" I have no reason to believe that a woman doing intermittent fasting is going to greatly improve her life or her relationship with food."

A gentle reminder that when I share audio interviews, I highly recommend you actually listen to the audio! A non-edited, possibly quite messy transcript is below, but the audio is pretty darn good if you ask me. You can learn how to send Substack audio to your favorite podcast player here. But you do you. :-)

Back in the summer, I shared part one of my two-part conversation with the wonderful anti-diet sports nutrition dietitian Maria Terry from New Orleans, and we talked about what it means to be an anti-diet dietitian, when nutritional numbers can be helpful and harmful, hydration advice, how and when to eat to support your workout routine, and of course, PROTEIN.

I’ve been sitting on part two for weeks now and I’m so sorry! I’ve had a hectic few weeks and really wanted to give this edit the time and attention it deserves. And I think it’s somehow even juicier and more helpful than part one, and I’m so, so excited that it’s finally ready for you. Today, we’ll touch on SO many supplement questions — from creatine to multivitamins to magnesium — as well as the real deal on intermittent fasting and more. Maria also explores the very real fear that can come along with transitioning your approach to eating to more of an anti-diet mentality, and how to manage it.

If you didn’t listen to part 1 already, you can jump back anytime and do so, but it isn’t necessarily required listening if you just want to dive in here — you’ll still get a ton out of this conversation. Hope you love it.

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Anna: I wanted to touch on supplements for a few minutes. I feel like I’ve been so of the mind that like supplements are total BS and no one should ever recommend them. And now I’m like. Okay. Maybe there’s like some kind of helpful middle point. , I feel like the big one that is surprising me that I’m starting to see more talk about that’s like maybe starting to sell me a little bit is creatine.

So what is the deal with creatine? What’s your take on it if people do wanna try it, like how do you walk them through that?

Maria: Yeah, I love this question. You know, creatine sounds scary. I think like the creatine like sounds so serious and it almost got grouped into this like category of performance enhancing drugs or steroids and what people often don’t realize it, it is the most well-researched, studied, supplement we have on the mark.

Um, and largely we see it tied to athletes or bodybuilders, and what we’re seeing now is what happens when an average everyday active person takes it? How is it affecting their brain? How is it affecting their strength and their muscle mass? So that’s why you’re hearing about it more and more. And fortunately, women’s health is becoming well.

It was becoming a hot thing to kind of understand because women’s health had been studied very well. So you’re also seeing an uptick in conversation about perimenopausal women taking creatine men post-menopausal women taking creatine. And why is that so, Anna, do you know what creatine does? No, I have no idea.

It’s, I don’t know anything. It’s so cool. It’s it, I have to explain it to you because when you understand what it does, it makes a lot more sense why people take it. So it’s a little bit of this Clark Kent Superman situation. So we all have creatine. It’s a naturally occurring thing in our body. Um, largely the liver is helping with that as well as the kidneys just a little bit.

And you eat creatine in at most animal-based foods. But what’s the deal supplementing, when you supplement creatine, you’re getting a whole lot more than if you were just eating it. So it’s one of those supplements where the dose actually really matters. It’s not like, oh, I eat plenty of B12. Uh, this is a scenario where.

Adding more creatine actually is gonna increase the benefit of it. And what is it doing? So a TP, you remember a TP in like sixth grade science class, it makes energy, but once we use a TP, it turns into a DP, which is a byproduct and we can’t use it. But again, Clark Kent, Superman, when we have creatine, saturating the muscles, bringing water into the muscle cells, it does this really cool thing where you are using energy from food.

Love that while you’re say lifting weights or on a long run. And that a TP gets into the phone booth and spins around and says, high energy, and it becomes a DP. But then creatine helps and says, guess what? Get back in the phone booth. We’re gonna do it again. And you get to make a DP back in a TP, which means more energy.

Doing the thing you were doing when you weren’t on creatine. Now that you’re on it, you’re able to do more reps, you’re able to move faster, you’re able to, you have more energy availability. So what does that mean? It means that the muscles get taxed a little more, so they get stronger over time. It’s not an overnight supplement, so folks will either load it and take a big, big dose in a week and saturate their muscles that way.

