Episode 1—Welcome to Self-Care Cafe! Get to know us

Transcript

Hey it's Carrie and Ashley we welcome you to the self-care Cafe we are both
health professionals and moms and nature lovers and food lovers and love helping
women get over dieting and just start living.  We think that talking about bodies
and perfect bodies and dieting is just oh boring.
Did we put you to sleep there Carrie?
Yes!
So if you are ready to ditch dieting and get to living and talk about more important things than you are in the right place we don't put shame and guilt on the menu here
you don't even have to tip us 
nope
come hang with us the advice is free we want to have a bunch of girlfriends to
just hang out with and get real with and it's time to start living ladies.

hi Carrie 
hi Ashley 
how are you today
I'm good we're coming to you today from
our closets the only place that sounds good for you
yes that is we're trying to get good audio for you so we're both stuck in our closets
but we wanted to come on today tell you all a little bit cast and what we're going to talk about and yeah 
yeah good so Ashley tell me a little bit about yourself 
so Carrie nailed it my name's Ashley
I nailed it
I'm a registered dietitian so I help people with their nutrition I help people with food I love helping people with their relationship with food and how they think about food
um I was like a traditionally trained registered dietitian um and I uh got my degree and my registration in about 2010 so I've been practicing for about 13 years which was
crazy to think about I was thinking about how long it had been the other day
and I was like oh my gosh it's over 10 years now um but yeah and I've worked in lots and lots of different uh places so public health for a WIC program and Clinics and hospitals and nursing homes um and most recently I have a private practice so seeing clients one-on-one getting referrals summed up from some doctor's offices
um but also people are reaching out on their own and working with Carrie yes doing this fun stuff so that's mostly about me I think um from a
non-work kind of side 
I was gonna ask you about that 
yeah so I live in Vermont I um live with my family and I have a daughter she's eight we've been doing lots of outside fun activities I really like eating really good food
um tacos are one of my favorites and chocolate is probably they might be
about tied probably and I like walking the dog outside I really like working from home most of the time and in the summer I really like doing hiking and kayaking and
being outside in the sun and just soaking that up
yep you are an outdoorsy Vermont girl
that's right yep this year we might actually thanks for reminding me we might actually do um some some Maple Taps to make our own
maple syrup on a very small small scale we did it last year it didn't turn out super great so we'll try again because
you're gonna have to get on that though because I know we're tapping the trees
Yep this weekend
you're welcome for the reminder yes
thank you
anything else Carrie but you want to know gosh
well we're you're a multi-preneur right
that's right yeah we also have another little business going with some other um
uh Partners yep uh vitamom uh maybe we'll talk about that in a separate episode one of these times for sure but that's another thing that you can check out
um I don't know if you're just all around awesome so
same too so let's hear about you now get me off the spot
um so I have a background in exercise physiology and health education and I am
currently uh going to grad school for um Health psychology I will be done God
willing in September um and I can't wait to have my life back um and put more time and energy um into this and Ashley can't wait either and I don't know I've done all kinds of things things with my you know base on my degree but before that I actually
um was a stay-at-home mom for 13 years and we homeschooled during that time have four amazing Sons they are unfortunately all grown up now but um
one of them just gave me my oldest son just gave me my first granddaughter
first grandchild um but my granddaughter 
congratulations
oh thank you so in love um and I have a couple bonus kids and um so that kind of accidentally veered into my private life but um or my personal life but back to business um so I've done things like cardiac rehab um post-rehab training
um taught Fitness and yoga classes for many many years used to have my own
studio um a lot of clients that I work with um have some sort of either they're older
and they're trying to maintain their
independence um I've had uh traumatic brain injury clients spinal cord clients clients with cancer clients with heart disease diabetes um you name it so that's sort of the
route that I've gone I'm also I've been a freelance writer and editor for oh I started the year my youngest was born so 25 years um scary to think about that but um so
um yeah I've written for all kinds of different um National Women's Publications like
Shape Fitness Cooking Light Health um among others as well as some trade Publications um and um a contract on contract for editing right now for a national
um publisher um what else oh I have a book I wrote a book and it was published in 2004 it's just been a while but I do my next one planned um and I've been flushing that out a little bit and who knows maybe Ashley and I will also write one together
you know yeah
um yeah and what else
um
yeah yeah and I Thanks for mentioning the types of people that like you've
worked with in the past because
sometimes as health professionals we can
get really zoned in on one specific
um like audience or type of patient I
guess and I'm kind of in the same boat
as carry where I've worked with a lot of
different types of people and people
with lots of different conditions so
I think we've both worked with
um pregnant moms moms young kids
um and like Kerry said people with
diabetes and heart disease and cancer
and kind of the gamut so I really like
that
yeah I really like that we both have
um such a wide range of experience too
yeah and we neglected to say that we are
also both intuitive eating counselors
certified intuitive eating counselors
um so we have sort of the same
philosophy around food and bodies and
