How do you know if you’re finally done with dieting? It’s the million-dollar question, right? 

You can start by listening to this conversation with Sinéad Crowe, an intuitive eating counselor and perinatal mental health practitioner, who shares her journey from restrictive diets to a balanced, intuitive relationship with food. 

Sinéad opens up about how her struggles with dieting and binge eating came to a head when she saw how it was affecting her son—pushing her to make a lasting change. Together, we talk about the pressures we face in midlife, from changing bodies to managing family and societal expectations. We also dive into practical ways to move past inherited dieting beliefs and prioritize self-care over perfection.

It might just be the nudge of encouragement you need to take the first step on your journey to food freedom!

To learn more about Sinéad and her work, you can't check out her website at www.intuitiveeatinghub.com or follow her on Instagram @intuitive.eating.ireland

 

TRANSCRIPT

Jenn Salib Huber: 0:00

Hi and welcome to the Midlife Feast, the podcast for women who are hungry for more in this season of life. I'm your host, Dr. Jenn Salib-Huber. I'm an intuitive eating dietitian and naturopathic doctor and I help women manage menopause without dieting and food rules. Come to my table, listen and learn from me trusted guest experts in women's health and interviews with women just like you. Each episode brings to the table juicy conversations designed to help you feast on midlife. And if you're looking for more information about menopause, nutrition and intuitive eating, check out the Midlife Feast Community, my monthly membership that combines my no-nonsense approach that you all love to nutrition with community, so that you can learn from me and others who can relate to the cheers and challenges of midlife.

Have you ever asked yourself how do I know that I'm ready to learn or start intuitive eating? Have you maybe listened to a few podcasts? Or maybe you have the book, or you know someone who is learning to be an intuitive eater, but you're still wondering am I ready? Because you're still maybe thinking about weight loss, or maybe you still have thoughts about trying another diet. These are all things that my guest and I, sinead Crow, who is half of Intuitive Eating Ireland, talk about. Sinead is an intuitive eating counselor. She is also a perinatal mental health practitioner who has 20 years of experience working with people in the mental health field, but her own experience of needing to leave dieting behind and she shares so much of her story really prompted her to become an intuitive eating counselor.

And one of the things that we talk about and one of the things that I'm going to be asking other intuitive eating counselors that I'm having on the podcast this season is what would be the best piece of advice you would give to somebody who is thinking that now may might be the time, maybe the right time, to start leaving diet culture in the rearview mirror. But they aren't quite sure. We have a really great conversation.

I love listening to her talk and I think that this is going to be a really helpful episode for anybody who might feel like they're in the messy middle of. I know that I can't start another diet and yet I'm not sure if intuitive eating is for me.

Jenn Salib Huber: 2:27

Hi, sinead, welcome to the Midlife Feast. Hi, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. I'm so excited too. I feel like we're going to have one of these. We could have one of these really chatty conversations where we're just like talking forever, because I think we have a lot in common. But one of the things that I love about your account is just one how you are so real about your personal experience, how much of your personal life as an intuitive eater that you're open and sharing about. But I would love to invite you to share a little bit about how you became an intuitive eating counsellor. How did this all? How did this seed get planted for you?

Sinead Crowe’s Journey to Becoming an Intuitive Eating Counselor

Sinead Crowe: 3:08

Oh, wow, okay, so I hope my brain works. I'm just after coming out of the lake. Actually I was like, oh, I'm just warming up, so I hope my brain switches on. So how did I so?

Sinead Crowe: 3:17

Basically, I had a long history with dieting, like I'm sure lots of people will relate to. I started my teenage years, went to all the clubs, tried all the diets, done everything Don't think there's one that I probably didn't give a shot at, you know and I developed binge eating at a young age and just kind of like spent. I nearly got familiar with that, I got used to that being part of nearly my life, thinking that this was just the way it was always going to be. And I kind of got into my thirties, mid thirties, and really it just kind of got to the point where I was beginning to feel like there just has to be more to life than this.

There has to be more than waking up every day thinking about, well, what's the plan that I'm on today, remembering what thing I had signed up to and decided to give a go at. And you know, it was like just it was taking over everything in my mental space and ultimately I had seen the impact of all of my diet culture stuff. I'd seen the impact that that was having on my kids, my second child in particular and I talk about him a lot because I think it really to me highlights that it's such a biological drive that when we're restricting that, this is what can happen.

