Set Point Weight EXPOSED: Can Diet or Ozempic Change it For Good? with Diet Culture Rebel Bonnie Roney, RD

Here’s a run down of what we discussed in today’s episode: Introduction Intuitive Eating 101: Fact vs. Fiction What Set Point Weight Really Means How to Know If You’re at Your Set Point Signs You Might Be Above Your Set Point Can You Change Your Set Point Weight? What Shifts Your Set Point Over Time Is Your Set Point Always Your Healthiest Weight? GLP-1s and Intuitive Eating: Where They Intersect Grieving the Thin Ideal While Embracing Body Respect Why Weight Gain After Dieting Isn’t a Failure Life Beyond the Scale: Mental, Social, and Emotional Wins Check in with today’s amazing guest: Bonnie Roney Website: dietculturerebel.com Podcast: Diet Culture Rebel Instagram: @diet.culture.rebel Tiktok: @dietculturerebel Disclaimer: The content in this episode is for educational and entertainment purposes only and is never a substitute for medical advice. If you’re struggling with with your mental or physical health, please work one on one with a health care provider. If you have heard yourself in our discussion today, and are looking for support, contact the free NEDIC helpline at 1-866-NEDIC-20 or go to eatingdisorderhope.com • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •✨ Reach Your Weight & Health Goals — Without Dieting! Pre-order The Hunger Crushing Combo Method, Abbey’s revolutionary additive approach to eating well. Learn how to boost satiety, stabilize blood sugars, reduce disease risk, and improve your relationship with food — all while getting the best nutrient bang for your caloric buck. With 400+ research citations, cheat sheets, evidence-based actionable tips, meal plans, and adaptable recipes, The Hunger Crushing Combo Method is the only nutrition bible you’ll ever need. 👉 Pre-order today! 🛒 Where to Purchase: Amazon Barnes & Noble Amazon Kindle Apple Books Google Play Kobo Apple Books (Audiobook) Audible abbeyskitchen.com/hunger-crushing-combo • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •✉️ Subscribe to My Newsletters: Abbey’s Kitchen Newsletter 📘 Check out my FREE E-Books: Hunger Crushing Combo™ E-Book Protein 101 E-Book 👋 Follow me! Instagram: @abbeyskitchen TikTok: @abbeyskitchen YouTube: @AbbeysKitchen Blog: abbeyskitchen.com Book: The Mindful Glow Cookbook • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 🎧 Don’t forget to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen — and leave us a review! It really helps support the show ❤️ 💬 If you liked this podcast, please like, follow, and leave a review — and let me know who you’d love to hear about next! ⭐ ⭐ ⭐⭐ ⭐ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Any other nutrition eating program you decide to do, there's a promise. To do something else that is radically different, it probably seems insane.

• 0:15Abbey Sharp?

  Welcome to another episode of Bite Back with Abbey Sharp, where I dismantle diet culture rules, call out the charlatans spinning the pseudoscience, and help you achieve food freedom for good.

• 0:28Abbey Sharp?

  Today, I'm going to be joined by my colleague Bonnie Roney, a registered dietitian who you might know as Diet Culture Rebel on social media. Bonnie's story definitely hits very close to home for me as her experience struggling with and healing from disordered eating helped inspire her career to help others do the same. Seriously, if you are at all interested in anti-diet content, nutrition, mental health, and ditching diet culture for good, you absolutely need to check out Bonnie's content, an amazing podcast that I'm going to be linking in the description box. But today, Bonnie and I are going to be diving deep into the idea of set point weight.

• 1:12Abbey Sharp?

  Over the past 13 years of my career, I've often been asked if intuitive eating will result in weight gain or weight loss, if you can be quote, quote, overweight and still healthy, and why some people can be very thin and still be quite metabolically healthy, while others may be put at risk. And oftentimes, the answers to these questions come back to set point weight theory. So whether you're looking to reject diet culture and stop dieting, or you're actively on a weight loss journey and want to do so safely, I think you'll find this conversation incredibly helpful for you.

• 1:52Abbey Sharp?

  A quick reminder that the information in this episode is not a replacement for one-on-one advice, and we will be discussing body weights today. So if that doesn't feel supportive to you, definitely feel free to skip this video. And of course, if you are new here to Bite Back, welcome, welcome. I would absolutely love it if you would give Bite Back a follow and a five-star review, maybe a little comment or share it with a friend, because it really, really does help me out. All right, folks, let's get into it.

