Professional Blogs
PRO Series: Success Stories from Non-Diet Practitioners-S2 EP4
In the Non-Diet Mentorship, we change lives. Your life as a coach and the life of your future clients. We do it with ease, less time, and greater impact.
We get success for our students and their clients.
Let’s go behind the scenes of that success.
Let’s hear from the current students of the Non-Diet Mentorship Program.
We recorded a live session for this podcast just for you based on your questions:
- Did you feel scared before investing in your business?
- How did you overcome your fears of joining the program?
- Can you share your wins doing this program?
- Will the mentorship program help me structure my method of working with clients?
- I feel like a fraud…I can’t launch my BIZ until I’m perfect in my intuitive eating and body image?
- How do I figure my ideal client and how do I speak to them
- How do I use my communication to get more clients?
- I have a tendency to make things complicated… how do I resist it?
- If the clients don’t reach their goals, what does it mean about me as a coach?
- How do I make money as a non-diet coach?
- How to dismantle DC in wellness coaching?
Get in touch with our guests
Unyime
Kim
Lindsay
Chanelle
Amber
Mentioned in the show
Webinar & Steps to Build A Profitable Non-Diet Business
PRO Series: Being A Confident Non-Diet Coach – S2 EP3
“I’m doubting my ability as a coach…How can I increase my confidence as a coach?”
A very frequent error health coaches make is to get more certification in order to be more confident in their coaching skills.
A new certification will not give you confidence.
Being A Confident Non-Diet Coach
Confidence is an emotion. Confidence is a feeling.
Coaching confidence is a feeling of trust in your ability to coach your client.
When you feel confident about your coaching abilities, you typically are more successful. Successful in your client results and successful in making money in your business.
How does a coach increase the feeling of confidence in her coaching skills?
That is what we will answer in this podcast episode.
What you’ll learn listening to this episode on being a confident non-diet coach:
- The big mistake I made in feeling confident as a coach when I first started
- How to increase your confidence level in your practice
- The framework that will help you nurture your confidence
- 6 rapid-fire coaching tips to increase your confidence as a non-diet coach.
Mentioned in the show:
Beyond The Food PRO Mentorship Program
Anti-Diet Training for Health Coaches
One of the frequent questions from health coaches who encounter my work in the non-diet approach for the first time is this:
How do I make money as a non-diet coach?
I get it. I had the same question 6 years ago when I first came to the world of anti-diet health coaching. If we don’t tell people what to eat, when to eat, and how to eat, what will they pay us for? Right?
Clients seeking services from a non-diet health coach have a lot they are willing to pay for: primarily ending their struggle with food and body. Helping them relearning to eat following their own eating cues instead of a “health coach” looking over their shoulder lol! Undoing all the body-shaming that “weight loss coaches” have created within them, being able to trust their own choices when it comes to health, undoing the critical mean girl voices in their head, etc…
The list could go on, but simply: undoing the work of diet culture. That’s how you make money as a non-diet health coach. If you have been through the process of unlearning diet culture yourself, you’ll know exactly what I mean. If you haven’t yet, it’s normal you don’t get it and this is the first place you need to start: doing the work of unlearning diet culture yourself.
Anti-diet training for health coaches
Starting an anti-diet coaching business
What I wish I knew before starting my non-diet health coaching business
The anti-diet approach mentorship program
Anti-diet training for health coaches
The process of becoming an anti-diet health coach starts with your own healing from years of restrictions, cleanses, detoxing, overthinking, shame and guilt. We have plenty of resources on anti-diet training for health coaches to help you take this first step along with professional training.
We have created a number of free non-diet approach training resources to help you begin learning more about this revolutionary health approach. Join my non-diet professional community by requesting our non-diet professional starter pack.
I would suggest you also subscribe to anti-diet podcast .
Starting an anti-diet coaching business
Starting an anti-diet coaching business (also referred to by some as an intuitive eating business is simple. It is the same as starting any other business: You create a product, in the anti-diet health coaching business this would be a coaching package, and you go out into the world and sell this product.
As soon as you start working with clients, you will know just how powerful your product truly is. Research is clear about the benefits of health coaching: Significant improvements in one or more of the health-promoting behaviors when interacting with a health coach. You will see the changes in your clients quickly and your confidence in your business will grow rapidly.
My anti-diet business journey
My first business in the world of health coaching was actually a nutrition clinic in Toronto Canada. Five years ago, I transitioned my health coaching business to the non-diet model and I shared the details of my business transition to the anti-diet model in season 1 of the Pro’s podcast series.
I’d like to give you an inside view into my anti-diet health coaching business more precisely what I wish I knew before starting my anti-diet health coaching business.
As I say in every episode of the Going Beyond The Food podcast: Ready? Let’s do this!
By the way, if you would like to access more details, hear my personal story that created each one of these learning head over to our podcast and listen to Season 2 Episode 2 – My Non-diet business journey episode or listen directly below:
What I wish I knew before starting my non-diet health coaching business
- It’s about helping others, not turning a profit. Profit will come naturally as you help others and live your life in your zone of genius.
- You can make a great living as an anti-diet health coach in a career helping others deeply despite what anyone says.
