THE FEMINIST WELL-BEING PODCAST

It’s Beyond the Food Podcast

Join well-being expert Stephanie Dodier as she guides on how to feel damn good by reshaping your mind instead of your body. Let’s go beyond the food and fight diet culture & patriarchy by living powerfully. Through solo episodes and special guest interviews, you’ll walk away with ressources to embrace your well-being & health in a way that will expand your freedom and power. 

Subscribe to our podcast on your favorite podcast platform.

THE WELL-BEING FEMINIST PODCAST

It’s Beyond the Food Podcast

Join well-being expert Stephanie Dodier as she guides on how to feel damn good by reshaping your mind instead of your body. Let’s go beyond the food and fight diet culture & patriarchy by living powerfully. Through solo episodes and special guest interviews, you’ll walk away with ressources to embrace your well-being & health in a way that will expand your freedom and power. 

Subscribe to our podcast on your favorite podcast platform.

Our Most Recent Episodes

277-You Don’t Have to Love Your Body

277-You Don’t Have to Love Your Body

 

You Don’t Have to Love Your Body

Let’s look at a few questions:

Do you think that the ultimate goal of making peace with your body is to love your body? 

I mean, being able to look at your body in the mirror and love every part of it? 

Perhaps you think that you should be able to put on a bikini and be able to show off your body to everyone looking with pride? 

Perhaps you think that when you finally “heal your body image,” it will mean that you’ll never have a negative thought about your body, and instead, you’ll have adoration thought for each part of your body. 

Is that you? 

Is this your current belief system when it comes to your body, body image, and body weight?   

It sure was me…. 

You don’t have to love your body. 

In today’s episode, we are going to share with you the reasons for this bold statement. 

NO, you don’t have to love your body to normalize weight gain or to adopt a non-diet lifestyle.

In fact, you don’t have to love your body to become an intuitive eater or to make peace with your body.

NO, you don’t have to love your body to heal your body image.

What you need is Body Respect. 

What you’ll learn listening to this episode: 

  • Why I fail attempting to love my body 
  • How diet brain plays into our body’s perspective 
  • How to trade body love for body respect 
  • The path towards body respect

Mentioned on the show:

Podcast Roadmap

Conquer & Thrive

read more
276-Coping with Weight Gain

276-Coping with Weight Gain

Coping with weight gain

 

Weight gain is a very sensitive, vulnerable and emotional topic for most women. The ability and willingness to openly talk about weight gain is different for each one of us.

It’s estimated that by the time most women hit their 45th birthday, statistically speaking, we’ve tried 61 diets, plans, programs, detoxes, cleanses, meal plans, regime, an eating system. In an unending battle to shrink our body and, hopefully, change our life.

I want to recognize that simply tuning in to listen to this episode for someone is a huge step… if this is you, I see you and welcome you.

For others who have taken the journey beyond the food and unlearn diet culture, this is a much easier and light topic… I see you too, my sister, and cheer you on.

Coping with weight gain

Weight gain is a difficult topic, a complicated topic and a very nuanced topic.

By no means this one episode is a complete resource for the normalization of weight in women. This episode is meant only to be an introduction to the topic of coping with weight gain. I’ll be speaking about one aspect that I think, as women, we must first understand and integrate in order to release the fear of weight gain.

What you’ll learn listening to this episode:

  • Why you are not alone: recent statistics review
  • How patriarchy position weight gain to keep women feeling insecure
  • Why diet culture is so powerful, particularly for women
  • How to release the fear of weight gain and claim back your power

Mentioned in the show:

Podcast Roadmap

Conquer & Thrive

 

read more
275-Gentle Nutrition with Rachael Hartley

275-Gentle Nutrition with Rachael Hartley

Gentle Nutrition

I have been wanting to talk about gentle nutrition for years but couldn’t or rather choose not to until now.

I hold a great level of responsibility for the topic I chose to discuss on this podcast. Moreover, what could happen after the episode is over. In the case of intuitive eating & nutrition, I couldn’t send you to any entry-level resources beyond my own programs. Up to now, the only nutrition books & cookbooks available on the market were filled with diet culture, weight stigma and non-science-based facts about nutrition.

This is now past… the resource I have been awaiting is now here!

Gentle Nutrition: A Non-Diet Approach to Healthy Eating Book

Yes, a book that combines intuitive eating & nutrition is now available. Gentle Nutrition: A Non-Diet Approach to Healthy Eating Cookbook is on the market since February 23rd, 2021.

