Melissa Landry 0:04
Hi there, we are experts in intuitive eating for on again off again chronic dieters and we are here to help you take the guilt and stress out of eating so you can become the first in your family to break the diet cycle just like we are in our families.
Dalina Soto 0:19
We want you to be who you are without food guilt.
Melissa Landry 0:22
Be sure to follow us on Instagram. No more guilt for Melissa and your Latina nutritionist for delina
Dalina Soto 0:29
Are you ready? Let's break the diet cycle but not to laugh. It's me that Lita before we start I want to let you know that this episode is brought to you by your Latina nutrition you're about to listen to is not a professional coaching or counseling session. Each episode is a one time conversation meant for educational purposes. We are dieticians. But we're not your dietician. Remember that podcasts don't constitute treatment. If you have concerns about your diet and behaviors, seek out guidance from a medical or mental health professional and if you're looking for a community tools to ditch the diet help with finding authentic health and keeping your culture alive join my membership brought to you by today's sponsor me Hola chula, hello there
Melissa Landry 1:22
we have just completed our intuitive eating series that means we went through 1-234-567-8910 principles in a really short time I hope everyone has their head on straits information we just gave you
Dalina Soto 1:35
it was a lot It was a lot but it was fun because I feel like this is something that everybody needs especially one a refresher and two for anybody that was like What the hell are you ladies talking about
Melissa Landry 1:45
my set of principles and we thought to kind of like debrief and recap the experience this episode and next episode delina and I want to talk to you about our Why is why we care so much about intuitive eating why we love supporting you and we want you to do that too because otherwise it's gonna be hard to organize all those skills into action so yes, you're my interviewee today Dalina.
Dalina Soto 2:10
I am I mean interviewed
Melissa Landry 2:11
today and I just find you so adorable and interesting to
Dalina Soto 2:17
pressure on me
Melissa Landry 2:20
no pressure just be who you are. Alright, so everyone knows how we met we had met we're internet friends first and foremost I saw a video of Dalina talking about how she loves to dance bachata and I like fancy myself dancer even though I have not nearly as good as you and I was like can you teach me this that was our their reference message I was like what is this and from there you know we started realizing like oh my god she she's saying the same things I am like we felt so connected in our message Yes. I don't know if we've actually ever talked about this like when did you realize intuitive eating was something that you really cared about that you wanted to send to your practice around?
Dalina Soto 3:02
So I don't think I knew like I didn't have a word for it like I didn't know intuitive eating was a thing and I think that this is something that often discuss sometimes when we're talking about what people interviewed me and they're like well what do you call it in Spanish? I'm like well technically there is a word for it like you know, you're an intuitive or whatever, but I feel like it does doesn't translate very well just in other languages or whatever the case may be I just feel like it's just frickin eating
Melissa Landry 3:33
like it's just like normal
Dalina Soto 3:35
life relationship with foods people that are intuitive eaters just have this like great relationship with food it's not a stressor so like I feel like we call it intuitive eating but like I was an intuitive eater like my whole life so for me it was just like this natural thing that I just didn't have a word to attach it to
Melissa Landry 3:56
it Yeah, yeah. Yes, you would not need a
Dalina Soto 4:00
word it needed Exactly. So for me it was just always this like constant struggle and push in dietetics school to really learn right because I wanted to learn like I wanted to be like the best dietitian I could be but something inside me was just like this isn't right and I just like didn't have a word for it. Like I just didn't know what it was and I feel like I fell through something like rabbit holes in like dietetic school like that one time like a few weeks where I was like no sugar and I was only doing like Splenda and then frickin had like the worst migraines of my life from it. Yeah. Or lay everything has to be whole grade and my poor mom is like what what are you talking about right so like I feel like it definitely fell through those like rabbit holes and like drank the kool aid for a little bit but it all it was so short lived. Yeah, so short lived, because like i that i like never wanted to dye it and it wasn't ever something that was put upon me. I've always been in a straight size. Body I've always been the like the child or even the cousin or the family member who could eat right and like not worry about it right like you know what I mean like it was it was that like everybody knows they have somebody in their family we're like oh my god that person can just like eat and not worry about it right? It was always like that like that common discussion like oh whatever like we don't have to worry about her right like we don't have to not the problem child. Yeah, yeah, so like I always feel like that was so shielded from diet culture like I saw people doing it I saw everyone around me immersed in it and I feel like such a hypocrite but like I just like the like it wasn't like a thing for me and I feel like I feel like a hypocrite saying that right like I feel wrong say like there's so much guilt involved in saying that but like I had this life where I was like shielded from diets because it was never like truly placed upon me so that that brings a lot of like guilt and shame to me what I speak about it because I'm like, Why me? Right? Like why was I protected and shielded? and other
