Men, Intuitive eating & Body image with Jeff Ash is a resource I have been waiting to create for a long time.
How does diet culture impact men? How is it different?
Men, Intuitive eating & Body image
A powerful conversation about the non-diet approach with a man for men.
What you’ll learn listening to this episode:
- How does body image struggle present in men
- Disorder eating behaviors & men
- How to have a conversation with a men partner about your own journey undieting your life
Mentioned in the show:
Non-Diet Coaching Certification
Connect with our guest:
Intuitive Eating: Help Without Harming Free Webinar
Transcript
Men, Intuitive Eating & body Image
===
Jeff: This is episode 381 of the beyond the food show. And today we're going to talk men, intuitive eating and body image with a man, Jeff Ash, stay tuned.
Welcome back my sister to the podcast. I'm so excited about this episode. This is a resource that I've been wanting to create for a long time. M V The expert to create that with me had not yet found and I found him. His name is Jeff Hash. Jeff is a nutritionist and someone who specialize in delivering coaching for intuitive eating and body image for men exclusively.
So this podcast was recorded from two different perspectives. Number one, How does eating behavior and body image challenges presents itself in men and how it differs from women, but also on how to have the conversation with your men partner. You're a man ally in your life around why food is a struggle for you, why you're struggling with body image.
And Jeff even has a resource that he created for men that have partners. Women partners who are going into the journey of the non-ED approach. This is everything I've been wanting to create for you. So I invite you first to listen to this podcast as a woman who has a friend, perhaps a partner. That is self identify as a man in that whole context of anti diaculture.
And if you think this is good and your partner wants to support you better, get him to listen to this podcast and perhaps even watch the masterclass, the workshop that Jeff taught specifically for men. You're going to enjoy that podcast. I don't have much more to say. I just want to roll out this interview for you because I think this is going to be a tool that will have great impact for many of you to my team, let's roll in the interview with Jeff.
Stephanie: Welcome to the show, Jeff.
Jeff: Hey, great to be here.
Stephanie: it's an honor to have you. And I have been dreaming about this podcast for years of having someone to discuss these topics with from another perspective, so we're going to talk about food and body image and the relationship in a men, women or men relationship of one partner going on the journey of the non diet approach and intuitive eating and so forth. But here's my first question, obviously, my world is filled with people self identified as women and we understand socialization and diaculture particularly affect women. However, I'm pretty sure it affects Men's as well.
Jeff: Yeah, it really does. it's different in the way that it does because men aren't as objectified in the same sense that women are typically. I think that's a big difference, but there's still a lot of pressure for men to meet a certain ideal, a certain beauty standard that there is for men, especially these days. but also, so not necessarily thin and lean, but lean and muscular. So you'll often hear guys joke with each other, you know, about, about their body size and, oh, do you even lift bro? And that kind of a mentality where you have a person who could be in phenomenal, incredible shape, physical condition, and yet they're given a hard time because their physical condition doesn't lend itself to showing big muscles and that kind of a thing. And so there is that aspect of it. And so, you know, so a lot of men will suffer from body dysmorphia or body dysmorphic type behaviors and beliefs, often it's kind of classified as what we call muscle dysmorphia. So it's specifically related to the muscular, aspect of their body. And there's even a term that's been coined for eating in a way to support being big and muscular called bigorexia. I don't know if you've ever heard that term.
Stephanie: No, but I love all those terms. Throw them at me. I'm getting an education here.
Jeff: Yeah. So, you know, so you have those kinds of things where for women that are trying to stay lean and thin and meet up to society's standards of size, men may engage in certain disorder eating behaviors for the same purpose of gaining muscle or, you know, they restrict in certain ways to stay lean so that their muscular definition is visible and that kind of a thing.