That can pull in a lot of water, cause some bloating and just discomfort. But when you take. Three to five grams a day. Over four to six weeks, we slowly saturate the muscles. We see how our stomachs do. We see if we’re getting headaches, we see if we’re staying hydrated. ‘cause you have to hydrate when you’re taking creatine,

and you will notice a difference in recovery. You’ll notice a difference in your muscle strength. You might not notice. Big muscle mass gain. That’s a little bit of a misnomer. You can, it can help with gaining muscle mass ‘cause you’re able to lift more and do more. But it’s a really fascinating supplement.

It is naturally occurring. And if I could offer a couple recommendations for folks that are interested is to look for a product that is not pink labeled. There is no women’s creatine. There is no creatine for girly pops. It is five milligrams a day. Five grams a day is what you’re going to generally see.

Um, but you could do half of a scoop and see how that feels for you. Creatine monohydrate is the only ingredient you need. You may see things like crea pure or uh, a proprietary blend of creatine monohydrate. As long as that’s the only ingredient, that is perfectly fine. That’s what’s well studied. Um, and then I recommend folks are very well hydrated and seeing how they feel.

You are not gonna miss out on your strongest self because you can’t tolerate creatine. It is just a bonus. And if you are someone who’s taking diuretics, I’m thinking of our PCOS pals thinking of people with hypertension. You might not be a great candidate because creatine is gonna affect the kidney, not in a bad way, but if you’re already taking medication that’s being processed through the kidney, that’s a little extra dures.

So we wanna be cognizant of that, but I think it’s an awesome product, um, an awesome supplement and, um, folks can be aware that it does, it does lead to some weight gain, but it’s largely water. Um, and it is for the benefit of you getting stronger and feeling more recovered.

Anna: That’s so helpful. I really love the way you broke that down and, and always good.

I mean, I, I love what you said about noticing what might be going on with your gut headaches, any of that stuff like, you know, it. I, I imagine the guidance is kind of like, maybe you don’t start taking 10 new things at a time, like easier way in because you do wanna notice, you know, how you’re reacting and whether maybe it’s not quite the right thing or not quite the right dose for you.

Maria: A hundred percent. And if you’re not eating enough. Uh, for, for muscle health and recovery, creatine’s not really gonna be this magic thing. I think when you have all the other major habits dialed in, um, and you’re following a strength plan, or you’re following an endurance plan, you can get much better data.

Uh, but throwing creatine at a problem that actually needs to be solved by food. Um, you know, will not be very helpful. You might not enjoy that. I have had clients say they get twitches and why are they getting twitches? It’s because they’re taking creatine and they’re not hydrating well enough. They’re not eating lots of diverse fruits and vegetables and getting plenty of electrolytes, and it’s creating a little bit of an electrolyte imbalance.

If you ever had a Charlie horse or twitches after a workout, sometimes it’s from electrolyte imbalance. So we gotta have those things dialed in before we, uh, you know, throw creatine at it and see how does it feel.

Anna: Such great points. Um, we also have, we talked about protein already and how we don’t all have to like go nuts.

Ha ha cramming protein into everything. Um, but if you do, you know, you’re interested in increasing your protein intake, maybe you’re, you know, doing some smoothies, um, that kind of thing. Do you have any recommendations on what to look for in a protein powder? I’ll speak from personal experience like. I am pretty sensitive to like artificial sugars.

Like they just, I don’t like the taste and they don’t seem to make my stomach very happy. Mm-hmm. Um, so I know I have to be a little careful about that personally. I know that’s not necessarily a universal issue, so any, anything to consider when you’re shopping for protein?

Maria: Yes, absolutely. This is another scenario where, let’s not, I love millennial branding.

I don’t know about you, but I like, love cutesy branding and this is not the time to go cutesy, um, stickers, outfits, decorating your house. Yes. Uh, when it comes to supplements, you are looking for N-S-F-U-S-P. Or, um, a good manufacturing certification. You want to know it’s been third party tested. You might not know this, uh, especially some of our listeners, but we don’t have much, uh, regulation over supplements in terms of what can be added.

When something, a company uses a proprietary blend, they don’t necessarily have to tell us how much of what is in it, of those many lists of ingredients, and that can be a little bit disconcerting. They’ve assessed protein powders for contaminations, for, uh. Heavy metals, if you can believe it. We don’t wanna be eating those things.