Melissa Landry 6:00
I see you shift that into like, protection and passion like you're you're a really protective personality and like, Moy loyal Okay, like we will go into the drums but I told Dalina about something that happened in my life and she was like, okay, what's your back? And I think Yeah, like if there's like a sadness that comes up like Yeah, why is it unfair? Why did I get this privilege and this protection and some people don't that shows up in your work a lot like your bs detector is super. Like you you can you can smell the steak you
Dalina Soto 6:36
love the cancer, and
Melissa Landry 6:39
you can tell when there's some bs going on. So like, even in like your dietetic classes, yeah, it sounds like you are experimenting with stuff from like, a student's lens like Yeah, and I felt this way in school, too. Like if I'm not gonna tell someone to do something. Yeah, I can eat diet. I put someone on back in the day before I was like, I'm gonna try this. Yeah. Which totally triggered some weird stuff but yeah, like there was this part of you that tried it as a student, but it sounds like your body kind of bucked it your mind? Yeah. You didn't like it?
Dalina Soto 7:08
Yeah, I didn't like it. And so yeah, so like, I didn't have this word to it. And I feel like yeah, you know, you graduate you go to dietetic school, you're obviously putting people on these diets, right. But in the back of my mind, I was like, but you know, we never had to give up a cultural foods. Like we never have to do that in order to quote unquote, lose weight, like we can do portion control, we could do all these things, right? Like everything we were taught to say and do but I was just like, I always thought to myself, How in the world, like, you know how you have like those little like, the angel and the devil on your shoulder, like, in the back of my head, I always thought like, How is this even possible? How could this be true? When like, my grandma fed us all the same? And we were all different sizes, right? Like, how could this be true? But like, I'm sitting next to my cousin, like double fisting, like making rice. Yeah, right. And like, she's barely eating, but we're in different sizes. Like, there's just a part of me that was like, and my family has like, no history of like, a lot of like, no chronic issues. And like we rice and beans every day. And you know, we eat a lot of pork and a lot of chicken and a lot of fish. Like we have such a very protein diet. And that like to me in my head, it was like make it make sense, like what I'm taught in school make it make sense, because from my personal experience, it is not making sense. So I feel like I often say like, it was a it was a point where I had to take the science I learned and use my common sense with it. Right? Right. Because Nutrition and Dietetics teach you the science, like I'll be, I'm always going to be grateful for understanding how food is broken down in the body. But what they don't teach us is other things that could be factors in the breakdown of food, right? Like I can know, the frickin, you know, enzymes and you know, all of the mechanisms that go into place to break down a carb of protein and a fat, right, but we're human, and there's always other factors that go into it, that we don't get taught in school, we just get taught the science and how we apply it really is up to the individual sometimes. It's a scary part, right? It's context. And we're not taught nuance, and we're not taught it's very black and white thinking. Yeah, and unfortunately, that gets really muddied when you're talking to other cultures and you're trying to make it make sense
Melissa Landry 9:29
for sure. And there's a lot of like predatory behavior on that it's almost like there's messaging of like, oh, like let's knock you down. And then let's insert this product or service to pick you back. Yeah, it's the marketing tactics particularly for you know, folks of other cultures is it's scary and gross. So I love how you you kind of tapped into that early in your career. So okay, personally for you. It doesn't sound like you had a strong need for intuitive eating like some of our clients do to heal a culture but yeah, Due to meeting is a self care framework and if I know anything about you You love you some self care so what would you say like is the biggest benefit you've personally had from intuitive eating because it doesn't sound like the mindset or maybe the mindset stuff was helpful like what what actually was most helpful in your personal life around intuitive eating?
Dalina Soto 10:18
I think I think we've talked about this I think in the exercise episode I think exercise was just the one thing that like didn't care for didn't really worry about it. Like I knew the health benefits of it right? Like I knew I shouldn't be moving and I'm just like, glad that I was able to look at it from an intuitive eating perspective before right before I accidentally went down like a rabbit hole if I wouldn't have had like, you know, like if if COVID would have hit and like I wasn't an intuitive like I didn't know what intuitive eating was or like knowing the framework or whatever I feel like I would have gotten into like a really negative relationship with exercise like super negative.