Jeff: And so, yeah, so there's, so it's different, definitely, but there is still that aspect. And so I guess 1 of the things I see that's. Noticeably different is that unless a man is significantly larger, there isn't quite as much pressure on them to just eat as little as possible. You know, I think that a lot of women have experienced that it's like, little as you can tolerate. In fact, I've even had nutrition professionals in some of my training say that is a good approach to take is diet people on as little food as they're able to tolerate that kind of mentality. And, whereas I think that guys are often pushed more in the supplement range and the hardcore training and still very problematic patterns, but it's, but it looks a little different. So
Stephanie: I've had in my early, like, we're going back 9 years ago in my first 3 years of practice, I was attached to a gym. So I had a lot of, body builders that presented with binge eating pattern. Because of this, like, they had to eat 6 or 7 times a day to like, eat enough to gain the muscle and they developed binge eating because of the requirement of the competition they were doing.
Jeff: Yeah, and where I see that most problematic is in this bulk and cut. Yes. Kind of phased training where I'm in a bulking phase. So I eat as much as I can, you know, people are talking about in a lot of the groups, cause I still, even though I'm a completely non diet,coach now in, in all of my work with my clients, I still hang out in some of these fitness groups where it very much is your typical kind of fitness advice, because I do like to offer in another perspective and hopefully open some people's eyes to just something else out there. And then also just to kind of keep my finger on the pulse of what's the conversations that are going on. So I can better address men when they come to me or in my content and that kind of a thing. But yeah, I see that, that all the time that what I see with the binge thing is the bulk and cut phase kind of a thing, but also the cheat day mentality.
Jeff: And it's almost a place of pride. Yeah. To say how much they ate. And it reminds me of one of the, one of the conversations in one of these groups, one of the guys was training and he was kind of proud of the fact that he was had started training for a show and that he had his own bodybuilding coach and, you know, all of those kinds of things and kind of talking about it.
Jeff: And so they're excited to share how cool that was. And he was in very much a sense bragging about the fact that his coach made him extremely meticulous on his diet tracking during the week, but he had a cheat meal every week where I mean, the guy basically prescribed binge eating problems for this guy because he had 1 hour that was his cheat meal. One hour to eat as much as he possibly could. Anything he wanted, as much as he wanted. But he had to, and had to be in that hour. So it was literally, here, I am prescribing to you to have a binge eating episode. And he did. He would eat multiple Big Macs, multiple large fries, milkshakes like, to the point of nausea. And he was bragging about, you know, how much he could kind of get in. And that, it was just very... Oh, it just broke my heart that this person was being coached to do this by someone who's supposed to be a professional.
Stephanie: So, patterns of body image presents itself a lot on those, like, I want to call them sports or training area, but does it also affect, I'm going to use air quote here, like the term dad bods. Yes. So body image is beyond just the trainer that people who train, am I correct?
Jeff: Oh, yeah. Yeah, for sure. And that's one of the problems because one of the things that I, if somebody wants to participate in bodybuilding and they know what it involves, go for it. If you want to do that and you know that it's going to bring on these disordered patterns at different times. And you've chosen to do that because you enjoy it more power to you. That's fine. The problem is that I would say the bulk, the vast majority of the advice given to plain old guys a guy with 3 kids works a job. Married, you know, lives in the suburbs, you know, whatever, just has a little bit of extra time during the week, but it's really pretty drained doing all the family, the dad things they're often given the same advice that a bodybuilding coach would give to a bodybuilder who's prepping for shows. And so they're encouraged to engage in these kinds of behaviors and they're often. There's debates over what level of body fat percentage is quote healthy or sustainable. And at what level of body fat can you see your ab development? And some people are like, Oh, it's at 12 percent and other people, Oh, it's at 14. And then there's discussions about what's the best way to measure body fat percentage. That's the most accurate. And, you know, I'll often present questions like, well, why do you need to know this? what will that tell you? And then they're like, Oh, I just want to know. And so there's a lot of this stuff that gets in there.
Jeff: That really distorts a lot of the thinking for the dad who literally their goals are like, often I'll see in these groups, somebody will say, what's the best advice to lose weight and do this and that. And they'll get all kinds of bodybuilding advice. And then my question is, what do you want to do? What's your goal? I just want to be healthy for my kids. And I want to be around when I'm 70 years old. And yeah, I don't want to die young. Okay. This is not the way to do that. A bodybuilding lifestyle is not the way to do that. Here are some things that you can do and what's interesting is most of them are exactly what we teach our clients when we're teaching them a non diet, intuitive eating, weight neutral approach to health.