The Impact of Diet Culture on Family and Self-Perception

Sinead Crowe: 4:30

Because I restricted him at a very young age, he was having some digestive stuff going on and I remember bringing him to a naturopath and at the time the recommendation was to restrict dairy gluten, sugar, literally take everything out of his diet. So I done that, thinking this is what you do, it's going to, you know, cure him. And, oh my God, within quite a short period of time he was like binge eating, he was secret eating, he was stealing food, he was lying about taking food in like granny's house and there was all this kind of stuff going on and that just further reinforced to me that sugar is addictive and makes us crazy, right, not understanding that.

Actually it was like the restriction and the mental and physical deprivation in the first place that was driving that. So, basically, as our children often do, like they mirror back to us, right, he was mirroring to me like God, what he's doing.

Sinead Crowe: 5:24

I'm doing because I was sneaking food, like I was on the way home from work, stopping off at the petrol station, buying like bars of chocolate, eating it all, hiding the wrappers, putting them in the bin so nobody would see, you know, hiding food in the house, sneaking food myself from I don't know who, because nobody, nobody ever said anything to.

But it was just this shame that I felt about eating all of this food, so I would hide it. And also to the outside world, my colleagues, friends, to them I would have been seen as, oh, she's the healthy one. She's the healthy one Because I was the person that, like, always brought my own salad and always brought my bags of nuts and seeds and whatever. And I had studied nutrition. And I was the person that, like, always brought my own salad and always brought my bags of nuts and seeds and whatever.

Sinead Crowe: 6:07

And I had studied nutrition and I was really down, that kind of you know well, now I know what it is Really. It was orthorexia, but at the time I didn't know it, and so it was like I was living two lives, this life of I'm so healthy but also nobody knows that I'm here, like you know, chocolate bar after chocolate bar after chocolate bar. It's feeling so out of control. So I got to this point where that was really quite painful place to be in really and I knew what was going on with my son.

And I also had other experiences where my sisters I'm very close to my three sisters and the eldest of four girls and we would have spent our life kind of like diet bonding, so like all of our conversations were about dieting and who's doing what diet and, like, as the eldest, I was the kind of the leader, I think, in some level.

Sinead Crowe: 6:52

So Sinead would start a new diet and all my sisters were like, what's she doing? Okay, let's try that. So and I would convince them like the most convincing person ever that I had found the best new thing. How I done it, I do not know, but of course I needed to have people with me because I was like you know, didn't want to be paddling that canoe on my own. So I was like, oh well, as long as you're all trying this new thing out with me, we'll stick together and we'll do it. So I roped them into every diet I probably ever tried.

Sinead Crowe: 7:19

So we got to the point where, even as sisters, we were starting to have these conversations of like this really isn't great, it's not healthy. You know, it was taken over. We didn't talk about anything else, it was just not ideal. So between all the different things that were going on, I kind of was in that place in my mid thirties going yeah, no, I don't want to live like this anymore. But I didn't really know how to get out of it. I didn't know how to live differently.

Sinead Crowe: 7:46

But it was interesting because in my 20s I had picked up Janine Roth's book. I'm sure you know about Janine Roth and to anybody that maybe doesn't know about Janine Roth, I mean, I certainly think there's some good stuff that she has highlighted to the world, for sure, but it can be obviously there's still some, you know, hunger, hunger, fullness, setup going on and maybe some aspects of it that I think, um, you know, it's not exactly intuitive eating, but anyways. So I had read her book in my teeth and I remembered it and I was like, oh, like, maybe would that be the way to go.

So I remember rereading her book and being like, okay, I'll just eat when I'm hungry and I'll stop when I'm full. Guess how that went? Not so great, so great. So I was like, well, what's next? And, you know, done some digging, done some whatever, and discovered, obviously the intuitive eating book kind of came back to that Cause I actually I had also, I'd also came across the intuitive eating book in my late twenties as well.

Sinead Crowe: 8:37

It's interesting, but I just again wasn't ready. I wasn't ready to, because obviously the first principle, as we know, of intuitive eating is really looking at stepping away from the diet mentality and maybe letting go of that like pursuit of weight loss, and I just wasn't there. I just in my twenties, even in my thirties, I just I just wasn't there. So, but then I. But then there came a point that I felt like no, I have to do something differently.