We’re talking about clean eating. I mean, that’s one area I would say. Yeah, let’s make sure the product is tested and clean. Um, so we were looking for third party testing, and it might not be the prettiest label. It might not be the cutest, uh, might not be an influencer. Uh. Promotion with an affiliate code, but it’s well tested.

So that would be number one. Number two, definitely looking into what flavor do you actually want? And it’s okay to go unflavored if you’re gonna add protein to things. I actually think unflavored is nice because you’re not playing around with an artificial sugar or a sucralose or something that might cause a weird aftertaste or worse, a digestive issue.

You just get to see how do I tolerate? Whey protein or soy protein isolate, how do I tolerate just the protein? And in those cases, it might be helpful to, to lean into what texture do I want too? So while collagen protein isn’t necessarily a complete protein, that’s okay, we’re adding it to something, right?

There’s likely other amino acids in that product that you’re putting together, and then you’re gonna have no flavor and very minimal texture issues. Whereas with whey protein, you might get some clumping. Or with plant proteins, it might be a little bit grainy. So think about your preferences here. Not only your safety, but also what kind of flavors do I want, maybe no flavor, and what texture do I need For folks that are heating things up, we wanna be really thoughtful.

I recommend as a little hack, I recommend blending the protein into the milk first. So say you’re making oatmeal, or say you’re making muffins. Mix the protein with the liquid so you don’t get clumps and you don’t get weird, um, kind of gumminess when you bake it. It really helps with the blending process.

Folks that really love oatmeal, wanna have a little protein with it. They want it in one bowl. It might be turned off by like, oh, it’s kind of chunky. When I added protein, maybe we do half the amount and see how we feel and also mix it. Um, blend it up in a blender bottle and then pour it in. It makes a world of difference.

Um, and I, I wanna just also asterisk that. Um, you know, protein powder is, uh, kind of heavily tied to diet culture, and it’s also okay to look at this product and say it’s just a product. I can see it as neutral as I wish, as as neutral as I can. And it might just be a way to add nutrition. So if you feel like, oh, I’m on a non-diet journey, I don’t wanna be engaged in diet and wellness and hustle culture, and also this could make my life easier, and also this could help me feel better and more satiated, go for it.

Drop the judgment on whether you use it or not use it.

Anna: I love that. I feel like, um, Virginia Soul Smith, if you’re familiar with her work, had a Yes, of course. Mm-hmm. And she, she’s, she does a great thing sometimes about like, what, what are you like reclaiming from diet culture? Like diet Coke. It’s okay. To just like diet Coke.

Yes,

Maria: absolutely. Absolutely. Mm-hmm.

Anna: What is your take on like a daily multivitamin and like what about other supplements that we often hear kind of blanket recommendations, especially for women like calcium, magnesium, these kinds of things?

Yeah.

Maria: Yeah. So, um, there’s a sliver of truth in all of that, right? Um, we definitely have increased calcium needs as we age, so that’s kind of cool. Um, average adult woman eats a thousand milligrams a day, but after we hit about 60, we’re looking at 1200, um, which is important. We wanna make sure our bones are strong.

Um, magnesium is the coolest mineral in the body to me, I think it is so cool and it’s used. So many metabolic processes. I don’t tend to see my clients blowing magnesium outta the water with food alone. So magnesium can also be a great thing to supplement. So you might be wondering, what if I just took a multivitamin?

Here’s something to consider. Women also have higher iron needs, uh, especially, uh, if ther menstruating people. And you cannot encapsulate in a multivitamin calcium that you need and iron because they work against each other. So my first thought here is. Your multivitamin is background insurance. It is making sure that you get what you need in the background, but we really wanna make sure we’re getting as much as we can from food because we get the benefits of the food matrix, the hydration, the fiber, the other antioxidants and nutrients in a food.

So multivitamins can be perfectly fine. You wanna time them well. So if you’re taking a thyroid medication or another medication that interacts with certain nutrients, you wanna check that with your doctor. But what we really wanna look at, if we are deciding, you know, I want to take a multivitamin, do you need the iron or do you need the calcium?

And to look into like what angle do I. Take this in. I’m someone that runs a little iron deficient, so I’m gonna take a multivitamin that has iron, my daily need of iron in it to kind of cover me there. But I also eat dairy, so I know that I’m gonna meet my calcium needs because I, I eat a highly absorbable calcium source from food.

