Episode 131: The Potential Harms of Bariatric Surgery that No One Talks About w/ The Intuitive RD


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Episode Description

In this episode of The Up-Beet Dietitians podcast, Emily and Hannah  are joined by Kirsten Morrison, a previous bariatric surgery dietitian turned intuitive eating dietitian. Bariatric surgery, also commonly referred to as weight loss surgery, is a topic that isn’t very well known. Kirsten discusses her experience working as a bariatric dietitian and how that affected her current day nutrition philosophy and practice as an anti-diet dietitian. Kirsten discusses potential risks of bariatric surgery that aren’t well known and if she believes someone can adopt an anti-diet approach to health coinciding with bariatric surgery. Tune in for great information from Kirsten! 

Kirsten is an Anti-Diet Registered Dietitian and Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor. She is the Host of Intuitive Bites Podcast and runs her own virtual private practice helping women heal their relationships to food and body.

More about Kirsten

Tune in on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube to listen.


  • 0:08

    Hello everybody welcome back to a brand new episode of the upbeat dietitians we are here with a brand new guest today

    0:14

    first guest of season 8 we're joined by Kirsten and we are talking all about bariatric surgery today and quick

    0:21

    disclaimer we we did discuss bariatric surgery way back in the day and you may

    0:27

    notice that we talk about it a little bit differently now than we did back then if you guys are a long-term

    0:32

    listener or even more so just recently in the last few seasons you may have realized or recognized that we've

    0:37

    changed our thoughts and points of view a lot in nutrition so you might notice

    0:44

    if you listen to that episode versus this one we have a lot of different things to say so we hope that you'll

    0:49

    just grow with us learn with us and hopefully just be open to a New Perspective as we have been yeah so

    0:58

    today our special guest Kiren Morrison she is an anti-diet registered

    1:05

    dietitian and certified intuitive eating counselor she's the host of intuitive bites podcast which we will be on later

    1:15

    this year so definitely be sure to go check out that episode Kiren runs her

    1:20

    own virtual Private Practice helping women heal their relationships with food

    1:26

    and their bodies we're excited for this episode and cannot wait to share it with you guys enjoy enjoy hello Kristen

    1:36

    welcome to the upbeat dietician podcast we're so excited you're here hello

    1:41

    thanks so much for having me I'm really excited I feel like this is going to be a very therapeutic episode for you and

    1:48

    Hannah so I'm very excited to be here um but we are just so excited to have you

    1:55

    on love connecting with fellow dietician podcasters and the people saw the title

    2:01

    so they know we're going to be talking about bariatric surgery today but before we get into all of that start us off

    2:08

    with kind of what your day-to-day life looks like right now any hobbies past

    2:15

    education anything kind of you want to share yeah good question so I am am a

    2:21

    twin mom first-time mom to 14-month-old twins I have boy girl twins so my life

    2:27

    is very chaotic the past year plus um they go to daycare part-time now which

    2:32

    is amazing because it gives me a little bit of you know a breather slash time to do my work with clients um so my day on

    2:41

    days that they're in daycare consists of doing a lot of like one-on-one calls I also run a couple of group coaching

    2:46

    programs um for intuitive eating support um and then yeah some content creation I

    2:53

    I do lots of stuff like that and then just keeping up with my house while they're at daycare I'm like all right

    2:58

    finally I can like get things in order for a second just for them to come home and you know be a tornado again um but

    3:04

    it's it's lots of fun taking care of the house by itself as like a full-time job they do not warn

    3:10

    you about that before you grow up and then also get another job as a dietician

    3:15

    also it's a lot absolutely I know especially I mean for sure and then

    3:21

    throw twins into the mix and it's just like a NeverEnding thing I can only

    3:26

    imagine yeah well you mentioned working in the space of intuitive eating and so

    3:31

    I'm sure our listeners who are here to learn about bariatric surgery are kind of like H how do those really go

    3:37

    together but before we get into the juicy stuff though and how maybe that transition happened tell our listeners

    3:44

    who may not know what exactly is bariatric surgery who is it for what's

    3:49

    all that about yeah bariatric surgery is a surgery I mean they call it weight

    3:55

    loss surgery right so it's for folks who um exist in larger bodies and and you

    4:00

    know a lot of times they go to the doctor and the doctor is saying you have to lose weight and they've tried all the

