How to Raise Intuitive Eaters and Body Positive Kids with Special Guest Erin Gonzalez

Welcome back, No Problem Parents. I hope you all had a fantastic holiday. Some of you are probably still celebrating. This is the last week of December.

Before we get into the new year and we start thinking about that diet that we have to go on, I'm bringing on a very special guest for you all today. She's going to talk to us about how we end the cycle of dieting that so many women and men over the generations have struggled with. How do we create healthy relationships with food without feeling like we're letting go of our health? and how do we navigate kids who are struggling either with too much eating, unhealthy eating, or picky eating. Oh my gosh, I said it again, unhealthy eating. You're going to hear about that in today's episode. It is so hard to change and to shift the mentality and our words around eating. We're also going to learn how you respond to kids when they talk about their body in a negative way. And how do we prevent kids from developing an eating disorder? Like we're going to go into all of this with my very special guest, Erin Gonzalez. Now, Erin is a registered dietitian, certified eating disorder specialist, and certified intuitive eating counselor. This is new to me, certified intuitive eating counselor. I didn't know what a certified intuitive eating counselor was. Well, they practice utilizing a non-diet intuitive eating weight neutral approach.

Erin's own personal struggles with food and her body led her to become a registered dietitian After realizing that the traditional approach to nutrition wasn't working long-term for herself or her clients, Erin embarked on a whole new journey of understanding how our relationship with food and our body shapes our eating behaviors. Erin's passion lies in helping others free themselves from rigid food rules, relearn how to listen to our own internal hunger and fullness cues, and find a way of eating and moving that feels best to each person.

Through her company, Erin Gonzalez Nutrition, Erin coaches clients through the intuitive eating process so they can become the expert in their own bodies again. Guys, this is a super fun episode. We're going to raise intuitive eaters and body positive kids in today's episode. You are the expert of your body.

Welcome back to the No Problem Parenting Podcast. This podcast is full of tips and tools, services and resources that can help you in the day-to-day behavior struggles with your kiddos, from infant to adult. Want more? Check out the No Problem Parenting three-step perspective that will lay the foundation for solving behavioral issues with your children and family.

This 96-minute audio-video program is educational, simple, and easy to navigate. Go to NoProblemParenting.com to get started. All right, well, welcome to the show, Erin. I am super excited to have you here. We met this last spring. Another one of my guests on the show from the Minnesota State University Mankato TEDx Talk.

And again, another TEDx that I just absolutely enjoyed. And I was like, you need to be on the show. So I'm so happy to have you here. Welcome. Yes, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited as well. Well, and I want to just jump right into all of this. I want to get into the nitty gritty of the topic today, how to raise intuitive eaters and body positive kids. This is super important.

And I know there's no magic wand, but I'm going to ask you, how do we do that? Yeah. And I'm going to start with just talking about the importance of it first, working and specializing in eating disorders and disordered eating. I have seen so many more cases of disordered eating just since COVID. And actually research is showing us that since COVID, we have seen a 60% increase in inpatient hospitalizations of eating disorders.

And it used to be statistics wise, it was like 3% of the population had an eating disorder before COVID happened, that increased to 9%. And now since COVID, we've seen an increase of 60% of hospitalizations. So we know it's worsened even more. And to give you context of that, It's about 10.5% of the U S population that has diabetes. So if we think about the amount of energy that goes into preventing diabetes, and most people don't even know how to talk to people about disordered eating and eating disorders. And worse than that is most of the things we're doing to prevent diabetes is what's causing eating disorders. So that's my little piece of why I feel so powerful and passionate about the work that I do is because we've normalized in our society what isn't actually normal. And so to that point is, you know, how do we raise body positive kids and intuitive eaters is we have to fix it ourselves. Like we have to get back to us as parents and how we're taking care of our bodies and how we're viewing our bodies.

So in order to do that, we really have to first reject the diet mentality. Like we really, again, have to become aware of what diet culture is. We've normalized it for so long. We don't see how unnormal it is to comment on someone else's food or their body, right?