So that would be something that I would recommend considering you can talk to a dietician about that. Talk to your doctor about that. Um, I don’t think they’re, you know, all. Some people will say, oh, multivitamins are just expensive pee. And I, I don’t necessarily see that, especially for my folks that are endurance athletes as well as folks recovering from diet, culture and dieting and may have nutritional needs that they’re not quite meeting ‘cause they’re not eating enough food quite yet.

Um, so I think it can be extremely helpful. And in periods of stress we deplete. Our minerals. And you have to think to yourself, well, I’ve been stressed, which means maybe I’m relying on more convenient foods or fast food or takeout, which is to say we’re not really repleting those minerals. And Anna, you can’t make minerals.

You have to eat them. You have to eat your vitamins and minerals. That’s why they’re called essential. ‘cause we have to get them from food or elsewhere. So. It may be helpful to think to yourself, huh, I’ve been under a lot of stress lately. I’m not eating the way I usually eat to cover my bases. A multivitamin and mineral, uh, supplement could be really helpful to me, making sure that my bases are covered.

Um, magnesium we could talk about forever. Anna, I’m curious. What your questions are about it in terms of what is it for? ‘cause if we don’t tell the people which magnesium to take, they could be in trouble.

Anna: Okay. Well, I mean, I wanna hear about that. I, I feel like a lot of people are talking about magnesium in the context of, of bone density, but then I think there’s also the whole like magnesium and sleep conversation as well.

Yes.

Maria: Yes. Yes. Okay. So beautiful question. And magnesium does play a really important role in bone health. Absolutely. Here’s the deal. We have magnesium oxide, citrate, malate, glycinate, BG glycinate three eight. Did I say malate? I think I did. We have lots of different magnesium also, I just

Anna: wanna say, because people can’t see you like you just did, like the cutest little like.

Boop, she poop. Dance sleigh.

Maria: I’m popping in my chair. Yeah. Tell, um, and might not be obvious, but studying minerals in grad school was amazing. I loved it. And I studied mineral intake, um, under like the Magnesium Queen Stella Volpe. And, um, so I have this great appreciation for it. If you choose the right one, you get great benefits.

You choose the wrong one, you might poop yourself. So let’s talk about that. Magnesium has a laxative effect. Magnesium has a laxative effect when it is chelated to a, uh, an ion that might, uh, pull some water, have a little osmotic effect, a laxative effect, so your oxide, your, or like your milk of magnesia, you are not absorbing a lot of that magnesium, but it’s gonna help you poop.

It’s gonna be a laxative. Same with mag citrate, and that’s pretty commonly found. It’s very affordable. If you went to Walgreens tomorrow and just wanted to get magnesium. And just says magnesium on the bottle. It’s likely gonna be mag sit. Um, and that you might tolerate that, but does have a laxative effect.

Then we kind of move up towards like what is a little bit more of a bioavailable, well absorbed and well tolerated. That’s magnesium malate. And what’s really cool about mag magnesium malate is now we’re looking at, it has, uh, some research tied to improving fibromyalgia symptoms. So we’re starting to get, it’s like, okay, now it’s affecting muscles and joints and bones.

Like, okay, what’s happening here? And magnesium malate is a great accessible and affordable option, but kind of nobody really knows about it. It seems nobody’s really ever heard of it. Um, but you can find that pretty easily where the anxiety, sleep recovery lives is in magnesium glycinate and by glycinate.

Um, and the recommendation here would be to take it an hour or two before bed. Do not overtake your magnesium. You don’t need to. It might be that you take 200 milligrams, you might not need to take all 400 milligrams, even though that kind of covers your RDA, um, for magnesium needs because you still might have a laxative effect.

I trained for half marathon and was like, oh, I’m gonna take magnesium, and thank god New Orleans is. Permanently under construction. ‘cause I needed every porta-potty I found. Um, so you might have sensitive stomach here. Um, but that is where you’re gonna notice maybe an improvement in your sleep, maybe an improvement in your just feeling more relaxed, but it’s not a light switch.

Um, it’s something that you’d have to kind of regularly take and observe. And then for my migraines. Um, magnesium three eight, um, has a special impact on the brain, um, and can be very helpful for people that struggle with migraine. So taking Magnesium three eight could help keep you above that threshold where you start to have migraine symptoms.