    4:05

    things in the book and the doctor is saying well you really have to do this for your health so they prescribe or whatever um recommend bariatric surgery

    4:13

    weight loss surgery and the surgery itself has there are kind of multiple options um multiple kind of levels of

    4:19

    severity um but for the clinic that I worked at there was one called a gastric

    4:25

    sleeve and the other was a row Andy gastric bypass and in both of those surgeries they are cutting the stomach

    4:31

    and making it smaller to some degree um yeah so that is kind of the basics of

    4:37

    what batric surgery is yeah I feel like it definitely I'm glad you said weight

    4:42

    loss surgery because we haven't mentioned that one point today and the bariatric terminology

    4:48

    might not be as common or welln um but you how

    4:56

    Qui question how long has it been since you've been out of the bariatric surgery space so interestingly my first job as a

    5:04

    dietitian was in the Bariatric Surgery Clinic and that was in I started working there

    5:10

    2016 and then I left by 2018 so I was there for like year and a

    5:16

    half two years um and have been out for the past six years did did your clinic also do

    5:24

    General weight management as well with like weight loss medications and that sort of thing so they did not at that

    5:31

    time what was happening at the time that I went into the clinic that I entered the clinic is that they had been doing a

    5:37

    lot of what they call the gastric band which is does not like change the anatomy of your stomach but it places a

    5:45

    band in there to like restrict and you know cause you to feel fullness um but

    5:50

    it was also causing a lot of issues so every person that would like come back with any issues with the band they were

    5:56

    just immediately taking them out and then potentially going over into like the gastric sleeve or something like

    6:02

    that um but yeah the clinic I was working at did not do any of the weight loss medications at that time yeah that's interesting our for

    6:10

    those listeners who maybe don't know yet I also used to work in the barric space so I'm very excited to nerd out about

    6:16

    this with Kirsten today our Clinic though they it was a little bit more recent so I started working there in

    6:22

    2020 um they they did offer weight loss mids OIC mangaro all that good stuff so

    6:30

    what would happen a lot of times is the patients would you know give a go at those medications and if those didn't

    6:37

    work some of the providers would recommend the surgery as sort of like

    6:42

    Last Resort sort of thing this is also interesting to me because I just had a conversation with somebody recently on

    6:48

    this topic about how bariatric surgery is literally like talked about as the gold standard of weight loss in the

    6:57

    space and yeah so it's viewed as like okay you all the things you've done all the diets you can't lose the weight so

    7:02

    like you're just going to go to surgery and then like you're going to be done and in reality you really open up the picture and you're like wait there's all

    7:08

    of these steps and steps and steps and you keep going more severe and more severe because even within this it's

    7:15

    your body's fighting back and it's not quot unquote working long term not because it's your fault but because you

    7:22

    know again when you zoom out it's like oh at a population level these things really aren't working for most people

    7:28

    exactly it's it's it's so wild how it's always painted as the best thing for

    7:33

    your health we're doing it for your health it's all about your health it's just it's not it's it's such

    7:41

    they get so much money from that surgery by they I mean like Hospitals and Clinics whoever is doing it that it the

    7:49

    doctor itself if they're not well-versed in the anti-diet space they might fully

    7:56

    believe that it is all about your health but if we look big picture there's a lot of financial ties going on there as well

    8:04

    100% And I mean when you really zoom out and especially after having a lot of space from that world it's like as a

    8:10

    dietitian at like at the core getting nutrition getting nourishment allowing

    8:15

    your body to be fed is the best thing for your well-being and this surgery literally deprives you of that and

    8:23

    causes malnourishment quote unquote in the name of Health right so that's like problem number one not to mention all of

    8:31

    like the issues and risks risk factors and like outcomes negative outcomes that

    8:36

    come from the surgery um mental healthwise physical healthwise it's it's really horrifying and then I think of

    8:43

    all the clients that sat across from me that were like yeah I'm doing this for my health because this is what I've been told is the best thing for my health and

    8:49

    this is the quote unquote responsible thing to do and there lab values were

    8:54

    perfect like they everything that they had going on they were feeling great their Labs were great the only quot

    8:59

    quote health problem was their BMI so yeah on every level it's just really horrifying that it's painted as

    9:06

    something that's supposed to support your health that's such a good point because you're absolutely right like

    9:12

    they just see the BMI and surgy is recommended for them and then afterwards that's when the labs get worse they