Jeff: Movement, eating according to the cues that your body is giving you, paying attention to those things. If your body is telling you something, go to the doctor and get it checked out if you have the means to do that. And all those kinds of health promoting behaviors.
Stephanie: So it goes beyond the Jim Fitzpah world, but the type of advice, what I'm hearing for you is the type of advice, the way the body looks. It may be different for the men world, like the male type of world, but it creates the same symptoms as we have in women's world, which is distorted eating behavior and body hatred.
Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. It really does. And what I often have said is that it presents itself a little bit differently, but when we start to, when I work with my guys one on one and we start to explore the clean your plate club issues and the late night.
Jeff: Eating where they find themselves burying in the pantry and eating in the middle of the night and all of those typical things that we deal with women, the emotional eating, when we unpack it all goes back to the same underlying issues that restriction, not. Yeah, inconsistent eating patterns that and instead of just saying, hey, let's look at some of these underlying root causes. Let's just put the weight loss stuff on the back burner. I know you want that. But you know what? That's not even the problem. That's if it's. If you are actually the body size, it's not appropriate for your body, whether it's too big or too small. that's not the problem. That's the symptom of something else going on.
Jeff: And so try and get them to say, I'm not telling you that you're at the right size or not. I don't know. We won't know. But what I could tell is you've explained to me some things that are problematic and let's look at those and then let's just see what happens. Let's let your body do what it's going to do. And. Okay. You know, you've clearly have these issues with binge eating or emotional eating or that kind of thing. So why are we trying to throw you on a weight loss diet to address body size? Let's address these underlying issues that you even know in your heart are the things that are driving.
Jeff: The health issues that maybe you're struggling with. And so, again, it comes back at every woman that I've worked with. Cause I used to work with men and women, and now I pretty much just work with men. I've kind of focused my attention that way. but they'll, yeah, we ultimately, we get back to the same things.
Jeff: So yeah, it's interesting.
Stephanie: So I was going to ask this, so I'm imagining someone listening to my podcast right now, who's a woman in a. Woman to man relationship, or even a man in a man to man relationship. And they're like, how do I approach the topic with my partner who doesn't know anything about intuitive eating and body image? Like, how do I talk about this? Yeah. Do you have any advice on that?
Jeff: Yeah. I mean, that's a good question. And I actually have a webinar. It's a free webinar that is available for their partners. So if they. this can be a great tool to say, Hey, you know what? I'm having a hard time articulating this. Cause usually when they start asking the questions, it's because for whatever reason, they're not on the same page and they're feeling frustrated, they're feeling unsupported or they're just like, every time I talk PR my partner is kind of like. Nice. So this is your new diet, right?
Jeff: So cool. I'm here for you, whatever you need, let me know. But yeah, you know, cause they're used to them being on and off different diets. but I do have that webinar. And basically what it's designed to do is for partners to be able to send somebody there and say, Hey, If you know, you said you want to support me, here's something
Jeff: And it's really aimed at men because it's me talking. It's my male face up on the screen talking. And so while, you know, it's great for guys to send to their, female partners, because I've had guys whose wives are, you know, the role is flip flop there. I got totally on board with intuitive eating and their wife is hung up in the diet mentality. It's great. but anyway, that outlines it outlines the principles of intuitive eating what it is what it's not just what Hayes is what it's not just real briefly kind of, hey, this clear up some of those misconceptions that people often have. And so that can be a great tool. and I guess the reason I mentioned that here is 1 of the things that I think can be helpful when we are trying to figure out what to say to our.
Jeff: How to bring this up how to start talking to them is understand that we're often not our partners. best, the best person to engage our partner in an area that they are uncomfortable with. You know, that's why I, you know, many spouses and partners go to a therapist. It's not that they can't talk to their spouse or their partner. It's because. There's certain things that are best addressed and dealt with from someone else. You know, you find it's not uncommon for somebody to say, oh, my gosh, I heard something today and it was so powerful. And it just really got me. And then you're like. Haven't I told you that five times and suddenly some rando on the internet says something in it.