Um, I find them all really amazing. Um, they’re all really impressive, but magnesium has to be bound to an ion, which is why it has all these funny little names. Um, and magnesium glycinate is often not found in gummy form or powder form, which is why we see so many folks reaching for products like calm or powdered magnesiums.

Those are mixes. Those are blends. Um, magnesium typically is in a capsule or a tablet. Um, but I am starting to see some gummy forms, so just something to consider there.

Anna: I mean, I feel like all of this is just such a good reminder that these, these nutritional, I mean, it’s, it’s all very subtle and so, and as we’ve talked about, like so much of it is so individual.

It’s very hard Yes. To navigate this on your own as a lay person. So, you know, I, I know some people. Hesitate to take the step to work with a dietician because, you know, it’s not always easy to find the right person. It might be an expense depending on the insurance situation, but I mean, especially when you’re talking about what supplements should I be spending a great, probably a great deal of money on, like mm-hmm.

If you’re, if you’re willing to take that step, like it is really worth that little extra investment in advance just to make sure like you are spending your money and effort in the right place for you.

Maria: Oh my gosh. Yeah. And, and also not interfering with medications that are important for say, your mental health.

Um, you know, if you’re taking a certain medication like an antibiotic for say, a really painful UTI or an infection and you’re just taking, you know, Tums because your tummy hurts, well, the tum. Can impact the efficacy of your antibiotic, so your dietician goes to school to learn these things. Um, also your pharmacist would know those things too.

So even just ask, just asking for help from a professional who has studied chemicals, who has studied, um, how food works in the body. It can save you so much time and money and most importantly, um, can save you pain or discomfort. That is completely avoidable. I

Anna: love that.

Let’s talk about what food has to do with things like soreness and recovery from workouts. I actually got a reader question. She’d read the book by, Casey Johnston about lifting weights. I, I love her work. I wasn’t able to get the exact excerpt, but she had said she was doing kind of like a bulking and cutting kind of approach mm-hmm.

At some point and had linked some soreness and like, sweating issues with whatever phase of that she was in. So this reader was kind of curious like, what, what is the link there if there is one? And then. I wanna know more generally, just like, um, I, I have a couple of clients who are getting into like perimenopause.

Phase and they’re not recovering from workouts the way that they used to, and I definitely suspect that there’s something nutritional going on. So, um, throwing all that at you, I would love to just kind of know Yeah. Your thoughts on the, this link here.

Maria: Yeah. Well I think if we just look at it from the angle, not that you need to follow an anti-inflammatory diet protocol, that’s a caveat there.

Um, but to say what is. An antioxidant do in the body. What does an why is something called anti-inflammatories? Because it probably has polyphenols or chemicals or antioxidants that latch onto something called a free radical or an oxidizer in the body. Well, the thing about what happens to a bike when it oxidizes out in the rain, it rusts, right?

So that happens in the body in a different capacity, but similar concept, similar chemical breakdown. When we eat. Lots of color. We eat lots of antioxidant rich foods, and that even can include things like Omega-3 fatty acids, so your chia seeds and your salmon, uh, your walnuts. It can include, uh, whole grains, which are really great for your gut, right?

When we look at it from a broad picture, not just eat the rainbow. We are providing our body with more tools to recover. I think that is often missed in the weightlifting world when it’s bulking and cutting bulking and cutting. Fruits and veggies are like sometimes either on the chopping block or not even really considered because it’s coming down to the numbers of calories and macros.

For whatever purpose that person is achieving. But eating lots of fruits and vegetables is absolutely gonna help you recover better. Now, in the case of perimenopause where your estrogen levels are changing your estrogen, like it’s, we have a perimenopause nutrition program right now, and our, uh, facilitator Maria Jose shared the idea of marbles.

And we pull a couple of these estrogen marbles out of place. Everything in that bowl is like, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. So like things go outta whack. So to validate that experience, like yes, unfortunately that is something that happens in perimenopause. That’s where I would say not only is it.

Eating lots of diverse fruits and vegetables because your gut microbiome is changing. Um, that’s affecting your mood, that’s affecting your brain fog. That’s also affecting how your body breaks down. Nutrition. I would also say there’s some importance to eating after that workout. So like you might have to put double duty effort into your recovery and think maybe after my workouts I need to truly rest.