- 6 P’s: Proper Planning Prevent Piss Poor Performance. You need to be strategic about your business and organize yourself. What you should do is not always what you wish you could do.
- Learn how to coach people. Coaching is not – this is how I did it so that’s the way. What worked for me is not what will work for my client. Coaching is a skill.
- Create goals and apply consistent action. Show up consistently day in and day out in your business. Take one action at bare minimum daily.
- Asking for help is ok. Your client asked for you, so should you.
- Use technology so you can maximize your time being a coach. Technology can help, but don’t forget that health coaching is about the people.
- Trying to be everything to everyone is a straight road to failure. Pick a niche and become the world expert at it.
- Growing a business is not linear. There will be more downs than ups. Successful businesses don’t happen overnight. It takes time.
- Be unapologetically YOU. Don’t copy what other non-diet coaches are doing. Your clients want to work with you.
The anti-diet approach certification program
The Non-Diet Coaching Certification is a space where you can receive support guidance to become the best non-diet professional. It’s a program geared to refine your non-diet professional skills set and teach you the skills you need to build a successful business that can impact thousands of women. It will help you develop as a powerful leader and help other women come back to their power. You will learn how to harness your ability to support and help other women. As a result, you can impact thousands of other women and dismantle diet culture.
Anti-diet training for health coaches
We have created a number of free non-diet approach training resources to help you begin learning more about this revolutionary health approach. Join my non-diet professional community by requesting our non-diet professional starter pack.
I would suggest you also subscribe to anti-diet podcast and start with episode 199 and follow through up to the latest one.
Starting an anti-diet coaching business
Starting an anti-diet coaching business (also referred to by some as an intuitive eating business) is simple. It is the same as starting any other business: You create a product, in the anti-diet health coaching business this would be a coaching package, and you go out into the world and sell this product.
My anti-diet business journey
My first business in the world of health coaching was actually a nutrition clinic in Toronto Canada. Five years ago, I transitioned my health coaching business to the non-diet model and I shared the details of my business transition to the anti-diet model in season 1 of the Pro’s podcast series.
What I wish I knew before starting my non-diet health coaching business
1. It’s about helping others, not turning a profit.
2. You can make a great living as an anti-diet health coach.
3. 6 P’s: Proper Planning Prevent Piss Poor Performance.
4. Learn how to coach people.
5. Create goals and apply consistent action.
6. Asking for help is ok.
7. Use technology so you can maximize your time being a coach.
8. Trying to be everything to everyone is a straight road to failure.
9. Growing a business is not linear.
10. Be unapologetically YOU.
Ready to take the next steps
The anti-diet approach mentorship program
You can access all of our services on our work with us page. We have a number of programs and service levels enabling us to serve most women:
Free Resources and Masterclasses: Get started and get to know us better!
Private coaching with Stephanie and her team Stephanie and her team of Certified Non-Diet Coaches are waiting to support you in a one-to-one setting with an individualized plan.
Undiet Your Life group coaching program is for women to learn how to eat intuitively, become body neutral, and learn self-coaching at their own pace while being supported in a group setting by Stephanie and her team of Certified Non-Diet Coaches.
Non-Diet Coaching Certification for professionals ready to integrate the Going Beyond The Food Method™️ in their practice and for women wanting to become Certified Coach and build a business coaching other women beyond the food.
Good Money Business Mastermind A business mentorship and a collective of ambitious, driven and empowered anti-diet culture providers and coaches on a mission to dismantle diet culture and make GOOD money doing it!
PRO Series: My Anti-diet Business Journey – S2 EP2
One of the frequent questions from health coaches who encounter my work in the non-diet approach for the first time is this:
How do I make money as a non-diet coach?
I get it. I had the same question 6 years ago when I first came to the world of anti-diet health coaching. If we don’t tell people what to eat when to eat and how to eat, what will they pay us for? Right?
To help answer this question, I’d like to give you an inside view into my anti-diet health coaching business more precisely what I wish I knew before starting my anti-diet health coaching business.
In today’s episode, I’m going to share with you what I wish I knew before starting my anti-diet health coaching business.
What you’ll learn listening to this episode about my anti-diet business journey:
- How I started my non-diet business
- What I wished I knew before starting my non-diet business
- My top 10 lessons over the last 6 years
- My biggest learning in this non-diet health coaching business
Mentioned in the show:
Beyond The Food PRO Mentorship Program
Non-Diet Approach for Health Coaching
When I first started in my nutrition practice the term “non-diet approach” didn’t even cross my mind. “Anti-diet approach” didn’t even exist. Unbeknown to me, I was practicing the “diet approach to nutrition” simply because that’s what was taught in health & nutrition school.
Fast forward close to 10 years now, a lot have changed. The non-diet approach is growing rapidly, so has the anti-diet approach and intuitive eating is booming.
So, let’s discover what is the non-diet approach.
Core values of the non-diet approach
The pillars of the non-diet approach
Non-diet approach training for professionals
What is the non-diet approach?