• 2:33Abbey Sharp?

  All right. Thank you so much, Bonnie, for joining me.

• 2:36Speaker 00

  Thank you so much for having me. I am so excited to be here with you today.

• 2:41Abbey Sharp?

  Amazing. So you're a certified intuitive eating counselor. And you know, we hear that term intuitive eating. It's thrown around a lot online. And I feel like a lot of people don't really understand the origins or what it actually means. So there's just a ton of confusion about what it is and what it's not. So I like to often do kind of like a quick fact myth busting situation to get started. So I'm going to throw some kind of questions or myths or statements at you and you're going to tell me myth, fact, and maybe a quick little blurb to explain. Okay, so number one, intuitive eating is eat whatever you want, whenever you want.

• 3:20Speaker 00

  Myth. Yeah, I mean, everyone, a lot of people think that it's that, but we're, I know we're going to talk about it more today. It is so much more complex than that.

• 3:28Abbey Sharp?

  Totally. Okay. Number two, if I eat intuitively, I'll just eat junk all day.

• 3:34Speaker 00

  Myth. I love these.

• 3:36Abbey Sharp?

  Number three, intuitive eating is anti-nutrition and anti-health.

• 3:40Speaker 00

  Myth, myth, myth.

• 3:42Abbey Sharp?

  Myth, myth, myth. Four, only people who are already thin can be intuitive eaters.

• 3:48Speaker 00

  Big myth.

• 3:49Abbey Sharp?

  Big myth. Yes, yes, yes. Okay, finally, intuitive eating is another weight loss diet in disguise.

• 3:55Speaker 00

  Myth, myth.

• 3:57Abbey Sharp?

  Amazing, yes.

• 3:57Speaker 00

  Lots of myths.

• 3:58Abbey Sharp?

  Lots of myths going on. I know, we are, we are myth central over here. Okay, yeah. I think a lot of people, you know, that last one confuses a lot of people because unfortunately, there are a lot of influencers kind of co-opting the language of intuitive eating. And like basically to make their highly restrictive or obviously weight-focused plan feel softer or less taboo. You know, I've told, I've, I've mentioned this on, on, you know, my own platforms that I've even seen people on Skinny Talk use the term intuitive eating. But you know, when you start to eat more in tune with your body's needs, like anything can happen. Like your weight could go up, it could stay the same,

• 4:39Abbey Sharp?

  it could go down. And a lot of this, you know, has to do with something we call your set point weight range. Can you explain what set point weight theory is for folks who maybe are unfamiliar?

• 4:51Speaker 00

  Yeah. So the idea of set point weight theory is that our bodies genetically have this range that they

• 4:59Speaker 00

  Are supposed to be at and you know, so we can kind of ebb and flow throughout seasons of life. Like especially as women, we go through so many changes. We have babies, so we go through pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause, menopause. So there are life seasons that we go through where it is normal for our bodies to ebb and flow a little bit. Uh, but the idea is that when we are eating attuned to our body, we're able to listen to our body's cues, eat what feels good to us, move in a way that feels pleasant to us. So engage in all of these health promoting behaviors. Then it supports our body and being able to maintain this more stable weight. And I think that when we hear about set point weight,

• 5:43Speaker 00

  it can be exciting for some people and then stressful for other people because oftentimes what I see happening when people think about healing their relationship with food and finding their set point weight, they think, well, I'll just magically lose weight. So there's this like sneaky diet promise that comes in, which at the end of the day, I always like to say, I cannot guarantee what will happen to anyone's body when they alter the way that they eat. So there's that piece that comes in. And then there's also a stressful piece that comes in for some people because they, they may know very well that their set point weight is higher than it currently is right now because they're eating in a way or exercising in a way that's suppressing their weight. And so the idea of that is really scary, but ultimately I know I'm digressing.

• 6:28Speaker 00

  Set point weight is just this genetic place where our bodies are kind of designed to be at.

• 6:34Abbey Sharp?

  Yeah, yeah. And, and I also think it's important to know that it's not just like one number. Like you're not, your set point weight is not just like 135 and it's always going to be that. It's like, you know, we tend to have a range in like, you know, five, 10, maybe more. And then within that range, it's very easy for us to bounce up and down. But then to get outside of that range, especially to get below that range, it takes a lot more effort, often not well sustained. So that's one clue that maybe that's not your actual natural set point weight. What are some other ways that people can know that this is their set point weight?