Melissa Landry 11:00
Yeah, yeah, I think that happened to a lot of people we hear a lot of like shaming to like I shouldn't be doing more I'm 70 like oh, yeah, we're home. I'm not competing anymore like that. A lot of that came up where there was a lot of pressure but you were able to have the joyful peace stay with you because yeah, yeah, I love that it added something to your life and
Dalina Soto 11:24
added stuff to my life something that I never thought that I would like ever care about. That like
Melissa Landry 11:29
look at her now. As Dalina is just smiling on you. Come so far are we doing the Shadow Work? I was gonna say to you we need to set up like a peloton. Right again together and have some fun with that. Only if it's Cody, and only if there's videos on because I love bobbing and seeing our awkward faces sweating. Yeah.
Dalina Soto 11:52
Oh yes, Cody. I only ride with Cody I have very boozy like that. I don't even have like it's it's sad. I should try other people I should you know,
Melissa Landry 12:01
I should I haven't we can we can chit chat. I also we should do a whole episode on the peloton. I have thoughts from the IE anti diet body positive lens before them. And we'll say yeah, we definitely have some thoughts for you. there's pros and cons. That's PR,
Dalina Soto 12:18
there are a lot of pros.
Melissa Landry 12:20
to that. So okay, so movement was the thing that was really helpful for you. And you kind of always had a sense maybe I'm like a label for what intuitive eating is. Your bs detector was like, I can't practice dietetics traditionally, I know that you did like some teaching work, and then community work, and then you created your private practice. So when you created your private practice for you like a straight up, like, My mission is to bring this intuitive eating this framework to Latina women, was it always within you that you really wanted to center this work for Latinas?
Dalina Soto 12:56
So when I started my private practice, I was still not in the intuitive eating phase. Like I was, I was so like, I feel like I was a fake intuitive eating dietitian at that point. Like, we dabbled. I was like in the fork in the road where I was like, okay, like, I understand diets don't work. I never thought you know, I still call myself this, like anti diet dietitian. But I was still very much submerged in that like, weight loss world, right? I was still celebrating weight loss. You know, for clients, I was still pushing, but like, Let's aim for X amount. Let's aim for this goal, right? Like we were, I was still very much in that realm. But from an anti diet, you know, air quotes perspective, right? A lot of what we see on social media, a lot of these accounts are like anti diet, but weight loss, you know what I mean? Like, but I feel like or you
Melissa Landry 13:51
hear a lot like, I want the client to decide which is true clients always lead. Yes. But I think that we talked about this in the episode with Maria, like, understanding where people are, are they truly weight loss? Are they truly into diagnose some of the middle, you're gonna have a better sense of like to expect what are they going to say when I yeah, yeah. And you might have a preference around that. So yeah,
Dalina Soto 14:13
so I was still very much like not fully intuitive eating because I fully didn't understand fatphobia because I never, I never dealt with it right? Like it was like I was, I was still very much like sugarcoating the idea that was being a good dietician. Because I was helping people. You know, that was the goal, right? I was helping people become healthier. And we are taught in dietetics school that like weight loss equals health. Like there's no sugarcoating that when it comes to our dietetic schooling, so it wasn't until so I was doing private practice. I was like picking it up. It was always geared towards the Latinx community that yes, 100% because I worked in the Philadelphia community. I'm sorry if you hear my kids in the back here you
So definitely Latinx geared but not intuitive eating geared It was not that at all. And then I went to Heather Kaplan's weight inclusive dietetics wind conference for the first time, and I got I sat there and I just like, remember feeling like my whole entire life was like flipped upside down. Like I felt like the rug was taken from underneath me. And now this. Everything I've known about weight and weight loss has been a lie, right? Like I always used to tell my clients like, don't worry about your weight, right? We're not worried about that. Like, again, it was like this, like what we see on Instagram, what we see on social media, right? This like, it's not about your weight. But it is. That's what if you're promoting weight loss, it is right. So I just remember, like sitting there and like crying, like, I felt so bad and guilty for being that dietitian. Again. It was like another crossroads in my career where I was like, I've been actually causing more harm than good, even though my intention was to be good. I like that day, like, I left that conference. And like never once.