The non-diet approach to health coaching & nutrition is the exact opposite of dieting. It recognizes that food, eating and body weight aren’t the problem to be fixed. It’s a weight-neutral approach to health instead of focusing on a weight-oriented outcome. This approach focused on all the other factors that can impact one’s health beyond body weight. In other words, the ultimate goal is to support the patients to become their own experts at their bodies.
The Going Beyond The Food Method™️ is our proprietary methodology that helps women to recover from diet culture and learn the non-diet way of life. Firstly, our 4 pillars are Body Wisdom, Body Trust, Body Respect, and Body Neutrality. Secondly, our framework is composed of 5 steps process: Intuitive eating, Body Neutrality, Self-Coaching, Emotional Intelligence, and Mindfulness.
Core values of the non-diet approach
The non-diet approach to health coaching and nutrition holds key core values: Fundamentally, it recognizes that diets do not work. It’s holistic in nature. It is focused on the Why not the What, it’s focused on finding solution that are based on love and compassion. Moreover, it believes that all humans and bodies are worthy.
Diets don’t work
A 2016 study by researchers at UCLA studied 40,420 adult participants in the most recent U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Researchers looked at the participants’ health as measured by six accepted metrics (not including BMI). These metrics are blood pressure, cholesterol, triglyceride, glucose, insulin resistance, and C-reactive protein.
The study found that 47% of people classified as overweight by BMI and 29% of those qualified as obese were healthy based on at least five of those other metrics.
Meanwhile, 31% of normal-weight people were unhealthy by two or more of the same measures.
A number of research studies show that weight loss is not necessary to improve physical health. Studies have also found that fitness is more predictive for mortality than weight. This study defined ‘fit’ as 3-4 hrs per week of walking.
Note: “Fit” is not synonymous with “thin” or “lean.” That’s Diet Culture. Being fit means being in good health, especially because of regular physical movement.
Furthermore, trying to change your health status simply by losing weight has not only proven to be an ineffective approach but also carries potential negative side effects to your health. The focus on intentional weight loss via dieting can be harmful. Multiple studies demonstrate negative side effects of dieting behaviors. The three most documented negative effects are weight cycling, disordered eating, and weight stigma.
The non-diet approach for health coaching is holistic
The World Health Organization defines health as “a complete state of physical, emotional, and social well-being, not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” The non-diet approach is a weight-neutral approach to health is based on the idea that your health status or risk level can’t be determined solely by your weight.
Instead it recognized that humans are more than a physical body: mental, emotional, spiritual and physical human bodies.
Its focus is on the WHY instead of the WHAT
The non-diet approach looks at the root cause of the behaviors. For example, when considering nutrition it considers why the individual is eating instead what the individual is eating. What we eat, how we eat and when we eat come second to why we eat.
Compassion versus fear-based threat
The non-diet approach will help the client switch his approach to health behavior to one of compassion for self. It will help form a relationship of respect towards one’s body helping the client to make choice based in love for body and self instead of fear (fear of disease, fear of weight gain, fear of other people opinion, etc…)
All humans are worthy; All bodies are worthy
The non-diet approach is grounded in the fact that all humans are worthy therefore all bodies are worthy. The non-diet recognizes the danger to one’s health when face with any stigma, discrimination or prejudice.
Therefore, the non-diet approach must be anti-discriminatory: anti-fatphobia, anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-transphobia, anti-classist, non-binary, etc.
The pillars of the non-diet approach for health coaching
When practicing the non-diet approach to health and nutrition with clients, practitioners must follow a sequential order in their approach. Although adaptable in nature, some fundamental pillars must be in place
1. Investigation of belief and history
The first step is for the practitioner to have a clear understanding of the current state of their clients/ patients relationship to food and body. A number of assessments are available: Intuitive eating assessment, Body Acceptance Assessment and Dieting Impact Inventory.
Next, the practitioner will help the client understand how they go to be where they are right now using a dieting timeline. It’s very important for the patient to understand that it’s not their fault but instead diet culture.
2. Mindset & Unlearning Diet Culture
The next phase of the non-diet approach is the most important: unlearning. Unlearning the diet mindset, dogmatic beliefs about food and exercise, the thin ideal, etc..
When we trained professional inThe Going Beyond The Food Method™ our practitioners are trained in a Cognitive Behavior Therapy approach called Self-Coaching. This will be the tool they will teach their client to help them unlearn Diet Culture.
3. Attunement & Reconnecting
As the client progress in unlearning diet culture the next steps will be to help patient to reconnect with their body via body sensation. Using various mindfulness approach our graduates of our non-diet certification have a number of tools available to them to teach their client attuned with their body.
The first set of sensations we focus on with the clients are eating cues: hunger, fullness and satisfaction. Gradually, clients will be able to trust their own ability to read and interpret their innate body sensations.
4. Emotional Intelligence & Processing
As the client gets more attuned to her own innate body wisdom, the focus will shift to building skills set to process emotions & feelings. One of the most effective tools for this step is deconstruction of the eating behavior using two questions: What am I feeling? and What do I need?
The outcome of these pillars is to build emotional intelligence and shift the individual engagement with their emotions from Reacting to Responding.
5. Empowerment & Relearning
The non-diet approach is truly beyond the food and this next pillar is the reason behind this powerful transformative process.