Building Intuitive Eating Ireland: A Movement to End Diet Culture

Sinead Crowe: 9:01

And so I spent about a year, you know, trying it out myself, figuring it out, and then myself and my sister were like there's nobody really talking about this in Ireland. At the time there was no accounts in Ireland really talking about intuitive eating. I've since discovered that there are, of course, some people that talk about it and that were there long before we were, but at the time I couldn't find any accounts or I didn't know anybody. So myself and my sister together set up the Intuitive Eating Ireland account where we just started sharing a bit about what we were learning and that's my brain freeze now, trying to spit out my words. But we were just trying to share about what we were learning on that page and we done that for probably about two years. I would say yeah, because it wasn't until that was 2020. Then, into God. This is a very long story telling you how I got into I love it though I love it.

Sinead Crowe: 9:51

Sorry, but in about 2020 to then, about two years later, I decided to do the training. So, alongside this, I've worked in mental health for 20 years, so that's my day job. I work as a clinical nurse specialist. I'm in the perinatal mental health services, so I work in mental health and I've trained in different therapeutic modalities. So that's always kind of been there as well. But then I was like you know what I want to kind of learn a bit more about you know intubating Not thinking I was going to even do anything with it at the time, but just as it all turned out, I also met a girl in Belfast.

Sinead Crowe: 10:29

Her name is Shana Gibson and she is now the co-founder, my partner in crime with the Intuitive Eating Hub. But she I reached out to her to ask her to do a workshop, just like a once-off workshop. That was it and we done. It was just 90-minute workshop on how to get started on your intuitive eating journey, and I was like let's do this together. She was like yes, absolutely so. Then we done the workshop and it went really well, like really well. We had a great time. She was so easy to work with. We were very similar, so we're very fast-paced, we want everything done. Yesterday she works at the same level that I do, which is really good, because it means that we're always just like pushing one another on and you know we have lots of things that we need to work on.

But that's another day's work, yeah, where we tend to be impatient and leave out the small things. But it was really interesting when we done the workshop she was like she said to me oh well, we're going to have to create some kind of course now, because people are going to want to come and work with us after we do this workshop.

Sinead Crowe: 11:30

Right, they're going to be asking us with what's next? And I was like God, no, no, no, no, I don't have time for that. I had literally signed up to do my master's. I was in, I was at the beginning of my master's program and I was like, oh no, no, I'm doing a master's. And she was like we'll be doing a course. She, she kept at me and at me until eventually I was like, okay, fine, we'll do a course. So then we actually created, obviously, what is now the Intuitive Meeting Hub. So, yeah, we've been working together for the last like two years and it's been really great. Yeah, so that's basically how I came to work in this area.

Jenn Salib Huber: 12:03

I really haven't met an intuitive eating counselor who doesn't have some kind of personal connection and it's usually their own story. You know, I think there's. I don't want to like type us, but I feel like a lot of us are type A's who like to do, like to fix. You know, I'm an only child you're an oldest child Like I do feel like there are some kind of common themes to the personalities that are driven to try and fix themselves with food and and you reach a point where deep in your knowing as Glennon Doyle would call it like your knowing is that this isn't working.

Jenn Salib Huber: 12:44

And for so long I thought it was me. You know it's like, well, there's something wrong with me, because clearly diets must work. You know, and I would look to my past experience and look to people around me and what are you doing and what's working, and everyone. I can see it so clearly now that everyone would say gosh, I wish I could be like you. You're so disciplined, you're so good at like you think about it all the time. I wish I could have that drive.

How to Recognize When It's Time to Start Intuitive Eating – Key Signs

Jenn Salib Huber: 13:14

In hindsight I can see how problematic it was, but at the time, even then, it felt like oh gosh, how do they see that, because it just felt like I was failing all the time, you know. And so when people ask me like well, how do I know that now is the right time to try intuitive eating, you know, people will often say I've tried so many diets and I've tried this diet that worked, you know, five times before, and it's just not working now and I want to try something different. And I'm interested in intuitive eating, but I'm also scared. I feel like there are some like signs that you know this might be the time, do you? Am I rambling too much? Do you know what I'm saying?

Jenn Salib Huber: 13:55

Yeah, oh my God, totally, yeah. So like one of them and I'd love to hear what you think, but like one of the biggest ones that people will say is they wake up with dread in the morning at the thought of what am I going to eat, what do I have to track, what do I have to plan for, and I really think that anything that makes you start your morning with dread, that's a big red flag. Big red flag.