• 7:12Speaker 00

  I think if generally, if you can look back on your years and see, has there been a weight that your body has kind of hung out at more or fought to hunt, to hang out at a little bit more?

• 7:24Speaker 00

  That can be a clue that that might be your set point weight. So maybe you've done lots of different diets or calorie counting, macro tracking, whatever your tool was. And so maybe over the years, you've lost weight and gained weight. This is weight cycling, losing and gaining and losing and gaining. But throughout the course of that time, has there ever been a weight that your body just like kind of kept coming back to? That could be a sign that that could be your genetic set point weight. Um, you know, I think back to, gosh, years ago, when I was below my set point weight. But it actually wasn't, I wasn't that below my set point weight. So I'm, I'm thirty two now. I'm five feet tall. I'm just a petite person.

• 8:05Speaker 00

  Um, and I've been generally the same size for a pretty long time. I have gained a couple of, you know, I, I've gained some weight as I've gotten older, but for the most part, I'm just a very petite person. So when I think back to myself in college in particular, I was super active. And so I did cheerleading, I did the circus, I ran marathons, like, my body was going, going, going, and I wasn't eating enough. So at that time, now looking back, knowing what I know now, I can see that my, I was below my set point weight. But it really wasn't that much for the amount I was, of work I was doing, for how much I was exercising and how much I was under eating. When I think about it now with how much more I eat,

• 8:48Speaker 00

  how much less I exercise, I did gain weight, but it wasn't like this, for me, it's different for everyone. It wasn't a significant amount of weight for me. But I always knew even at that time, that that wasn't my set point weight because it was so hard to maintain. Cause I would go through some seasons where I would restrict and then binge. And so my weight would kind of fluctuate. And it would go up more closer to what it is right now. And that, now looking back, I'm like, those were signs telling me that the weight I'm at now is closer to my genetic set point weight. So I think about that in terms of myself. So I would encourage anyone else to just think about all of your years that you've spent kind of controlling your food and has there

• 9:29Speaker 00

  ever been a body size that you've just, your body has kind of fought to get back to or fought to stay at?

• 9:36Abbey Sharp?

  I can identify with that so much. I, my body does not want to have muscle. I've never had muscle, you know, growing up I was a dancer, but you know, very, very like, you know, long skinny limbs as a kid. And I remember like in my mid twenties, I really was like, I want to put on muscle. Like I was ready to eat in, you know, a surplus. I worked with a sports dietitian. I, I worked so hard. I had a very specific training protocol because I just wanted to get more muscle on my body. And the amount of work it took to look just slightly different, just slightly. I mean, I tell everybody now, I'm like, never would

• 10:17Abbey Sharp?

  that be worth it to me because that just took so much, so much energy, so much time, so much like, oh, I gotta eat another chicken breast. Like it was just, um, and again, my body was just like fighting to be basically the same weight. I, and the tweak that I made, like the outcome was so miniscule compared to the effort that went in. And I think that's a really great example of set point and how vicious it is to keep you where your body just naturally wants to be.

• 10:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, absolutely not worth that.

• 10:49Abbey Sharp?

  I feel like, um, you know, when I say to somebody who has been weight cycling their whole life, you know, I appreciate that your goal is to be 30 pounds lighter, but that might not be your set point weight. Often people feel very discouraged or defensive that I'm basically telling them that they are quote unquote stuck, living in a body that they're not comfortable in. So the question that often becomes, and I get this a lot, can you purposefully change your set point weight? What are your thoughts?

• 11:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, that is such a great question. And I just want to hold so much space for anyone who is in that boat of the person you described where they want to lose a certain amount of weight, but maybe they know that that's just not realistic for them. It's not their set point weight. I feel like that can be such a hard place to be. And there's definitely grief that comes there when we get to this place where we accept that some of our body size is completely out of our control and that can be a lot to accept. So holding space for the person who feels that way. Can we change our set point weight? That is a really great question. I think that it's important to look at what your lived experience with controlling your weight has shown you. I think the research can tell us all of this stuff, right? Research is powerful, but what is the most powerful tool that I see is looking at your

• 12:03Speaker 00

  lived experience with trying to control your body size. So, look at, you know, how many years have you been trying to do this? Has it been since you were a child, since you were a teenager? And maybe, maybe you've been able to lose weight for a year, or a few years, or a few months, but has it been long-term? And by long-term, I mean like five, 10, 15 years. We really want to look at all of the years out. And so, when we do that, we can really see like, what has my past shown me in terms of controlling my body size? So, that can help you arrive, I think, at an answer for yourself. So, I think, you know, a lot of our body size, I do believe, is outside of our control.