To help build empowerment, the process of habituation will be use to help client regain power over fear foods. Gradually reclaiming their power at first with food and naturally expanding their empowerment to other part of their life using their inner wisdom.
6. Respect & Liberation
In this last step practitioner will support client in the process of rebuilding a relationship of respect with their own body. Engaging in body image healing using body neutrality and Health At Every Size approach to help build an inventory of health promoting behaviors.
At this point in the process client is also ready to re-engage with food using a gentle nutrition philosophy and with exercise using a joyful movement approach.
Non-diet approach training for professional
We have created a number of free non-diet approach training resources to help you begin learning more about this revolutionary health approach. Join my non-diet professional community by requesting our non-diet professional starter pack.
You can also listen to our non-diet podcast.
The non-diet approach mentorship program
The Going Beyond The Food non-diet approach mentorship program is a space where you can receive support guidance to become the best non-diet professional. It’s a program geared to refine your non-diet professional skills set and teach you the skills you need to build a successful business that can impact thousands of women. It will help you develop as a powerful leader and help other women come back to their power. You will learn how to harness your ability to support and help other women. As a result, you can impact thousands of other women and dismantle diet culture.
Non-Diet Approach FAQs
The non-diet approach to health & nutrition is the exact opposite of dieting. It recognizes that food, eating and body weight aren’t the problem to be fixed.
It’s a weight-neutral approach to health instead of focusing on a weight-oriented outcome. This approach focused on all the other factors that can impact one’s health beyond body weight. In other words, the ultimate goal is to support the patients to become their own experts at their bodies.
The non-diet approach to health and nutrition holds key core values: Fundamentally, it recognizes that diets do not work. It’s holistic in nature. It is focused on the Why not the What, it’s focused on finding solution that are based on love and compassion. Moreover, it believes that all humans and bodies are worthy.
1. Investigation of belief and history
2. Mindset & Unlearning Diet Culture
3. Attunement & Reconnecting
4. Emotional Intelligence & Processing
5. Empowerment & Relearning
6. Respect & Liberation
We have created a number of free non-diet approach training resources to help you begin learning more about this revolutionary health approach. Join my non-diet professional community by requesting our non-diet professional starter pack.
You can also listen to our non-diet podcast.
The Going Beyond The Food non-diet approach mentorship program is a space where you can receive support guidance to become the best non-diet professional. It’s a program geared to refine your non-diet professional skills set and teach you the skills you need to build a successful business that can impact thousands of women.
PRO Series: The Anatomy of the Non-Diet Approach- S2 EP1
When I first started in my nutrition practice the term “non-diet approach” didn’t even cross my mind. “Anti-diet approach” didn’t even exist. Unbeknown to me, I was practicing the “diet approach to nutrition” simply because that’s what was taught in health & nutrition school.
Fast forward close to 10 years now and a lot have changed. The non-diet approach is growing rapidly, so has the anti-diet approach and intuitive eating is booming.
So in this episode, we will deep dive into the non-diet approach anatomy. You’ll learn:
- What is the non-diet approach
- Core values of the non-diet approach
- The pillars of the non-diet approach
- Non-diet approach training for professional
- Non-Diet Mentorship Program
Mentioned in the show:
Beyond The Food PRO Mentorship Program
PRO Series – Free Training & resources
Non-Diet Business Training
Non-Diet Business Training is essential for any women health entrepreneurs starting their business adventure in the non-diet health approach.
Your business success means women’s learning how to ditch diet culture. Your willingness to accept that your business success means more lives transformed is key to your being successful in your professional journey.
In the same way you ask your client/patient to invest in themselves by working with you: are you investing in yourself to be successful in your business?
Non-Diet Business Training
In episode 2 of season 1 of the Pro series, we discovered why crafting a business strategy is so important to your overall business. Without the foundation of a strategy, there’s very little chance your business will grow and transform hundreds of women’s lives.
In today’s episode, we will discover the various business model available to you to create your business strategy. A business model is a framework for how you will create value. It answers fundamental questions about the problem you are going to solve, how you will solve it, and the growth opportunity within a given market.
What you’ll learn listening to this episode:
- What is a business model
- Why it’s important to have a business model
- Look behind the scene of my business model
- The one thing that most important to your business success
Mentioned in the show:
Mentorship Program
Free Intuitive Eating Guide
PRO Series – Free Training & Resources
PRO Podcast series – Full listing
PRO Series: Non-Diet Business Model- S1 EP8
Non-Diet Business Training is essential for any women health entrepreneurs starting their business adventure in the non-diet health approach.
Your business success means women’s learning how to ditch diet culture. Your willingness to accept that your business success means more lives transformed is key to your being successful in your professional journey.
In the same way, you ask your client/patient to invest in themselves by working with you: are you investing in yourself to be successful in your business?
Non-Diet Business Training
In episode 2 of season 1 of the Pro series, we discovered why crafting a business strategy is so important to your overall business. Without the foundation of a strategy, there’s very little chance your business will grow and transform hundreds of women’s lives.
In today’s episode, we will discover the various business model available to you to create your business strategy. A business model is a framework for how you will create value. It answers fundamental questions about the problem you are going to solve, how you will solve it and the growth opportunity within a given market.
