007: A Mindful Approach to Disordered Eating with Jeffrey Siegel

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Welcome to the Real Food Mental Health Podcast, where we explore the powerful connection between mental and physical health.My name is Cody Cox, a holistic nutritional psychotherapist, and I'm here to guide you on a journey to true wellness, mind, body and spirit.If you're tired of quick fixes and want real solutions that address the root cause, you're in the right place.Let's get started on your path to lasting wellness.If you want to support this podcast, just go to kofi.com/codycox.That's kofi.com/codycox.Welcome back to Real Food Mental Health with Cody Cox.Today's guest is Jeffrey Siegel.He's a men's health and wellness coach, a writer and mindfulness teacher at Harvard University, specializing in the psychology of eating and a holistic approach to self-care.Welcome, Jeff.Hey, Cody.Thank you for having me here.So you work at Harvard University.You do all these wonderful things.Tell me a little bit about what got you started and what you're doing.So if you wouldn't mind sharing a little bit about your story, personal experience with these things.Yeah, I'd like to really trace my origin story back to being 14 years old, and I remember crawling into the couch.My mom was there sitting on that couch with me, and I was in and probably lost about 50, 60 pounds at that point in time.And I just remember bawling in tears and saying, I can't do this anymore.I need some help.You know, I can't fight this battle alone.And that was really this low point, where my health had been wrecked by an eating disorder.And for the previous six months to a year, I basically, what started with skipping the occasional meal became compulsive calorie counting and just excessively monitoring everything that I put in my body.And it was fueled by a lot of insecurity, a lot of fear, a lot of issues of control.And then also things that I didn't fully understand at that time, right?As a 14-year-old, that just trying to make sense of just being a confused adolescent in the world and hitting puberty and having all these hormones and these new sexual desire and what does it mean to be a man and not having a lot of good role models around necessarily to teach me how to navigate some of these things.So it's a combination of kind of all of these factors that we can get into some more.I think that kind of contributed to that disordered eating.But it was that point that I had to drop out of high school.I entered a residential program for eating sort of treatment and I got a lot of help and I was very thankful to have really good supports, nutritionists, psychologists, art therapists, coaches, mentors, friends, family.And so from that point on, I kind of crawled myself out of that hole and really started to rebuild the relationship between my mind and my body.You know, trying to move from this place of control and domination where my mind was just going to dictate, hey, like, you're going to eat this and you're going to exercise that way and we're going to restrict here to a place of collaboration.All right, where I recognize that actually mind and body are so intertwined and can't meaningfully really separate the two.So it's from that kind of perspective of interdependence that I launched on my own healing journey, you know, studying neuroscience and biology and studying, you know, a lot of other things around learning and development because I really wanted to be in service of helping other people avoid some of the same pitfalls that I had.And that's, you know, really the last 10 or so years of my career has been focused on coaching health and wellness.Were you able to get formal training in?I saw that you were you were doing mindfulness work.Tell us about that.So that started as an interest I had in college around meditation.And I often say it was it was sort of this this push in this pull, right?And the push was the staying alive, where I recognized that, you know, I still had some lingering kind of depression and mood issues from like eating disorder recovery and things.And, you know, a lot of the meditation and mindfulness techniques, I think, were helpful for me in terms of recognizing that I don't have to believe every thought that pops into my head.So a little bit of that, more of that kind of cognitive reframing, getting a little bit of distance from, you know, the craziness that goes on in our minds.And then I was interested in this idea of sort of coming alive.What does it mean to experience enlightenment or some, you know, altered states of consciousness or non-dual awareness?And so that was something that I started meditating, actually, as an undergraduate student.And then, actually, I moved out to Asia.I lived in Hong Kong for over four years.And I did a master's in Buddhist studies when I was out there.So I took a deep dive into a lot of Eastern contemplative practices.You know, really every, you know, practicing with a bunch of monks and others, people there.So that was a place where I really refined a lot of my work.And then I've done other trainings with Kourou and some other mindfulness for emerging adult trainings and like that.So it's something that I've