• 12:42Speaker 00

  But with that being said, I think it's important that I acknowledge that I think most people, or many people, are not at their set point weight. So, I believe this because we arrive to our set point weight when we're eating in a way that is attuned to our body. So, when we're in touch with our body cues like hunger, our fullness cues, we're engaging in health promoting behavior changes, movement that feels good to us. So, when we're attuned to our body and doing all of these things, it supports our body in being at its set point weight. But, as we know in the world we live in with diet culture around us, so many of us are dieting, whether it's an official diet, like a Weight Watchers or a Jenny Craig, I know

• 13:25Speaker 00

  that's not as popular these days, but it's something that a lot of people resonate with because they grew up maybe going to Weight Watchers with their mom, or watching a family member do that. So, we have all of these diets. We even have what people define as sensible calorie deficits, or sensible macro plans. And people have told me what their sensible calorie deficit and macro plans were, and they were not sensible at all. When I look at them as a dietitian, I'm like, this was way too restrictive. So, people are doing all of these different types of diets. They're either over exercising or not exercising at all because diet culture can have all of these different impacts on us with exercise. Sometimes it can make us feel like we can never take a break. We can't rest. We always have to be doing more. Like that

• 14:04Speaker 00

  was my case back when I was in college doing so much exercise. And then on the other hand, sometimes it can lead to this resistance where we're just not even moving at all because we've been burned by it. Maybe we've had trainers who just only made our workouts about weight loss. Maybe we've gone to the gym and we didn't feel like we were welcome there because of our body size. So even though we want to work out, we're not working out. And all this to say, there are a lot of reasons why we're not attuned to our body, why we're not engaging in movement that feels good to us, why we're not eating according to our hunger and fullness cues. And so because of that, many of us are just not at our set point weight. And on top of that, you know, gosh, because I talk so much about

• 14:48Speaker 00

  the harms of dieting, one of the risks we take on when we diet is weight cycling. So that's the losing and gaining weight over and over and over again. So this is something that many dieters can resonate with. And I say this in a very like loving way because I think it's important to know what can happen when we weight cycle. And I don't say this to say that weight gain is bad because it's not. And I don't love focusing on weight. But the reality is when we weight cycle and lose and gain over and over again, we actually are more likely to gain weight over time.

• 15:22Abbey Sharp?

  Uh huh.

• 15:23Speaker 00

  So our bodies are more likely to get bigger over time. So when you factor all of that in, so many of us are not at our set point weight.

• 15:30Abbey Sharp?

  Yeah. And you know, I think one thing that gets people confused also is that, you know, your set point weight in your teens is not going to be your set point weight in your 40s. We think it's the, you know, well, when I was 18, I weighed 120 pounds. Like, why don't I now weigh 120 pounds? That must be my set point weight. So in that way, it obviously feels like it can change and therefore like you should be able to go back to your teenage weight. But the circumstances of our body is always in flux. It's always changing. And that size and shape that was right for us fresh out of puberty is not likely going to be the size and shape that is right for our body in middle age after it has gone through all of these different seasons of life.

• 16:27Abbey Sharp?

  And so I'm not sure where you stand on this, but one of the criticisms of kind of body acceptance and anti-diet approaches is from folks who feel very strongly that they're not restricting, they're not weight cycling, as you mentioned, they feel that they're eating in response to hunger and fullness, but their weight is consistently at a point where perhaps they are experiencing adverse health outcomes, or their doctor's saying, you've got to lose weight because your blood sugars are going up, or your blood pressure, blah, blah, blah. So this is a controversial question, perhaps, but is your set point weight always your healthiest weight? So in other words, do you believe your set point weight could be 400

• 17:08Abbey Sharp?

  pounds where perhaps your mobility is impaired, your blood sugars are impaired, or on the flip side, can your set point weight be when you're at a BMI of like 16.5? Is there a line here?

