, but I always share with my community, like, you know, put your hands in front of your face and pretend you're holding onto a trapeze bar. I think we've all seen this in a circus, right? And so you're hanging onto a bar, and on the bar it says, life is good, good, good enough, good enough health, everything's good. But in the foreground, you see another bar coming to you, and it's a little bit higher, and it says, great. that it's great over here, how do you grab the next trapeze bar? The only way to do it is to let go of good and go and grab great and make that leap. So, no matter where you're at, don't settle for good when great is just one small hand grasp away. And believe in yourself.

Oh, I'm getting chills. Oh, you heard it here, everybody. Let's go for great together. We are in it. We are here with you, and we're just so grateful for you participating today. Jen, thank you so much for joining me on this call. Um, how can people reach out to you to work with you? How can they just follow you on socials?

Follow me on Instagram @jenpowder. Easiest way. I have all sorts of free resources, free copies of my books. You can buy 'em on Amazon or Kindle or Audible. I give 'em away. I think it's really important to understand that whatever symptom or problem you've got, the real problem underneath it will be sabotage of some nature. And when you start to address that, you solve so many things in your life. So follow me there. I'm learning how to create good content and share. So I'm learning how to be a content creator at 50. But hey, that's the fun and I get to do that. So that'd be a good place to start.

And your website for working with you or participating in the groups is jenniferpowter.com, right?

Yeah, jenniferpowter.com. So jenniferpowter.com, we run all sorts of challenges and fun stuff and things to bring you into the mindset piece of it. Sure, I can talk about food, but I love going into the deeper, the deeper game that we're up against and how to change the rules so we win.

Well, you got my vote. I just, I just love that you're focusing on the how, not just the what. And you're, you're really supporting in what I believe is lasting change. So thank you so much.

Oh, you're welcome. Thanks for having me on. Great conversation today. Loved it.

Well, thank you, and thank you all for participating. I am just so enjoying being on this journey with you. I appreciate you for watching or listening to this podcast. Please leave a comment. Let us know how it's being received. Share it with your friends and family. Just spread the word. I really think that health is important. I think it's important to reconnect with these ancestral principles, but make sure that we're also still you know, in our modern selves and connecting those dots so that we can be connected to the people that we love around us and connected, most importantly, to ourselves and our highest self. So stay curious, and thank you again. Thank you so much for joining me on Everyday Ancestral. If you enjoyed this episode, hit subscribe so you don't miss the next one. You can find You can find the show notes, links, and resources mentioned at eatpluck.com. That's E-A-T-P-L-U-C-K dot com. And hey, if you know someone who'd get something out of this, share it with them too. Stay curious, live well, and keep it ancestral.