begun to practice and I teach as well.So then how would you say you practice it?I mean, there are different ways of practicing mindfulness.And I've got yoga teacher training, but it's taught in different ways, in different contexts.And so I'd be really interested in hearing from more of a Buddhist.Yeah.I mean, there's no doubt that I draw a lot upon kind of traditional Buddhist teachings.However, I consider my practice very eclectic, because I've learned from many different teachers, both Eastern and Western.You know, I've done the kind of standard eight week mindfulness based stress reduction course, you know, and kind of and done, you know, retreats and stuff over here in the States, you know, learned from a little bit more sort of a secular perspective on how do we, you know, take these practices and how do we then we bring them into maybe an educational space, which is something that, you know, I do pretty frequently.So, you know, I like to say there's kind of, I kind of have a unique flavor to all of these, you know, I have a more formal seated meditation practice that I, you know, will do regularly, which is going to be, you know, on the cushion, you know, eyes closed and, you know, usually, and, you know, some in a lot of Buddhist teachings, since there's a differentiation between sort of concentration practices and insight practices.I don't really meaningfully differentiate the two all that much, and, you know, so I'll kind of start with more of a concentration practice, focusing on the breath or some other anchor that's going to help stabilize our minds, it helped the mind settle, like, and that has so much value, and this is the one piece that I find to be really helpful when working with people on improving the relationship with their body or changing the way that they eat, right?It's just simply allowing your mind to be where your body is.We live in such a disconnected world, and a lot of times, right, our mind is just getting so far ahead of our bodies, right, racing, and usually, you know, the further ahead they get, often the more anxiety, right, and stress and worry happens.So allowing the mind to kind of settle back, right, where our bodies is with that open, curious, non-judgmental attitude that we're trying to bring, right?So there's, it's not, you know, criticizing our body, but really trying to just be with it, recognizing what's true for us right now.And, you know, it's, that's the starting place for all these practices, and that's really important because we can't meaningfully, you know, begin to collaborate with our body.We can't improve our health physically or mentally, unless we're really honest about what's going on.So that's where another, you know, a practice of slowing down, bringing our perception inward to try to get a sense of what's actually true right now.Even if I don't like it, even if I don't want it to be true, can I just recognize it for a moment?And then that's where I think healing really begins, right?Honesty is so important.Yeah, I like to teach people that the more we practice mindfulness for ourselves, the less we're going to develop things like disordered eating.And so I was kind of hoping you would take it that direction.So perfect.It really is, it's about self acceptance.And from my background in yoga, that's really what yoga is too.Like, I mean, it's yoga, it's Sanskrit, which means to yoke, yoke mind, body and spirit.So it's a word of unity.It's a practice of unity.And to have that unity, you need to have that self acceptance.So along those lines, what do you think about intuitive eating?I have lots of positive feelings towards intuitive eating.I think as a concept and the principles that they lay out, it's incredibly helpful, especially for those of us who have been conditioned by diet culture.And that's really everyone in the United States to a certain degree.And obviously, depending upon your family of origin and the body that you've been given, those pressures are gonna feel maybe more or less impactful on you.But I think the melding of sort of mindfulness or mindful eating and intuitive eating, this idea of wait a second, our bodies are incredibly, incredibly wise.And if we can slow down and begin to really sense into what they are telling us, because they're always communicating to us.And can we begin to get a better perception of, am I hungry?Where is that hunger live in my body?Is it coming from deep down in my belly?Or is it more of a sort of like a mental hunger, that's sort of more of a mind's craving thing, right?Or is there a mouth hunger of like, I just want a particular flavor of something in my mouth.And then equally with fullness, which is key.And I think so, like getting us back into a more direct relationship with our hunger and with our fullness is really, really important.So I definitely believe that intuitive eating can be helpful, especially for people that again have been encultured, myself included, to think that it's the mind's job to tell our bodies exactly what to eat, and you're going to have 1,800 calories and 80 grams of protein, and it's just this one way street, and like, no, it needs to be this bi-directional relationship.So that piece is important.I don't think intuitive