What you’ll learn listening to this episode:
- What is a business model
- Why it’s important to have a business model
- Look behind the scene of my business model
- The one thing that most important to your business success
Mentioned in the show:
Mentorship Program
Free Intake Forms
PRO Series – Free Training & Resources
PRO Podcast series – Full listing
Our Anti-Racism Commitment
For most of my life, I have been one of those liberal inclusive feminists who believe that I wasn’t racist. I could have listed many reasons to demonstrate how I wasn’t racist. That’s until last weekend.
And then someone sent me this quote:
“In a racist society, it is not enough to be non-racist, we must be anti-racist.”
— Angela Davis
I was well verse in thin privilege but not for one minute did I thought about white privileges. That ignorance is what hurts black people.
I’m sorry. I am listening. I am learning.
To the black people in our community, you are in my heart and prayers but most importantly, my actions.
What am I doing?
I’m being a student: this is not my area of expertise so I found teachers. Just like a toddler taking her first step I’m trying, making mistakes, and learning. I stumble and stand up again.
I’m investigating how my white privilege is showing up… Neither I’m staying silent while I’m learning because our silence as a white people is complicit in perpetuating systemic racism. I’m speaking to my followers, students, clients, and YOU right here right now.
I am leading.
I’m committed to the work of anti-racism. As the CEO of Beyond The Food I’m committing this company to be anti-racist.
Here’s a few tools I’d like to share with you on anti-racism
1. I discovered this site that answered all of my questions and give me next steps . Anti-Racist Resources Center
2. I watched some movies and documentaries that were mind-blowing: 13th on Netflix, Selma on iTunes & Harriet on iTtunes.
3. I donate to The Loveland Foundation that supports access to therapy for black women and girls.
4. I want to share with you my favorite teacher, Rachel E. Cargle. Go watch her Public Address.
Business Transition to Non-Diet Model
The business transition from traditional model of nutrition and health to the non-diet model can be scary but also can be life-changing.
As with everything in life, how you approach the need for you to transition your business will make the journey scary, filled with anxiety and uncertainties OR you will make the journey pleasurable, filled with learnings and growth both personally and professionally.
I want you to take a moment and reflect upon your client and patient for a moment. When they come to you and you stand in front of them presenting Intuitive eating and the non-diet approach to health.
Does your client feel scared at the thought of not dieting? Hell yess…
Do they feel anxious about potentially gaining weight? Hell yess…
Are they uncomfortable with the uncertainty of not knowing what will happen? Hell yess…
Most of your clients will trust you and move forward following your guidance. Leaning into you for leadership. They will face their fears because the pain of staying into diet culture is greater than the one of facing their fears.
This episode is for all of you, Health PRO’s that know that making the transition to non-diet model is the right thing to do but are crippled with fear. I ask you to be as courageous as the people who daily face their fear and ditch diet culture, make peace with their body and overcome fatphobia.
Rachel’s story of transition
The best way for me to express the possibilities that are in front of you is not with teaching but instead with inspiration. The best way I know to inspire is with lived experience.
I’m welcoming a colleague, a good friend, and mentee, Rachel Molenda. Rachel will be sharing her lived experience as she transitioned her business over the last 12 months to the non-diet model.
What you’ll learn listening to this episode:
- Rachel’s origin story
- How her own relationship to food led her to this work.
- Rachel did a traditional model very successfully
- Rachel shared how she was trying to be someone else
- “I was living my life as a fiction” moment that changed everything
- The business transition step by step
- The transition culminates with the launch The BreakFree method
- Right now, Rachel is learning intuitive living
Connect with our guest
Rachel’s website
Rachel’s Instagram
Rachel’s Podcast
Break Free Method
Mentioned in the show:
Mentorship Program
Free Intake Forms
PRO Series – Free Training & Resources
PRO Podcast series – Full listing
PRO Series: Business Transition- S1 EP7
The business transition from the traditional model of nutrition and health to the non-diet model can be scary but also can be life-changing.
As with everything in life, how you approach the need for you to transition your business will make the journey scary, filled with anxiety and uncertainties OR you will make the journey pleasurable, filled with learnings and growth both personally and professionally.
I want you to take a moment and reflect upon your client and patient for a moment. When they come to you and you stand in front of them presenting Intuitive eating and the non-diet approach to health.
Does your client feel scared at the thought of not dieting? Hell yess…
Do they feel anxious about potentially gaining weight? Hell yess…
Are they uncomfortable with the uncertainty of not knowing what will happen? Hell yess…
Most of your clients will trust you and move forward following your guidance. Leaning into you for leadership. They will face their fears because the pain of staying into diet culture is greater than the one of facing their fears.
This episode is for all of you, Health PRO’s that know that making the transition to a non-diet model is the right thing to do but are crippled with fear. I ask you to be as courageous as the people who daily face their fear and ditch diet culture, make peace with their body, and overcome fatphobia.
Rachel’s story of transition
The best way for me to express the possibilities that are in front of you is not with teaching but instead with inspiration. The best way I know to inspire is with lived experience.