Sinead Crowe: 14:16

Giant red flag. Oh my God, life is so too short to be waking up with dread about what you're allowed or not allowed to eat. Oh my God for sure. Loads of I mean.

Breaking Free from Diet Culture: Recognizing the Cost of Food Restrictions

Sinead Crowe: 14:24

I kind of felt like for me. I was at the place where it was like damned if I was dieting and damned if I wasn't. So I I really felt like there was a time where I could maybe do a couple of months on a diet and I was like whoa, I've got it. And then every single diet I managed to do it for a shorter, shorter period of time until it got down to the. It got to the place where I couldn't even do two hours, let alone a day. So like I would set my day up going okay, right, this is what I'm going to do and I'm not allowed to eat this.

And by mid morning I had my head stuck in something that I was not planning on eating, so I couldn't even do a day with the restrictions you know. So that was a big sign for me that actually, right, I'm bumping up against something here that ain't working. Like it's not working, I got to try something different.

Jenn Salib Huber: 15:18

I hear that a lot. I mean, I laugh because one time somebody said I started the morning low carb, by lunchtime I was vegan and by supper I'd gone paleo, like they, just like it's like every meal. Nope, this isn't working. Nope, this isn't working. Like you just can't even follow the thought anymore because it is just feels so chaotic in your head. Yeah, so chaotic.

Sinead Crowe: 15:41

Yeah, and I mean I think that, like I feel as well with every you know decade. I don't know about you, but I feel like that. You know, our values shift as we get older. I think something happens as we, as we get older, our priorities change. What I, what I valued in my twenties is different, different to what I value in my 30s and I've just recently turned 40, but I can already see it's changing in my 40s.

Sinead Crowe: 16:04

So I think that you know and it's not to shame our younger selves or even that part of ourselves that exists right now that wants to change our body or look different or, you know, cares about what we look like. But I felt like that it got more painful and and I think sometimes you know it was, it's not until we tip into that place where it got more painful to think that I might lose out on experiences with my kids, for example, like having no peace with being able to bring them to the cinema and buy the popcorn and the chocolate and go and have the ice cream, or go on the holiday and get into the pool with them and not be like, oh, oh, no, I can't be in swimwear, or it got to that point where I was like that's going to cost me too much if I don't change something here. And I knew that on some level I couldn't really escape that, because I think once you begin to see it, you can't really run away from yourself, you can't unsee it.

Jenn Salib Huber: 16:55

Yes, yes, absolutely, you know.

Sinead Crowe: 16:59

Yeah. So they were definitely some signs for me. You know that I was like, yeah, this, this, this, this is not working and like even things like you know. I remember and my grandmother God love her she's she's an amazing woman. She's like 90 and golfs three times a week and she's still such an incredible strong, resilient woman that we all look up to and really admire.

Sinead Crowe: 17:23

And I also remember that when she was like in her 80s, there was some comment when she was we were going to like a cousin's wedding and it was like might have to go back to Weight Watchers. I was just like, oh no, I like I really I cannot envisage another 50 years of thinking that every time there's an event, a holiday, christmas coming, new Year's coming, my birthday, all these events that would have always been tied into needing to look different for certain events, and it took away so much from the actual experiences that I was like, oh no, I can't do 50 more years of that. If I'm lucky enough to get 50 more years in this planet, I ain't going to spend it doing that.

Generational Impacts of Dieting: Why We Don't Want to Follow the Same Path

Jenn Salib Huber: 18:06

No, thank you, that's powerful and I think that just even having you know, being able to look at the generations that you know have gone before us and having compassion for where they've come from, because they were also very much indoctrinated into diet culture, I think can serve as a powerful reminder of what we don't want. I had somebody share a really similar story. Her mother passed away. I'm going to say she was 90, something I want to say 93, but I can't remember if that's exactly right. But she was quite a bit older and had lived a good life, and as she was cleaning out her mom's house after she passed away, she found all these diet books on her bedside and then Amazon delivered a new diet book a couple of days after she passed away. And that's when she reached out to me and was like okay, that's my sign.

Sinead Crowe: 18:58

Like you know Okay, I'm ready, I'm not doing this.

