Alissa Rumsey MS, RD, CDN, CSCS is a nationally recognized and award-winning registered dietitian nutritionist, certified strength and conditioning specialist and the founder of Alissa Rumsey Nutrition and Wellness. Alissa believes that long-term health and well-being comes from ditching diets, meal plans and food rules and learning to cultivate a healthy relationship with food and your body. She helps people who are frustrated with dieting rediscover the joy of eating and develop long-term, sustainable lifestyle habits. As a freelance writer, speaker and spokesperson, she consults with like-minded companies and her expertise has appeared in hundreds of national media outlets including NBC Nightly News, ABC News, Prevention, Health, SELF and Women’s Health.

---

IN THIS EPISODE WE DISCUSS:

• The recent Weight Watchers campaign to offer their program free to teenagers
• Alissa shares about her own personal experience with Weight Watchers as a teen
• She shares how having access to the program from age 16,  lead to disordered eating and negative relationship with her body
• How the point system Weight Watchers uses, reinforces why the program truly IS a diet: the focus is based on an external factor (the points of food) vs. an internal factor (your bodies signals)
• When we are healing our relationship with food: why it’s important to actually leave nutrition out of it
• Being comfortable and confident in the ability to walk into a room where there is food (think baby shower, bbq, party) and be okay
• Her advice on starting your intuitive eating journey, and scared to “let go of the rules”
  • Give yourself unconditional permission to eat when you want
  • Making peace with food
• Habituation: the more we expose ourselves/are around the foods that we have labeled as “bad” we actually begin to lessen the power (and desirability) they possess over us. When you make something “off limits” it’s human nature to want it more, to think about it more. When you remove the rule and can have it at any time suddenly it loses its appeal/power over you
• The Guilt-Deprivation Cycle & Building trust back with our bodies: For example our bodies may want a cookie. Every instance that we honor that “want”, we are telling our body that it can trust us. We are reinforcing trust between both our mind and our body. So our brain can trust what the body is telling us, and our body can trust that our mind will respond to the signals it’s sending. When we don’t listen to it: “you already had dessert today” “you don’t need more than one” …our body learns NOT to trust us. Eventually this leads to a binge-restrict cycle mentality
• Her journey to becoming a non-diet dietitian
• The paradigm shift she experienced when she chose to become a non-diet dietitian: shift away from a focus on weight (shame) to a change in behaviors
• We discuss the stigma and phobia of Health at Every Size (HAES) and what this movement means
• WEIGHT does not equal HEALTH → Behaviors equal Health
• We break down the different Eating Personalities: What kind of eater are you?

MENTIONABLES:

The Power of Vulnerability TED Talk with Brenè Brown
Intuitive Eating
Daring Greatly by Brené Brown
“I Never Like Yoga But Then I Did it For 30 Days Straight” by Alissa Rumsey for US NEWS

FAVORITE BLOG POSTS FROM ALISSA:

Why You Should’t Go On A Diet This Year
How To Start Intuitive Eating

CONNECT WITH ALISSA:

IG: @alissarumseyrd
alissarumsey.com
alissa@alissarumsey.com
Ditch The Diet

---

---

LISTEN ON ITUNES

GET INVOLVED

Hang out with the Pod Squad on Facebook for your daily dose of health, wellness, and uplifting conversation. (and you’ll get sneak peeks of new things coming to the blog and podcast first).

LISTEN ON SPOTIFY

The Liveng Proof Podcast is officially available on SPOTIFY (as well as itunes of course)! Be sure to tap on that follow button so you don’t miss a thing!

SHOW SOME LOVE

If you love the show and want to support it in some way, leave a review on iTunes. It helps get the show in front of new people.

SHARE YOUR TRIAL & TRIUMPH

Get featured on the show by sharing your trial & triumph for the week – email them to me engrid@livengproof.com with the subject line “trial and triumph”

HIT ME UP

I definitely want to hear from you! Leave a comment, Direct Message me on Instagram @livengproof, or email me at engrid@livengproof.com

---

LISTEN ON THE COMPUTER:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Email | Support