    9:18

    start losing their hair their skin gets dry and brittle people don't often know

    9:23

    that after barric surgery you're on a a vitamin protocol for the rest of your life because you can't meet your needs

    9:29

    through food because your appetite is just so wiped out it is it's wild right

    9:35

    um yeah or just like the physical limitations of having you know a lot of your stomach caught you know cut out and

    9:42

    it can't absorb things the same way I mean there's just so many yeah malnutrition issues and again right

    9:49

    people don't know that right like I feel like not enough people realize what the long term is going to

    9:55

    look like um and even you mentioned like the appetite changes right for so many of the folks that I saw returning back

    10:01

    after having the surgery um a lot of them were having issues with quote unquote issues with their appetite

    10:08

    returning and actually feel I think I've quote unquote stretched my stomach but

    10:13

    in reality it's in my mind right it's just their body adapting it was that you know the hunger hormones horor figing

    10:20

    figuring out a new way to uh be released from other parts of the stomach and yeah

    10:25

    increasing your appetite for your survival yeah exactly that how how did you transition

    10:33

    or I guess what led to the transition of you working in that clinic to what you do

    10:38

    now yeah so again first job as a dietician I mean it's not like I was seeking out that position in particular

    10:44

    it was more like I was moving to a new state um where my significant other at the time lived and I saw the job posting

    10:50

    and I was like outpatient work that sounds amazing cool weight loss surgery didn't raise any red flags in my mind

    10:56

    because I had been steeped in di culture throughout my whole nutrition training

    11:02

    um so anyway I was in that position and during my time there randomly stumbled

    11:08

    upon uh Christy Harrison's foodsy podcast which I think ends up being like a doorway for a lot of people um yeah I

    11:16

    literally don't even know how it happened I wasn't somebody who listened to a lot of podcasts before that but it came upon my feed I went down that route

    11:23

    and really at at that point for me um personally as well I was struggling with my relationship with food I didn't ever

    11:30

    know that I just thought like I needed to gain more control over my eating and be better quote unquote with my

    11:37

    nutrition um so it really it struck me on a personal level and it struck me on

    11:42

    a professional level because I was like oh this is why first of all these people

    11:48

    are experiencing so much weight bias at every turn especially in the clinic that I'm working at so no wonder they're

    11:54

    struggling and can't get this all under control and no wonder I can't get it all

    12:00

    under control and figure it out and stop like overeating on sweets at night so it

    12:05

    really just all clicked for me and I was like okay I'm in this job maybe I can

    12:12

    like try to help these people through an intuitive eating Health at every size aligned way because I don't know I was

    12:18

    like trying to find some gray area and like I didn't know what to do so I spent a little bit of time it was probably

    12:23

    close to six months like trying to merge that and it just I kept butting heads it

    12:28

    just wasn't gonna work so I did whatever I could and I I got out I ended up moving into the dialysis space for a

    12:34

    little while and kind of hopped around until I really went full-time in my business I was dying to ask you that if

    12:41

    you felt like there was a phase because I was the exact same where you were like trying to incorporate like intuitive

    12:48

    eating weight neutrality at a bariatric weight loss clinic because same and it

    12:53

    was like one of the most confusing hardest times of my career so far because you can't do that that's not a

    12:59

    thing and I didn't realize that until like the last year or two that you cannot make that work and we'll get to

    13:05

    this question later but I do want to talk about in a little bit like for those who have had the surgery how can

    13:10

    they do intuitive eating so to speak but we'll get to that in a minute um Emily I'm sort of nerding out anything that

    13:18

    you have you wanted to add to any of this at this point I just wanted to note that I was glad you mentioned like when

    13:24

    you were looking for a job that the weight loss position was not a red flag because that's all we

    13:31

    knew and that's and also like why you were struggling as well is because that's just all you know from like our

    13:36

    education it's just a very weight Centric BMI

    13:41

    heavy curriculum and then just like with the prevalence of diet culture and we

    13:47

    didn't really have the like skeptical lens on yet because we were students we

    13:52

    were just taught to accept everything as it was and not question anything um but I think that's really

    13:59

    important to know because I feel like it is such a challenging part like when you're going from student to dietician