• 17:23Speaker 00

  So that's a really good question. Is our set point weight always our healthiest weight? As a dietitian and a certified intuitive eating counselor, what I like to do is try and take the focus off of weight. And I know that's so hard to do in our world that we live in, because we've been taught that weight equals health for so long. It's in our healthcare systems, we see it on TV, we see it in media, we see it at the gym, we see it, it's baked into like our insurance plans. You know, here in the United States, we were able to get more healthcare if we, if our BMI like falls in a certain threshold. So there's so much that's tied into the weight and health narrative that it makes sense for us to believe

• 18:05Speaker 00

  that weight equals health and that we should be able to just say, okay, well, can my set point weight always be healthy? Or is there a point where our set point weight isn't healthy? So what I like to do is instead of focusing on weight, focus on anything else that could be an indicator of health, which I know is really challenging for a lot of people to do. And it's a complete paradigm shift. But can we look at labs? You know, can we look at how our body is actually functioning? So when I, let's see, I love to give this example. I've had plantar fasciitis for years. I got it probably in 2020 is when it started to get pretty bad. And when I would go out and tell people that I had plantar fasciitis, so many people would be really confused.

• 18:48Speaker 00

  Because they're like, well, I thought you only got that if you were bigger, right? Like, that's what they would say. So that doesn't make sense that you have it. And I've talked to a lot of people throughout the course of me doing the work I do as a dietitian, who have had plantar fasciitis and who do live in bigger bodies. And there's so much self-blame for them, blame that it's all their fault, that it's because of their body size, that if they just lost weight, this pain would go away. And what I can say as someone in a straight-sized body, who has always lived in a straight-sized body, plantar fasciitis is a horrible pain. It's terrible. But you know what didn't happen to me? I went to PT, I saw doctors. I was never told to lose weight, ever.

• 19:28Speaker 00

  I was given real actionable help and advice to improve my pain and help me be able to move more freely. And so I think about that example a lot when people ask like, well, can someone's set point weight not be healthy? Well, how do we, how do we ever know for sure that weight is causing adverse health outcomes? Yes, we have associations, but associations doesn't mean that one thing causes the other. And this isn't to say that weight could have nothing to do with it. I don't want to dismiss that at all, and I know that so many people do truly believe that their weight has a real impact on their health. And it's quite possible that maybe it does.

• 20:11Speaker 00

  Like, I can't say for sure that it doesn't for every single person. But what I can say for sure is that there are so many ways we can improve our health without looking at and without focusing on weight.

• 20:27Abbey Sharp?

  Yeah, I think that's really powerful. You know, focusing on the behaviors and seeing the weight, whatever it does, as kind of the side effect of when, you know, you're making more health-promoting behaviors. And I think, I don't know the answer to the question that I asked. I don't think there's any good research that makes, you know, necessarily, because this is so individualized, it would probably be all case studies. But, you know, my thinking is that, yes, it's possible for someone who is classified as obese or underweight to be their current set point weight. Because we know that 10 to 30% of people in the obese or overweight category are metabolically healthy.

• 21:07Abbey Sharp?

  And that, you know, probably in a lot of these cases, there's just been different biological and physiological and environmental influences that may have shifted the body's defended weight range over time. So, so I think that's, you really just hit it. We do need to kind of focus on the health parameters and the experience of, okay, am I restricting? Am I binging because I'm restricting? Am I emotionally eating? What is the behavior? Rather than what does the weight say? And the rest kind of falls into place. But naturally, this kind of leads me to ask a question about GLP-1, so things like Ozempic. And, you

• 21:50Abbey Sharp?

  know, as an intuitive eating dietitian, you work with people who try to, you know, are rejecting diet culture. What are your thoughts on GLP-1s and all of this? Especially for folks, because this is what I hear from a lot of folks that say, I'm not restricting, I'm not weight cycling, I'm not, you know, I'm listening to my hunger and fullness cues, but I'm dealing with such persistent food noise that it's driving my weight up over time. What are your thoughts?

• 22:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I mean, the food noise piece, it's a lot. And that's the one thing that I do appreciate about this GLP-1 era. I do have concerns naturally, but the one thing that I think it does get right is that we now have a greater understanding of how difficult it is to live with food noise. And this is something that us dietitians have talked about for years. It wasn't coined with the same term. I would call it obsessed with food, thinking about food, preoccupied with food. I've seen this for years and years and years. But now, we have this greater understanding that it's all-consuming, it's all-encompassing, it is a huge, massive distraction from your life. And when you don't have food

• 23:00Speaker 00

  noise, or you don't have the level of food noise that you used to have, like, it is just truly amazing. So I really appreciate that. And I think that

• 23:11Speaker 00

  I think that it's such a complex question to ask, like, what do I think about GLP-1s in this whole conversation? And again, I don't love to focus on weight. I think, I wonder if someone doesn't have a history of dieting and they are not really weight cycling, they're in touch with their body cues, but they have so much food noise. It makes me think, is there like a medical, is there something medically going on that is impacting this food noise? Because we know that for people with PCOS, for example, biologically, they have these really intense carb cravings, way more than the average person would. And that is a very real thing. And medication can help so much.