I’m welcoming a colleague, a good friend, and mentee, Rachel Molenda. Rachel will be sharing her lived experience as she transitioned her business over the last 12 months to the non-diet model.
What you’ll learn listening to this episode:
- Rachel’s origin story
- How her own relationship to food led her to this work.
- Rachel did a traditional model very successfully
- Rachel shared how she was trying to be someone else
- “I was living my life as a fiction” moment that changed everything
- The business transition step by step
- The transition culminates with the launch The BreakFree method
- Right now, Rachel is learning intuitive living
Connect with our guest
Rachel’s website
Rachel’s Instagram
Rachel’s Podcast
Break Free Method
Mentioned in the show:
Mentorship Program
Free Intake Forms
PRO Series – Free Training & Resources
PRO Podcast series – Full listing
Feminism and Diet Culture
Statistics may vary to the exact % but one thing is clear: most women are dissatisfied with their body.
Research released by Dove, for their ‘Self-Esteem Project’, found that 96% of women in the UK reported feeling anxious about the way they look, compared with 86% in China, 72% in Brazil, and 61% in the US. Only 4% of the women in all the countries surveyed would consider themselves ‘beautiful’, and by the time girls reach 17, 78% will be ‘unhappy with their bodies’.
Women don’t diet because they enjoy dieting. Women who diet do it because they think they have to. These women think they are their body, thus, their bodies’ ability to meet the diet culture expectations define their worth.
Helping women leave and recover from diet culture is a feminist issue.
Why a non-diet approach for women?
The intersection between diet culture & women history
Women socialization to diet culture
Women internalization of diet culture
Non-diet Approach for women Professional Training
Non-diet Approach for women mentorship
If you would like to listen to the article in audio format the Going Beyond The Food Show – Pro Series Season 1 Episode 6
Links mentioned in the episode…
feminism and diet culture
Why a non-diet approach for women?
When women first seek to stop dieting, they think they need to “fix” their “food issue”. After years of dieting they’ve been told in many different ways that the issue was them, not the food. That if they could eat “normally” they would finally achieve their “normal body”. Sounds familiar?
It’s normal that your future client thinks like this… that’s all they’ve ever known. They’ve spent their life wondering why they struggle with food and if they could only “fix what’s wrong with them and food,” life would unlock their dreams.
The truth is: they have no issues with food. In fact, as we discovered in S1 EP 1 Intuitive eating Mentorship – First do no harm for us, as practitioners, to validate their thoughts about food and them being the issue can cause more harm. The way they engage with food now is the result of the restriction of dieting. Dieting is the issue not food. But why do your clients diet? As we’ve learned in the last episode: fatphobia: the fear of fatness.
A weight-neutral approach to health
The non-diet approach helps clients stop dieting, make peace with food and body image. It’s a weight-neutral approach to health that helps people reconnect to their innate power and become their own expert at their bodies.
Although the non-diet approach is gender-neutral, I believe that a segment of the healing approach should address the specific forces pulling at each gender/ sex: Cis-women, Cis-men, Trans, Genderqueer, non-binary, etc… I believe that each gender should have non-diet professionals that understand the specificities and struggle for each group for the best care.
The Going Beyond The Food Method™️ is for people that identify as women. I created this methodology based on my experience as a cis-woman over the last 45 years. As a person in a women’s body who has been exposed to the force of patriarchy and its attempt to control me as a woman and my body.
feminism and diet culture
Feminism & diet culture
First, let’s take a step back and understand patriarchy. Patriarchy is a social system in which men hold primary power and predominate in roles of political leadership, moral authority, social privilege, and control of properties. Patriarchy views men as dominant and women as submissive.
One of the many ways in which patriarchy attempts to dominate women is by exerted forces that dictate how women handle their bodies: reproduction, sexuality, beauty, and yes, body size and shape.
Most recently over the last 100 years, Diet Culture has become the cultural form of oppression on women’s bodies. Diet culture judges women’s worth based on their physical body size and looks. It assigns moral values to the ability of women to meet up with their standards.
The diet culture keeps women focusing on their bodies. Dieting keeps women distracted on food, exercise, and trying harder at restricting instead of using their innate resources to achieving much more important things in their life. Given that the tools proposed to women to achieve their “ideal body according to patriarchy” doesn’t work, it keeps women thinking they are the problem and not the diet. Women keep doubting themselves, their abilities, their capacities, and their obsession with trying to make up for what they are told are a personal failure to achieve the “good enough body”.
It is my belief as a health professional that women must understand why they “chase” a smaller body to their healing and recovery. For women, to truly liberate themselves from diet culture and its chain, they must know why society created it in the first place.
The intersection between diet culture & women history
If you look through history, their beauty or body didn’t always control women. Instead, their ability to procreate and religion controlled women. It’s not until recently that women’s bodies became the center of attention.