Thinkings that are made, you see someone, you haven't seen them for a while. This actually just recently happened to me. And they're like, oh, you look great. And it's like, you know, you haven't seen me for a year.

there's so much more interesting things you could talk to me about than how my body changed. Yeah. It's just like, it rolls out the tip of our tongue, right? We have to start calling out these behaviors in our diet culture that we have. So start recognizing patterns that are really keeping us caught in this pursuit of thinness, this pursuit of perfection. And honestly, there's never a good enough because you can't measure self-worth by the scale. And that's a really big piece of the work that we do is helping. I mean, this goes across women and men, but especially women to separate out self-worth from the scale. So it really becomes about values in a lot of ways to shift that focus. So we really need to start calling out the failure of diets, right? We're still within this society that just focuses on, well, it's this diet or it's that diet or cut out this or cut out that. And over time, we basically cut out every single food and it still hasn't changed anything. Instead, the only thing has changed has made us more afraid of food and more afraid of our bodies. Well, and I think depending on what type of new diet or type of eating, whether it's paleo or keto or whatever you're doing, like people are really opinionated and kind of judgy. And so like you're at a restaurant and you order something and you're looking, it's not like, Ooh, what'd you get? Or there's any kind of excitement for it or even who

cares. But sometimes it's like, Oh, you're eating that. Oh, I could never eat that. Oh, that would just tear me up inside. And then you almost feel shame because it's like, Oh, I shouldn't, should I not be eating that? Because it doesn't agree with you, you know, or it doesn't fit your way of eating. And it's so important for us to be able to get back to being the expert of our own body again, and not worrying about anybody else around us because no one else knows our body. But the problem is we've gotten so disconnected from our bodies that we don't even know how to register hunger and fullness anymore. We don't trust hunger anymore. We don't know what to eat. We don't know how to eat because we've just been thrown into these rigid controlling systems that have been trying to tell us how to eat, but in reality have just taken us further from the ability to actually trust our body, right? And it's like, we're all born in this ability to know when we're hungry and when we're no longer hungry. And we trust babies to do that. But then over time that just gets disconnected for many in the older age population, it was having been raised to finish the plate. That was for many of the initial, the clean plate club, clean plate club, which now let's hold space. There was a time where that was needed, right? But that was back in the great depression. And we're no longer for most families. There are some families who do struggle with

having access to food. And so that's still real for them. But when it's not, we're now just carrying this generational trauma and it's continuing to harm, but now in a different way. So we really have to understand belief systems that we have around food and belief systems that we have around our body and then the biases that are present in our culture. And I wish I could say that this doesn't happen in our healthcare, but it does, right? Our doctors, our nurses, dietitians, even like we have these biases still towards larger bodies. And that has to change because otherwise people don't want to come to the doctor because they don't want to be weighed and feel shame about it. Oh my gosh. That's yeah. So good. Love this. Love this. Love this. Love this. It's like a lot of us are, I don't care if, you know, how much you want to be the thin little body. There's plenty of people out there that it's just never going to happen. It's not your build. It's not your size.

It's like, you can see it in your generationally in your family or, and you know, it's just not going to happen. And then for people who are thinner, you know, something that just wish they had boobs or wish they had, you know, hips or wish they had, it's like, sorry, that's the way you were made and that's, that's what you got. Right. And I can have somebody in my office who's in a smaller or a normal body be less healthy than my office. Who's in a larger body. Yes. Our body size does not determine our health. I really like to say like our behaviors really determine our health and not just physical behaviors, but emotional and mental and spiritual behaviors, like the whole gamut, right. It's just not nutrition, physical activity. It's also that self-care piece of it as well right oh I just gotta tell you as a person who is just naturally thin it drives me crazy when people come up and say things like oh man I wish I could wear that yeah it's like is that supposed to be a compliment right that's not a compliment that actually makes me feel bad yeah that I'm thin yes and it makes me feel even more bad that you're not and I in my mind I'm thinking you must work out all the time and you're really trying it's not working and then I talked, you know, it's like, no, I don't work out or I don't do well. Okay. I mean, like neither do I kind of, but I mean, it is really, it can really rip people apart and friendships

apart, which makes sense then why our teenagers and younger tweens even are having issues with weight. Okay. Before we go any further, we really need, I need to talk a little bit about what is this intuitive eating? I mean, I think I know, but I, after looking at some of your stuff, I'm like, I don't think I know. Uh-huh. Yeah. So intuitive eating is really a framework and the whole purpose of intuitive eating is really helping people to be able to break free from dieting, learn how to reconnect to the messages of our body and meeting our physical and emotional needs. It's really this inner journey to connect to the inner wisdom of the body that allows each person to become the expert of their own bodies again, instead of relying on someone else or programmed to be expert for them. Perfect. It's such a beautiful process. It's this freedom that we get to go anywhere,

