You are not a bad person because you have excess weight and getting shamed into losing weight does not work. Now that we’ve got those truths out of the way, Michelle Shapiro is here to talk about how you can lose weight the healthy way.

Listen to episode 4 of the fed and fearless podcast

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About Michelle Shapiro

Michelle is a registered dietician from Queen’s, New York City, and was overweight for all her young life. When she was 18, she went on an unhealthy crash diet and lost her excess weight. This is part of the reason why Michelle is an excellent weight-loss dietitian: she knows what not to do.

Neither of us are in the business of fat-shaming, and being overweight does not mean that you’re a bad person, but the medical facts are there: excess weight can contribute to overall health issues, like diabetes, heart disease, and high cholesterol (amongst many others). Our society is set-up in a way that makes it easy to gain weight and hard to lose it. In fact, diet companies are designed to make you fail at weight loss and keep going back on a diet. 

Losing weight is more than just having the willpower to say “no” to the cake being offered. As human beings, it’s in our nature to want to eat these sugar-laden foods, and that’s okay. But you need to understand that it’s a choice you’ve made, and while it doesn’t make you a bad person, you might not feel your best after eating it. And eating a piece of cake is not an excuse to then go on a binging rampage.

Michelle says that you should get to know yourself on a very personal level. What makes you make the choices you make? Why do you want to do the things that you’re doing? Why are you making healthy or unhealthy decisions? And how can you change your mindset to believe you deserve to be the healthiest version of yourself?

There’s no other way to say it: shaming someone for their weight or their food choices will never make someone lose weight. This goes even if you shame yourself for your choices. But food and shame are so interconnected it can be hard to separate the ideas of “good” food and “bad” food. It’s all about reframing the way we think about food.

Have you ever been shamed over the way you look or what you eat? What weight loss struggles have you encountered? Do you find yourself yo-yo dieting?

 

Got a question you’d love to hear me answer on the show? Leave me a voice message here!

 

In This Episode

• What you shouldn’t do to lose weight
• How excess weight can impact your overall health
• Why diet companies set people up to fail in their weight loss
• How society is set up to make people gain weight and resist losing weight
• What role willpower has in how you’re going to lose weight
• Why you need to be extremely knowledgeable about who you are as a person and accept your identity 
• What happens when you ask yourself why you’re doing the things that you’re doing
• How feeling shame can cause us to make poor food choices
• Why food and shame are intertwined
• Why you need to understand that your priorities might not be someone else’s priorities

 

Quotes

“Weight and morality, and weight and value, are not correlated. Period. You are not a better person for being at a lower weight, you are not a worse person for being at a higher weight, they are not two of the same coin.” (13:43)

“Weight loss cannot be obtained by just seeking weight loss. It needs to be obtained by seeking health.” (19:11)

“Regardless of the fact that your intentions are there, if it’s producing shame, it’s ineffective. At the least, it’s ineffective. At the most, it’s incredibly harmful.” (48:07)

 

Links

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