    14:05

    to like really kind of understand what your philosophy is and then once you're

    14:11

    actually in the real world you're like oh yeah this is how it is yeah such a

    14:18

    good point and I am hearing from more and more people like that there are more

    14:23

    influences of like Health every res siiz intuitive eating in some programs but even then it's probably like whatever a

    14:31

    class in you know a whole semester or something so it's there's a long way to go but that was very much my experience

    14:37

    of like not ever even have heard I never even heard the term intuitive eating or

    14:43

    health at every size um and I have my Master's in nutrition I have my undergrad and my Master's in nutrition

    14:49

    um so it's kind of wild how yeah at least in my experience it was never brought up so wild we were blessed where

    14:57

    we had one professor who Hannah and I love she knows who she is and she

    15:03

    introduced us to intuitive eating in undergrad um amazing it was a good

    15:09

    exposure but we were like oh dang but it was it wasn't quite enough I still ended

    15:14

    up working at a weight loss center so it clearly didn't quite get there but you know what is is I'm glad that you

    15:20

    resonate with that gray area as well because it's so so much yeah I mean it just it makes so much sense because it's

    15:27

    like it makes me think of like all the clients I've worked with or like the conversations I've had with friends and family members were like they're like oh

    15:33

    yeah that makes sense like I get it but like you don't really get it because it takes so much to truly get it at your

    15:40

    core because it takes so much unlearning so like it does feel like for a time maybe I can do something here slash like

    15:47

    there's that argument of like I really want these people who I think really need to hear this message to hear it but

    15:54

    it just gets to that point where it's so frustrating and they're sitting across me and you're like yeah that sounds amazing Kirsten but the surgeons yelling

    16:00

    at me quote unquote like what like literally what they would say to me because I'm not losing the weight I'm supposed to so like you're supposed to

    16:06

    help me with this and you're not so like it was this ethical dilemma that it just got to the point where it's like yeah

    16:11

    you just have to get out that's exactly it like ethically it just

    16:16

    it's it's not good it's not good at all and I feel so bad for my patients during that time because you know I was just

    16:23

    trying to do my best as a dietitian and I knew that like a part of my Rd brain knew that like surgery wasn't going to

    16:30

    be the long-term answer weight loss is not going to be a long-term solution like there's so many other ways to

    16:36

    promote Health but you know I could tell the patient that and they be like oh yeah totally that's awesome I love this

    16:42

    I love your approach but then they do go see their surgeon or their Doctor Who's prescribing their weight loss meds and

    16:47

    they're just getting put on 12200 calorie diet for weight loss or post surgery is even less than that but right

    16:53

    so they're like getting one message from me the weird wishy-washy half weight loss half Haze dietician and then they

    17:00

    go see this very weight Centric provider and I'm sure their brains were just like so ping pongy and they had no idea what

    17:07

    was going on and I just if you're listening to this as an excent or patient of mine thank you for bearing with me

    17:14

    during that great area because tough times yeah absolutely same to anyone I

    17:20

    worked with so tough well we really kind of already covered some of the risks and

    17:25

    you know why surgery can be so harmful do you think there's any other points you wanted to add there of you

    17:31

    know if like let's say for example if right now a client were to come to you and they were like I I'm thinking about

    17:36

    ining the surgery I think it could be a good fit for me what what type of maybe

    17:43

    cons or risks might you bring up with them oh good question I mean a lot of things come up I think like first and

    17:49

    foremost if somebody CES to me saying that I would say I honor your body autonomy and your decision and I myself

    17:56

    have never lived in a Lar larger body so like I don't know your lived experience I want you to make the choice that you

    18:03

    genuinely feel is right for you um I would want them to know that there's a

    18:09

    lot of folks who do not see the outcomes from that surgery that they expect to

    18:14

    and that they believe are like going to be promised that it's like yes I get the surgery I don't have hunger cues I lose

    18:20

    a lot of weight and it stays off because this is the final solution and like this is going to work and that is just not

    18:27

    what I saw in my experience as a bariatric surgery dietitian and I think people need to know that because if

    18:32

    they're going through this surgery that literally Alters the anatomy of your stomach forever and maybe is going to

    18:38

    have a lot of side effects like um I mean dumping syndrome is something if

    18:43

    you have rowany gastric bypass where you just you feel awful when you eat certain

    18:48

    foods um you can have you know again the Mal nourishment um you can have mental

    18:55

    health side effects I mean especially if you have really used food as a coping skill and all of a sudden you can't use

