45 | Weight vs Health and the impact of body image stress on weight with Amy of Wilder Nutrition

Amy Flashenberg-Laskowski is an NTP and founder of Wilder Nutrition and wellness – works with women with hormonal imbalances, gut issues and a history of disordered eating to help bring them back into balance through diet and lifestyle changes.

We talk about going against our intuition by trying out different fad diets, and we stick with them against that intuition, which can actually lead to negative shifts in our health down the line – despite hearing from many other people that it’s the best thing that’s happened to them EVER AND EVERYONE SHOULD DO IT. (Yeah, this is a rant-y one)

We discuss…

How Amy went plant based-because that’s what she “thought you do to be healthy and thin” – which led to a cascade of digestive issues, disordered eating and hormonal imbalances.
Hitting rock bottom can be the impetus for making changes for long-term health
Stress can impact your weight and your well-being, and be a huge trigger for other chronic health issues you are already dealing with.
How stress has a cumulative effect, our bodies are really good to adapting to it, but it will come to a head down the line in the form of symptoms – and it will force you to slow down and heal. If you have a lot of stress this week or this month, it might not show up tomorrow, but a few weeks or months down the line when the stressors are gone you don’t have as much going on.
Why when we are stressed, or recovering from injury/sickness and taking time off from exercise or movement – you actually need to eat MORE, not LESS, to give your body the raw materials it needs to heal – instead of restrict your calories because you think you’re going to gain weight.
How we, as practitioners who have dealt with serious hormonal and adrenal issues before STILL have to be mindful of how stress can impact our health – and what we do when stress becomes unmanageable to prevent it from impacting our health like we did before
The Weight vs Health debate