anytime, and just make eating decisions. Like it's this entire release that occurs when you get competent and confident again in being present in your body versus relying on these rigid external rules and cues to dictate when, what, and how to eat. And the reason those things fail is because you can't implement them everywhere you go, right? I hear it all the time. People are like, oh, well, you know, I've got this vacation coming up or this wedding coming up, and I'm going to prepare for that. And then as soon as I'm there, then, you know, I'm just going eat whatever I want. And then I don't, and then I'll gain 10 pounds. And it's like, well, but it doesn't have to be that way. Like you could just eat normally leading up to it, move your body in a way that feels good. And then while you're on vacation, focus on what sounds good, what your body needs and what's going to feel good in your body. Right. And then having enjoyment with moving there too. Right. Yeah. Right. Does it have to be all or nothing? Right. And then, you know,

the sad part is if they don't reach their goal, which many don't, then the whole time they're there, they're not even present. And it is taking away from life. It's taking away experiences, right? This is why moms don't wear swimsuits and they don't go swimming with their kids and they miss out on life because of the fear of what other people think when most of those other people are thinking the same thing about themselves. Like they don't even have capacity to think about someone else's body because they're judging their own still. So it's, Oh, we all do it. I just feel so guilty right now. Even when you say that I'm one of those moms who wouldn't, well, I would go in with shorts and a tank top. I wouldn't wear the swimsuit though,

because I didn't want, I didn't want people looking at me. Right. But again, we have to hold space for where we've been. Right. I always like to say like, you know, we, until you know better you can't do better right so you know once you know then then we get to figure out what tools we need and how we want it to look and what we need in order to get there so yeah the same thing with parents who are struggling with eating disorders like we don't ever want to blame or put shame on anything because there's never one thing that leads here like it's many things over time that has influenced you know our belief systems and our behaviors and so now it's just really about understanding them and helping them to shift and change. One of the things that you talk about a little bit is your relationship with food. And I know a lot of people talk about that.

And that's kind of a that's, you know, kind of a big, a big topic. But you have some ideas for how we can create healthy relationships with food without feeling like you're letting go of your health. So tell us about that. This is one of the things that people who are kind of one foot in diet culture and one foot in kind of this idea of going into this non-diet approach is that they really do fear that if they let go of dieting, that it means that they're not caring anymore, or they're letting go of their health in order to escape dieting culture. But when we acknowledge the failure of diets, which research shows 85 to 95% of people who diet will regain the lost weight within two to five years, then what ends up happening is once we acknowledge that failure,

we can shift the blame away from ourselves. And then we open the door to really connecting with our bodies again. And this is really that heart of intuitive eating. And once we're here, instead of trying to fix our body to address eating and health concerns with these plans and restriction, intuitive eating really gives us these alternative ways of coping. We're letting go of control and focusing instead on being in charge and just simply learning from experiences.

So this looks like honoring our hunger, tuning into hunger cues and any response to hunger and fullness. Well, also being flexible with that and knowing that there isn't a perfect way to eat and we don't have to eat perfect in order to be healthy. We're just wanting to focus on providing our body with a variety of food. This is how I talk to my kids about food.

When they come back, my daughter, you know, the kids learn the normal nutrition in school. And so my daughter is seven and she'll come back and she'll say, mom, is this healthy? And we'll talk about why we don't use that term in our house. And she knows what we use instead.

And we just talk about food is food is fuel, right? What is the word you use instead? So we use fun food and fueling food in our house. And we say food is just food.

So when someone says, is this healthy? We just say food's food, right? And our body needs a variety of all food in order to feel its best. So if we only ate fun food, right, we only ate candy, we only ate chips, we only eat cake and ice cream and all those foods, our body's not going to feel very good because it's not getting all the nutrients that it needs.

Whereas when we provide our body with all the variety, we're also incorporating fun foods, like nothing bad happens. And when we do that consistently and trust that that food's going to be there when we really want it, and we're still connected to how it feels in our body, the experience of eating it. So getting enjoyment and satisfaction out of it versus just eating the chocolate, even though it doesn't taste good, because this is the only time we're actually allowing ourself permission to have it.