    19:01

    it in the same way all of a sudden that coping skill needs to shift somewhere else and there's really high instances

    19:08

    of folks like shifting to alcohol or drugs um and that's something that you

    19:14

    need to know um I mean the list honestly is endless another big one I think people need to know is like will your

    19:21

    certain Labs go into range after surgery potentially will you lose weight after

    19:28

    surgery potentially right like probably for a period of time for a period of time is the key right what we see in the

    19:36

    long term is that people are slowly regaining this weight and the studies

    19:41

    that they have only go out a few years and there's only so many people who are really you know going into these studies

    19:49

    and staying in these studies for the duration so we don't even know really what happens after 10 years 15 years um

    19:55

    so I think this is all just like you've got to take this into account if you decide to move forward know that it's

    20:02

    not the like the whatever the magic pill type thing that it sold as and that it

    20:08

    might not turn out the way that you anticipate yeah I'm so glad you brought up the the idea about body autonomy and

    20:15

    all of that too because that's a huge part of it as well like as dietitians medical providers whatever you want to

    20:21

    call us like our job is not to tell you what to do with your body or you know say that you should not get the surgery

    20:27

    it's the worst thing you could ever do like we're just here to help you walk through it get a better understanding

    20:33

    from our professional point of view what we do know about it but at the end of the day it's always going to be your choice what you decide to do or not do

    20:41

    right it's like a you know weigh the risks and benefits and and only you can truly know that like I can't know that

    20:47

    nobody else can know it um even somebody else that has existed in a larger body they don't know your unique experience

    20:53

    and what it's like living in your body and um yeah what what you're willing to risk to to go down that path so

    21:01

    absolutely I think that's a really important point exactly and there's there's people who get the surgery and

    21:06

    it does all end up as sunshine and rainbows for them that's a very small percentage but it happens and so yeah I

    21:14

    know we get a lot of like stuff like that sometimes we talk about like intermittent fasting we talk about keto it's always like oh it worked for me

    21:21

    that doesn't translate to an entire population of it working for everybody and my problem with that is too is

    21:26

    always to like because I I hear that clients right they're like but it worked for XYZ person and like they had posted

    21:32

    all this before and after photos and I'm really jealous that it worked for them and still I'm skeptical because we don't

    21:39

    know what five years down the road 10 years down the 15 years down the road looks like for them so like I'm still

    21:45

    not convinced and we don't even know what's going on with their mental state from afar we can say it worked and like

    21:50

    they're wearing awesome clothes and going out and like looking like their life is amazing but like we don't actually know that so you both have

    21:58

    talked about all these risks but and we talked a little bit about we like there was like one mention of what we're going

    22:05

    to talk about next but I feel like we should just like bring it to the front

    22:10

    why are medical Prof providers and professionals recommending this if they

    22:16

    have there's like potential harms of your mental health physical health emotional health like why is this being

    22:24

    recommended so prevalently yeah I mean I think at the core like again we live in this weight

    22:31

    Centric society and it's really seen as like weight loss at all costs like

    22:38

    whatever it takes to lose weight is the healthiest thing right it's like weight is equivalent weight loss is equivalent

    22:45

    with improved Health without question even though we have all this data to show that that's not true and like we

    22:52

    have all these experiences you know showing that that's not actually the case everyone's just has this filter of

    23:00

    weight loss is the best possible thing I think that's one part of it and I think the other part is that in the short term

    23:07

    you see you can see for a lot of these folks massive shifts in their health um

    23:14

    and hey if you they lose a ton of weight like are they able to move easier okay um so that might you know play into

    23:19

    things um their eating is massively different like everything is massively different so again like if you just look

    23:25

    at that snapshot of the short term it's the same as somebody that goes on Weight Watchers and they you know are like oh

    23:31

    that it really worked but they're not looking at what happens after that quote unquote after photo so I think that so

    23:39

    true it's so true at our Center I know that after surgery they had very close

    23:45

    follow-ups of course with the surgeon like every two weeks then once a month then every six months or whatever but

    23:51

    then it becomes annual and at that point patients kind of start falling off with their appointments and so what you said

    23:56

    about you know at first it seemed seems like wow this is like a really successful thing patients are losing all this weight really fast we all see that

    24:03

    part of it in the clinic but once the patient is 10 15 years down the road after surgery they're not coming to our