I need to truly rehydrate my muscles. I need to truly eat a meal that is nourishing me. Um, so that. I’m taking care of myself and I can get back to it ‘cause that’s real. And then even after menopause. You need extra attention on recovery because estrogen makes us very flexible, very pliable. And as that value is shifting downward, we are experiencing that.

I think there’s a lot of validity to food helping you feel better. Is it going to help you recover better in the presence of a calorie deficit? Probably not. Is it gonna help you feel better in the presence of an autoimmune condition or trauma or stress that is unresolved or poor sleep? Probably not. So it’s, uh, it can be helpful, but it’s not gonna be your silver bullet.

But certainly I think, um, there’s validity to it. I wonder, I haven’t read the book, but I wonder if there’s something to the effect of, um, when you are following a keto diet, you are cleaving, you’re losing a lot of sodium. And so that’s where, um, element. That product came from meeting that, that target audience, I don’t think people know that element was targeted for people on low, uh, low carb diets to replace the salt they were losing because that can cause really bad cramping that can cause, uh, severe issues with recovery.

So maybe there’s something to that. I’m not, I I’m just kind of guessing here, but if anyone was interested in like, what could that be? Um, certainly water balance and sodium balance are essential for recovery too. Super helpful. Thank you. Yeah, you’re welcome.

Anna: Um, so another reader question came in about intermittent fasting.

Maria: Ah, a classic.

Anna: I, yes, I, this is my opinion, and just from what I’ve observed, it almost feels to me like intermittent fasting is one of the like. Last Frontiers where people who kind of are taking an anti-D diet approach or, or want to, they don’t necessarily see that as a diet. Even though, in my opinion mm-hmm.

It totally is. Um, so I wanna hear your take on intermittent fasting in general, but this, per this person specifically wanted to know, does it impact women differently from men because of our cycles? They, they said that maybe they’d seen a lot of the research was about intermittent fasting was done on men.

It might be different for women. Um. So, yeah, intermittent fasting. Let’s talk.

Maria: Well, I think if you are going to bed and sleeping six to nine hours and you wake up and you have breakfast within an hour or two, I think you’re doing great at intermittent fasting that I think that’s, you’re doing fabulous. Um, we, let’s acknowledge something which is that you are.

Gut mechanics require you to take breaks. Um, you have a migratory motor complex, which is essentially like your gut’s circadian rhythm or a street sweeper, right? Where in between your meals, your, your gut is like kind of clearing out those spaces and crevices. So if you’re someone that goes too long.

Without eating, you mess with that. You are messing with your digestion and your pattern of digestion. And if you’re someone that is just grazing all day and not taking breaks, you are messing with that pattern. So there’s a sweet spot there is breaking between meals and letting your gut kind of just do what it needs to do.

Otherwise we deal with things like bloating or indigestion or heartburn things. Uh, even something like sibo, that small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. Can be tied to people really messing around with this timed eating. And that’s not to say it is a cause, but that is something that can happen is the bacteria starts to migrate up.

And the idea is it’s to push it out, push it all down, um, and get it in the right place. We want bacteria in the right places. So, where do I get a little concerned about intermittent fasting in women? And I can only speak anecdotally to this is hormonally. It does not feel good. It does not feel good to put your body, which is like, I mean, this is my approach to life is like women are already under a lot of pressure in their bodies.

They’re also under a lot of stress to like have it all, do it all, take care of kids, have a full-time job, be the breadwinner, but don’t act too proud about it. Make dinner, but also like you don’t wanna be in the kitchen, but also get back in the kitchen like it’s. It’s just women are under these impossible expectations.

So then to put yourself in a scenario where you are not eating, when you’re hungry, when you’re not eating, when your kids are eating, you’re not eating because it’s not time to eat like y’all, that’s, I’m sorry, that’s fucked. Like to me, that’s not worth it. For what aim? I think if someone had a very clear aim of, you know, investigating some gut issue and maybe they’re trying to determine like, okay, maybe this will work for me.

Fine. Like that’s an individual concern, but I have no reason to believe that a woman doing intermittent fasting is going to greatly improve her life or her relationship with food. Because it is inherently likely to restrict you, and if it’s not restricting you, it’s gonna lead to some level of binging later. You’re putting yourself in a scenario where your body doesn’t feel safe. Like, regular eating, regular wake times and sleep times, regularity and security in the body: That’s what a woman’s body needs, especially in a world that is extremely, jarringly unsafe for them. So we can create safety in our bodies rather than another restriction.