• 23:54Speaker 00

  So, my mind, when you say that to me, I don't necessarily focus on the weight so much. And I'm not saying weight's not important, because I do think that drastic changes in weight in a short amount of time should always be flagged as something, no matter what. Right? In either direction, if it's happening really quickly over a short period of time, it probably warrants some investigation. But with the scenario you gave me, I'm not like, I don't know what's happened to the weight, I don't know how quickly it's been gained. So that's not, that's not so much of a red flag to me, as opposed to thinking, okay, well, if they're having food noise without this dieting, and while they're, you know, eating intuitively, maybe there's something medically going on.

• 24:36Speaker 00

  And my mind just, boom, it goes to PCOS and insulin resistance. And I think in that instance, GLP-1s, we're learning they can be really, really helpful in managing some medical conditions. I tend to focus and talk about them a little bit more in the context of weight loss and kind of where we are there with them. But I think from a managing medical condition standpoint, like, they can be, there's definitely a time and place for them.

• 25:06Abbey Sharp?

  Yeah, that that's how I feel too. Obviously, there's huge risk of them being abused and misused. But I I do feel that for folks who have struggled with food noise their entire life, this is life changing. You know, if they are able to, and I've I've I've heard this from a lot of folks who have started these medications that finally they their world is opened up, their brain is opened up. Because they're not just constantly thinking about food all day. When are they gonna get it? How are they gonna get it? What are they gonna eat? And that opens up the up their opportunities to engage in other acts of self-care and other health promoting behaviors. Because their mind is just less distracted by this noise.

• 25:48Abbey Sharp?

  And so, you know, I don't think we have good data on this, or or really any way to be able to identify, you know, on mass, uh, how this is, how this is gonna play out for set point weight. But in many ways, I do feel that if we remove the food noise piece from people, that it may help people get closer to where their body, you know, just biologically would want to be if we did not have the brain kind of hijacking those those cues in some way, where they actually can hear their hunger and fullness cues from a more, you know, natural place. And just less consuming. And so, again, opening up those opportunities for you to be able to

• 26:33Abbey Sharp?

  eat more intuitively in the sense of, you know, listening to the way that food makes you feel when you're not so frantic in your head. I just have to eat now. I'm just, I need to eat that, and I need to eat now, and I need to eat later. And, you know, I think that there will be some data to come out that will show some of the some benefits, especially for for folks in that category. But it's, yeah, it's it's always evolving science, so it's exciting.

• 26:59Speaker 00

  Yeah. Can I can I add something else to that, though? You know, a concern I have, though, with the GLP-1s is, because when we're talking about in the context of Set point weight. We know that there's a risk of us becoming malnourished to an extent. Because our hunger and fullness cues are changed so much on a GLP-1. And what we're learning is that people are losing lean muscle mass. And people are suffering from some side effects that we see with malnutrition. And so my concern there in the context of set point weight is if the GLP-1 is really altering your eating habits that much, then there is the possibility,

• 27:42Speaker 00

  if you're under eating, that your set point weight goes below what it actually is.

• 27:46Abbey Sharp?

  Oh, yeah, there absolutely will likely at some point in the journey be an overcorrection. And so getting that right, I don't think we're there yet. The dosing is not precise enough yet. I think we'll get there because you're right. And I've done a whole episode on GLP-1s and there is huge, huge risk of malnutrition, which is I know very, very hard for people to wrap their mind around when they feel like, well, no, I've been in a larger body my whole life. How could I possibly be malnourished? But you're right, when the appetite is suppressed to such an extreme level, getting in the nutrition that you need, especially protein.

• 28:28Abbey Sharp?