Jenn Salib Huber: 19:01

You know and how many of us have aunts and great aunts who are in their 70s, 80s and older who, when they get together just like you and your sisters used to, like you know get together and are still talking about. I was bad because I had this, or I need to get back on track on Monday, like we don't want to have those stories be our legacy. You know, we want people to remember us for something other than what our bodies looked like.

Jenn Salib Huber: 19:28

And other than the diet that we were on when we died Like to me, that was my big thing, was that okay? I just don't want this to be my legacy, because I'm a dietician, I'm a naturopathic doctor, I was very much steeped in the food is medicine. You're a good person if you're eating the right things, and I was just like. I don't want people to remember me as the food police. I don't want my kids to remember me as the food police, and so I think that when people are looking for signs, sometimes it's not going to be a boulder that drops in front of you and says, like now is the time, but really just those like patterns that you're ready to change. You know you don't want to be that person in 40 years who's still doing this, but it's hard. It's hard because that desire for weight loss may never go away entirely, right?

Sinead Crowe: 20:20

Yeah, exactly, and I think that's a really important key, though, as well. A point to make, I think, is that it isn't just this starting point that you will feel ready. You will also feel confusion and fear and overwhelm, and you know, you might feel all of that as well. And it's to kind of normalise a lot of that and also to say that like we don't have to wait until we no longer want to lose weight, because I don't think I've ever worked with anybody that actually had completely shed that desire. I mean, I'm years into this.

Sinead Crowe: 20:54

I still notice I can have those desires and be like oh you know, those thoughts still crop up. I practiced those thoughts for 25 years. They're not just going to disappear, like thankfully, I don't walk that path for 25 years. They're not just going to disappear Like thankfully, I don't walk that path very often anymore, so they're not frequenting my mind very often, but they can still crop up.

Sinead Crowe: 21:13

So I think that it's unrealistic in the world that we live in that we're going to find ourselves completely in this place, never wanting to lose weight and feeling like we adore our body. We don't have to have to, and that's another thing we have to like what we see this is this is a fascinating thing is working with people and even myself, where, like I mean, sometimes the, the self-love, body love and all that can sound wonderful, but that we don't also ever have to feel love towards our body either. What we can move more towards and move closer towards is body respect and body like self-care and how we can, you know, show appreciation and gratitude for our body, even if we don't like what it looks like in the mirror.

Jenn Salib Huber: 21:56

Absolutely, and body neutrality in a nutshell right, yes.

Jenn Salib Huber: 21:59

You don't have to like your love your body to treat it with kindness and respect to like your love your body, to treat it with kindness and respect. And treating your body with kindness and respect feels so much better than loathing it and hating it and punishing it. That will feel like the right path. You know you have to keep choosing it, but it will feel like the right path the more that you practice it. But I love that you mentioned about how you don't have to be ready to give up on weight loss forever, because I say the same thing.

Jenn Salib Huber: 22:27

I start every group program by saying everyone here secretly hopes that this is the secret to effortless weight loss. Yeah, because that is how we are programmed and if we can just put that out on the table, then we have lowered the bar, we're managing expectations and we can really start with this curiosity mindset of what will everything look like, or what will my next meal look like, or my next vacation, or my next dinner, if I'm not choosing everything through the lens of will this help me lose weight or will this help me gain weight?

Finding Food Freedom: Letting Go of the Obsession with Weight Loss

Sinead Crowe: 23:01

Yes, oh, totally, it's such an important, important point. I think in the early stages for me, I kind of like went, oh, I went one step forward within shoot a meeting and like, and then I also kind of went back and I was like, oh, maybe I'll go back to the and over time. So I kind of went over and back. But what happens is, I feel and working with so many people, is that you begin to gather so many experiences where you're experiencing life differently. You're eating experience differently. You're beginning to kind of eat in a way that feels good, move in a way that feels good.

You get to go to that event and you're not really obsessing about your body before you go, you're not even really thinking about it when you're there. You're getting to enjoy connecting with people, having fun, and it's like you gather these experiences that over time yes, even though the desire for weight loss might still creep in, of course but it's that you've kind of moved on so far that actually, even the thought of going back there and essentially, maybe undoing a lot of that work, it's like, oh God, no, I ain't going to sacrifice that. Because some people ask me, like you know what do do, like if you have thoughts about losing weight and wanting to change your body and like again to normalize that. But also, I suppose, for me.