Melissa Landry 16:14
Yeah, and it's a parallel process that our clients go through where like, they kind of start learning things and seeing things. And I think for our clients, the feeling is like the guilt or the grief, maybe they've lost time. They feel sadness that they maybe taught their kids this stuff more than they routed a friend on. And I think that's an honest thing to say is like, we're all learning, and that's part of like, learning is feeling some guilt and sadness. Oh, we didn't know.
Dalina Soto 16:40
Yeah. And I think that that's important, too. There's something that I saw on a like I heard it in a podcast, maybe it was maintenance phase, where they were talking about like, stop putting people on pedestals. And I've seen quotes like this floating around, but it's like, we need to understand like you and I have huge followings on social media. And people sometimes, like take our word and like, it's like, it's Bible, like, bah, bah, bah. But it's like, you have to understand that we are humans, too. And we are also learning as we're helping you through this process. We are learning new things. And so lady, yeah, and always will be and so we might have done something in the past said something in the past that again, might have been problematic. And we're able to learn from that experience and change it like and change who we are and change. Like, we need to stop putting, like Instagram people and like famous people. And just like, you know, people in general on pedestals, like they have to be perfect at all time. And like they can't learn and evolve. I think that that that's something that like, we need to really understand that no one's perfect, and perfectionism is the patriarchy and
Melissa Landry 17:50
and we're back
Dalina Soto 17:53
we're back. We're back. We're back. We're back. So circling to that, but like, you know what I mean, like,
Melissa Landry 17:58
Yes, I do.
Dalina Soto 17:59
I like it's hard to admit that we were these types of dietitians. Yeah. But it's also it's important for us to admit that so that our clients know that, like, we also had to learn and evolve from a very fat phobic weight centric world. It took us time, it didn't happen overnight.
Melissa Landry 18:14
And I'm gonna take a little tiny trumpet and toot our horn right now. Because you and I and all of the anti diet dieticians had to do some I will say kind of courageous work in creating practices that you know, we get a lot of we get a lot of pushback, we do have to figure out more. What's the word like evolved business models because sometimes insurance doesn't cover intuitive eating work. If you're not doing it, it's it is it does take time and support and infrastructure to really see this movement through. You're making me think of this quote what was it it's like normalised learning new information and changing your mind that 100% I have a post about that it's it's everything and that's something that you know as you go into this process as you figure out what like, why am I here? Why is this important to me? You know, if this grief comes up that delete is talking about like normalize it it's okay to learn new things and then boldly and bravely in the time it takes move toward the new future that's what we're all here to do for a model moment from you
Dalina Soto 19:20
I'm trying I'm trying
Melissa Landry 19:23
alright I need to know though so intuitive eating is a process which we it's never done sometimes certain skills are more relevant to us than others. What would you say is like your biggest hang up or your biggest struggle as an intuitive eaters there's some part of it that you find yourself coaching yourself around or reminding yourself a lot.
Dalina Soto 19:44
I think for me body image has always been like one of the bigger ones even though I was in a straight size body like I shared this and like one of the first episodes we ever recorded like stretch marks was like such a like, thing for like my mom always talking about that and like I like that person's body was ruined because they have stretch marks. And then here I am given birth and having all these stretch marks, and again, coming from a body that was never criticized and was considered a straight size, we evolved when we aged, we grow and our bodies do change. And so watching my body changed, change in the last few years has also been something that I've had to like, Coach myself through and like, deal with the struggles of like watching my body be different than it was in my 20s. Now in my 30s, because we are taught by diet culture, that we need to stay the same every age, right? And so like that, even though it's really hard to admit that we have these issues, it's something that creeps up and I'm constantly having to like, tell that little voice to eff off. Like Get out of my head because they do come up and we're human. And I always say to my clients, the goal isn't to never have these thoughts is to have the tools to deal with these thoughts. Right? When I look at something I'm super trigger, like I have to reel myself in. Yeah, but for input for sure body image and the work around understanding that my body is going to change that my needs are going to change. That was that probably has been one of the biggest struggles for me. Yeah,
Melissa Landry 21:16
like your whole life. It sounds like you were like praise for like, Look, she's not changing. Need is not changing for years, and years and years. And that's the end of the coin. Like I find that clients are either like terrified to lose that privilege or that standing or more they're sad or worried you'll never have it on sometimes you flip flop in those roles, depending on and those are two really, I think relatable experiences two sides of the coin, if gaining weight is scary than staying the same is is going to be really valid. Yeah, of course. Yeah. She's working with it, though. Your focus has totally been built on your lived experience and what you went through as a person as a dietetic student, what makes you excited about what you're doing, let's say over the next like year, what are you excited about for you and your clients?