Another rule, um, I have not met a single client that KT was like, listen, I have to keep my fasting not met a single client. I work with a lot of people.

I’ve not ever had someone say, I’ve gotta keep this ‘cause it makes me feel good. Never, and maybe I’m n equals one here, my clients are n equals, I don’t know, some thousand. And that’s not enough. There’s probably someone else that has another inverse of that story, but I have only seen women feel better when they create a consistent eating pattern and an adequate eating pattern.

Um, I’m not interested in using a research study of. You know, a small sample size or it’s six weeks in a, in a, at the NIH bare, you know, like metabolic lab. Like that’s not real life. Real life is you wanna sit and eat with your kids. You wanna sit and eat with your friends, you wanna sit and have a regular pattern of eating.

Um, I think we, when we take the social Andy, uh, psychological elements of food away, sure, do whatever you want, but that’s not reality.

Anna: , This does make me think about, the one time that I’ve worked with a dietician, which was on some gut issues, um, around this gluten thing.

Mm-hmm. Which I’m still, I’m still figuring out. But one of the biggest revelations for me was that I was going too, too far between meals. I certainly wasn’t like trying to do intermittent fasting. I would go from like, I was always hungry for lunch at 12 on the dot. Mm-hmm. And then maybe I wouldn’t eat dinner till seven.

Yep. Yep. And that’s a really, really long time. And by the time I got to dinner, I was starving and I would eat. So much. Mm-hmm. And I would like way eat past the point of where like I was full and then I would get a dummy ache. Uhhuh, I feel like, uh, it seemed so obvious when she said it, but it was like kind of a, a big like moment for me to realize like, oh no, I really do need to be snacking.

Like that’s too long to go between meals and it’s made such a big difference just in the way my, oh, I’m so stomach. Feels. Yeah. I don’t, I don’t get those big tummy aches anymore. Right. Um, so I, I feel like we’ve, we’ve been given a lot of mixed messages about snacks though. Oh, I know. You know, so like, what, what should we know about snacks?

Mm. And maybe, uh, just for fun one, what’s your favorite snack?

Maria: Oh, gosh. I’m a, I love snacks so much. I am like a, I’m a, I’m like a snack board girl. So a cheese, a fruit. A cracker and a dip usually, or maybe a veggie and a dip. But yeah, I try to like, like an, like an adult Lunchable, right? Yes, yes ma’am. Yeah.

Heavily so good. Heavily, and it’s just like fun. Um, I used to be a real grazer with snacks. Like when I was in like the height of my disordered eating, I would, I could eat an entire bag of like a family size of tortilla chips. Like I just eat them over like an hour and a half because I was so hungry and I was running 50 miles a week like I was.

And I would feel so bad about snacks, like, oh, I’m outta control. Whereas I try to teach my clients, I try to teach myself, snacks are an opportunity to gas up. It’s a gas up. Let’s fuel up because you’re right, uh, between 12 and seven is a long time. How about in my work? 12 to seven could mean I see six clients.

It could mean I see five clients and run a group of 20 people. It could mean I have meetings and I’m talking and I’m working. This body is working. I don’t even need to be exercising. My body still needs those calories. So I try to reframe snacks as, let’s gas up, let’s, let’s fuel up. Because sometimes I start to feel tired or I start to feel angsty or hangry and like, let’s address that because at the end of the day, you wanna go to bed feeling.

Situated, like, well, going to bed with a full tummy and full ache, aching tummy and gas and bloating, it doesn’t feel great. So I think it’s about being on my body’s team. Um, and I wish more people knew that snacks can be fun, that you can incorporate your favorite foods, um, while also finding balance. So it might look like if somebody, uh, how about peanut butter?

People love spoonfuls of peanut butter. Like, what’s that missing? It’s got fat, it’s got some protein, but we could use a whole grain or a carb here. That might be nice. How about a little color? Well, now all of a sudden we have a little bit of a PB and J scenario where we have our favorite cracker and peanut butter and some fresh grapes.