Jeff: You're just like cuts right to the heart. It's like, because there's often that other baggage that, that comes along with it, whether you know, good or bad, it's just, there's things there that interfere with that. And the dieting is an example. They've seen you do 10 different diets and to them, this is just another diet.
Stephanie: Yeah,and also find that the body image, like women on my world have a lot of discomfort in their body and talking about that with their partner. Is difficult, because I don't know if they've been hiding it. They've been there's many ways that it's expressed in the relationship, but it's really uncomfortable to have that conversation with your partner that you're uncomfortable in your body. Any advice on that or any.
Jeff: Yeah. I mean, it's so individual because so many people have, it depends on what's driving that. You know, we have the, your standard run, I'll just call it run of the mill society's standards of beauty that Every woman, I don't know how any woman can escape it, but every woman is going to deal with that. So you have that where there is that general pressure. And so they're always, and there may be the sense feeling inadequate or that their body is size, but. All it takes is a certain comment at a certain time to change how one person is impacted by that versus another one. Because you have people in thin bodies who are extremely,uncomfortable with their body. And then you have people in larger bodies who are. The most comfortable and relaxed about it. Yeah. And would walk around naked publicly and have no issue with it. So you have these different things. And so it really is very individual on how you deal with that. and because, you have trauma, you have Yeah. Sexual assault. And if you even think about how sexual assault is, impacts different people you have. One group of people at one extreme end where the sexual assault sends them down an extremely dangerous promiscuous route and then on the other end, you have ones who then can't be touched. and everything in the middle. and it's not even the level of sexual assault or trauma. Yeah, so our human minds are so interesting in the way that they process that information. So back to your question, it's really hard to say that. But, I mean, talking and communicating is definitely important. If it's a really significant issue, obviously, a counseling or therapy would be ideal if you have the means, I mean, not everybody does because it's extremely expensive, but that would be 1 way, but, Again, coming back to that webinar, something like that might be a helpful tool, podcasts like this, where you can direct them, you know, I do have a podcast of my own called men's intuition, where I talk about these intuitive eating and non diet, questions that address the different kinds of fitness, health and nutrition topics and so it may be that you can direct them to that as a conversation starter. And then as they start to become more aware. I think that they may be more open to understanding when you do share some of those body image concerns, because it's easy for us guys, you know, our wife says, oh, does this make my butt look big? You say? Oh, no, no, no. You're beautiful. And we don't see the disconnect underpinning right? We don't realize that that comment is actually not as helpful as we might have thought it was because we just told them no, your butt's not big. You're beautiful. But if it was big, you wouldn't be, you know, that's kind of so understanding how those things can impact a person, can be a a challenging thing, but if you know that they understand that if you're on the same page, as far as how you're communicating, that could really make it easier. So I guess that would be 1 way to address that is to try and open their minds to some of this other way of thinking.
Jeff: Unfortunately, so much of that content is just from other women. So it's hard for a lot of guys to take that on.
Stephanie: And it's also what I have found from coaching women to have a conversation with men is. And I want to say men or other women who haven't been socialized to the thin ideal. People don't understand that angle of it. They just think, well, I don't give a shit about your body. I don't give a shit about my body. Why do you give a shit about your body? Like, let's talk about socialization. So often that's the introduction of the conversation, this concept of being socialized in the 10 I deal for them to understand why it's so much suffering for you. And it would be the same thing from a guy who's been socialized to that.
Stephanie: Fitness look having the conversation like women don't understand why muscular is so important, but like, it's much more deeply rooted than that.
