The following podcast is a D.R. media production. Hey, I'm Ali Colburne, I'm a stand-up comedian, actress and writer from New York City, and I'm Jackie Colburne. I have made my career as a comedian by using my insights and wit to make points.
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Hey gang, it's Molly, it's November, it's come in time for Thanksgiving, we're in the thick of it and we are nailing it. I'm always reminded of that rom-doss quote, you know, if you think you're enlightened, go spend a week with your family, or the Allen on slogan that says they installed the button so they know how to press them. So I hope you all are doing well. Speaking of family, my cousin is on the show today.
My cousin Lee, my cousin Lee Ann as I call her, but I think more commonly she goes by Lee, and she is an incredible eating disorder survivor. And yeah, I just thought in the spirit of Thanksgiving and in the spirit of family, I would feature her this month as our success story or as our relatable stories. I think success is a really hard and kind of dumb word when we're talking about a relationship with food because like basically we're all successes, you're doing amazing. So, you know, Lee has a path just like me.
We share very similar predisposed genes and we both live in a very similar solution today. There's a lot that I just I think is really remarkable about Lee in general, but I think in this particular story, I have said this over and over and over and over again, you know, maybe we should put it on my tombstone. I don't know, but like you never ever ever give up ever. And I think part of that that we miss is like there's a lot of lessons that we learn as we're not giving up and we never know which time it's going to take.
And there's this beautiful part of Lee's story that you'll hear where it's like, there's a part of her that wasn't really interested in wellness or at least in the wellness on the terms that it was being offered to her. And yet she just kept on going back to her coach. She kept on trying. She kept on trying and that dissonance of both wanting to get well and not wanting to get well.
Like eventually the part of her that, you know, was scared to get well or whatever it is disappeared. And she's living this really beautiful life and relationship with food. And we're talking a lot about this perfectionism stuff, which I think runs deep in all of us. We're talking just a lot about a lot of stuff.
So go enjoy it. Let me know what you think. It's such a treat to have a family member and this something. My mom's also broken up with sugar.
So I mean, I'm pretty lucky. But I have to say, you know, Lee and I have a pretty complicated family and it's actually this finding a healthy relationship with food that brought us together and really maintains what I also like to think of as one of my best friends. So with that, I leave you with today's podcast, my dear amazing cousin, Lee. I like to call you Lee Ann, but I think that's like your childhood name.
I'll just call you Lee because this is your big debut on What You're Creating. Welcome. Thanks. I'm glad to have you on the show Lee.
Happy to be here, Holly. So how did you decide to redo your relationship with food? Give us the story of what your relationship with food is like. And then what happened to make you make this, what you've been doing is about three, two and a half or years now?
It was January of 19. Yeah, it's great. It's amazing. So tell us just like bring us up to speed.
I mean, I always knew I came from addiction that I had an addictive personality. And I was very cautious to stay away from drugs. I was very cautious to stay away from alcohol in any real, you know, supportive manner or consistent manner. So that, you know, I just wasn't, I wasn't going to be an addictive person or a person with addictions.
And I knew that it all landed in food. I've always known that I was addicted to food, but I knew that you can't really quit food cold turkey. So I always remember this picture, because I was, you know, so we've talked about our dad's or both of our dads who passed or brothers. And I wasn't that close with the family and you and I really became close.
I went last five years or so. I remember a picture from your wedding that your sister sent to me. And it was like all of these larger bodied women. And I was like, oh, check out that genetic predisposition.
And I think you're right to say like, we have big genetic predisposition to addiction to obesity. Like we, what do they say? Genetics loads the gun and then like life pulls the trigger. We had a gun full of bullets.
Right. Right. You know, we always talked about how weight was always an issue in the winter's family. And weight was an issue on my mom's side as well.
I mean, my maternal grandmother was overweight for years and both my mom and her sister have fought against weight for a lot of years. So weight's always been an issue. And I always knew I needed to lose weight as a kid, but I never really did did a lot of it. You know, did anything specifically for it.
But then as I was in college, I would do those, you know, crazy beat beats and, you know, dry chicken for dinner, you know, and a dry can of tuna with, you know, dry wheat bread type of things, you know, all those kickstart diets that would get everything going. How did you know that you needed to lose weight as like, like, how did you know that? And then what prompted you to start the first diet? As a kid, I always knew that food was an issue that I, you know, I would be told that the dinner table to slow down, you know, your food will be there.