Right. Then it's so much more easy to be authentic with the process. and I see my kids let like stop eating a fun food because they're satisfied and they walk away from it or starting a fun food realizing it doesn't taste as good as they thought it did and not eat it anymore because they trust that it's going to be there again this is what intuitive eating is really all about is it gives you this permission to eat all the foods that you enjoy and recognizing that there's this middle space to discover what it looks like to fuel your body adequately with pleasurable foods that make you feel good. I couldn't agree more. You know, you've got kids that just crave candy and the minute they see candy or they're sneaking it or they know where it is and they're feeling like they have to sneak and get it. That always just makes me cringe. And I'm not judgmental because I know every family, every child, every person is different. I just have erred on my husband and I on the side of when there's candy, it sits out on the table or it sits somewhere where it is accessible. If a kiddo eats it, bummer. I mean, if it's candy, I don't want them to eat because I need it for something, you know, to serve guests or, you know, to have on hand for something else, then I better put it away where and make sure everybody knows this is for this, you know, specific event or whatever. Otherwise I put it out there and I just figure

that it'll take a few times of the kid eating it now you know gorging on it before they realize this does not feel good this is not a good idea now i know there are just different disorders where you know you can't do that there you absolutely cannot do that because the child would have um like prater willie for instance or something like that you mean you're you're not leaving food out so of course i'm right um yeah very rare right right so just in general though, because then they don't, they don't crave it. I mean, our son had Halloween candy till Easter and I was like, are you even going to eat this stuff anymore? I don't really like that kind.

All right. We're tossing it out. And that's what research shows very strongly that families that have candy drawers and candy accessible in their pantries, or even out in the open all year round, the kids aren't preoccupied with the thought of it. They're not seeking it out. They're not overeating it. And you described something perfectly, which was one of the benefits of intuitive eating is learning through experience. So if kids do end up eating more than what feels comfortable, it becomes an opportunity just to talk about it, not in a shaming way, but just, just talk about that experience that I had in the body. Right. And then you get to make a connection with that and kids will remember that for next time. And they'll say, you know,

that didn't feel good and I don't want to feel that way. So what could I do differently? And that's exactly how we do it with adults too. Yeah. And just modeling it for yourself too.

When you eat, I used to love potato chips and sour cream and I can't eat them anymore. I don't know if it's just my age or what. So every, cause every now and then I'll still crave it and I'll want to do it. I cannot do it. Just my stomach does not agree with me. So I have to do, I have to, you know, find something else for my little guilty pleasure. But I mean, modeling that for your kid and being like oh I just wish I wouldn't have ate that that's like I feel so cruddy right now you know so I know I'm gonna just do something super quick so language is what I get really keen on and so right there you're like I need to find something else to do for my guilty pleasure ah yes busted that's the language that we're not even hooked into until we step outside of diet culture to then be able to say but why do we have to feel guilty about enjoying food Yeah, that's good. I know. I just walked right into that one, didn't I?

And so instead it's, gosh, you know, I really enjoy this food. How do I find enjoyment with it while still taking care of my body and meeting all the other needs of my body too? Right. So maybe that looks like intentionally including it for a snack time. And then maybe we also serve it with some veggies alongside of it. So versus setting ourselves up for, again, that label of good, bad, right. This morality around food, then setting ourselves up for basically overeating it because we really don't trust whether we're going to have it again, because we told ourselves we shouldn't be eating bad and I'm not supposed to be doing this. And then, you know, the inner rebel of us wants to then just get as much as it can.

That is just a really good point. I totally walked into that one. And it's funny because when I want cake, I'll make a cake and I don't have any guilty feelings about cake. I just have a sweet tooth and every now and then I want that, you know, I have it on hand so I can have my, so I can have the cake. Cause like, like you're saying, cause I want the darn cake. It doesn't have to be good, bad or indifferent. Right. And the big thing I do too is, you know, when I first was like, before I was an intuitive eating dietitian and intuitive eating counselor, Or, you know, I went through all the phases of health defying foods, right?

Like taking out the sugar or taking out the butter or taking out the oil or whatever. And now it truly is just about what tastes good. Because I know that if I change it so much that it doesn't have that satisfaction, I'm going to keep seeking it. So I want the banana bread that tastes the good.

I want the cake that tastes fast. I want the ice cream that tastes best. I don't want the halo ice cream. I want the rich one because I'm going to be satisfied off of less when I'm really paying attention to it.

That's good. Oh my gosh, we could do we, and I'm not even getting into the questions about, you know, when you're trying to get good foods into your kids and you're allowing them to have some of the fun foods, right? I just said it again. Good foods.

Like, Ooh, this is, it's so subtle. I'm going to really have to work on that. Again, first step is awareness. So it's recognizing it.

So, you know, we can't hold blame and shame for like hearing it because now that you're hearing it, now you're going to be able to say, oh, okay, what, what do I want to say instead? And this is what I do like parents. We want, as we're working through this and doing it with kids is we really want to get honest with our kids and say, Hey, I'm learning things and we're going to start doing things differently. I might not do it perfectly here and that's okay.