The mid 19th century
The feminist movement was beginning to form as women gain access to education. Women involved themselves in the abolition movement and women continued asking for their own political power. As women become more vocal and demanding more power, patriarchy responded with pressure on women’s bodies to be smaller.
feminism and diet culture
The Gibson Girl
The Gibson Girl was born in 1880. This was the personification of the feminine ideal of physical attractiveness as portrayed by male artist Charles Dana Gibson. This body female ideal was heavily promoted and published via the new magazine and printing industry. So, ensure product advertisement ways to look like Gibson’s girl: beauty products, pills, cream, arsenic pills, etc…Diet culture was born. This period also introduced ready-made clothes and women needed to “fit” clothes when up to then clothes were made to fit women.
feminism and diet culture
The Flapper girl
As the suffragette movement began to gain the right to vote in many countries, the Flapper girl was born. Women became “liberated” from the Gibson girl corset only to find themselves binding their natural feminine curve into the linear look of the 1920’s. Thinness was a sign of “perceived freedom” for women. This solidified the diet culture.
feminism and diet culture
Twiggy
With every gain in socio-economic power, women gained a smaller and smaller body ideal. Whereas the first-wave feminism in the early 90’s focused mainly on suffrage and political power, the second-wave feminism that began in the late 1960’s was focused on equality issues. That’s when Twiggy became the first supermodel; willowy, thin, adolescent physique.
feminism and diet culture
The 80’s
In the 80’s as women affirmed their new equality, came the low-calories, low-fat, and aerobic era with Jane Fonda as the leader. Calories counting began and this is when women became obsessed with dieting.
feminism and diet culture
And it continues up to today. The 90’s saw Kate Moss as the body ideal for all women. With an even smaller body than Twiggy, women’s ideal was body waifish, extremely thin described as “Heroin Chic”. The ’00s saw the Victoria Secret angels, and today we have the influencer healthy body ideal throne by the Kardashian.
“A culture fixated on female thinness is not an obsession about female beauty, but an obsession about female obedience. Dieting is the most potent political sedative in women’s history; a quietly mad population is a tractable one”
– Naomi Wolfe
Women socialization to diet culture
Socialization is the process of internalizing the norms and ideologies of society. It may lead to a desirable outcome and in certain aspects of life ensure our survival.
Socialization to diet culture and female body ideal happens at a very young for women. When were you gifted your first Barbie?
Among many societal behaviors, Their body, their beauty, and being a “good girl” defined women. Society conditioned women to please using their bodies. While society defined boys to be strong, intelligent, and non-emotional.
Most women who diet chronically today encountered their first diet in their early teens. They first observed their female caregiver being “dissatisfied” with their body and dieting. As these women entered their puberty and began awakening to being attractive, they engage with their first diet. Worse, some women experienced diet before the age of 10 as their parents wanted to prevent the “shame” of being in a non-conventional body.
feminism and diet culture
Women internalization of diet culture
The process of internalization pertains to the person’s acceptance of a set of norms and values established by others and learned through socialization.
Women internalized diet culture in their teens leading to adulthood. This is when of having to please, as a woman, using among other things our body moves from outside of our own mind to being part of our own mind. At that point, diet culture has shaped who we are as a woman.
As we discussed in a previous article Non-diet Approach: Addressing the root cause, fatphobia is at the root as to why women diet. The process of diet culture internalization leads women to be fatphobic. They fear of being fat. They fear others judging their body as a fat body. It’s said that women fear weight gain more than illness.
Women’s fear of being in a non-confirming body is validated daily. Hundreds, if not thousands of times, marketing images and words, social media, conversation with other women, medical treatment, the beauty industry, etc… remind women that they should fear to be in a non-thin ideal body.
To cope with this constant pressure, women adapt. Diet Brain is a term I coined that best expresses how women adapt to diet culture socialization and internalization. To adapt, women become people-pleasers, we expect perfection for ourselves in the hope to offset our inability to be in a confirming body ideal. While the solution to achieve this thin ideal, “dieting” has a 91-95% failure rate, we blame ourselves for it not working so we adopt an “All or nothing” mindset when it comes to food and health.
This adaptation process is unique to people identifying as women and is the reason why Non-Diet Coaching Certification is essential for health professionals helping women recover from diet culture.
“Your dislike of yourself is a side effect of the POISON you are being fed. None of this messaging is real. Your inner bully has learned the lies society fed it, and is giving you fake news about your looks, your value, your worth, your right to be happy. I’m so sorry you have to deal with this crap. Diet Culture is just making you hate yourself for a profit”
– Naomie Wolfe
Dieting is a feminist issue
Opting out of diet culture as a woman is more than simply stopping dieting. It’s a feminist act. When we stop buying into the diet culture definition of what being a woman is, we reclaim our power back. We say no to being our bodies. We say yes to trusting and respecting ourselves first.
Helping women recover from the diet culture must include the education to how we got to be where we are today as women. That we were capable to feed ourselves, to care for ourselves, and to be more than our bodies. The socialization and internalization of diet culture are what created the beliefs that lead us to dieting and trying to fit in using our own body against ourselves.
One of the paths to reclaim our power from the diet culture can be with intuitive eating. Using our source of shame, that is food, can actually rebuild a relationship of trust and respect towards our own selves. As we reconnect to our innate body wisdom, we get to witness the power that is within us.
As we build confidence in our innate capacity to feed ourselves, we can continue to use diet culture source of shame to regain our power as women. Healing our body image and crafting a new way to be in our human body shell is not only necessary but very empowering.