Today on the podcast, I review the book and interview the author, my new friend and colleague, Rachel Hartley. Rachael is a registered dietician, science-based nutrition therapist and certified intuitive eating counsellor. Some of you may know her from her blog: The Joy of Eating, where she shares practical intuitive eating advice and non-diet recipes.

What you’ll learn listening to this episode on gentle nutrition:

  • What is gentle nutrition and what it’s not
  • The difference between gentle nutrition and wellness diet
  • Top 3 pieces of advice to begin your gentle nutrition journey
  • Meal planning and intuitive eating
  • Food intolerances
  • When it’s time for medical nutrition therapy

Mentioned on the show:

Podcast Roadmap

Conquer & Thrive

Rachel Hartley’s Book – USA

Rachel Hartley’s Book – International

Connect with our guest

Website

Instagram 

Facebook 

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274-Unapologetic Eating with Alissa Rumsey

274-Unapologetic Eating with Alissa Rumsey

Unapologetic Eating


A few years back, I was browsing Instagram, and I noticed a hashtag trending #womeneatingfood. I scrolled through and what I saw was magical: thousands of women eating food absolutely without giving an ounce of worry. Women eating unapologetically.

That’s how I discovered Alissa Rumsey. And since then, Alissa has been on the podcast twice and been teaching inside my Non-Diet Mentorship Program.

Unapologetic Eating: The Book

Today, Alissa is launching a book: Unapologetic Eating: Make Peace With Food and Transform Your Life. In her words, it is about getting back to your roots and who you were before society told you who you should be.

In today’s episode, I interview Alissa Rumsey. Alissa is a registered dietitian, nutrition therapist, certified intuitive eating counsellor and the author of Unapologetic Eating: Make Peace With Food and Transform Your Life. Alissa is passionate about advocating for women to reclaim the space to eat and live unapologetically.

What you’ll learn listening to this episode:

  • Discover the oppressive nature of dieting
  • How & why eating is a political move
  • Food can be an entry point to explore and transform
  • Moving from Unapologetic Eating to Unapologetic Living

Mentioned in the show:

Podcast Roadmap

Conquer & Thrive

Get the book – Unapologetic Eating

Connect with our guest:

Website

Instagram 

Facebook 

read more
273-Dieting Backlash, Rebound Eating & Emotional Eating

273-Dieting Backlash, Rebound Eating & Emotional Eating

Dieting Backlash

Dieting backlash

Dieting backlash is the counter-reaction to food restriction, aka dieting.

Things like “food cravings,” urges to eat the restricted foods, nighttime eating, “overeating,” binging, weight regain, depression, anxiety… that’s all dieting backlash, also known as rebound eating.

Dieting backlash & rebound eating are well known & studied phenomenon within the field of the non-diet approach but almost unknown in society at large.

It’s almost like a dark secret tucked away… and for a good reason. If diet culture and weight loss gurus had to declare the inclusion of diet backlash as part of their program, a vast majority of women wouldn’t sign up for the program in the first place.

Dieting backlash food behaviors are 100% normal and expected. That’s the phenomenon explaining the statistics that 91% of dieters regain their weight loss within 1-5 years post diets.

Here are a few examples of thoughts your brain may be offering you as a result of diet backlash or rebound eating:

  • “I’ve been so bad today… since I’ve blown the day, so may as well enjoy?” “I can’t believe I had carbs at breakfast and lunch. I’m only supposed to eat carb only once a day, so might as well  enjoy today and be good tomorrow.”
  • “I weigh so much I don’t deserve to eat anything. Clearly I have no willpower over food, so might as well overeat.”

Diet backlash, rebound eating & emotional eating are all intertwined

Here’s where it gets interesting… women who deliberately restrict their food intake when under a diet are more likely to overeat, especially in response to an emotional state. What we think as emotional eating may actually be diet backlash or rebound eating.

In a subconscious way, we give ourselves license to eat foods that are normally forbidden, and we use emotion as a way to give ourselves permission in the hope to lower the guilt of “not following the diet,” we lay the blame on emotional eating.

We use our emotions as a way to give ourselves permission to eat the restricted & “bad food.”

These thoughts are what create the feeling of frustration, resentment, low self-esteem and many other unproductive emotions that lead to behaviors of coping, numbing and other componentry food behaviors like binging.

We create these emotions that we later want to numb with food.