I've done so much work on it I know what happens to me, I know what happens to my mind if I even start thinking about restricting or dieting or put instilling any kind of food rules. I know what happens and just personally, I would not risk the peace that I have. I've gone so past that place I just know I won't ever go back there. I'm not saying never, never, sure, who knows. I don't like to make these black and white statements because you just don't ever know. But today I choose that I would not risk, that I wouldn't give up the joy and the freedom and the peace that I have every day and like for me now.

Sinead Crowe: 24:47

There was a time where I felt like food was the enemy. I just was like I love you but I hate you Because, like I can't stop eating you and I wish you didn't control me but I love how you bloody taste. Whereas now I'm like I get to eat, like how privileged am I? I get to eat three meals a day, the snacks that I want. I get to choose foods that I enjoy. I have access to such an abundance of food in my life that I can purchase, like, how lucky am I. I know how privileged I am. So to me now it just fills me with such excitement and appreciation that I could just never go back to that place where I would make food the enemy again. No way, no way, no how.

How to Manage Body Image Thoughts in Midlife

Jenn Salib Huber: 25:27

And it is a really good point because, I mean, I've been doing this for 10 years now and, like you, those thoughts don't come in often because of the work and the practice that I've done, but absolutely they still show up once in a while and I think one of the most powerful things to realize is that we don't have to respond to those thoughts. We can notice them, but we don't have to respond to them, and I give full credit to Christina Bruce for this, who's an amazing body image coach.

She talked about the sky and about how you can notice all these thoughts about food and your body as like clouds, and you're going to have some days that are cloudier and you're going to have some days that are like blue sky and sunshine, but you can just know that from one day to the next those clouds are going to pass. You know they're going to blow through and you don't have to follow them. You don't have to. You know respond to them.

Jenn Salib Huber: 26:20

And I think that realizing that a lot of times are the response the desire to weight loss or for weight loss is part of that diet cycle and if we can figure out what triggers the thought, you know what's the trap door. Is it needing to get dressed up to a dinner? Is it going to a medical appointment? Is it seeing a friend you haven't seen for a long time? What is the trap door that prompts that forecast, that brings those clouds into your, into your forecast?

Jenn Salib Huber: 26:49

Then you can be better prepared for them. You can be like, oh yeah, okay, I see that coming in 48 hours there's gonna be some clouds. What can I do to take care of myself? What can I do to really meet my needs ahead of that storm, so that I don't get like completely sucked into the tornado that's going to happen that day? So a lot of this work isn't just choosing what's on your plate. I would say 95% of it is not about food. It's about all of the things that go into the decisions about food. How do you cut out the food noise and how do you really change the relationship that you have with yourself, Not just your relationship with food? Um, but yeah, I think it's just so important for people to realize that the goal is never to never want or never have those thoughts.

Why Intuitive Eating Is About More Than Just Food

Sinead Crowe: 27:35

Oh my god, no because that's a totally unrealistic goal given the world that we live in. So, um, you know you may like you you mentioned there about like it's not really about the food. Actually it's funny because that's what we hear from our Hub members all the time. They're like oh my God, like you know, a while into working with us, they're like it's so obvious, it was never about the food, it's not really about the food. And even like, exactly as you mentioned.

Sinead Crowe: 27:58

You know, we don't have to react to these thoughts or respond to them, engage with them. We don't have to fight with these thoughts or desires. We can just notice them, we can be curious and I think that it can be helpful to even sometimes use them as a point to reflect and actually turn in words and ask and be curious about what's really going on. Because sometimes I will notice that if I'm low in energy, if I'm about to menstruate, if I don't feel like my parenting is going great, if I, you know, have something stressful going on at work In my life, I would have always practiced that if there was things going on that was difficult or stressful or that I didn't feel was in alignment, or whatever it was, what would we tend to do.

Sinead Crowe: 28:36

We might turn that attention inwards. We might look at our body, blame our body, distract ourselves with weight focused and diets and all the rest of it. Body, distract ourselves with weight focused and diets and all the rest of it. So it's a good opportunity to use those thoughts sometimes to be curious about what the hell could be going on here. What's really going on? You know so, and we tend to gather a lot more information about ourselves yeah, and that's a hard conversation to have with ourselves.