    24:09

    Clinic anymore they're doing their own thing doing whatever and so the providers in that clinic aren't seeing

    24:16

    that side of it they're seeing the success you know air quotes there at the beginning but they're not seeing what's

    24:21

    happening in the long term yeah that's a really good point I mean liter it's not like these providers

    24:27

    are like for the most part out to get people and like wanting to cause harm right like they believe that this is the

    24:33

    best thing for folks and they're seeing these people come back being like I feel so much better my numb excited yeah

    24:39

    they're like excited like it it feels and it looks like it's this really positive amazing thing so it makes so much sense why um providers aren't

    24:47

    realizing the harm that is truly being caused exactly and of course weight loss cells so that's the other reason is

    24:56

    Right very good point of course yeah well how do I want to word this do you I

    25:03

    guess I'll kind of share my own experience then see if you feel the same I I talk with Emily a lot on the podcast

    25:08

    here and I listeners know that we have changed a lot in the last like

    25:13

    three four years as dietitians but I feel very grateful that I W I did have that job because now I feel so

    25:22

    well-versed in like bariatric surgery and weight loss medications and so I'm able to discuss like we like the risks

    25:29

    earlier and like how you'd approach a certain client who wanted to get a surgery for example like I know I feel so much more confident now like talking

    25:35

    about those things with clients and patients like now as a weight neutral intuitive eating dietition however you

    25:42

    want to call it do you feel like working as a barric dietitian like helped you be

    25:49

    the type of Rd that you are now and if so I guess like how so yeah 100% I mean

    25:56

    I am so grateful that I I first of all was able to hear the lived experience of

    26:02

    so many folks living in larger bodies and just like seeing their experience see seeing how honestly sometimes how

    26:08

    they were treated by some of these surgeons and not believed right like they would be saying like I this is what

    26:14

    I eat this is what's going on and they just would flat out be like like the surgeons would flat out be like there's no way that that's what you're doing

    26:20

    because if that was what you were doing you'd be losing a ton of weight right like I saw these conversations happening I saw the bias that was thrown um at

    26:27

    these folks and I think that I wouldn't have the same perspective I mean that there's no way I wouldn't have the same

    26:33

    perspective that I do today if I hadn't been through that and I love that I'm able to now work with folks who've been

    26:40

    that have had the surgery and now want to heal their relationship with food with food in their body and they have

    26:46

    unique challenges because of the surgery that I wouldn't be well versed on if I hadn't spend my time there so um 100%

    26:54

    I'm so glad that I went along the path that I did um and it's you know kind of giving me

    27:01

    the the unique skills that I have now totally the same like working with

    27:06

    people I think you mentioned like them people in larger bodies like working with people who have these actual

    27:11

    struggles in our weight Center Society like patients come to you crying and you like fully get to understand at least as

    27:18

    much as we can as those in thinner bodies like what they're going through

    27:24

    and I don't know I don't have much else to say to that I guess but I'm just I fully age and like feel the exact same

    27:29

    way yeah and I to I also think like I I think the intuitive EA message the

    27:35

    health that every siiz message still would have hit me and I still would have it still would have clicked in a

    27:41

    powerful way but I think that part of the reason I really I took to it so quickly and just like hit the ground

    27:47

    running as soon as I heard it um was because of that experience too because it really was at that time like

    27:53

    personally and professionally it just hit hit all the notes you know so I'm grateful too I feel like it helps when

    27:59

    you've like seen the other side and then you like when you're on this side it's like

    28:04

    oh yeah or at least people like challenge you as well you have that knowledge background to actually know

    28:10

    what happens there so we kind of talked a little bit about we've talked a lot about intuitive

    28:17

    eating but for people who have gone through bariatric

    28:24

    surgery do you think it's possible for them to adapt a anti-diet intuitive

    28:30

    eating approach despite all of the nutrition

    28:37

    recommendations around it yeah that's a great question um yeah I mean 100% is is

    28:44

    the answer for sure but there are unique challenges but I think like more I mean

    28:50

    I think so many people can benefit from you know intuitive eating and healing their relationship with food and their body but like especially folks who have

    28:58

    really been just at the core of diet culture um going through that experience

    29:05

    with weight loss surgery so I think like they deserve it more than anyone um and it's such a powerful thing to stop

    29:12

    fighting your body after you've kind of really gone to battle to that to that degree so I mean I think for a lot of