No one's taking it. Do you have any idea like what that urgency to need to eat all that food was? Like why you weren't slowing down? I don't know.
I don't know if it was the addiction to sugar that then kind of created that need to, you know, kind of shovel the food. I see it in one of my children and don't, you know, don't really know how to be lovingly and, you know, say, flow down without, you know, causing issue. I don't know. I just always, I wanted more food.
I always wanted more food as a kid. And, and now I do think it was sugar. I think that it was the sugar and the food that I was eating. I think it was the, you know, sugar in the candy that I would find and eat.
I would come home from, I had a single mom that worked and she was very good at making sure I had somewhere to go. I was not necessarily the latch key kid, but in fifth grade, I made my case and decided we decided I was old enough to come home after school. And, you know, all the food was always earmarked for a meal or there was never any snacks, per say, in the house. So I would come home and make many sandwiches because there was enough bread and mayonnaise that I could eat it.
And she wouldn't really necessarily know that I was eating food. And then I would be so full for dinner, but you have to sit down and now eat dinner because you can't go, no, no, no. I had like three mayonnaise sandwiches. I'm good.
Yeah. So many sandwiches kind of delightful. It was okay. And then I think that, you know, I kind of did a lot of eating to fill low, to fill loneliness as well, like in high school and then into college.
I was lucky enough to have a cousin that knew about sugar and flour and was happened to be writing a book and came and stayed at my house and over Christmas of 2018 and gave me an early copy of the book and, you know, offered help. And I decided to take it. I thought, well, if it works for her, maybe this is what my issue is. You know, I'd done Weight Watchers.
I had lost 50 pounds after my second child and kept it off until I needed a needed back surgery and then, you know, ate to fill the sadness of my broken body and the weight back on. And I just had always been yo-yo. And I would lose weight and then just said, okay, I'm a skinny girl now. And so now I can eat normal, like everybody else.
And then, you know, here it all comes again. So interesting. Are you really saying two things, which is, you know, it's a great desire to be normal and using dieting like that, like using dieting, like, oh, I get to an end point. And then I get to eat like a normal person.
I always think of you. I mean, except for the last three years, but I always think of you as someone who's on Weight Watchers, like you have, you had a very interesting relationship because your mom's really into it too. Right? So it's like, you guys, it's like points people.
Yeah, absolutely. My mom and my aunt are still on Weight Watchers and they continue paying for Weight Watchers even when they're not doing Weight Watchers. Well, I mean, the amount of like Weight Watchers journals, I probably have thrown out in my lifetime. You know what I mean?
Right. But I remember the story a little differently. Like, because I know what you're saying. Like, okay, Molly came to my house.
She was writing a book. I read the book. I always remember this part of like me sort of, I mean, it's hard not to know what I'm doing. I don't feel like it was that easy.
Maybe I remember it differently. I feel like you were sort of like, well, good for you that you're doing that. But like, you're going to go that way for a long, a long time. Can you talk me back?
Let's get into that. That's a fun idea of no sugar for the rest of it. I mean, you, you see it when I say it to anybody now, I don't need sugar or flour. He's like, really, really?
Well, so it was the idea of never again, which I still three, almost three years into it, I still won't say never again. I mean, I'm 12 years into it. I might say tomorrow. Like that's still a reality that I may make that decision tomorrow.
But for today, I'm happy with what's going on inside of me to not have to go through that again. Yeah, because I remember this piece of like, only because I know about our genes, right? Like, I, we do share a gene pool and I was kind of like, I mean, not that I'm here to take your inventory. But I was like, we share this commonality with the food stuff and this is the thing that worked for me.
I'm like, very careful to, because people, you know, it's what a quick way to make people hate you is just sit and like put your stuff on somebody. So I can very rarely do that. But I remember you always kind of saying, well, we were just just really working for me. We were just just really working for me.
I'm really curious because I love talking about diets. Was it working for you? What's made it stop working for you? What like, what really happened there?
So what I liked about we watch is when I think a lot of people like about we watches is that nothing was off the table ever. Like if you made a decision, you made a decision and I definitely got to a point where I was trying to eat healthy and I was trying to use it correctly. I wasn't trying to, you know, there were the days when a banana and 100 points, like a cookie snack, were the same point. So obviously we went for the processed cookie snack.