eating covers everything.I think there are some places where we can talk about that if you want.I think that we need to go a step further.But generally, I think it can be a really helpful tool and something to learn about.I actually do think that's worth exploring.And I'm glad that you said that it's not everything, because I agree.The reason it's worth exploring is because I have heard people take it a little bit too far.So I've worked in a university setting myself before, and at a university that was very conventionally oriented, they have a dietetics program, they've got therapy programs, and they have this student health and wellness department.And they teach students these principles of intuitive eating, which, as I was reading the material, I was like, that's not very good information.Essentially, what they were saying is, there's no such thing as bad foods.You can eat whatever you want.And those were the main messages they were sharing with students.And I immediately thought, as a nutritionist, I was like, this is terrible, because all they're doing is they're telling people they can eat donuts and pizza all the time and expect to be healthy.Is that kind of the flaw that you see with it?Totally.I think you're pointing right at the heart of the issue, where I see that intuitive eating is wonderful, again, in the ways in which it really respects our bodies as these wise, alive entities.And that our bodies are always doing so much for us, especially in terms of energy balance and energy regulation, far beyond, I think, what we really even fully understand.We can get into that too.And I think intuitive eating is great, again, because it's asking us to really honor our hunger and our fullness.I think where it falls short, to your point, of when we look at the modern food environment, which is so, so different from the environment that our bodies evolved to eat in.We're up against really novel foods, novel combinations of salt and fat and sugar that we know hijack our reward system, alter our neurochemistry, change our taste perception.And so the combination of, I think, it's ultra processed foods that are hyper palatable and calorically dense.It's those three things together, which is unfortunately a large majority of the standard American diet.You know, like the frozen microwave pizza, or the takeout breadsticks and buffalo wings, like the things that we eat all the time, that we know tend to really kind of bypass around a lot of these innate mechanisms that we have for our body to tell us that we're hungry or that we're full, and can often just lead us to eating more than we want or we need, as well as a lot of things, to your point, that we know trans fats are bad.We know that having too many of certain emulsifiers and additives and artificial chemicals are bad.We know that pesticides and herbicides, we can very clearly say these things are actually not good for our health.So while I think there is some value in trying not to moralize food and getting away from that black and white good food, bad food thinking, I think you can't totally toss that out, especially when we're looking at the type of foods that make up the majority of our diet these days.So what did you learn?You mentioned you were in residential treatment.How did you learn to think about food besides mindfulness?Like what are some principles that really helped you?Yeah.Well, I learned a tremendous amount about nutrition through the whole journey.Some of it was self-taught.Some of it was obviously, you know, kind of learn through working with nutritionists and dietitians.You know, like I think there's certain things that I think are actually really helpful for everyone to have a good understanding, right?Of, you know, like is a bagel primarily carbohydrate, primarily fat, primarily protein, right?So like having a certain sort of macronutrient awareness of like being able to look at a dish and sort of just just generally ballparking, like, hey, you know, do I, where are my fats coming from?Where is my protein coming from?Right?So you can kind of like start to just kind of try to keep things, you know, just balanced.And this isn't a heavy handed, oh, I need to weigh every item out and make sure I have 27 grams of fiber.But it's like just having a general awareness, being able to look at foods and get a sense of macronutrients, getting a sense of kind of maybe overall caloric load, right?Like, you know, I think every person should have a general understanding of how many calories does your body really need every day and how many calories are you generally eating every day, right?So, you know, I think these sort of principles, you know, I often work with and teach people.And it's unfortunate because we often don't get that sort of education anywhere, right?And so it's something that has to kind of be self-taught.And unfortunately, it can be very easily become a slippery slope then into disordered eating, right?So what starts is like, hey, I want to just kind of like get a sense of how much protein I'm eating, which can be great from a self-knowledge and awareness and like, oh, like I didn't realize that this piece of chicken only has 10 grams of protein.Maybe I need to double it or something