    29:19

    the folks that I've worked with um they they're further out from surgery and a

    29:25

    lot of the like restrictions that they experienced in those first couple of years or few years

    29:32

    have loosened a bit like they have more flexibility a lot of them have more flexibility in the amount of food that they could eat at one time and they've

    29:39

    figured out over time what works for their body right so it's I feel like it's almost like they have had an

    29:45

    increased need to have even more connection to their body than a lot of people have because it's so

    29:51

    individualized like their own hunger cues and how much they can eat of certain foods that feels good for them

    29:56

    so that's kind of been my experience it's like these people really know their bodies and they've figured out ways um

    30:04

    to eat a little bit more or eat things that they really enjoy and um yeah it's

    30:09

    it's entirely possible it's just even more individualized for them and I think

    30:15

    that's a big misconception about intuitive eating as a whole like as a framework which could be a whole other episode of course but it just gets taken

    30:22

    like at face value of just like eat when you're hungry stop when you're full you know

    30:28

    eat whatever you want but that's just like not and that's part of it but there is so much more to it and people who

    30:34

    have bariatric surgery can do intuitive eating so to speak people who have diabetes can do intuitive eating like

    30:42

    it's because it is such a it's a starting point is all it is and there's so many different ways to go

    30:48

    about it and it is so individualized but if we're looking at it from you know how social media paints intuitive eating it

    30:55

    probably isn't going to be a good fit but the way that intutive eating can actually work and like this anti-diet

    31:00

    approach whatever you want to call it totally agree that it can absolutely be a fit for someone who has had the

    31:06

    surgery yeah and in fact like even in the case of like diabetes like both of these examples like it's in most cases

    31:13

    like in my opinion it's going to be the most supportive thing that they can do is go through this healing process right

    31:19

    and and like be able to have a peaceful relationship with food and not be driven to using food as a coping skill in

    31:26

    certain ways or or like struggling with food the way that they have been um it's going to create the most balance and the

    31:33

    most ironically the most control around food um by getting to that more neutral

    31:39

    Place it'll it'll take time to get there too like if you've had the surgery you

    31:44

    have likely struggled a long time with disliking your body and doing all these

    31:50

    diets and so it might be a totally different journey posttop and someone

    31:55

    who has ever gone through all that and is also pursuing intuitive eating and that's again why it's so important to

    32:01

    know that it's going to be individualized to the person Y and this is a perfect

    32:07

    opportunity to work with a ditian on it instead of those occasional check-ins post

    32:15

    surgery like trying to find a DI you can meet with regularly that specializes

    32:21

    with that background just so it is individualized it is so to get that that

    32:28

    support in yeah in an individualized way and just having um that somebody to check in with it makes a huge difference

    32:35

    in like how quickly that long process is going to be exactly

    32:40

    and yeah yep I'll save I save my monologue that I think is a great segue

    32:46

    though Kirsten into letting our listeners know where they can find you if they feel like this was such a great

    32:51

    episode they want to learn more maybe they've had surgery and they want to work with you on this intuitive eating approach let our listeners know where

    32:57

    they can hang out with you yeah so I'm primarily on Instagram at the inuitive

    33:03

    Rd you can find the link in my bio there to apply to work with me and just mentioned in the application that um you

    33:09

    had bariatric surgery and you know you're kind of interested in working on intuitive eating from that framework um

    33:14

    you can also go to my website the inuitive rd.com or check out my podcast which is intuitive bytes

    33:21

    podcast amazing we will leave links to all that below for you guys of course we are going to have a bonus question with

    33:27

    Kirsten today so go hang out over there with us but otherwise Kirsten thank you so so much for hanging out with us today

    33:33

    this was a great episode yeah thank you so much all right thank you everyone for

    33:38

    listening we will catch you next week bye [Music]


The Beet Deets Bonus Segment

Listen to our ad-free premium content for a low monthly cost!

In this bonus episode, Emily and Hannah are joined by the Intuitive RD, Kirsten Morrison. The girls asked Kirsten, do you prefer sweet or savory breakfast? It was very interesting to hear the differences in all their answers, especially with how their geographical locations may come into play. Cracker Barrel was brought up (for all our fellow midwesterners out there) and we heard about Kirsten's opinions on biscuits and gravy. Tune in for all the breakfast opinions!


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