And we're going to keep growing because I know this is really important. so you might hear me come back and I still do it like I still and I've been doing this for now like seven years and even now raising my kids I still hear myself and then I come back and I repair it and I fix it and I say you know I didn't like how that went and here's here's how I wanted it to go yeah and I love that too I'm a huge fan of parents coming back when we have made a mistake or we've you know blown it in some way or done whatever it's like the best when we can go back and acknowledge that with the kid and be like, I don't know what I was thinking. I'm not sure why I told you you couldn't do that or you couldn't have that. That's great modeling. Yeah, for sure.

We have so much more to talk about. I want to before I want to just kind of shift gears a little bit into the body image and how we can raise body positive kids. So give us a few ideas of maybe how you respond to kids when they call themselves or someone else, you know, fat or scrawny or, you know, whatever it is, and maybe some ways that we can kind of shift that. Yeah. Conversation. Those are such, I just want to hold space for those families who are struggling with this because it is such a hard thing to do because we are, we do live, there's just no denying it. We live within a society that still idolizes smaller bodies. So we, we can't have this conversation without just sitting with that because it doesn't, it is hard to not live in that body, even though we're doing all of this work to say like, that's not okay. We still have to say,

we still live in a society that does really believe that and, um, idolizes that, right. When that type of thing happens and a kid comes and says, you know, mommy, am I fat? And asks this questions, you know, the most common and instinctual response here is to say, no, honey, you're really beautiful, right? Or of course you're not fat, but this really reinforces the message that that is not beautiful. So rather than kind of dismissing the comments, we really want to start asking why, like, let's understand more about where this is coming from. So this could look like, well, tell me more, like, what makes you ask this? Why are you asking this? Or where did you hear this from? And then based on what they say, you know, we want to respond honestly again we do need to validate so if they are living in a larger body we can say something like you do have a larger body than some of the kids in your grade in class and just kind of allowing it to be there and then seeing how they respond right and then it really is about kind of normalizing that this is the next step as you said like well what if my child says and labels a different kid right whether it's scrawny like you said like I have some clients who did grow up in we're called the string beans, right? And those types of labels are just as harmful for kids as it is to be labeled in a larger body. And we need to normalize the natural diversity of shapes

and sizes. Everyone's growing at a different rate. Some are bigger, some are smaller, some are taller, some are shorter. Both of these are normal. And I like to, kids really get this one. I like to talk about dogs, the diversity of dogs, right? We like a greyhound is never going to look like a Doberman or a Rottweiler or an Alaska Husky or a Shih Tzu. Like all of these dogs have different shapes, different sizes versus different hair, different color. And we glorify, we celebrate the diversity of dogs, celebrate the diversity of the human body. It's the same thing, right? So kids really get that. And that can be a really powerful message of we're not all supposed to look the same. It's impossible for us to all look the same. So this is a really important piece that kids need to hear us say that we're okay with their body just the way it is. And the important part is that kids feel good in their bodies, regardless of their size, because when they do, they take better care of themselves. They eat a greater diversity of food. They move their body more often. They have better sleep habits. They're less likely to engage in risky behaviors as they get older. And honestly, it's the same concept for adults, right? We want to take care of our bodies because we love our bodies, not in order to love our bodies. Yes, exactly. No, this is really,

this is all really good. When you talk about the, you know, we did when the kids come to us and they say, am I fat? Or, you know, and we're, we don't here at no problem parenting. We don't try to convince kids or appease kids or give them that unconditional praise that they don't believe that they aren't going to believe. So they might be looking for you to give them some sort of like, you know, you're okay, but they really, mostly they want the truth, right? They want to know what you see. And so let's not try to convince our kids. There's something that they're not, but I love how you start that with, well, tell me, tell me more about that. Why are you interested in knowing that or what makes you think to ask me that what caused you to ask that first I think that's that's awesome and then um oftentimes you know like just laying it out there yet well you're this size and we're all different sizes I love the dog analogy but what I what drives me kind of crazy is when parents try to convince no you're not fat you're not overweight you're perfect the way you are saying those kinds of things I know it's with great intention but it's it's unnecessary And if the kid doesn't believe it themselves, then you're kind of a liar.

And the other thing is you're kind of the perception the kiddo gets is if I were fat, if I were, if I didn't have friends, if I, you know, all these different things, if that, whatever it is, if that were true, my parent wouldn't be able to handle it. Right. Right. Yes.