like that, can turn into these games that we start playing with ourselves, especially around allowance.And this is where I have this sort of this love-hate relationship with apps, while it can be so easy and I think helpful sometimes to take out an app and kind of log your food.When you get into this mindset of like, oh, I'm only allowed 2,000 calories today, right?And then you start playing these games of how do I, you know, maybe I'm not going to eat anything, I'm going to save up that 2,000 calories, you know, for the end of the night.You know, now we're not honoring our hunger anymore.Now we're starting to play these games with our body.And I find that ultimately in the long run, those things tend to really degrade our relationship with ourselves and kind of backfire.So I think short term, you know, food logging and calorie tracking can be a helpful tool.You really have to be careful about, you know, the mindset that you have when you are doing these things.Yeah, I agree.As a therapist, I am very cautious about having people track too much because it's coming back to that mindfulness, that awareness of self-peace that we were mentioning earlier, where it's like, if you're hyper focused on the numbers, you're not really going to be aware of what your body is telling you.Because sometimes, like, yeah, in general, we need about 2,000 calories a day, or so they say, but sometimes we need more, sometimes we need less, and that's going to change from day to day even according to the weather, our physical activity, whether or not we're going through an illness.There are various things that create a different need for different numbers.Yeah, it's so true, right?And your Lose It app or your MyFitnessPal doesn't really make those adjustments.Or if it does make them, it usually adds in exercise.And that's actually really flawed.That's something that I've really kind of changed my first tune on after reading some really interesting papers about energy compensation.But it's like if you burn 600 calories going for a run, even that is a little bit difficult to measure.But let's say you get an accurate measure, right?That doesn't mean that you automatically add 600 calories to your total daily energy expenditure, right?It's not simple math like that.And as you said, the body needs different things at different times.And we can't totally just outsource all that to some algorithm that has no feeling, that doesn't really tune in and recognize what's going on for us internally.So to your point, I think there needs to be a very delicate calibration there.Yeah.I mean, so many of us nowadays, we rely on fitness trackers.Like so many people have an Apple watch or Fitbit or a similar device.And I've even had people in therapy sit in front of me and they're like, oh yeah, this is my data for today.And I'm like, well, you do realize it's not very accurate.Like, I mean, it depends on the device.It depends on what you're measuring.But these are not medical devices.They're more for just kind of a general frame of reference.And I do think there's value in them in that they can motivate you to live a healthier lifestyle if you use them right.Yeah.Yeah.I mean, to that point, you can see I actually have two fitness trackers on right now.I have two different rings, different companies.I've been wearing these now side by side for a few months.And let me tell you, they never agree.They never agree.They don't agree on how many steps I take.They don't agree on how many calories I burn.They don't even really totally agree on how much sleep I have.Right?So it just makes you wonder, right?Yeah.How accurate are these things?To your point, I'm not saying that they're worthless.I think that they can be valuable tools, especially longitudinally.You know, I've been wearing one of these for years and it's quite interesting to have many years of sort of sleep data to look at.But yeah, I think it kind of goes back to that idea of like, whenever we start to meddle in the numbers, we're really starting to play a game that we were never meant to play.You know, and I think that is the place where we're better, you know, better off leaving our body to do the many things that it does for us.You know, and, you know, again, there's this delicate balance that we always need to hold, which is, on one hand, is self-acceptance, and hey, this is the body that I was given, you know, for my time here on planet Earth, you know, genetically, this is the body that I kind of have, right?This is the body I've inherited from my parents, and this is today's body, whatever it looks like and feels like, and just truly being able to just be okay with that.And on the other hand, right, you know, like, there's always a desire for self-improvement.I'm like, okay, you know, I want to maybe get stronger, I want to get faster.You know, and there's always going to be a little bit of tension in those things.So that's something that I really try to help people hold both of those.Because, you know, you don't want to get stuck in one or the other.I've seen similar things.Lately, I've been getting into some training on how to interpret lab work.And like, and we see the same thing with lab data as we do in tracking nutrition data, where