Ooh, that’s lovely. Put a little hydration cocktail on the side, like now I’m freaking pumped. Like, I’m ready for snack time today because that sounds enticing and interesting. Snack time was the ultimate break at school, wasn’t it? Like morning snack, like what do you have? Like your snack can be the thing that really.

Reroutes your whole day if you’re having a rough morning, uh, or a rough afternoon. So I try to see them not as I’m making them sound. I, I work for big snack apparently. I’m really hi hitting them hard right now. But see them, see them as nourishing. See them as mini meals if you want, because, uh, how about like a leftover, maybe we don’t have enough of a leftover for a meal, but it could make for a great snack.

Love that. Like that’s also okay too. I, that it, you can get creative.

Anna: I’m actually working on, a journalism assignment for a client about snacking and I got to talk to a bunch of RDS about snacks and I was just like, oh my God. Snacks are so fun. Like, like the, you just see their faces light up when I started asking them questions about snacks and it’s like, it is a great source of like food joy, which is like such a good thing.

It’s, we need it. I love that. Okay. Anything else you’d like to share?

Maria: You know, I think, uh, a little touch on um, I think a little touch on body image because I’d be remiss.

To to be like food, food, food, food, and not name that. Like the fear in the back of everybody’s head is like, well, what if I gain weight? Mm-hmm. Right. I don’t know if that’s something that comes up in your work that people talk about. Yeah. Um, but it’s all the time and people get very excited and jazzed on a phone call with me, and then an hour later they’re like.

Uh oh. Like what if this goes horribly wrong? And I want people to start considering not what if it goes wrong or what if I gain weight, like that’s real. And that also positions people in a scenario where maybe they are now less accessible to privileges. They are fully pushed away from privileges of.

Kindness, uh, wise is privilege of kindness. I don’t know. But if you’re in a larger body, you know what I’m talking about, um, to feeling like you, you know, are less likely to be talked to, uh, handled with care, given a full listening ear at the doctor’s office, like there’s a lot on the line. And if we just say for a moment, put that over here, I’m positioning my hand at the corner of my screen.

Um, put that over here for a second and say, what if this goes great? What if I feel better? What if I have more energy and I’m less frustrated with food and I actually eat consistency consistently in a way that like food becomes less stressful. Then I have less thoughts about my body and less fear of being perceived.

And while I can’t remove discrimination and anti-fat bias, I can create a safer space in my own head. Can I at least do that? Um, because the reality right now is a lot of people are seeing rapid weight loss on weight loss medications, or they’re seeing weight loss over a period of two, three years.

People that you used to eat dinner with, don’t wanna eat dinner with you anymore like, like that’s happening. Girls’ trips have changed, man. Girls trips have changed for people of like, well, we all eat differently now. Listening to what your body needs and showing up for your relationship with food is the single greatest thing I think you can do for yourself.

‘cause you’ve gotta eat. You gotta keep eating. That’s, that’s the unfortunate deal of being an adult, is you have to keep showing up to feed yourself. Um, so when it, when this conversation or this podcast feels hard to listen to, like, oh, eating more, that sounds terrifying. Like, what if it goes great? What if it feels amazing and it only up levels your life in a way that you now feel so much more confident about the person you, you are and the body you’re in.

Like that I think is, that’s not magic. That that can be reality.

Anna: Ooh, I have goosebumps. That was so beautiful. Um, Maria, I learned so much from you today. Oh, thank you. And, um, I really hope we get to do it again. So if you’re listening and you have other questions, please leave them comments. Please. Thank, we would love to do.

Again, um, thank you so much for doing this. It was such a pleasure.

Maria: Thank you for having me. Um, such a joy. And for those listening, it was a client of mine that said, Anna, she’s doing amazing things. Uh, she helped me with my relationship with movement and now I’m a consistent, uh, mover. And I thought, well, let me message this person and tell her thank you.

And that brought us here. So thank you for, um, taking a shot on me and inviting me here. It’s been a joy.

Anna: Ugh, thank you to that person. And that’s like the best thing ever to hear, so I love that too.

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Isn’t Maria so great! We will definitely do this again sometime, so I hope you’ll leave follow-up and new questions in the comments here. If you’re interested in learning more about her work, you can follow her on Instagram at @vitamin_ri, or visit her website at mariaterrynutrition.com. Thanks for listening, and for supporting How to Move.