um I'm a recovered anorexic
um and we'll get through different
episodes you'll learn more about that
too
um and my journey with that and
I think that pretty much
yeah you just made me think of something
else too like with the intuitive eating
piece
um when I work with clients and I was
working with clients in like a hospital
inpatient and outpatient setting and now
I do more of my private practice
um clients but when I do work with
clients I work with them in a weight
inclusive manner so that means that we
don't focus on weight as a way to change
their health and again that's a whole
another episode for a whole other day
but it's more about working on our
health overall and how we can improve
our health or just feel better or make
our own goals for our health without
focusing on the weight piece so much
because when we start doing that we can
get down some not so great roads and
paths and kind of wrecks our
relationship with food in our bodies so
we like to look at things from a little
bit of a different angle than I think a
lot of other health professionals and
providers and things yeah for sure and
as you know health and fitness
professional same thing like I I would
steer my clients away from focusing on
the weight loss
um and instead let's focus on you know
Whole Health overall health habits and
it's not just food and exercise it's
also how much quality sleep are you
getting
um how what's the stress like in your in
your life
um do you have any medical issues that
you know are you taking good care of
those um like sort of you know what what
season of your life are you in you know
are you a postpartum Mom are you a
menopausal woman are you perimenopausal
you know like all these things that
affect your health and also affect your
sleep and your stressed and it all is
into related it's hard to really you
can't really box each section into its
own little
box
so it's you'll see through these
episodes that Ash and I really focus on
you as a whole person right it's not
um just you're not just that number on
the scale that's that's that is not
define who you are at all
exactly
um there's so many other dimensions yeah
and I like to think about too like
bringing it back to the healthcare world
like a lot of times when we go in for
and I don't like to throw you know
providers under the bus but a lot of
times we here we go
sometimes we just get into this whole
like well diet and exercise
um lecture and there's so much more to
it than that like Carrie was just saying
like stress and sleep and what about
your social connections and
um your finances which play a role in
your stress or sleep levels and all of
that so so yeah we like to focus on
what else is going on in your life for
one and you know also like what are your
beliefs around you know your body or
what are your beliefs around bodies in
general or what are your beliefs around
Health what are your beliefs around food
and what meals quote unquote should look
like
um
and all that kind of thing too
yeah absolutely I remember when I worked
in rehab years ago
one of our patients came in and just
sobbing and she said my my doctor just
told me in order to fix my back problems
I just needed to lose weight because I
don't even you know like that's it like
in and I don't even know how to do that
and you know it was just
um it tends to be their go-to is to just
lose weight
um they might might hand you a pamphlet
they don't you know
yeah we have we have some beeps about
all right yeah we have so much to say
about them
yes yes you know it's like well my mom
recently was diagnosed with pre-diabetes
and her doctor said well you can either
go on this medication or you can not eat
this and you know just gave her in
didn't offer anything beyond that you
know hey let me send you to a
nutritionist or you know a registered
dietitian let me send you to the
diabetes educator here's you know here's
some options maybe before we try
medication it's it's yeah it's
you're gonna hear some
awesome things with that and it's okay
because
the more we educate ourselves on that
you know for instance a lot of people
don't realize when you go to your
doctors what's the first thing they do
on your way to the room they put you on
the scale
um well guess what you can Decline
and I have for years to the point where
when I go now they don't even
you know they they might say do you want
to nope okay you know they just they're
they it's almost like I've conditioned
them in some way to like hey nope that's
I don't do that
um unless there's an absolute reason you
need to know like if I'm going to have
surgery obviously I want the right
amount of anesthesia right
um but
or if you're on a medication that needs
to know your weight
there are some medical conditions like
congestive heart failure where
some Wayne Right might be necessary but
for most people it's not right yeah and
again we hate to throw providers under
the bus and they're doing what they were
taught but our system's pretty broken
around how we deal with our health and
how we look at our health in comparison
to our weight and how they're related
because really they don't have to be
related at all you know we see lots of
different bodies Kerry and I have worked
with so many different people over the
years and from you know just personal
experience with those clients as well as
tons and tons of research we can be in
lots of different sized bodies and have
good or bad Health
um it doesn't matter what size we're at
we can be healthy in larger bodies we
can be healthy in smaller bodies we can
be unhealthy in smaller bodies and we
can be unhealthy and larger bodies too
um we can't really base what someone's
health is just by looking at somebody is
kind of I guess like our bottom line
with that piece absolutely because
someone could appear thin
and uh maybe they're going through
chemotherapy or they're going through
you know they've been sick
um maybe they have an eating disorder or
maybe you know it's there's so many
different what ifs or maybes that it
could be
um so it's being really careful about
congratulating people on your weight
loss or really talking it up like hey
you look so fabulous it's like well then
what did I look like before you know