Jeff: yeah. And how society conditions us to think place an incredible role because if you talk to most women, most women don't care if their male partner or spouse has abs, they really don't. And if you talk to most men, most men don't care if their wife has some extra fat on their body. I mean, they just don't and so it's unfortunate that we get that in our mind that there's a certain ideal and then we project that onto our spouse. And that can be, I guess, that would be a good way to answer that question you asked earlier to is to,have those kinds of conversations to and say, you know, I feel this way. And it may be that the person didn't realize that. That what they're doing is contributing to that. And it may be some of those comments like the, when they ask, does my butt look big and you say, no, you're beautiful or no, you look great as if a big, but doesn't look great and that kind of thing. So sometimes it can be. As simple as explaining how that comment can be problematic. I know me when I hear that, I'm able to process that. Now, I will say this, though, when you're dealing with somebody who may be neurodivergent, that can be a real big problem in trying to communicate that because I've had people in my life who I've tried to communicate certain things to, and they just don't get it. And it's not their fault. Oh, that's something too. It's not their fault that they can't get it. They can't get it because their brain doesn't process things in that way. Having a couple of neurodivergent kids. I have been able to kind of see that firsthand how they process And so that's important, an important aspect to
Stephanie: let's have a conversation about imagine one of my women is going on the intuitive eating journey, letting go of diets and obviously the family is not yet on board because just 6 months ago, the family was following her diet and her way of eating. And now, so then she's doing that shift in her life, but the partner is not on board. Do you have any. Thoughts on that on how to approach sounds. and I'm sure it's covered in your webinar,
Jeff: Yeah, well, the 1st place to start, I think, is to find a way to explain what it is that you're doing, If you're trying to talk to a man about it, and this is. Again, this is, somewhat it's extremely general generalizing here, but a lot of us guys do well with facts and stuff like that. And so what I find makes most sense to guys. And this is my client. So I start working with and just guys I talked to in general is if you're trying to.
Jeff: Explain intuitive eating to them, starting with the hunger and fullness thing can be a great starting point. And so where they could point out with their diet that, hey, you know, I used to give myself these targets and I let this external source tell me how much to eat. And now 1 of a couple of the key principles with intuitive eating is that I'm going to listen to the signals that my body is designed To give me when it needs more energy. So it's kind of like a fuel light on your car. It's saying, hey, your energy is getting low. So it's being to light up. And that's kind of what our hunger is. it's sort of like that fuel light that comes on and says, I need fuel or I'm going to stop here pretty soon. And so, as we start to think about that and say, what I'm going to be doing is eating in a way when I feel hungry, I'm going to check in with my body and see how hungry I am. What I need, how much would satisfy me and then I'm going to eat and I'm going to really try and once I'm done eating and once I'm full and satisfied, then I'm going to stop eating. And that's something I'm really working on. So, I think for a lot of guys, that can make sense. And so that can be a good starting point. I guess when you're trying to explain intuitive eating, but also the movement aspect that it's a, Point where I'm going to be now approaching movement from the perspective of what's good for my body and what's going to make it strong and healthy versus how it's going to shrink my body.
Jeff: That's something that's a pretty cut and dry kind of make sense thing, whether you agree with it or not. I think it at least makes sense to most guys and then the gentle nutrition thing. So while a person may have to work through them in an order and gentle nutrition last, if you're talking to another person who is brand new to intuitive eating and thinks it's just a, I don't want to diet anymore.
Jeff: And I just want to eat whatever I want. That can be a, there's hunger and fullness that are guiding the amount that I'm going to eat. And I'm going to be really connecting with and paying attention to my body in that way. I'm going to be moving my body in a way that is... It may look exactly like what it did when I was trying to lose weight, but my mindset now is on trying to just strengthen my body and feel good. Gain mobility, strength. Yeah. and that kind of thing. I mean, and depending on the person, it's I'll be better in bed for it. You know, whatever you want to dowhatever your relationship is like. And then that gentle nutrition where you say, now, this isn't tossing nutrition out the window.
Jeff: Keep in mind that I'm going to be eating and mindfully thinking about what makes my body feel good. And of course, fiber makes me feel good and protein makes me feel good, but I'm not going to be focused on meticulously tracking it. And so it may be that. Some people, you know, if they're used to an extreme dieting, they may say, oh, well, this sounds much better. Does that mean we can eat regular pizza again? Can we eat regular food again? Yes.
Stephanie: Yeah, no. Yeah. But that's often how the conversation goes. The partner is excited because you mean we can be normal again? Yeah. Can we have pizza on Friday night watching TV? Yes, we can. Yeah. That was a very enlightening conversation for me. I want to give you the opportunity talk. Is there anything we haven't talked about that you would like to put out in front of my audience when it comes to your specialty and your expertise?