  You know, I know where everyone's kind of like, oh, yeah, protein again. We're talking about protein. But like in the context of a GLP-1, protein piece is so incredibly important to prevent that lean muscle mass loss. And so, yeah, I think that that is what a lot of practitioners are grappling with and seeing people, they're just not getting the nutrition that they need. And so one of the things I always say when I'm talking about GLP-1s is that every bite matters. And so, you know, people think, oh, I'll just go on this GLP-1 and I can just like. Eat a few bites, but I'll be able to eat whatever I want. No, no ma'am. You, you actually have to pay more attention to your nutrition. So it's not like nutrition goes out the gates.

• 29:13Abbey Sharp?

  It's actually more important, you're going to have to listen to what, how foods make you feel, how, you know, your energy levels from meals, how you feel when you are skipping a meal as opposed to having more frequent, smaller meals. All of those things are so important in the success of a GLP-1 when it comes to long-term health. And, and I think we, we need greater education on that because right now I think unfortunately, social media has painted this as just like a quick fix. And it's certainly, certainly not that. So.

• 29:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, I could not agree with you more.

• 30:00Abbey Sharp?

  And my last question for you, we kind of touched on this at the beginning of the show. But again, you are intuitive eating dietitian and I'm sure you get so many people coming to you saying, I want to eat intuitively, but I also want to lose weight. Can you do both?

• 30:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, great question. And usually when people are coming to me with that question, I've said something about intuitive eating, or they have heard something about intuitive eating that they want. So like both of these things are true. They want to lose weight and they want intuitive eating. So I don't necessarily think that that desire to lose weight has to be completely gone if you pursue intuitive eating. If you're really getting down into the nuts and bolts of intuitive eating and you look at the framework as it was designed, it is not designed to be used as a weight loss tool. So if we're really getting technical about it, like that's how intuitive eating is. I did not create the, the framework. The amazing dietitians did. And so intuitive eating, it's all about that building body attunement piece

• 31:01Speaker 00

  and getting rid of obstacles that get in the way of that. And for a lot of people, the scale and being aware of their body size and always trying to lose weight is one obstacle that gets in the way of that. With that being said, I know it's really hard to leave that desire, like be like, oh, forget about it. I'm never going to think about losing weight again. So I would just say, you know, you don't have to have all of the answers when you move forward. We have no idea what's going to happen to your body. And I know that that can be something that's so terrifying. And it's terrifying to try and pursue something where no one will guarantee a body outcome. Because as you know, any other nutrition eating program you decide to do, there's a promise.

• 31:46Speaker 00

  You know, in 30 days, you're going to lose weight or in seven days or in three months. And we're going to track your weights and we're going to track your body composition. And we're going to see objectively, all of these changes and what's happening to your body. So to do something else that is radically different, that doesn't promise, hey, if you do this, your body is going to change and it's going to change in this time period. Like that is honestly, it probably seems insane. So I really want to hold space for that. But even though we can't guarantee what can happen to your body, this is what I always like to say. What I can guarantee that intuitive eating can help you do is get more in touch with your body.

• 32:29Speaker 00

  So build body attunement with your hunger and your fullness cues. Learn to eat in a way that feels pleasant to you. So getting more in touch with how different foods actually make you feel. Like what foods leave you feeling well, what foods don't leave you feeling well. It can help you make peace with food so that you can coexist with a ton of different foods without feeling like you need to restrict, without feeling guilty, without feeling out of control. It can help you find more consistency with your eating so that you're not oscillating between these extremes of restricting to out of control eating. And it can ultimately help you discover like how to take care of yourself in a whole new way with eating.

• 33:11Speaker 00

  Like when you think about food, it's wild that we like, I know we prioritize eating because everybody talks about food in a different way. But when you really think about it, it's like, we eat. Multiple times a day, like three, at least hopefully three meals a day, snacks a day, every, every single day of our life. It's like what we have to do to live. And so intuitive eating helps you be able to learn how to do this in a way that serves you in this like amazing, beautiful way. So while I don't have the answers and I can't guarantee what will happen to your body, it's okay to pursue something without that answer. Like you don't have to know everything because with dieting, like we're given all these

• 33:54Speaker 00

  false promises, even though it probably has felt good to do a diet program that says, "Hey, do this and I'm going to promise that you'll lose this weight." Like that's a false promise if it wasn't something that you could sustain for your life, right? And so it's, it's hard to let that go, but the reality is we were never given real control. So we never had that control with food and intuitive eating offers this additional, beautiful way. I know that's a long-winded answer and it doesn't clearly say yes or no, but that's how I would approach it.

• 34:24Abbey Sharp?