And so that kind of makes you seem like, Ooh, I better not like, I'm not going to come to you with issues or things I'm struggling with because I don't think I got to protect you, the parent, because I don't think you're able to, you're, you're not gonna be able to handle what I have, you know, what I'm feeling or how I'm feeling. And that's big. The other thing that I see parents do is try to then bring in diet culture. Cause they'll say, Oh, okay. We'll just exercise more together as a family.

We'll try harder to eat better, right? And then that, again, reciprocates this idea that there is something wrong with me. It sends that message, even though, again, the parent is then trying to be supportive in the process. They really are telling them that, no, your body isn't right.

And let's fix this together, right? So instead we could focus on, well, let's think about what your body does for you, right? Like, what do you enjoy doing in your body, right? How does your body...

what does your body give you every single day, right? You get to go to school, you get to play with your friends, you know, if they're involved in sports, they get to go and they get to kick the soccer ball around. And, you know, one of the downsides, honestly, with group sports is that they get so intense so quick, that kids in larger bodies kind of automatically get taken out because they're not fast enough, and they're not this enough, and they're not that enough. So they stop participating. And that's so unfortunate because really it's about engagement. It's about team development. It's about learning and growing. And then that just reciprocates it too. So there's just so many systemic pieces that set kids up to. No, I love it. And I love the way that you're,

you're so matter of fact about the conversation too. And it's just like, let's look at the facts. Like, let's look at what does your body do for you? What do you need your body to do for you?

How much fuel do you, did you get today? You know, how many, you know, how much fuel food did you get versus fun food and letting them kind of like, not like notice that, recognize that, and then decide for themselves what they want to do different. One of my favorite, favorite lines that I've done with my kids is I say, I trust that you will find a balance between fun and fueling foods. I love that so much.

I can't even imagine what it would have felt like as a kid to have been told that. Yeah. Because that piece right there tells me that, yeah, I can do this on my own. Like I have the tools I need to. So versus if we're constantly just told, no, you can't have this. No, that's too much. We're really just told we can't trust ourselves. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Well, it's like the thin person that might be going through a growth spurt and needs for peanut butter and sandwiches to get for a snack because they're just super hungry at that moment. And then the kiddo who does weigh more is being told only one, but they might be going through a growth spurt as well, but they're already bigger. So then they, it's not acceptable for them. And it's like,

oh my gosh, you guys, we have to, we have to change the conversation. So this is awesome. You're definitely helping us to do that. Any more tips before we wrap up?

Gosh, I think my biggest tip here is that this is really a process and that it's okay. Like we are going to learn and grow as we go through this. Like sometimes people feel like it's just really overwhelming or they feel like it's too good to be true or it's not possible for me. And really, this is not a linear process. This is really just a process of learning and growing through the experiences and just getting tools and skills as we go along. And as we keep just being able to have compassion for ourselves and to be able to say, you know what, it's okay to not do this perfectly. It's going to get easier over time versus dieting and hating our bodies only gets harder.

This is so great. We're changing the conversations that we have with ourselves first and our friends and the people we surround ourselves with as adults so that we can become more confident leaders for our kids. And then we can also help them change the conversations, make decisions on their own and really learn from a young age. I mean, this could start so early, you know, what, what they're wanting, what they're needing, what they're feeling like, you know, like I just, it's, it's so good. All right. How can people get in touch with you, Erin, and learn more?

Yeah, the easiest way to go to my website, Erin Gonzalez nutrition.com. And that they can reach me via email in there as well, through the links that are provided. And you have a freebie that you give away right the five top secrets to breaking the binge eating cycle.

Yes, yes, yeah. It's such an important part to be able to, not everybody struggles with binge eating, but whether honestly it's emotional eating, compulsive overeating, binge eating, it's so important just to be able to really survey our patterns, our behaviors, and understand how dieting and restriction are ultimately what are influencing those overeating and food seeking behaviors. So that's really what that tool is all about.

Okay. And then another one, we're going to put links in the show notes for this, but another one you have is hunger, fullness, scale, and awareness journal. Yeah. So instead of, you know, tracking and being judgmental and criticizing every little piece of food that we eat and every calorie and counting points and all of those things just feels as punishment, right?

This is really about understanding behaviors, getting curious, becoming aware of patterns and becoming more connected to hunger and fullness and learning from that. Awesome. I appreciate you being here. This has been super enlightening and fun. Of course, I fell right into some of the traps, even though I know it's like intent. I have no intention.

You know, no ill intent, I should say. But I am really grateful for you being here today, Erin. Thank you so much. Yeah, I'm so grateful for you to have me.

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