Because why would you eat a banana if it was cost the same? So, you know, they got to a point where they kind of realized all that stuff and fruit became, you know, not quite so high in points and the vegetables became free. And so, you know, they kind of forced you to eat a less processed diet. And that was working for me and it was good.
But it got to the point where I remember my mother's mother in her 60s and 70s. She just was always in pain. Her joints always hurt. Getting up was a chore.
Getting up in the morning was a huge chore. And she carried a lot of excess weight until the day she died. And I was in my 40s. And when I got up in the morning, I thought of my grandmother a lot.
I was in pain. My joints were hurting. And I thought, if I'm in my 40s and I feel this way now, what are my 60s going to look like? And so I thought, well, you know what, I can always go back to Weight Watchers.
I can, you know, this seems to work. Molly seems to be really settled in her food. And I, you know, I had gestational diabetes in my second pregnancy. I'm pretty confident I had gestational diabetes in my first pregnancy as well.
So I was concerned about diabetes. I had relatively young children that I, you know, the Weight Watchers and all of the dieting kind of came from a place of, you know, I've got these kids that I need to be healthy for and show them, you know, how to be healthy. I kind of was at my last, you know, Weight Watchers wasn't working for me. And I wasn't on program.
And I wasn't doing what I was supposed to do. And I wasn't being good as, you know, the language goes right. What do you mean as the language goes? Yeah, no.
I think this is so many people's stories. I think that piece, because I, you know, there's so many behavioral contests behind it, which I want for everybody with today. I'll save that for a solo pod. But that's a very excruciating pain to have Weight Watchers work, have any conventional diet work to lose 50 pounds on the diet and then, you know, go back to it and say, and then not have it work anymore.
You know, to me, that is just addiction in many ways, right? Like the same intervention isn't going to work because probably that illness has gotten worse where the disease has gotten worse, you know, there's lots and lots of reasons. You know, I always think of, for many people who struggle with food addiction, or just a seriously unhealthy relationship with food, like a lot of times, like a conventional diet is like a three on the scale and you need like an eight on the scale. It's like taking an ad bill when you need an antibiotic, but it feels so moral, doesn't it?
Yeah. What is wrong with me? This, because I've treated people like for eight years. They're like, but Weight Watchers worked.
And I'm like, I know about like eight years later, and it isn't. Do you want to try something new? And the reality was that I told myself and knew when I lost the 50 pounds, I did it with a girlfriend who had a young children, this is about the same age as my kids. We were really close.
She was really competitive and I knew that she was going to lose a pound or two a week. And honestly, I tricked myself into losing 50 pounds just because I paid attention to her. I didn't want to fall behind her one to two pound weight loss every week. And then all of a sudden I looked up and it was, it was all gone.
Well, that's not sustained. But what you're talking about is like a hustle that you can't hustle. Like, you can, I guess, but I don't, that's pretty, sounds like a really miserable life. Right.
It was hard. And then with young, I had two kids 15 months apart and you know, they're toddlers and then young elementary and I get up in the morning and I have all these plans for the day. And at three o'clock, I'm exhausted and none of those plans happened. And I feel like a failure.
And there's, you know, cookies and crackers and graham crackers. I learned very early that graham crackers were not like, I couldn't keep them in my house. The graham crackers are cookies. I love that people.
So my friend Michael once said to me, he's, you know what? I realized, muffins are really cakes. The graham crackers are not graham crackers. It's a graham, but it's dessert, man.
It's so good. I had so many graham crackers. Yeah, I would read a four in the afternoon. I would just shove things in my mouth.
And I even remember at one point talking to a girlfriend and saying, you know, I have two beautiful children. I have a wonderful husband. We have a beautiful home and a wonderful city. I have so much of my life.
Maybe the negative in my life is I'm just a fat girl. And so I kind of given up. But then when I started being in a lot of pain and realizing that that wasn't sustainable long term because I wanted to be healthy because I got older and my kids moved away. I wanted to be able to travel and I just knew that that wasn't going to happen.
Well, it's like we make it about the weight. You know, the weight is a symptom in this story. If ever there's a story. I mean, I also just think of all and I mean, relate across the board.
But it's like, what are we losing when we're just sitting on the couch eating graham cracker after graham cracker, getting more milk, getting more milk. I mean, it's. Well, and then it would be like, oh, that was too sweet. Now I need a case of the other like even that out.