people hyperfocus on that single data point.But then at the same time, I am pursuing the training because I see the value in it, in that it is motivating.It tells us a single data point, but it also gives us a baseline.So when we test again, we can see how we've improved over time.And that's really what I'm shooting for.And so I'm going to do my best to try to steer people away from focusing on the numbers, but instead focus on how does the body feel?What am I doing with my everyday life to improve my health, my mental health and physical health?Moving from single data points to trend lines is a really important shift, right?And I think you make a good point around blood lab work, or it's just like a single point in time, or drawing some blood, or getting a snapshot of what your body is like that moment.But, and the same with obviously weight on the scale, right?Like any single day, not getting hyper focused on what that is.But yeah, you want to look at overall trends across weeks and months and years, how is maybe body weight shifting, if that is relevant to your health status and your goals.Obviously, the body weight conversation is a tricky one.And back to the calorie counting thing, right?Like the funniest part for me is sort of is like, we feel like, okay, I'm allotted a certain amount of calories, I get my 2,000 calories, and then it's sort of like, at midnight, it just resets.And I just get another, right?But the body doesn't work that way.It's not just like the moment you go to sleep, your calorie count resets and you get a fresh day, right?So the way we even temporally parse these things into these 24-hour categories is artificial, right?And that doesn't mean that it's wrong or it isn't always helpful, but I think we need to be really clear about when we're laying these man-made constructs on the body, which is just organic and is doing things.It's operating on very different principles.It is very artificial, and I'm glad you pointed that out, too, because I've also been following people who are all about intermittent fasting.And I keep thinking, well, I mean, yeah, you can follow your eating window and your fasting window.You're probably going to improve metabolic health.But you have to do it in sync with the cycles of nature and recognize that it's not just about keeping track of those numbers.It's not just about watching the time, because sometimes maybe you're just really hungry outside of your normal eating window, and it's okay to break that sometimes.But the more we go into the numbers, the data, all this tracking, the more we're actually pulling ourselves away from health.Because health, in my opinion, is more about connecting with nature, connecting with the self.Yeah.We're not doing that enough in today's society.Yes.I agree.I think there is a dark side to data tracking, as you point out, that often doesn't get talked about enough, because people like gadgets and wearables, they're cool and they're fun.Again, they give us a little bit of sense of empowerment, and of like, oh, I'm learning about my body, and they can be motivating.But yeah, to every, the points that you just made, right?We can't over rely on them.They're not necessarily all that accurate.They don't have any feeling, right?So they don't really know what your body is like today, from a subjective sense.And they're not aware, as you said, seasonal shifts, that's important.For a long time, I was sort of an intermittent fasting guy, I wasn't really into the breakfast.And that changed, that changed for me, actually over the last couple of years.And at first, that was a hard shift because I was just so not used to it.But then when I started to really pay attention, I'm like, hey, actually, I am pretty hungry at 8 a.m.And so I started to experiment with like, what would it be like to eat then?And it's hard because you're breaking a mental model and you're like, well, if I eat now, am I going to get the benefits from the fasting?Or if I eat now and then I'm going to be hungry later, and then I'm going to end up eating more, and then I'm going to go over my calories and I'm going to gain weight.So there's this fear of breaking these rules.But that fear actually prevents us from, again, being in this sort of open relationship with our body, where we're meeting it where it's at.And when we're noticing, oh, I am actually really hungry today, right?And going into that, one with this sort of experimental mind of like, hey, why don't I eat a little something and see how I feel?So running little experiments is great.But then too, also saying, hey, like, well, you know, this interesting, we're like, wonder where this hunger is coming from?You know, did I eat less yesterday?Is there, is there something else going on?Am I just anxious, like, about something happening today that's making me want to eat?Right.So it's like hunger is a signal.It's always asking us to pay attention.And when we pay attention in this deeper way, right, not just saying, oh, I either need to deny the hunger, right?Push through it, ignore it, because now is not the time to eat.Or I need to immediately satisfy this hunger, right?Of like, oh, I'm hungry, I'm hungry, give me a snack, give me a snack, right?And