It’s the self-fulfilling prophecy of dieting. Nothing has gone wrong. Nothing is wrong with you… it’s biology.

Here’s what I propose…

To reflect on these 4 questions:

  • How much of what we self-describe as a “problematic relationship to food” is, in fact, due to our own self-imposed diet or food restriction
  • How much of the food behaviors we hope to fix with our newest “food lifestyle” are made worse by the actual “food lifestyle”?
  • What if there was nothing wrong with our food behaviors, that our body was reacting exactly how it was created to react in the face of food restriction… then what?
  • What if the problem wasn’t us, the dieter but the diet… then what?

I’m proposing these questions to you because I’m not here to tell you what you should do… but instead to give you a choice.

What you’ll learn listening to this episode on dieting backlash:

  • What is dieting backlash
  • How dieting backlash presents itself in women’s life
  • Why rebound eating is normal
  • How we create the situation to produce emotional eating

Mentioned on the show:

Podcast Roadmap

Conquer & Thrive

read more
272-Comfort Eating: Curiosity or Judgment

272-Comfort Eating: Curiosity or Judgment

Comfort Eating

Let’s unpack comfort eating or eating for comfort.

Comfort is defined as a state of ease and freedom from pain or constraint.

When we eat for comfort, we feel uncomfortable; we don’t want to feel discomfort, so we look for a solution to not feel comfortable and that solution is food. So we comfort eat.

Sounds like a pretty legitimate action… it is a coping tool. It’s a variation of the larger family of emotional eating- whereby you eat in response to an emotion. Most often, uncomfortable emotions like stress. Stress eating, comfort eating, emotional eating – all the same thing – using food to cope with physical or emotional discomfort.

Why is it a problem to solve?

Is comfort eating a problem?

Let’s imagine that same person feels the same level of discomfort, but instead of opening the fridge or the cupboard and reaching for food, that same person would say go for a run.

Would it be a problem to solve? ….

Interesting question, right?… but necessary. Especially as women, we must challenge all the beliefs we have learned about food, body and health. Remember that diet culture was created by Patriarchy in order to keep women obedient and insecure.

Why is it that comfort eating is a problem to solve for women? What diet culture is telling us is that it will lead you to eat too much, eat the “bad food,” and gain weight. Diet gurus will tell you that if you could only control your emotional eating, then their diet would work… and you’d be thin!

Familiar…

But here’s my question to you: Would you even desire to eat to comfort yourself if we weren’t relentlessly chasing the thin ideal???

Think about that for a minute?…

How much of our discomfort physically and emotionally that we appease with food is caused by the relentless pursuit of the thin ideal, therefore diet culture

A shit load of it… lol.

Since this is a feminist podcast that promotes women empowerment with food and their body… I’m not going to teach to shame you for comfort eating or tell you that it is to be avoided.

No… that’s diet culture way.  

In this podcast episode, we will unpack this subject in a non-diet way… by asking WHY.

What you’ll learn listening to this episode:

  • The reason why diet culture of comfort eating is so toxic
  • The non-Diet approach to comfort eating
  • The two questions to ask yourself when feeling the urge to eat emotionally
  • Comfort food versus Comfort eating

Mentioned on the show:

Podcast Roadmap

Conquer & Thrive

read more
271-People-Pleasing 2.0

271-People-Pleasing 2.0

People-pleasing

People-pleasing isn’t a character trait or, for that matter, a personality trait that we are born with.

In fact, people-pleasing is a belief, a set of thoughts that we as women are socialized to. More precisely, we aren’t socialized or educated to be people-pleasers… we are socialized to be “good girls”.

The Good Girl Syndrome is like a character we are asked to play as women and from a very young age. As people identifying as women, we are socialized to be polite, modest, quiet, not to argue, not to fight, play within the parameters, and most importantly, fit the norm…

Indeed, we are socialized to believe that we are responsible for other people’s perceptions of us. Other people’s perception of us is more valuable than our own opinion of ourselves.

 So effectively, we are taught to be people-pleasers.

But I’m not a people-pleaser… really?

If you are thinking right: well, this is not me, BUT you are struggling to accept your body. I’m afraid to tell you, my sister, it’s you.

Women’s relentless pursuit of the thin ideal and unwillingness to accept their bodies is grounded in our socialization to be good girls and meet others’ expectations.

This is why in great part, most people identified as men aren’t affected by body image. Moreover, they can’t even begin to comprehend why we care so much about what other people think of our bodies. That is to say, they aren’t socialized the same as we are as people identified as women.