Dalina Soto 22:14
I'm really just excited to like spread the word about intuitive eating, even if we're calling it intuitive eating, like just talking about it, like on the media, talking about it, like to the masses, for our culture, who has never ever ever heard of something like this? Like, I think that that's super cool. Like I just did a whole interview in Spanish for BBC on. And that was like super weird, and also really, really cool. Because never would I ever think that I would be like on a big platform like that talking intuitive eating, and not even calling it intuitive eating. Yeah, literally calling it normal eating. And to me, that's really exciting to see so much of how like, maybe we're in a bubble on Instagram, or maybe we're not, but like, it just seems like so many people are gravitating towards this message. That is very beautiful to see.
Melissa Landry 23:12
I think so too. She looks a little choked up, you guys. She's really feeling this one. It is exciting. I think it's both like Instagram is a bubble. But like, for example, I was at a wedding last week. And one of my friends was like, You know what, I'm really into anti diet because of what you're posting. She's like, and my mom who's not on Instagram, but we had a really good conversation. So like, yes, it's a bubble. But like even if 10% of that bubble has real conversations, and then those people like it doesn't have to be everybody to tip the scales and change the culture. So I thank you for what you're doing because there hasn't been great representation in our field and I'm just grateful that you're so damn good at talking and getting in the media and getting this message out
Dalina Soto 23:57
here shaking shit up and trying to change the dietetics field.
Melissa Landry 24:03
I love it. So usually when we interview people we ask them to tell us where to find you and what's going on so I want to do that for you now even though this is our broadcast and technically we're always telling you what we're up to you but Selena what's going on in your world? Tell the people today podcast
Dalina Soto 24:18
episode is sponsored by yours truly.
Melissa Landry 24:22
That's our little audio that we give you every week. Tell them no you got chula club going on him and loving watching it grow.
Dalina Soto 24:30
Yes, come into the two lads club or with us. It's such a fun space. I love love. Love it in there. I get choked up because the conversations are so good. Like, you know, we just had a conversation last night well, where everybody's like, I literally don't have any other space to talk about this. It's like yeah, it is and so we just had such amazing conversations. And you know, I think that when we call it a membership, it seems very scary like oh my god Am I supposed to be there. Forever and we often talk about like you know the other memberships that are out there and I think it's important to understand that it's called a membership obviously because we're we want to you know give you tools and you know have things for you to do every month shall you choose to stay with us but I think for Melissa and I the goal is never to have you in there forever. Like we don't want to be weightwatchers or new right? We we want you to get the tools and get all the information for us and like fly away and just like be amazingly happy on your own shall you choose to stay Of course, we want you to stay with us, you know, but that's not the ultimate goal. The ultimate goal is not to make you lifetime members but with a membership we are trying to make it a little bit more interactive have more resources for you. So that is a goal with the chula club right to for you to come in four to six months, and learn Yeah, get what you need learn intuitive eater process from like that cultural lens. Have fun with us. We're trying to plan some like fun paint nights and like things that are not diet related. Because sometimes we just don't want to talk about it.
Melissa Landry 26:04
Well, that's part of the thing, too, is like you see people connect on more than just about the food and body image all the time. Like I said this in stores the day like we missed having those connections. Yeah, it's cool. You're expanding it.
Dalina Soto 26:15
Yeah, we're expanding in that way. We're trying to have other types of activities happen in there. But yeah, come in, hang out with us for as long as you want and need and then become an intuitive eater that we want you to be and live your life fully healed.
Melissa Landry 26:31
So where can people find out about chula club if they want to?
Dalina Soto 26:38
Okay, so obviously, at your dot Latino nutritionist on Instagram, and then on my website, your Latino nutrition.com? And in the show notes
Melissa Landry 26:48
here, yes, yes. Oh, yeah, show notes, tend to put our little resources there. This was great. I learned a couple new things about you. I love learning new things about you, the more our friendship grows. And I hope this helped people maybe connect with some of your why, so that you can use some of these intuitive eating principles. Go ahead and rate our episodes if you're finding them helpful. honest reviews inspire us to make episodes that reflect your needs. wanna thank you for being here and for being who you are.
Dalina Soto 27:17
Love and break the diet cycle.
