Finding Sobriety and Food Freedom [feat. Lisa Brown]

Join me as I welcome fellow member of The SociEATy Lisa Brown to the podcast! Lisa is a lovely person in general – a mom (of an awesome teenage boy, a cat, and a dog), a self-proclaimed at-home technician extraordinaire (otherwise known as a stay-at-home mom), a bookworm, an athlete, and, of course, an incredibly dedicated member of The SociEATy! Her journey toward intuitive eating and food freedom started a few years ago in 2017, but it didn’t initially stick, and she didn’t start doing most of the real work until pretty recently.

Lisa explains why she began her journey toward food freedom and what obstacles she has faced along the way. When she first made the decision to change her lifestyle and become healthier a little more than a decade ago, her intentions were good, but you know what they say about good intentions, right? Well, as she shares with us, her good intentions started to become less and less about health and more and more about her body appearance, and that became a bit of an obsession. That was when she started to lean toward intuitive eating back in 2017.

We hear Lisa share stories about her son and how one of the reasons why she chose intuitive eating as her path was because of how she started to observe diet culture having an impact on him. She also talks at length about her history with alcohol and how there is a connection between ditching diet culture and ditching alcohol. Ditching diet culture, she argues, has a lot of parallels with becoming sober, and she talks about how both journeys have led to her trying to remove herself from exposure to triggering subliminal messages.

Lisa also touches upon what it’s like being an intuitive eater while also being athletic. She explains that it is challenging and that she is still working toward finding the right balance because of all of the messages that are spread about how being a successful athlete means having abs even though the reality, as Lisa asserts, is that athletes come in all shapes and sizes.

Lisa closes by sharing a few actionable tips that you can act upon today. Lisa is such an inspiration because it hasn’t even been three months since she started putting in the hard work on this journey. Despite that, however, she has already made so much progress, and I hope that you will enjoy listening to our chat! This was such a helpful conversation and was so much fun! As always, I love hearing from you, so screenshot the episode and let me know that you have listened to it! I would also love it if you would share with me what you took away from this episode of the podcast and what was particularly helpful for you!

Time Stamps

[1:47] – Colleen announces SociEATy member Lisa Brown as this episode’s guest.

[3:20] – Lisa enthusiastically shares a little bit of background information about herself such as why she made the decision to change her lifestyle.

[6:03] – Lisa talks about her son and how some boys also struggle with issues of body image.

[10:50] – We learn what work needs to go into finding food freedom.

[14:36] – Lisa addresses the relationship between her past drinking and her past obsession with food.

[18:58] – Lisa reveals what factors helped intuitive eating finally stick for her.

[23:02] – We learn more about Lisa’s relationship between drinking alcohol and food obsession.

[29:18] – Colleen and Lisa have a conversation about how having an addictive personality plays a role.

[36:07] – Lisa shares whether or not she has found a balance between athleticism and food freedom.

[39:40] – Lisa touches upon the most challenging aspect of being an intuitive eater and also being athletic.

[43:22] – We are provided with a few actionable tips: (1) Do the hard work, (2) be kind to yourself, and (3) address and be honest with yourself about your food rules.