it's like, we become so intolerant of any degree of hunger.And I think as a society, that's the sort of the case where we, you know, we've become really intolerant of hunger.It's like the minute it shows up, well, there's a snack right there to get rid of it.It's like, wait a second, let's not fall into either of those extremes.Let's just sit with the hunger for a minute, right?And then get a sense of, you know, yeah, how strong is it?Where is it coming from?So this goes back to the mindfulness and the intuitive eating, right?And then, yeah, what's the right thing for me to satisfy?And then, you know, recognize again, certain foods, right?Again, those sort of ultra-processed, highly palatable, calorically dense foods, right?Are going to have a very different effect on our hunger and our body and our health, right?So it's not saying that like, hey, you know, you can eat the entire box of Oreos.I mean, you can, but it's going to, that's going to have very different consequences on your body and on your mind.And we need to really take responsibility for that.Yeah.And I think it's important to know that not all calories are created equal.And so I was taught in my nutrition training to really focus on just making simple swaps.So like, we're not depriving ourselves, we're not cutting things out, but instead we are adding what we know is nutrient dense.And we're just doing that very slowly.So for instance, you could make homemade cookies with real butter and organic flour, and that's going to be way better than the cookies that you buy pre-made at the store.But they're still cookies.So like it's an improvement and that's really all we're shooting for is those small improvements over time can make such a difference in your overall health.Yeah.So there's two really wonderful things I want to pull out from what you just said.One is the value of cooking.I am a huge proponent of cooking.It's something that I love and I didn't come from like my mom hated cooking.Like we ate out a lot, we would eat out a lot.It's something I had to learn for myself.But I think the more you can cook at home, generally speaking, the better off you're going to be.Plus, it's an incredible opportunity to reconnect with food, to reconnect with the earth, to understand where ingredients come from, to bring in tradition.Like there's so many things that I appreciate about cooking.So as you said, that's an important piece.But then this other piece, I think one of the best questions that you can ask yourself when it comes to eating, right, isn't like, you know, is this a good food or bad food, healthy food, unfalvied food?The question is, instead of what, right?Like, you know, are you going to eat the cookie?Well, you know, if you eat the cookie, instead of what?Is it, you know, instead of eating a homemade cookie, right?Or is it instead of not eating anything at all, right?Or is it instead of eating, you know, an apple, right?So it's like it's thinking about, you know, whenever we're eating something, it's sort of there's an opportunity cost for whatever we're not eating, right?And again, this is often what's, you know, pointed at is the issue with ultra processed foods.Like, you know, the more we're eating of that means that the less we're eating of these sort of like whole more nutrient dense foods, right?And so as a result, we're not getting all those nutrients in our diet.So just, you know, asking this question instead of what I think helps shift our thinking around the food choices that we're making.Yeah, just focus on adding the good instead of removing the bad and listening to the body.I mean, sometimes like it's okay to have a cookie.And so we're kind of coming back to that mindfulness, that self acceptance, self awareness.And feel free to counter me if you feel like you have a different theory.But as I've been working with people in a clinical context, I've noticed that disordered eating seems to stem from kind of a theme of perfectionism.Where we were talking about tracking data, obsessing over numbers.And it's almost like we get this shame response when our numbers aren't just right.Would you say that's accurate with your experience and the work that you do?There is no doubt that there's a perfectionist component at play here.That shame also plays a role.That the need for control plays a role.And when you look out at the world, and especially today, we're about to hit 2025, we're like globally, we're in a pretty precarious place.There's a lot of crises.There's a lot of difficult things that seem large and out of our control.And so it makes sense that you're like, hey, what's the one thing I can control?Oh, I can control everything that goes into my body and my mouth.And so again, we kind of double down on that.But instead of just doing that in a flexible, adaptive, mindful way, where we do that in a compulsive, neurotic, perfectionist way.And that then leads into the disordered eating behaviors.And I think of it often in terms of a spectrum.And you can take out your DSM, and you can diagnose based upon criteria.But the spectrum from ordered eating on one hand, to disordered eating on the other hand, right?And I think we're all going to be on that spectrum somewhere, depending on what's