 body and you are a spirit and guess what? God wants you to be whole in all three and we're so glad you're joining us on this Friday here on Hope Today. You see, it's the ladies are here today. We're so excited. I'm here with Angela and Anna. We're so excited about the conversation we're going to dive into because this is something we need to discuss. We need to talk about. Angela, tell us what's coming up. Oh, Sydney, today's show is for you. Dieting and diet fads are always making headlines. And to be honest, a bombarding thought when we consider our own waistlines. But why is that? We know overall health is important, but what exactly is shaping our ideas of being healthy? And how do those ideas shape our view of our own worth? Today's guest, registered dietitian and nutrition therapist, Leslie Shilling, shines a light on what she says is a diet culture that is quite literally killing us from the inside out. I am telling you, you guys, this diet culture book, this author, Leslie, has so much truth to share with us. We all know, like King Solomon says, as a man thinks in his heart, so is he. She goes after what it is that we're actually being fed through the culture and what is informing our thoughts that is also changing how we live and how we relate with one another. It is going to be powerful today. I'm so passionate about this topic. It's very near and dear to my heart because I struggled so much with disordered eating through my teenage years and to my early adult years, because maybe if you're in my generation or a little bit older, remember the fat free era where we were told to not eat any fat and literally like in high school, I wouldn't eat my mom's dinner because I was eating pasta every day because it said zero fat on the nutrition label. Well, goodness, like and so depending on the time of what year it is, like there's these different food trends, diet trends that if you just eat this way, you'll shed all those pounds that have been like stubborn and it's so ingrained in our brains that so often we don't even realize what we're doing and information knowledge is power. And let me tell you this guest Leslie that we have today, her voice is a voice of freedom. So if you think a lot about your body or body shaming about food, what's right, what's good food, what's bad food, this conversation has the ability to set you free today. Well, and I just really appreciate your transparency of just opening up about like struggles that you face with like food. And I think this is such an important conversation because it doesn't matter what size we are. I think we have all have had to face this whole thing with food. And so something this is near and dear to my heart too of just certain things I'd like to eat, but I'm one of those. I am so glad we're having this conversation today because I'm really tired of the culture just feeding us these lies telling us what not to eat what to eat. I'm like I'm so over it. So it is so important that we have the truth. And I love that even in the Bible God is our guideline that there are so many scriptures and things that you can read talking about our bodies. It is our temple. What we put in our bodies and our temple is so important. You know, recently like at one thing I've been like changing my diet a little bit because I was like, well, y'all know I love the cookies and I'm not giving up the cookies. That's what me and Lord knows my struggle. But I do think one thing I've been really incorporating is this with fruits and vegetables because you know one thing I love in the beginning that when God says what he created, it is good. Like the fruits and vegetables are truly good for our body. So I've been making a lot of smoothies. I'm trying to incorporate that more into what I eat. But I'm like really excited, Angela, for what we are diving into. Yes, Sydney, even that conversation about the good and the bad. Oh, she gets into it all in her book and in our interview today. So listen, diet culture, we recognize permeates American society, even in our safest places. It actually can't be escaped in schools, playground conversations, medical offices, even in our churches. Today you won't just sit down to enter, listen to our interview with this guest, but rather I'm quite confident you're going to feel as though you plopped down in her office on her therapy couch, registered dietitian, nutrition therapist and author Leslie Schilling shares some eye opening revelation in her latest book. Feed yourself, step away from the lies of diet culture and into your divine design. Leslie, welcome to hope today. Thank you so much for having me. I'm glad to be here. Oh Leslie, we are so glad to have you. And listen, you are prolific. You've been featured in health and women's health magazine, the Huffington Post on HGTV, just to list a few. Okay, so needless to say you're very accomplished. But tell us a little bit about what started your journey and passion in writing this book on feeding yourself. So this conversation has been on my heart for a decade, you know, and I just sit across from people and listen to their struggles with their own body and food and things that they've heard in the safe places like in churches, medical offices and schools. And sitting in my own congregation, gosh, you know, five, 10 years ago, hearing well meaning sermons that really tugged at our heartstrings of our worthiness. So tying our body and food choices to our worthiness and realized that like, wow, somebody should really talk about this. And then God was like, hey girl, it's you. And I couldn't get it off my heart. So here we are like a decade later from from when this, you know, this kind of problem really set on my heart of like, we really have to talk about diet culture showing up in the safe places and making us feel ashamed for something God created good, which is our very divine design and our we have this innate wisdom of how to feed ourselves and diet culture really messes that up. You talk a lot about how this permeates everything literally just rolls off our tongue and we are unaware