um and what am I gonna look like when I
gain this weight back because
um 95 chance that you're going to right
right
um and not all of it like you know our
approach is more when you focus on the
health habits
and just being
um you know like we've already talked
about
um nourishing your body
getting uh physical activity and
managing or mastering your stress
um getting enough rest and sleep your
body kind of finds where it wants to be
um without all that stress of dieting
and weighing yourself and uh it is so
stressful like when you start really
talking about it thinking about it and
how freeing it is when you don't feel
confined to those rules in that box that
you're trying to squeeze yourself into
that really wasn't created for you
yeah you made me think of a couple
things too while you were saying that
like looking at Health not from just a
physical perspective too so from the
mental health like when you were saying
um someone that might be thin might be
struggling with their physical health
but also their mental health which can
then relate to their physical health and
you'll hear us talk a lot about how all
of our different aspects like our
physical body our mental health and our
emotional health they're all very
interconnected and they all
um kind of
work together or maybe not work together
if they're not working together very
well but they're all connected and so
focusing on all the different types of
health and different levels of care that
we provide our body and I like how
Carrie says um nourishing our body
because to me obviously as a dietitian I
would probably just say like nourishment
means to eat food but I also think that
it's important to nourish our bodies in
ways like supporting our mental health
and doing things that bring us joy and
getting rid of some of the things that
don't bring us joy right like opting out
of a lot of things that might be
triggering to us in whatever way that
might be or
causing us stress if we can opt out or
setting boundaries or adjusting or
something like that we talk a lot about
that too
yeah yeah make um sort of designing your
life
um to fit your needs and and um the way
that
um in a way that brings Joy back into
your life right or maybe for the first
time if you've never had it before and
and thinking about that whole you know
complimenting people's weight loss
um reminded me too uh this is sort of an
extreme example but uh when I was going
through my marriage problems
um and I used to use anorexia as my uh
security blanket so I had dropped
quickly in pounds and
um went to had to go to the doctors
um and it was uh someone else filling in
or something and um except on the scale
and he said oh
um very nice BMI you don't see too many
Americans with such a low BMI
and I'm thinking thanks thank you now
this is a doctor an MD doctor saying
this to me
um clearly didn't know my history
but that sort of is also the point right
like we don't know people's histories uh
so it's just another reason to be
careful
about complementing people's weight loss
because in that case it just reinforced
you know I wanted to look at him and say
because I do what was going on you know
you jerky you know like I'm in an
anorexic spell right now and
um thanks for encouraging it
um so it's just you'll hear more and
more things like that about just kind of
getting real right like we're gonna get
real about our bodies and
um because I just feel like sometimes
it's almost like commercials and the ads
and
just media and Public Health in general
they just put so much emphasis on what
our bodies quote unquote should look
like and you have to lose weight to be
healthy and you have to lose weight if
you have this condition or this
condition and none of that is
necessarily true which is so frustrating
because you know my one of my biggest
frustrations is like there's so much
research out there about all the things
that we talk about and we're still as a
culture like really pushing these
unhealthy ways of living with dieting
and over exercising and
focusing on our bodies you know size as
a way to measure our health and it's
just a bunch of baloney
yes absolutely because even the BMI
which you know a lot of them moved away
from just weight to using BMI which all
BMI is is a ratio of your height to
weight so saying what should you weigh
at your height well it doesn't take into
account
um you know muscle mass and the frame
the size of your frame and bone density
and like there's so many different
things
um we'll do another we'll do a whole
episode about BMI because there's so
much more to say about that yeah there's
definitely is for sure
awesome anything else you want to add
Ash in this first our first episode I
don't think so I think we covered a lot
we did well sort of as the overall
blanket we tend to do that we tend to go
on little tangents but it's okay because
you're it just shows they're gonna get
you're going to get a lot of information
in every podcast episode for sure a lot
of information and like realistic ways
to
think about things differently maybe
um to maybe
explore your relationship with food or
your thoughts or beliefs around food and
your body and how we look at bodies in
general all of that and then like Carrie
said kind of figuring out ways to design
your life
to be what you want it to be and to
bring some Joy back into your life and
yeah hopefully you know making it a
place where you want to hang out
yes in your own body exactly your own
body yeah it also just because of our
backgrounds
doesn't mean that we don't struggle I
think that's the misconception a lot of
people have oh well you're this quote
unquote professional in this area what
do you know really other than just book
smart right except that
um the truth is that even most
professional professionals I would say
um have you know have struggled just
like everyone else does so whether or
not they admit that right but
um no we're just two real women moms and
uh a smidge of grandmom in there
two
on body
um and have fun with it and find some
joy and ease and confidence and
can't wait yeah awesome well we'll see
you next week then I guess right Carrie
yes ma'am thanks for listening we love
you latte love you latte

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