going on in your mind, as you're thinking about food, and obviously how it's impacting your health.So yeah, those issues tend to be...And so if you know that that's true for you, right?If you know that you tend to get hyper focused on data, and have this perfectionist mindset, where like it has to all just fit just right, then I would maybe be a little bit careful and cautious, right?About relying on a fitness tracker, or tracking your calories.Because you might start playing games, right?That are actually going to backfire.So it's like having a certain degree of self-awareness around that is very important.Yeah, it'll definitely pull you away from that self-awareness if you know that you tend to have a problem with that perfectionism.And I totally agree with you where it's about this sense of control or this need for control.Because we live in a place, in a world where everything feels out of control, or so it seems.And so naturally, we're going to want to try to control what we can.And in many cases, it's diet, it's weight loss, things like that that people obsess a little bit over too much to where it becomes more disordered eating.So to clarify, an eating disorder is a diagnosable condition in where a disordered eating is still, it's not diagnosable, but it is something that might be problematic, where it's an unhealthy relationship with food in general.Orthorexia isn't an official diagnosis, but I often wonder if it should.I often wonder, like, it's kind of hard to tell, like, why they haven't added it into the DSM yet.But then at the same time, well, maybe it's like, we don't really need it, because orthorexia is basically perfectionism.Where it's not really an unhealthy relationship with food, but it's perfectionism in general, where you're obsessing over the numbers.You're trying to get your goals met just perfectly.Very black and white thinking.Yeah.I mean, believe me, you know, I've worked with a lot of, you know, high-performing guys and athletes, right?And orthorexia definitely comes in to play there, but sort of under the guise of, you know, this sort of goal-based eating, eating for performance again.But, you know, when it's sort of tinged by that compulsivity, right?And that fear of letting go of these food rules, right?That we have, you know, around, oh, I have to eat this at this time, right?Even if that person is very physically fit and healthy, right?The relationship with eating and the way they approach eating really can become a prison of sorts.And so, you know, I've seen that happen.And, you know, and I think there's also another larger issue that's more of almost sort of a, you know, a spiritual issue, right?As you said, of, you know, it's very, it makes a lot of sense that when the world seems out of control, we're going to want to control these things that we think we can, like, our body.And yet, you know, when we really get into it, that's not our place, right?Our place isn't to control and micromanage our hunger.That, you know, control, I think, is really an illusion, or you could say a delusion, of the personality, right?And it's like, you know, the protective personality is all about, you know, predicting and controlling the world, because that's what's going to keep us safe.That's going to keep this sense of self, right, safe.So we do whatever we can to, you know, control.And yet, I think that is this, you know, a product of a very sort of Western scientific, materialist, kind of disembodied way of relating to our physicality.And so I think when we can start to see that that control is that that isn't really our job, you know, I like to shift.I'm like, you know, my job isn't to control my hunger.My job isn't to control, you know, my body's urge or desire for something sweet or something salty.My job is to be a good steward and a good leader, you know, notice these urges, you know, be curious about them, appreciate them and take responsibility, you know, for them.But I'm not there to control them.Yeah.So what would you say is the mindfulness approach to someone who really struggles with perfectionism or that need for control?Yeah.Well, first, I would, I would zoom out and take this larger picture of like, where in your life in general are you feeling disempowered?You know, because I think if we can begin to restore people's sense of agency and self-efficacy, then, you know, across the board, then maybe you don't feel like you need to get that all from just food.Right.I think a lot of times it's like when, when so much of life seems so difficult, then we just kind of cling on to the food piece.But if we can start to see that, hey, actually, you know, life isn't just happening to me, right?Life is happening by me and I have a role to play in all these things, right?In my relationships, in my, you know, career, education, right?And like, you know, so we start to see how, how can I be empowered in these other areas?And then, right?So one, I think that sort of takes some of the pressure off of just leaning into food itself for that sense of control.And then, you know, another piece is doing some, some deeper, you know, inner work, some, some healing, right?We all have insecurities.We all have a desire to want to be loved and to