It’s not built in their belief system as it is for us.

So, how does being a people-pleaser show up in other parts of your life? That’s what we will unpack in this podcast episode.

What you’ll learn listening to this episode on people-pleasing:

  • How women are socialized to be people-pleasers
  • Understand the link between body dissatisfaction and people-pleasing
  • The big lie fueling the desire to please others
  • The 4 steps for women to free themselves from people-pleasing

Mentioned on the show:

Podcast Roadmap

Conquer & Thrive

read more
270-Tuning Out the Weight Loss Industry

270-Tuning Out the Weight Loss Industry

Tuning out the weight loss industry

Tuning out the weight loss industry

This podcast is going to be for every woman – every woman who has been targeted by dieting ads.

I have chosen this title for a reason: “Tuning out the weight loss industry” instead of “tuning out diet culture” for a reason: to reach more women.

When you are at the beginning of your journey shifting out of dieting, the word diet culture doesn’t mean a thing… actually, for many, it means being on a diet.

Diet culture is a new term that is not part of women’s vocabulary, and for a good reason. As women, when we learn about the word “diet culture”, it has a massive impact. In #5, I share the definition of diet culture for all the newbies.

Tuning out the dieting noise is a choice

This podcast intends to help all women make a choice. 

A choice in the face of all the marketing from the weight loss, fitness and wellness industry aimed at women and our bodies. 

To help women make an educated choice about their body, how they live their life, the way they eat, and the way they take care of their mind, body and soul. 

For women to free themselves from the thought “but I have to “and trade it for “I chose to”.

What you’ll learn listening to this episode tuning out the weight loss industry:

  • 10 thoughts to consider as women when considering dieting.
  • 10 tips for you to process the weight loss, fitness and wellness marketing 

Mentioned on the show:

Podcast Roadmap

Conquer & Thrive

The Good Girl Syndrome

 

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269-How to Move (or Exercise) More

269-How to Move (or Exercise) More

how to move more

 

“I want to move with joy.”

“I want to get out of the funk of no movement.”

“How do I motivate myself to move more without dreading it.”

“I know exercise is good for me… just can’t bring myself to do it.”

That you are at the beginning stage of challenging the concept of dieting or an advanced intuitive eater that now wants to work on reclaiming their relationship to exercise… Or that you have made peace with food already and now want to tackle your relationship to movement…

This podcast going to help you.

How to move more

I know for me I’ve known that I SHOULD exercise more often for decades. And my solution for years has been to sign up for a gym membership and to resort to using discipline, punishment and willpower to force me into the gym until, just like dieting, it didn’t work.

Diet culture has taught us to jump into action… without ever asking why and how we got there in the first place is the reason why we keep repeating the same patterns time after time.

The place to start is to find the reason(s) why we resist exercise…. That’s the starting point of reclaiming the joy of movement.

What you’ll learn listening to this episode on how to move more:

  • Why we resist exercise
  • The power of changing vocabulary
  • The simple process to create more movement action in your life
  • My movement goals for 2021 and game plan

Mentioned on the show:

Podcast Roadmap

Conquer & Thrive

read more
268-My Goals for 2021

268-My Goals for 2021

My goals for 2021

 

My Goals for 2021

Over the last few episodes 

#264- Health goals versus Weight loss goals 

#266- Goal Setting 

#267- Willing to be Willing 

I have been teaching you some key concepts to integrate in your process of setting goals to ensure you set goals that are diet-culture-free. 

Today’s episode is going to be a wrap-up on the theme of setting goals. My intention for this episode is to illustrate how you can use these goal-setting concepts in real life. Plus the potential of result you can experience. To do this, I’m going to use my own life and my goal setting journey over the last 8 years. 

I’ve never done an episode like this one before where I share my own reflection on the year and my goals… it’s going to be one of those vulnerable episodes.

Ready to come on this journey with me?

What you’ll learn listening to this episode on my goals for 2021:

  • The reflective process for 2020
  • The 6 questions to use to reflect on 2020
  • My 4 lessons learned in 2020
  • The goals I have for 2021

Mentioned on the show:

Podcast Roadmap

Conquer & Thrive


Reflection questions to review your year 2020:

  • What forced change have I come to appreciate?
  • Which new habit have I adopted?
  • Which actions have I performed to maintain my physical and mental health?
  • Did I manage to impose some boundaries in my life?
  • What did I discover about myself?
  • What am I proud of?