Jenn Salib Huber: 28:59

So to ask what's really going on, sometimes that's a can of worms that we're just not ready for. And that's okay too, right, you know, sometimes, especially in midlife, when you know the wheels fall off for all kinds of reasons, sometimes we have no idea what's happening. But maybe if we can just hold on to the thread or the hope that maybe it's not going to be solved by following another diet, that that is enough. Just believing that that is not the solution, it can be enough in the moment.

Jenn Salib Huber: 29:28

For sure, I realized as I'm talking to you that I'm kind of on this unofficial like tour of different intuitive eating counselors and because I just love talking to people who do this work every day, people who really know, like the trenches, of kind of helping people through this, so I'm going to kind of start this unofficial thing of asking other intuitive eating counselors now what would be your best piece of advice for someone who has just enough curiosity to want to try something different but isn't a hundred percent all in with letting go of the diet mentality. What would be one thing you could offer them? I know I've totally put you on the spot.

Sinead Crowe: 30:15

No, that's okay. Well, let me see what comes to mind. I think that if they're on that cusp of kind of, you know, being curious, I think, I think maybe pressing pause on needing to take action or do anything and just continue to expand and open to the learning piece, so what I would probably encourage, because this is what helped me. When I began, I started listening to podcasts. I didn't really change anything. I was doing, I didn't. It wasn't like, oh, I have to start Monday doing something differently, like I'm going to do intuitive eating. So no, it was kind of like, okay, I'm just going to plot along with what I'm at at the moment until I maybe get a bit more you know when I figured this out a little bit more and it makes more sense to me and I can maybe understand what it's really all about a little bit more, and it makes more sense to me and I can maybe understand what it's really all about.

So I would say, just before you end up kind of doing anything because I know we tend to be fans of the doing, less so of the being but instead of doing anything, definitely start listening to podcasts, maybe reading some information, some books, definitely kind of just opening and expanding that knowledge base on what intuitive eating is all about, and that might seem like a very kind of you know, maybe not so helpful advice, but I think I see people going okay, right Monday, I'm starting to be an intuitive eater or I'm going to start intuitive eating and there's not really an exact, there's not a starting point, because this is a very different to dieting.

Developing Intuitive Eating Skills: Slowing Down and Building Awareness

Sinead Crowe: 31:50

Dieting is six weeks, there's a timeframe, there's specific actions you're taking. That's not what this is. It's like the polar opposite and that can feel a bit like oh, I'm a bit at sea, I'm not really sure what I'm at here, because we have to understand what it's really about and begin to explore concepts, like you know, expanding our awareness, so developing interceptive awareness, understanding what's going on in our body, the signals that our body might be communicating to us, understanding our hunger. You know, being curious about what might be truly satisfying to us, being curious about what the food rules are, what are the judgments that we're making each day about food, what might be the stories that we tell ourselves about what the foods were allowed, not allowed. All of that takes a long time, people.

Sinead Crowe: 32:36

We tend to overestimate what we can do in a couple of weeks and underestimate what we can do if we slow the hell down and take our time and maybe give ourselves a much longer period. And I know that can be scary for people because they're like, hey, I don't want to be learning for two years now, I want to have this learned in six weeks. You ain't going to have it learned in six weeks. You're not going to have there's no, you know, nailing and being an intuitive eater within a six week timeframe and like we work with people for 10 weeks and it's quite intense, it's every day.

Sinead Crowe: 33:08

There's a lot of input, a lot of coaching, and the first thing we say on the discovery call and the first thing that we remind them on every single time we have a live coaching call is guys, you ain't going to have this nailed down after 10 weeks because there is nothing to nail down. You know this is not how it works. It's different to everything you've ever done. So it is really, I believe, about just slowing down, thinking about the long game. Developing awareness is the first step, for sure, and that really does take time it does.

Jenn Salib Huber: 33:36

And I love the information piece because I'm a big fan of diluting old beliefs. So if you've got a pool of beliefs that are as old as you are, that have come from your family, like the seed was planted for this pool of beliefs a long time ago and reinforced and it's a deep well of beliefs.

It's a deep well of beliefs and diet, culture and society and all of that. It has been like keeping that pool of beliefs full. You need to just start diluting it first and before you think about completely changing the water, you need to just start diluting it. Just put in, put in some of the intuitive eating beliefs and just kind of see what happens. And eventually you kind of reach a tipping point and it's not a start, but it is kind of like a okay, I don't want that. Whatever's behind me, I don't want that. And I'm curious and trusting enough to put one foot in front of the other and really give this a try. So, but with support and what a cool analogy.