Oh, that case of the is really greasy. I need I need some chips to settle my stomach. You know, just it was a it was a constant that was always something else. And then I would make the healthy dinner for my family and sit down and eat with them.
Because I'll talk about repeating your childhood there, right? I mean, that's your basically back in the fifth grade in the apartment. I don't mean to be all therapists you with family, but it's like, we recreate that moment that like extreme moment of loneliness, right? Like, and that's why I mean, so many of us heal in therapy also when we start to understand the emotional link to all of this.
I was a year and a half, two years and before I realized how much shame played apart who food with me put a pin in that. I need to get to that. I'm okay. You're going to do it.
Here's the stories I remember it. I'm at your house over Christmas. I show you this video. I'm about to put on my website.
It's like a sales video for the program. I was running at the time. And then you just look at me and you go. Oh my God.
Why did you show that to me? Why did you show that to me? I have this problem. I need help.
I think why did you show this video? Do you remember that? Because that's I think really what happened for you. You saw this relatable video where I'm like telling the story and explaining to people I can help and you're like, I think I might need help.
And then you know me. Yeah. I can tell you. I'm here.
Yeah. It spoke to me once I paid attention. It absolutely spoke to me. It's interesting though.
I think this is such an important piece for people to hear. Like, was it conscious to not look at it? Like, yeah. I mean, I think it's a different story than other people's because you have this cousin who just talking about this all the time and you're like, how was that?
Did you know somewhere inside of you that you had the thing and then you shouldn't want to deal with it and then one day you did? Like what happened? Probably. I mean, I don't think I paid enough attention.
I we had been in New York in March. Right. And I'd kind of like asked a few questions and like, we'd had a couple meals together. That's right.
That's right. When you're like questioning whether or not you have a sugar problem, I'm probably not the funniest person ever. Well, which is, you know, I will but I kept an eye on what you had and what you and I was like, I can eat that stuff. And then we had breakfast.
Your mom came down and she's like, I do it. And she was telling me, she was kind of selling it. So like in March, I kind of like dipped my toe in. I just want to say for anybody who's listening who's like, I don't think it's like change does not happen all at once.
It's a slow burn. And then one day you're like, okay, I'm ready. I think all of diet culture that says like jump right in. Like some people really can do that.
And some people, it's just this really gradual, gradual thing. And I think when you come with the kind of diet history and I think addiction history that, you know, we both come with jumping in again, is like so hard. Like what was it like when you first broke up? Did you break up altogether?
What was it like? Well, I wasn't, you know, there was always still the days that I was like, well, you know, I'm a six out of 12. It's not really, you know, it's not that bad. Right.
What a joke. But why is that a joke? In the beginning you were only, you could only see six and then eventually. Well, because, well, as you always say a six out of 12 is still, it's still addicted.
Yeah, I would still, it's still there. You know, I still play the games. And I still, to this day I still play the diet games. I still, you know, have the gene sitting in the closet that you don't intend more pounds, but I'm not quite so focused there.
It comes and goes a little bit more now. But in the beginning, I mean, I don't remember having like really bad withdrawals from like sugar and flour. And then I would do really well for a few weeks. And then I would like, like it was all or nothing.
There was, it was the professionalism. It was, I was either doing this or I wasn't doing this. Very weight watchers. Which you were raised on.
So that makes sense. Yeah, which was what I knew and what I'd been doing since I was in my 20s at that point. Sometimes I really think that our addiction to diets is worse than the addiction to sugar in so much that the addiction to diets doesn't allow for us to ever get hope for a peaceful relationship with food because we're stuck in that stuff. Well, and you're always disappointed with yourself.
Often disappointed with yourself. You're often not doing what you should be doing. And what do you mean by that? Well, you know, you like in your experience.
Well, I would, you know, I would decide on over the weekend. Okay, next week I'm going to, I'm going to go back on program and you know, Monday, I'd wake up in the morning and do fine and buy like two o'clock. I've forgotten that I'm back on program and you know, put something in my mouth. Oh, well, I'll start next Monday.
You know, it was like the slash tires that you talk about and doing, you know, from minute to minute you can change what you're doing has been so helpful for me because it was always like there's an appropriate start time. So I've blown it for this week. I'll wait till next Monday. So what you're saying is so important for anybody who's listening and struggling though because you were actually attempting to break up with sugar and doing these old school diet behaviors like starting over like just just one last one.