Jeff: Yeah, it's a good question. since mostly women are listening, you know, I listened to your podcast. but I know that it's probably mostly women. And so
Stephanie: that's the target. But I know there's other gender. Yeah.
Jeff: it really is. It's something that I don't know the best way to do this other than to point them to resources like mine, like, my good friend, Johnny Landels, who you might look up on Instagram to.
Stephanie: Yeah, he's starting to coming up recently on my feed.
Jeff: Good. Yeah, he is. He's a really great guy. He came from a competitive CrossFit background. He is a beast in the gym. Yeah, he's also sings, theater, music, performing arts, really cool guy. and he talks a lot about that also. So pointing it guys to resources like that, like mine, hearing it from other men, Aaron Flores, guys like that. And,I think that can be helpful just to hear the message from men because Intuitive eating sounds so much like a female thing. You hear women talking about it and it makes sense. I mean, women are disproportionately affected by it and their target audiences of their women and they are a lot of the women who are in the space are very well suited to dealing with the issues that women are dealing with. And so they're focusing their message and they're very effective in that. And it makes sense that they would, but. At the same time, what happens is that a lot of us guys think, oh, these are just a bunch of girls over here doing girl things like girl dinner thing. And, you know, all that kind of stuff, let them do their thing with their, you know, essential oils and whatever, you know, all these stereotypes that a lot of us guys get in our head when in reality, it's not even remotely close to what it is.
Jeff: And so I think that can be a helpful way to go about it is just say, hey, you know, I know that. you've had trouble taking this on board, why don't you go check out some of these other guys you know, I actually have a good friend, Ian Bickle also, he's on Instagram too, and he's a former competitive bodybuilder hopefully he'll be showing up in the Facebook group soon too, but yeah, so lots of cool stuff going on like that. There are more guys coming on board, but I think that can,be a helpful thing.
Stephanie: And I can totally support that because that's why I focus my practice 8 years ago. I said, like, this is going to be a women thing because when we were having conversation with. Both gendered in the room, the women would be more quiet and I, as soon as I put a group of just women, the conversation lighten up and I'm sure it's the same thing for you. The conversation lights up when there's just men in the room.
Jeff: I'm glad you said that because it reminds me of. I have a, intuitive eating course. it's for everybody, but it's aimed at men really called equipped to thrive. And I also have a. Men's support community that goes along with it. That is super low cost. it's 10 a month. They get the weekly group coaching call access to a private group. And, in that one of the guys in particular said, I've worked with a lot of women over the years. I've been a part of these different groups, whether it was over either as anonymous or different things like that, that he's tried and he said, they've always been very welcoming. But there's always been a little bit of a wall. It's like, they will let me come this far, but not all the way and vice versa. He said, I never felt comfortable sharing this aspect, or this thing, because as a guy, they just aren't going to get that. And so, yeah, we have some fantastic conversations like that. And that may be another resource that you could send your partner to, to, I mean, if they're not, they don't have to be an intuitive either, if they just want to learn about. Okay. That and hang out with some guys and just kind of talk about it. I know my guys in the group are, you know, they would love to talk to other guys and help them understand it, even if just a short time.
Stephanie: Don't, I guess my message is for the ladies listening to this. Don't underestimate the power of the message, the same message you're saying, but the message coming up for me. like minded person, do not underestimate that to help you in your journey. Don't think you have to be the one like pull out the resources, the free podcasts and then further along the program, but it will help you.
Jeff: Yeah, absolutely. And it will help your partner. Yeah, I think that's a great point. And I think that when you said underestimate, I think that's one of the things where if intuitive eating is what it claims to be. And it really is all that guys. when they understand it, they embrace it and I have guys coming to me all the time who come to me. They're like, yeah, the way I've been doing this hasn't been working. Not really sold on this intuitive eating thing. I really don't even know that much about it, but I'm interested in looking into it. And then when they do, they're like, wow, this is exactly what I needed. This is what I've been looking for. And so just like women tend to attach themselves to it, or either women listening to this and probably when they heard about it, understood it and fully embraced it.