  Yeah, no, a hundred percent. That's how I approach it too. And you know, I've come a long way and, and just kind of like my own experience with intuitive eating and my own appreciation for other people's experience with intuitive eating and what they want to get out of it. And, and I think it's also important to point out that we do have like gentle nutrition baked into the, into the framework. So it's not just like, like we, we were doing the myths at the top of the show. It's not just like, oh yeah, like when you're eating intuitively, I'm just going to eat bonbons all day. That's what usually what people say to me. You might at the, at the, at the start, if that's, you know, if you've been restricting those things. But ultimately it's a framework that does

• 35:05Abbey Sharp?

  encourage you to work gentle nutrition into your day with balanced eating. So that's what, because ultimately that's what's going to make you feel good. It doesn't feel good to be kind of oscillating so quickly between starving and, and so full that you've got to unbuckle your, your pants. So finding those foods that actually fuel our body, give us good energy, help with our digestion, regularity, you know, help us through the day. So we're not constantly thinking about food because we're hungry. That is all kind of part of the program. And you know, like you said, like for some people, especially if they're not attuned to their hunger and fullness cues, and they're just kind of eating chaotically, then this can,

• 35:47Abbey Sharp?

  in some cases, help folks find a healthier weight for themselves.

• 35:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:52Abbey Sharp?

  Again, anything can happen, and it really comes down to your starting point and where you're coming from. But I think the important piece, if you are kind of doing the intuitive eating model in its entirety, is to know that it's not a diet. If you're not ready to commit to all 10 principles of the framework, I think that, you know, choosing the ones that resonate with you, at least to start, is always a great place to start. So that's not so scary to jump all the way in. You can dip your toes in, you know, start by, you know, rejecting the food police, or listening to your hunger and fullness cues, and trying to incorporate some gentle nutrition or mindful movement into your day. It doesn't

• 36:35Abbey Sharp?

  have to feel like this overwhelming task of moving through each thing perfectly, because it's not ever going to be perfect, our appreciation or experience of doing these kinds of things. So yeah, I really appreciate the work that you do, Bonnie. And I'm absolutely going to be leaving your website and your podcast in the show notes below. You've got tons of great content there, one-on-one support, amazing tips, amazing content. So thank you so much, Bonnie, for joining us.

• 37:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, thank you so much for having me today, Abbey.

• 37:08Abbey Sharp?

  Ah, that was so amazing. Such a huge amount of useful food for thought in this conversation, especially for me, as I, you know, really was forced to think through a variety of different perspectives on these emotionally charged questions and experiences. And one thing I've learned as a dietitian, listening to people's struggles with their body and food, is that when they start to heal from chronic dieting, and their weight is allowed to return to its natural set point, especially if it is higher than what they maybe wanted their whole life, it can often Trigger emotions like grief, fear, identity confusion, and internalized shame.

• 37:53Abbey Sharp?

  And while I will never be able to convince anyone not to feel all the feelings, and of course, not to want a body that is more socially celebrated, especially as someone like myself who is living within privilege, I did want to offer some compassionate tips if you've decided that giving up on chronic dieting is worth living at a higher natural weight. The first step, I think, is to acknowledge your own grief without judgment. Wanting to be thin or feeling sad that you don't fit into your pants from like five years ago doesn't make you vain or weak. It is really just part of being a woman, living and breathing in this diet culture.

• 38:39Abbey Sharp?

  Remind yourself that it's okay to miss the body that maybe you once had, while also rejecting the way that you may have been treating it to try to get it to go back. It's also important to recognize that weight gain after restriction isn't a failure. It's your body's way of trying its damn hardest to repair, stabilize, and keep you safe. Seeing your body not as an enemy, but as a protector, can really help us feel some gratitude when we're feeling disappointed by the hand that we were dealt. Finally, celebrate what this new post-diet chapter will make possible.

• 39:20Abbey Sharp?

  Think of all the mental, social, and emotional gains that freeing your mind of constant food noise makes available to you. So while your body may get bigger, so too does your entire life. And we are so much more than our body shape and weight. So I hope something in today's episode resonated with you as it did for me. And a big thank you again to Bonnie for contributing to that and helping me fight back against diet culture. Again, if you enjoyed this episode, I would love if you would leave me a comment, a little five-star review, and share this and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

• 40:04Abbey Sharp?

  Signing off with Science and SaaS, I'm Abbey Sharp. Thanks for listening.

• 40:21Speaker 02

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