So the beginning of your process was pretty bumpy. You stayed because you felt like it was a real opportunity. I love that. But listen, if you're listening right now, please hear this because diet culture makes it sound like I started my, you know, my cousin had this thing.
I started and it was like, what do you do as amazing? This is not the story we're telling. No. So what changed?
I started having little moments of clarity. I started realizing, oh, wow, I haven't taken inventory of the sweets in my cupboard for three hours. I started getting that quiet mind and realizing how amazing that was. My whole life, I knew what foods I would be able to break into the minute I got home.
I knew that I wanted to pick something up in order to add it to whatever food it is that I want to eat when I get home, but it needs something extra. Like my whole life, and especially my whole adult life, I knew what food was in what corner of my kitchen at all times. And it talked to me and my family makes fun of me because when I first started doing this, I was like, well, you know, my food doesn't talk to me so much. And so my kids are like, is the try to talk into your mom?
You'll understand some people, boy. You will understand some things because you know what I mean today. Yeah. But you know, I just nothing calls to me anymore.
I would be eating a meal and thinking, oh, I got a little piece of chocolate. Talked in the back of that little piece of Tupperware. There's some Girl Scout cookies. I have Girl Scout cookies in my cupboard that haven't been opened.
And I think I've been in there for three years. Wow. But I think this is such a beautiful story. Like, you know, in the 12th step rooms, they say, you know, sometimes time just takes time.
And I do think there's a part of your story. If you haven't recognized this where you're patients with your own untangling of your diet trauma is maybe the greatest gift you gave yourself. I don't know why people think for 30 years that they have diet trauma and then they start a new thing and it's just going to be easy. I mean, there's an untangling that needs.
I love that you gave yourself the gift of untangling. Yeah. I don't even think I'm in the middle of my journey now. I still have I've released half of the weight that I that would put me to healthy.
What the what the flow? I mean, still, I know that I've released probably half of the way that I need to release. And I haven't released really any in the last year and a half or so. So why is that, you know?
I just don't think my relationship with food is there quite yet. I go back and forth. Absolutely. I go back and forth.
But I'm just thankful that it's not going back the other direction. Like I'm happy to sit where I'm at. I mean, some days I'm not as happy as others. Well, can I make an observation?
Of course. And you said, you know, about a year and a half in, I had to get into some of the real stuff. What did you uncover? Like, because sometimes I think that has I've been doing this for so many years, sitting on the other side of a couch with people like, and then the beginning, sometimes there's this great release of weight.
There's this great relief of, you know, finding the food plan. And then we have to get into like, you know, if you want to know why you're compulsive eating sugar or soft compulsive eating sugar. And a lot of times when you're in those feelings, it does take a pause because there's some other things we got to attend to. And I mean, what happened?
Well, that was kind of where when I realized that, shame, I was, there's a Facebook group with the, you know, people that have read your book. And somebody at one point said something about eating a loan or some sort of something. And someone said, do you think you have abandonment issues? And I went, oh, because I'm always amazed at the people who live alone that break up with sugar.
Because I really don't think, I don't think if my husband wasn't sitting next to me on the couch in the evening, I would say many more evenings I would be sitting with hand-to-mouth stuff. But I've made this declaration. I've been doing this for this long. You know, I need to, I need to continue forward.
When you saw that on the Facebook page. So I realized that like on the evenings, I have one of my son's acts. And so he has rehearsals in the evening. So we have to go pick him up like eight o'clock at night or so.
I realized that every time my husband walks out the door to go, I think, hmm, what's in the kitchen? I could quickly, you know, like, I realized that when I'm alone and that I have kind of that quiet time is when I really want to eat. And I realized that I don't hold myself in as high of a steam as I do other people, I guess. You know, I'm letting myself down.
And you've talked about that in some of the coaching, you know, that we have to say things that we can hold ourselves to those standards and they need to be bars that we can get over because otherwise we don't trust ourselves or like ourselves because of that. I think you're making it a little bit too simplistic if you don't mind me just putting on a therapist hat for a second. I mean, you and I come from some serious daddy trauma, you know, which we don't need to share with the greater listening audience, you know, and I just think trauma is such a real thing. But I think this is such a common theme among people, which is I went to the food, the minute I even suspected I might have a feeling.