of it. So could you explain to us what it is that you mean by diet culture and how can we begin to uncover this lie that continues to speak? So so diet culture is this system of beliefs and many say oppression that that leads us to falsely equate thinness, a certain way of eating to health and even worthiness. So it's in all the safe places. And here, here's an example everyone can I think relate to if you go to a doctor's visit, you step on the scale the first thing will about 90% of those doctors visits for adults. You don't need a weight check. It's not even necessary. It's customary, but not necessary. And we'll even have people kind of argue with us about that. But it's because those seeds are planted so deeply in the safe places like medical education, even my education as a registered dietitian was very weight centric. And so that's one way it shows up is like, oh, we feel like this must be really important. Because in the safe places, I have to focus on this. And so it's a system of beliefs or oppression that leads us to believe that our how we show up in the world and this body that God gave us these very diverse bodies is related, you know, explicitly to our health and worth and really your weight is not a good proxy for health in the first place. And it sure is not a proxy for our worthiness. You share several lies that we've already bought in hook, line and sinker. And again, we hear them in commercials and marketing. Would you share with us one to two lies that we continue to hear and have really accepted as truth. And it's kind of ruining how we approach health and living a vital life. Yeah, yeah, well, I kind of touched on where one of the lies is like weight is a primary indicator of my health. Well, that is a lie. And the evidence in the science world, I'm a nerd, like the evidence does not support that one bit. So there's so many other things that are related to our health and things like socioeconomic status, food security. You know, do you have a safe place to live? Do you get good sleep? Do you have access to non stigmatizing health care? There are a lot of things that really impact our health that are not our weight at all. And we're largely not in control of our weight, like that body preference we have of like, I like to be here or this size or whatever. Well, your body is like, well, your genetics say this, and we're going this way. And so that's a lie that, you know, your weight is a very good indicator of your health. That is false. You know, something else that I think is even a more subtle insidious lie is that it's normal to be at war with your body. And or normal to think I must change, I must conform, I must make this body look like cultural ideals. And it's not normal to be at war with your body. It's not normal to struggle over the lunch menu with friends when you're out to lunch. It's not normal to be afraid to eat a snack in the afternoon. It's not normal to just think, gosh, I have to change my body. It would be so much better if I were different. That is something that we hear people struggle with a lot. And I have 20 years plus experience as a registered dietitian and eating disorder expert where it's like eating disorders and disordered eating is not rare at all. And it's because of these lies that are and these seeds that are planted in our hearts and our minds so young and without our consent. I love that you approach the topic the way that you do Leslie and truly it is freeing even when you're saying feeling guilt over having that snack. You know, why do we feel that guilt? Why is that there is what you're really challenging us to uncover. And so in your book you start with these statements and I love them. One of them you say I'm sorry you lost the freedom to be carefree in your own body because you heard your aunt or whomever else speak hatefully about her own the same woman you thought was so strong and beautiful. I think about that statement and how many times we've heard in a in a week in a month in a year somebody speak hate about their own body. Could you share with us a little bit of what you've done to combat that hate sharing of yourself or even when you hear others say things that are damaging of themselves to you. Yeah, yeah and I can use examples from you know working with people in my office and and even in my own life like hearing my grandmother say negative things about her body are always chasing this very unrealistic number on the scale. You know first we have to see diet culture and realize that the desires the desires that we have to change our body or to be something other than what we are don't come from a good place. They don't come from a gospel message. They don't come from the Holy Spirit. They come from diet culture and they and diet culture I like to talk about kind of the enemy and some evil in this world and I do think this is a tool to distract us from living fed full purposeful lives and so we talk about that. I'm like hey let's separate let's separate you this separate this thought from your very very good body and I handle my heart in my office look at this person this client of mine and and tell them I am so sorry for the lies that you were told about your body and what should have been a safe place. I am so sorry and can we work um not body love not not can we not even go that far yet can we take the step to I have a body that God made good and can I be can I step towards neutral and I care for it while I'm learning to step out of diet culture. That process of taking us from being hateful and angry and and negative to truly a neutral space you share that it really actually brings us a freedom a freedom to live healthily in the best possible way would you share with us what is the repercussions what is it that we can expect if we don't begin to view our eating and and this diet culture in a neutral way what is it that we can expect the damage what what kind of damage can we expect yeah yeah we know it's interesting because um what we don't hear in safe places for example like health offices is we don't get informed consent so