Jenn Salib Huber: 34:42

Yeah, oh, I'm full of analogies.

Sinead Crowe: 34:44

It's so helpful to help people, isn't it understand?

Jenn Salib Huber: 34:47

and you know we have that, that image, you know well, the other one is that I used to is that, like, our brain is a computer, right. And if, whenever we have responded to the desire for weight loss, if 100% of the time we've responded to that thought, with what diet am I going to start, our brain has zero motivation to change it because it has worked.

100% of the time the diet hasn't worked, but the thought response has worked, yes, but if we can insert even like two out of those 100 as not starting a diet, all of a sudden our brain will start to realize like huh, I'm not adding 100 with this anymore, maybe I'm not going to go to it next time as my go-to response. So that is where the practice of intuitive eating comes in. You really just have to keep practicing because it's not a switch. It is not a switch.

Sinead Crowe: 35:45

And actually, speaking of computer analogies one of the ones that sean often uses with with our clients when they come back to that desire for weight loss that we mentioned. But she will say, like it is like your computer screen and you know how. I certainly know. I'm looking at my computer screen now. We've got like 10 tabs open and she's like the desire for weight loss is one of those tabs, but that you're not actively working on it. It can be there in the background, but that you're choosing which ones you're going to be working on.

Sinead Crowe: 36:06

I like you know that can be helpful for people to understand that it can still be there. We can still do lots of work even if it's there, but it's just not open and it's not active thank you so much, Sinead um I.

Jenn Salib Huber: 36:19

I knew this conversation would be great and I know that you know your story and your story of how people can get started and how we can help them to see some of these kind of glimmers that intuitive eating is the path to explore. I just really appreciate your time and your wisdom and the space that you take up in this space, so thank you so much for joining me.

Sinead Crowe: 36:39

Oh, thank you so much for having me. It's been lovely.

Jenn Salib Huber: 36:42

So here's the big question what do you think is the missing ingredient in midlife Now that you're over 40, you may have like a big answer or you may have never thought of this.

The Missing Ingredient in Midlife

Sinead Crowe: 36:52

Well, okay, let me see how many months over 40 am I? I think it's about three, so I just turned 40 in July. But the missing ingredient? God and I was to think about this. And have I Missing ingredient? Oh God, in midlife, I wish I was better at these on the spot questions. Missing ingredient.

Jenn Salib Huber: 37:20

I'm not going to hold you to it for like the next 10 years, so it doesn't. You don't have to worry about.

Sinead Crowe: 37:24

I know, yes, sorry, god, really taking my time here to think about this. Is that the perfectionist in me that's wanting to get the right answer, the best answer? No, I think that maybe in midlife, I don't know. So I this might not, I don't know if this makes sense, but so I had kids young, so I was 19 when I was pregnant with my first child. A lot of my friends are maybe starting to have families now in their late thirties, forties, right. So I guess, as we're in this stage, I think that I feel really lucky that maybe on some level I nearly had to start because I had a child so young.

Sinead Crowe: 37:58

I kind of grew up with him essentially. So I was, you know, learning to meet my own needs and to consider my own needs, even as a young parent. I think that has really stood to me. I think, to be where I am today, that I think that a lot of women, maybe in their forties and fifties, give so much to children and to other people. They might be looking after older parents, they might be looking after their children, and there's so many demands placed upon us. I think in midlife and I think that you know it's just maybe the misingredients is that don't forget you've got needs and that it's okay to meet your needs.

Jenn Salib Huber: 38:37

Oh, I love that, and that may be the first time in 120 some episodes that that has been said so well done.

Sinead Crowe: 38:46

Well, look, at least I brought something different.

Jenn Salib Huber: 38:48

Thank you so much and we will put all the links to you know the things that you do and where to find you in the show notes. But thanks to everyone for tuning in and thanks again, sinead.

Sinead Crowe: 39:00

Thank you.

Jenn Salib Huber: 39:02

Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of the Midlife Feast. For more non diet, health, hormone and general midlife support, click the link in the show notes to learn how you can work and learn from me. And if you enjoyed this episode and found it helpful, please consider leaving a review or subscribing, because it helps other women just like you find us and feel supported in midlife.