And in the story, you're telling fifth grade. And so in a way that it's a bad habit. I don't actually think this is about like self esteem and like fucking up. I think this is much more about gently observing this space that we've never, ever, ever been able, had the luxury of seeing.
I know for me that first time I ever did that, I was screaming on the floor for weeks. I mean, I would get up every now and then. But like, when I really put down trick, I put down, unfortunately, sugar flower and alcohol all at the same time and like, boy, did that rage come up. And I think it's really beautiful and tears.
I think it's really beautiful that we're having the podcast today. And this is where you are doing this part of the examination. I have a different take on it than you. I don't think it's about fucking up and self esteem.
I think it's about like, oh, wow, like, I can worry about Pandora's box. And so I kind of let things come up and then I'm like, well, it's not, you know, I don't need to like end up on the floor screaming. Like I just, just for those of you listening, it was not, I'm still not, I'm not there. I just processed a bunch of feelings.
That's about people are still feeling so, like, feelings don't last forever. Like this is a known truth. Like we go through breakups, we go through losing jobs, we go through deaths, we have the feeling, we complete the feeling, you know, I was reminded of Kimberly Johnson who had the podcast and she was reminding me that, you know, animals that are in the wilderness don't have trauma because they complete feelings. Like we get into this place where like, oh, I need to shut it down.
We don't complete a feeling. And then yeah, we're numbing with food for sure. It's such a root of addiction. Right.
So in now you're learning how to do life. And to be gentle with myself. I also have ADHD. I was on Relinis in first grade and I'm realizing with that there's also a lot of shame with ADHD because you kind of get kind of paralyzed with tasks and they seem insurmountable.
And so I kind of am realizing that those, you know, early hand in hand. It's pretty different than Weight Watchers, huh? This allows me to acknowledge that, you know, I'm not perfect, but I have these things that sometimes get in my way and I need to kind of start around them a little bit or figure out my way over them. And then when I get over them, it's not as big as I thought it was.
So, you know, next time the difference between going on a diet and being on a relationship with food and yourself, I've never heard something as clear as that. I actually love that we get to meet you in this part of the process because a lot of people just stop here and they say, okay, I released half the weight. I don't really want to do the next part, which is have to really self examine and get to know myself differently and learn how to be in relationship with myself. That's where the second half of the weight comes from my experience and what a beautiful and brave thing you're doing.
And if you don't mind me saying with my shaman hat on, you know, they say that when we do this work, we heal seven generations before us and behind us. And if there's a family system that is generations of you, our dads alone need the help. Send it up to them. Well, and I really, really am so thankful that my kids see me doing this.
And although may not be ready for this information wholly at this time, that even in their twenties or thirties, they may look around and go, Hey, wait a minute, like, maybe that makes sense as opposed to me that was in my late 40s. I'm thinking that they're not watching you diet, you know what I mean? So when they are thinking, Oh, wow, I have this problem. My mom had this problem.
She really changed her relationship with food. You know, they're not seeing you like counting the points and like weighing yourself and being obsessed with it. They're just really seeing you make like a sturdy long term life change. So it's the greatest we can't control what's going to happen to them.
But at least the bones of what they're seeing are like really solid. Right. About six months. One of my like biggest like pride moments in all of this.
I have my husband is a very kind of gruff man in a lot of ways. He's he's incredibly romantic. He's just a wonderful, wonderful person. Somebody's got this exterior and somebody was saying, Oh, let's, let's, you know, do chocolate covered strawberries and champagne to celebrate this, whatever.
And or actually, I think I might have been my birthday. She wanted to go out for a champagne and chocolate covered strawberries or whatever. And he says, well, she hasn't eaten sugar in over two years. So I don't know if that's going to work, but you know, we'll figure something out.
And like this, the support of that, like him acknowledging that I haven't eaten sugar in over two years and that that is something I'm committed to and I'll go out for strawberries and champagne, but I won't, I won't partake in strawberries and champagne was such a huge. Like I had arrived, like, okay, everyone, we know I'm doing this. Well, people think like, um, you know, my partner won't accept that I don't eat sugar. And I'm like, give these people a minute.