“If your self-esteem is dependent on external result, you have given all your happiness and agency away. It’s an exhausting, and powerless way to live.”
Women empowerment
Individual autonomy is this idea that refers to the capacity to be one’s own person, to live one’s life according to reasons and motives as one’s own and not the product of manipulative or distorting external forces.
Leaving the jail of diet culture is a revolutionary act for women to not only be autonomous but to claim their power back from a patriarchal society that suppressed our empowerment.
In today’s society, the greatest punishment is to take away people’s autonomy and freedom by sending them to jail. Diet culture has taken women’s autonomy and freedom. Diet culture robs women of the capacity to be in their now body, to feed themselves naturally, to wear clothes they desire, to decide their own beauty standards, etc…
Helping women recover from diet culture is truly about empowering women to live their full life today… unconditionally. Choosing to accept your body is hard but doing hard “things” is what builds confidence in women… not body size. Saying ‘no’ to outside control and ‘yes’ to inner power is what builds self-esteem in women, not beauty.
Non-diet Approach for women Training
The non-diet approach is the exact opposite of dieting. It’s a weight-neutral approach to health and nutrition that empowers women to become the expert of their own body. That shifts women from being their body to supporting their body so they can live their full life… right now!
The Going Beyond The Food Method™️ is our proprietary methodology that helps women to recover from diet culture and learn the non-diet way of life. Firstly, our 4 pillars are Body Wisdom, Body Trust, Body Respect, and Body Neutrality. Secondly, our framework is composed of 5 steps process: Intuitive Eating, Body Neutrality, Self-Coaching, Emotional Intelligence, and Mindfulness.
You can learn and transform your life with the Going Beyond The Food Method with our two signature program.
Undiet Your Life Program was created for women to learn self-coaching, a powerful mindset self-coaching tool to unlearn diet culture & patriarchy socialization along side with Intuitive Eating and Body Neutrality.
Non-Diet Coaching Certification was created for providers and coaches wanting to deliver the Non-Diet Approach in their practice following the Going Beyond The Food Method.
Want to know if the Non-Diet Approach and The Going Beyond The Food Method can be of support to you? Get my starter pack and complete the three assessment: eating, body image and mindset.
You can also listen to our non-diet podcast.
Non-Diet Approach Certification program
The Going Beyond The Food non-diet coaching certification program is a space where you can receive support guidance to become the best non-diet professional. It’s a program that will refine your non-diet professional skills set to empower women and teach you the skills you need to build a successful business that can impact thousands of women.
It helps you develop as a powerful leader and help other women come back to their power. You learn how to harness your ability to support and help other women. As a result, you can impact thousands of other women and dismantle diet culture.
Why a non-diet approach for women?
The non-diet approach helps clients stop dieting, make peace with food and body image. It’s a weight-neutral approach to health that helps people reconnect to their innate power and become their own expert at their body.
Feminism and diet culture
The diet culture keeps women focusing on their bodies. Dieting keeps women distracted on food, exercise, and trying harder at restricting instead of using their innate resources to achieving much more important things in their life. For women, to truly liberate themselves from diet culture and its chain, they must know why society created it in the first place.
Intersection between diet culture & women history
If you look through history, their beauty or body didn’t always control women. Instead, their ability to procreate and religion controlled women. It’s not until recently that women’s bodies became the center of attention.
Women socialization to diet culture
Socialization to diet culture and female body ideal happens at a very young for women. When were you gifted your first Barbie? Among many societal behaviors, Their body, their beauty, and being a “good girl” defined women. Society conditioned women to please using their bodies. While society defined boys to be strong, intelligent, and non-emotional.
Women internalization of diet culture
Women internalized diet culture in their teens leading to adulthood. This is when of having to please, as a woman, using among other things our body moves from outside of our own mind to being part of our own mind. At that point, diet culture has shaped who we are as a woman.
Dieting is a feminist issue
Opting out of diet culture as a woman is more than simply stopping dieting. It’s a feminist act. When we stop buying into the diet culture definition of what being a woman is, we reclaim our power back. We say no to being our bodies. We say yes to trusting and respecting ourselves first.
Women empowerment
Leaving the jail of diet culture is a revolutionary act for women to not only be autonomous but to claim their power back from a patriarchal society that suppressed our empowerment.
Non-diet Approach for women Professional Training
The non-diet approach is the exact opposite of dieting. It’s a weight-neutral approach to health and nutrition that empowers women to become the expert of their own body. That shifts women from being their body to supporting their body so they can live their full life… right now!
Non-diet Approach for women mentorship
The Going Beyond The Food non-diet professional mentorship program is a space where you can receive support guidance to become the best non-diet professional. It’s a program that will refine your non-diet professional skills set to empower women and teach you the skills you need to build a successful business that can impact thousands of women.
Welcome!
I’m Stephanie Dodier
Non-Diet Nutritionist & Coach
I teach and coach women how to break free from the socialized thinking of diet culture and liberate yourself from unrelenting pressure to be thinner so that you can eat in a way that truly supports your well-being and start living the life you’ll look back on with no regrets.
Join me in leading the feminist health coaching revolution!
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