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267-Willing To Be Willing

267-Willing To Be Willing

 

willing to be willing

You willing to be willing?

 

“Nothing is easy for the unwilling.” 

When we set a goal or desire to change an aspect of our life or self, we often get “stuck” into inaction. 

The fear of taking action in the unknown and the paralysis into stagnation is normal. It’s present for most of us women. This fear is a normal reaction from our brain to command us into staying put instead of moving ourselves into the unknown. 

It’s our brain’s duty to prevent us from taking action. 

To create any new result in your life: becoming an intuitive eater, accepting our body, career advancement,… ANY CHANGE. 

Being willing to be willing 

You have to be willing to do two things: 

  1. Feel your emotions
  2. Change your perspective on failure 

And if you are unwilling to face your fears and emotions, then forward progress on improving your quality of life will not be easy. 

You have to be willing to tell your brain: Hey brain, I get it, it’s your job to keep me safe and avoid the unknown & anxiety of newness, but moving forward, I’m willing to feel these emotions because I really want what’s on the other side. The new result. 

That’s what we call managing your brain. First module inside Conquer and Thrive. 

As women, we are socialized to be good girls. To be perfect. To obey the rules and perform them perfectly. That’s why we unconsciously chase the thin ideal. We’ve been told over and over by our mom, that is the gold standards body type as women. So as good girls we chase that perfection… relentlessly even if it makes us feel terrible. 

To motivate this relentless chase of perfection, women are socialized to see failure as the most terrible thing that can happen to us. Any failure in our relentless pursuit of perfection means that we aren’t worthy and that we have failed dieting. 

Questions to ask ourselves to become willing

I’ll be leaving you with these thoughts to reflect on:  

Are you willing to redefine failure? 

Are you willing to see the fear-based thoughts your brain will offer you when thinking about the new goal and be the observer of these thoughts? 

How about being willing to see it’s not your thoughts but the socialization thoughts from patriarchy and diet culture? 

Are you willing to feel the fear that your brain will present to you and still take action towards your goal? 

Are you willing to take a chance on yourself? 

How about being willing to bet on yourself that you too can achieve THIS new goal? 

Are you willing to be willing to have the intention to be willing to be willing? 

Are you willing to be willing to bet on yourself? 

If you are, we here for you, sister… come and join us inside Conquer and Thrive and we will support you in your journey of being willing. 

What you’ll learn listening to this episode: 

  • Why the perfect next step from podcast 266 – Goal Setting 
  • You are not your body or your brain…  
  • The two elements needed to create new result in your life 
  • Why women have a faulty concept of failure 
  • How we can start to be willing to be willing 

Mentioned on the show:

Podcast Roadmap

Conquer & Thrive

Instagram

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266-Goal Setting

266-Goal Setting

 

Goal Setting

Goal Setting

Smart Goals are to goal setting what dieting is to Diet Culture.

For years, I set goals the diet Culture way… you know, the SMART GOALS. Every year the pattern repeated itself. Give up by the 5th week.

Just like diet culture, SMART goals are anchored on external results, accomplishment of actions, grounded into avoidance of failure and perfectionism. It’s archaic, sexist and builds on elitist principles.

Just like dieting doesn’t work, SMART goals do not work because it disregards how humans function. It requires constant willpower, which we know to be a limited resource, so when willpower runs out, action-driven goal setting techniques stop working.

In today’s episode, we are going to discover the right way of setting goals for women: the diet-culture-free way to set goals.

What you’ll learn listening to this episode:

  • Why SMART goals don’t work
  • How I created my life against all odds 
  • My business success in 2020 in the middle of a pandemic
  • What is the diet-culture-free goal-setting process

Mentioned on the show:

Podcast Roadmap

Conquer & Thrive

read more
Podcast Stephanie Dodier

Welcome!

I’m Stephanie Dodier

Feminist Nutritionist & Coach.

I guide women on how to feel damn good  by reshaping their mind instead of their body. Let’s go beyond the food and fight diet culture & patriarchy by living powerfully. You’ll walk away with ressources to embrace your well-being & health in a way that will expand your freedom and power.

Is the problem you or your diet? 

I asked myself this question for years…and I figure you likely have the same question so I create a assessment for you to figure it out. Take the quiz now.

© 2021 Stephanie Dodier

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Copyright © 2021 Stephanie Dodier. All Rights Reserved.

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