They just watched us like beyond destructive diets. Like they mostly just think we're going to quit because all we've ever shown them is that we're going to quit and then they don't have to get invested. But usually after a while, like people really, and I don't know about like my friends, like I remember one time I was at my friend Dries and like they were making wings and her and her husband were like, we made these separate ones without sugar on them. Like I was like, Oh, wow.
Yeah. Right. So any regrets about breaking up with sugar, I mean, you really did the thing. I'm still breaking up with sugar.
I was, uh, you mentioned in, um, one of your last podcast, you said, I'm about Italy. And when I first started, I was talking to my counselor and I said something about, well, I think we might be going to Italy and I don't know that I can go to Italy and not have like, I got to have gelato in Italy. It doesn't have gelato in Italy. No, we'll play that by ear and it didn't happen.
It didn't happen. It didn't happen. Now we're talking about going to Italy again. And I'm like, you know what?
Honestly, like I could see me not having gelato in Italy. I went to France like three years ago. I had such a great time. Not a piece of alcohols or a girl's power into my body.
Boy, did I have the best flip and I was awake and alive for all of it. Yeah. It's an amazing shift. You never would have thought that.
What would you say to somebody listening to this? I have to say, I think your story is just so important. I mean, I love it. We're related, but wow, is this an important story.
It's so real. What would you say to somebody like struggling and just like can't stop eating and thinks they can, but maybe can't? What would you say to somebody questioning this, this life choice? I think that we get to critical of ourselves.
And I think that gets in the way. I think that we need to, it's been really hard, but I've become more patient with myself and the fact that I'm human and I make mistakes. And just being able to go, well, that happened, but okay, it's not going to happen again at least this week. And then I'm going to move forward from it and try to do better next time.
And I think that we need to just acknowledge and realize that there's going to be mistakes, but it doesn't mean it's not the right path for you. And I think, like I agree with you, if somebody tells you, and I just love that you say, if somebody tells you one way, run away, because there is no one way. But I think when you find what works for you, you know, that's what's going to work for you. And I think that you just need to keep an at it.
I mean, you just have to keep going and moving forward and making the mistakes and learning for next time, hopefully. Well, that's how you create. I mean, what you're talking about Lee is self-forgiveness. And if there's a, if there's something that we could all use more of, it's self-forgiveness and because it allows for us to forgive others.
I didn't meet my father until I was eight. I believe my father had a lot of issues and wasn't very good at being present at a distance. When I was around, all was good, but when I wasn't around very much. And I held him to a very high standard as a kid and in my 20s.
Once I became a parent, I forgave him so much because parenting is just hard. And you're still who you are. You're still human and a lot of times forget that. And so I need perfection and I don't give perfection.
And that's been a really, really big learning curve for me. Yeah. Getting off the perfection train can really be relieving. Because when we can make mistakes and we can forgive others of their mistakes.
And you know, what does that have to do with me binging? Everything, right? Like literally everything is actually where the cycle of binging can stop, which is like, hey, I made a mistake. I'm not a mistake.
What can I do differently and more lovingly? Like, and when we're in the midst of all this diet drama, it's like, we don't even have a second to think about it. It's like, how much weight did I lose? Am I good at my bad?
It's like, oof. Right. I'm so glad you're out of that. I'm so glad you're free of that.
I'm very, very thankful. I'm very, and I know for sure that there were times in the first, you know, couple of years I wasn't for sure that this was going to be my journey forever. I'm sure that this will be my journey forever. It won't be perfect.
It hasn't been perfect. It wasn't even perfect last week. It's the right journey for me. And it's helping me with, you know, a lot of stuff that happened in my childhood or, you know, it happened throughout my life or, and it's helping me be softer around it all.
And that's everything too. Relationship with food, relationship with self. I mean, it's, it's a beautiful, I mean, I just want to say like, it's a beautiful thing to get to share this experience with you and have you in my power circle and what a, our dads are looking down on us, I'm sure, and just really relieved that we have each other. And I love you very much.
I love you very much. Thanks so much for listening to this episode about your craving. And do not forget to follow, rate, review, leave a comment. I'm so obsessed with hearing from you.
We can also hang on Instagram at mollycarmel and my website, mollycarmel.com, where you'll find all the info, tips, behind the scenes sections, you know the deal. And we'll do it all again next Wednesday. And listen, if no one's told you that they love you today, know that I'm sending you lots of it. XOXO.