we don't get things like a nurse practitioner or physician or someone saying listen I'm going to recommend that you do a weight loss diet but what I'm not going to tell you is that 95 percent of those fail at the three to five year mark and which means you've gained all the weight back and of those that 95 percent 65 to 70 percent of those people who gain the weight back gain it more gain more back so if this were a drug being approved by the FDA it would never make it to a doctor's prescription pad and so I want people to know that you will learn untruths in safe places and dieting for the sole purpose of shrinking your body is not the way to health and that actually leads a lot of the things we blame on living in a larger body or carrying what our culture would consider extra weight can be attributed to the actual act of yoyo dieting or weight cycling or restricting our bodies not necessarily the body size of a person and so we can we can continue to be on this I must change my body hamster wheel and then see the chronic disease and aftermath that comes from years and years of yoyo dieting we can be free from that we can step out of that and it also looks like having those assertive conversations with their healthcare providers like I don't want to focus on my way I really want to focus on health promoting behaviors like my mental health can you give me a referral to a therapist can you help me you know be more mobile without pushing weight loss on me that might require that I get a referral to a physical therapist to help on my mobility or to help me with this foot issue that I'm having and so health can be achieved in a lot of different ways if we step out of diet culture the other thing is you know we can expect to unknowingly pass down a legacy of body hatred if we don't step out of this that's one of the things that you know really really lit a fire under me is like I don't want my daughter or her generation to struggle in the way my generation and the generations before me have um and I'm with you in the in the fat free like craze you know like we don't need to struggle we've we've really complicated food and made it the end all be all of health and it's really not health is so multifaceted and the health as our world defines it is not available to everyone because we're not all able-bodied we're not all economically privileged um so health looks different for everybody Leslie you talk so much about listening to our bodies our bodies tell us what we need whether it's a certain kind of food or whether it's more rest or whether it's more movement or richer relationships but since we're talking about food and diet culture if somebody is looking at their day of how to eat and they think like some foods are bad foods some are good like how does one begin a day looking at their food plan and begin to make healthy choices and well first you get to just decide what health looks like for you you know and you decide that you know your economic resources you know your own values you define health not not policy not a google article like you define it you define that for yourself um and then you can't you know there are lots of things we can do that are health promoting like um focus on sleep less screen time um making those connections with other people there are lots of things that we can do that really give us um you know more connection which we're really designed for and when we look at mortality risk having really good relationships in your life is more important to reducing mortality risk than the number on the scale even smoking so there are things we can do to step into health and while stepping out of diet culture and realizing that we do have to define that for ourselves and that starts also with safe communities um and and trying safe communities of people who hopefully think you know aren't like always in conversation with good food bad food and I will say the dichotomizing of food and bodies if that's something we do it makes sense we all grew up here where nobody gets out unscathed in diet culture um we all grew up here but we really want to make food neutral while it's not nutritionally equivalent we want food to be neutral too so Sydney eat your cookie and enjoy it girl God made that cookie too so you know uh so that's the thing is like don't food doesn't have power food is a gift and nutrition via the blessing of food that is what we give our bodies not what we take from it take you know take away from our body so it's not restriction and so when we can kind of level the playing field with food like I love a North Carolina tomato like I mean like nothing on this planet but I live in Las Vegas so I don't get them so I have really poor substitutes but like I love a juicy tomato with the ingredient as tomatoes but I also love some cheezus and I promise you that they're in they're they're I love them and I want them in you know what I consider kind of my help my healthy diet and so if we can kind of neutralize food and feed ourselves consistently and adequately a lot of that internal regulation that diet culture has told us to ignore will come back so sometimes we just start with a very basic step of feeding your very good body three meals let's start there let's see what your body will tell you let's tune in let's tune in to this very wise vessel that you have Leslie I love that we can eat the cookies and the cupcakes but really and that you're peeling back these layers of this culture that is ingrained within us and around us if there was something that you could just look into this camera I know that you gave us you know just eating those three square meals a day and start being in tune with our body that is divinely designed but if there was something that you could look into this camera and tell the one who's watching who has been that yo-yo dieter who never feels satisfied within their own body that would encourage them to take one more look in the mirror and see the beauty of who they are would you take just a moment and share that yes I would say just like your client sitting across