want to be worthy and to feel like we're enough, right?The plague of not enoughness, man, it shows up, right?Even for men, right?In all sorts of ways.So, but we need to go back and we need to meet those parts and really, you know, prove to those tender, younger, vulnerable parts, they're like, we are worthy, we are lovable, we are enough.And it doesn't matter what we eat, it doesn't matter how much we weigh, it doesn't matter what our body looks like, that is not relevant at all to this question of being enough or being worthy of love.And so that requires some deep inner work.And I think those pieces are really important to this healing process that again, often get kind of overlooked as we're trying to kind of, you know, improve our macronutrients or, you know, just adopt a better lifestyle.Beautifully said.Yeah.The not enoughness, I run into that all the time in psychotherapy sessions.It seems like almost everybody, if not everybody, has that issue, even if we haven't explicitly brought it up in a session.And so coming back to that self-awareness, that self-acceptance and recognizing that you are enough, even when you're not perfect, because in reality, nobody's perfect and that's okay.Yeah.There's a song that I learned in kindergarten, man, that says I'm not perfect and I know I never will be.No one's perfect.I know it's true.Sisters and brothers, even dads and mothers, all make mistakes and I do too.And that song, we would just sing over and over in kindergarten.Obviously, it stuck with me.I sing it to my son, because it's an important lesson and it's hard and it's not something our society generally supports.So many of us, we kind of hold ourselves to these standards of perfection that are just unrealistic and unattainable.So when we can release that and recognize that's not the purpose of life, like perfection isn't the purpose, it's growth and love and care.We start to bring those in and it starts to transform our relationship with food from the inside out.Yes.So Jeff, we're coming up on the end of our time.Where can people find you if they want to find you?Jeff Siegel Wellness.Jeff Siegel Wellness, just my name.Jeff Siegel Wellness.You can find me online, Google Jeff Siegel Wellness, and then I'm also on social there.Yeah.And if you are interested in stopping this relentless battle between your mind and body, reach out, I'd love to have a conversation.Awesome.Okay.And one closing question.If there were one thing you could change about the way people approach health and wellness, what would it be?I both love and hate these questions.One thing I could change about the ways people approach health and wellness.So one I'm just going to pull out of the hat is like, let's stop treating physical health and mental health as different things.Right?They are so intertwined and so interdependent.And yeah, sure, there's some value in bucketing them in different ways.I understand from a public health perspective, but we really need to acknowledge the interplay.There's no question that our physiology dramatically influences our mood, and our mindset, and our thoughts.And our thoughts dramatically influence our bodies, and obviously, what we feed our bodies and how we move them.And seeing the mind and body as being on the same team, being one and in service of something greater, I think is a really fundamental shift.So I'd really love to try to heal this mind-body dualism split that we've been carrying with us since the days of Descartes and come into a little bit more of a holistic connection.Yeah, it's important to have a holistic perspective.And holistic essentially means to look at the whole picture.That means the whole person, not just part of the person.So well said, love it.Thanks, Jeff.Thank you, Cody.It's been a pleasure.Hey, I hope you enjoyed this episode.Just wanted to offer one quick thing before we wrap up.And that is that I'm offering a 20% discount on my packages before December 31st.So go to my website, beavercreekwellness.com, click on appointments and click on book now under one of the packages using the promo code, Podcast24.That's Podcast24 for 20% off your first purchase.Real Food Mental Health is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only.The information presented on this podcast is not intended to replace any medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.While I am a health care provider, I am not your provider.Always seek the advice of an appropriate health care practitioner with any personal questions you may have regarding a medical condition.Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on this podcast.Reliance on information provided by this podcast is at your own risk.Real Food Mental Health is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only.The information presented on this podcast is not intended to replace any medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.While I am a healthcare provider, I am not your provider.Always seek the advice of an appropriate healthcare practitioner with any personal questions you may have regarding a medical condition.Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on this podcast.Reliance on information provided by this podcast is at your own risk.