from me in my office your body today is good your body tomorrow is good your body has always been good and I want you to know that if you choose to pursue health that there's a way to do it outside of diet culture that can bring you joy and freedom not bondage and it's there it's out there for you Leslie thank you so much for those wise words and I know that so many of our viewers found freedom today in recognizing that the diet culture around them doesn't have to exist within them thank you for your book thank you for who you are and thank you for coming on hope today thank you wow this is a great freeing conversation that's right I feel like you have your cookie you know I love that she said it's part of my it's part of my diet it's part of my lifestyle thank you Leslie you have set me free from the self condemnation but in all honesty we just are so glad that you're watching today and we just pray no matter what size you are I mean God makes us all beautiful we are uniquely designed we are fearfully and wonderfully made and one thing I have friends of all different sizes and shapes and you know one thing I think we need to do especially as women let's celebrate our bodies let's love one another I just think we see so many things in the culture and like with media and the magazines you know it doesn't matter if you're a size 20 or a size two you are beautiful boo and you need to grab hold of that in something that I've like even sometimes I do if I'm like oh I look in the mirror and just say like God has made me and just speak to yourself and love on yourself because I know a lot of us as we go through trauma there's certain word things that have been spoken over us and curses and all these things that just kind of manipulate and twist us but today is a day in and I know this is so near and dear to your heart that there is freedom of just embracing what God has called us to be we are divinely designed yes we surely are divinely designed and you know the bible talks about renewing our mind like if we want to be transformed we are transformed by the renewing of our mind I have the scripture right here actually it's Romans 12 to do not conform to the pattern of this world can we say diet culture pattern of the world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so these kinds of conversations that we like what we just had today what we're having now is the beginning of thinking differently listen we have to unlearn the the record that has been on repeat since we were little and we have to start playing a new message of truth and of freedom that there is no such thing as good food and bad food there is just food and there is discussions and options for just how to listen to your body and what your body needs and make sure that you're nurturing it right but really ladies like today was a conversation about wellness that is the bigger picture like don't we get so hyper focused on food on the scale of what our bodies look like on what kind of workouts we're doing like just move just be a good relationships sleep like do getting God's word get like all these things make up a well life yes you know a lot of times I share about how the look everybody looks different and and how we're made is so different from one another that the diversity is really a reflection of who God is if we are all in fact created in the image of God and yet we all look distinctly different it's clear that he also has all these attributes right and so she shares in her book about the diversity of shapes and sizes is actually divine and I believe that if we can begin to embrace as we look around those all around us and look at ourselves that we are shaped and and our size is different from our sister our brother our friend and we can embrace that and see that man this is actually how God created and intended for us to be so that we could represent all different things and do all different types of thing in this earth to give him worship I think that it would benefit all of us you know ladies I feel like this diet culture does it permeates everything it's in our conversations in our language and I really love how King Solomon implores us to really think more of our thinking like what is informing our thoughts and and how is that shaping how we live yeah absolutely I just want to say before we go that this is a daily battle that I face and I know that there are some of you out there too where it is your daily battle as well like every day I have to be intentional about not shaming my body about doing all these like angles and turns in a mirror to like make sure that everything is still looking the way that I want it to be to be happy like remember that our identity is in Christ go back to his word because his word will speak louder than any lies that the enemy wants to tell you they're truly his freedom from food and freedom from diet culture who amen to that I am just like this is one of those conversations where I'm just my heart is so full and I hope your heart is so full as well and I just want to think both of you you know just for your transparency and what you do even beyond here on the TV and just how you're ministering and sharing love to women because both of these women that's what they do that's their heart and it is so important for us to get a right perspective of God so we understand our identity so we can throw the lies out so you know one thing I know every time like we like to do is like we pray before our food and just realize what God created is good God created you you are good and so just begin to speak that over yourself today you are fearfully and wonderfully made you are a beautiful being created in the image of God so what we are sharing with you today is and I love what Anna brought out this is about wellness it's about our mind body and spirit it's not all separate no you're it's all about wellness and being well in the father being well in the son and being well in the holy spirit can't go wrong there so we just pray for this weekend that you would experience his love his joy and his peace today we love you