Jeff: That same thing happens with men when that message is. It's tailored at them, just like with, with women, if the message is very much aimed at men and they're hearing it, it's not going to resonate in the same way. I mean, some of us guys do pretty well. you know, I learned all. Most of the intuitive eating stuff that I've learned and everything from women, and I still listen to lots of women podcasts and I've been on
Stephanie: you don't have a choice, which is
Jeff: exactly right. But, you know, a lot of guys aren't as open to that as I was, and so that can be helpful, but, yeah, going back to what you're saying, the underestimating it,when they hear that message and it's presented in a way that makes sense.they'll latch onto it too.
Stephanie: Yeah. And as you were talking, I'm like, this whole concept of socialization and 10 ideal will be processed differently coming from you explaining the, like the problematic with women instead of a women to them, whatever. Right. But when you put it in your voice, from your perspective, they will get it. Much faster.
Stephanie: Oh, yes, you're absolutely right. Goes back to what I was saying earlier about. Sometimes you hear something and then they're like, I've been telling you this for 10 years. And why did you hear it 1 time from this random person on the Internet? And now it resonates with you. And it's exactly that you hear it. Articulated from somebody who looks like you been like you and that goes for gender, race, sexual orientation, gender identity, anything you have religion, you see this all the time, you know, people say, oh, well, this person is, did you hear that? So and so is a democrat. Oh, awesome. And when you stop to think about it, well, does that really validate the fact that you are or a Republican, you know, whatever, wherever you are, the universal truth, somebody like a celebrity now aligns with you and now you'd suddenly connect with them on that different level. And I think that's why that's been helpful. And this is also why I shifted fromAn approach where I just took anybody who wanted to work with me to I'm specifically working with men now, because there's plenty of women. Well, I mean, we could always use more, but there's plenty of women working with women. And when I started looking for men in the intuitive eating space and couldn't find them, and then when I created the. Intuitive. eating. men Instagram account. And now when you search for intuitive eating for men, almost from day one, my thing showed up at the top of the feed, which was sad because, if you know how Google works, it's the established to the popular sites that show up at the top. Since a new site showed up, that's a problem that means there's not much out there. thank you for the work that you do. And that's why I wanted to have you on the podcast as a resource to either women sending their partner to or even men needing help. And I know they will do better with you than with me. And I'm totally okay with that.
Jeff: So thank you. Some men like working with,women. you know, I actually like women doctors. Personally, for whatever reason,and dentists. but yeah, when it comes to counseling, I do, I like working with a man. So yeah, it's, we all have a preference.
Stephanie: Where can people find you? You
Jeff: Yeah. So Instagram, I'm on intuitive. eating. min. And then my website is hope drives with an S hope drives me. com Oh, and the podcast is, men's intuition and it's on all the podcast platforms. You can just do a search for that. And I do offer completely free initial consultations. So if you have a band in your life and their one hour consultations. They're not 15 minute like discovery call type things. So if somebody is wanting to do that, and even if you know, you can't afford to work with me or something, but just want to take advantage of free consult. Come my way, I'd be more than happy to do that.
Jeff: thank you very much jeff.
Jeff: Thank you.
.
Men, Intuitive Eating & body Image
Jeff: This is episode 381 of the beyond the food show. And today we’re going to talk men, intuitive eating and body image with a man, Jeff Ash, stay tuned.
Welcome back my sister to the podcast. I’m so excited about this episode. This is a resource that I’ve been wanting to create for a long time. M V The expert to create that with me had not yet found and I found him. His name is Jeff Hash. Jeff is a nutritionist and someone who specialize in delivering coaching for intuitive eating and body image for men exclusively.
So this podcast was recorded from two different perspectives. Number one, How does eating behavior and body image challenges presents itself in men and how it differs from women, but also on how to have the conversation with your men partner. You’re a man ally in your life around why food is a struggle for you, why you’re struggling with body image.
And Jeff even has a resource that he created for men that have partners. Women partners who are going into the journey of the non-ED approach. This is everything I’ve been wanting to create for you. So I invite you first to listen to this podcast as a woman who has a friend, perhaps a partner. That is self identify as a man in that whole context of anti diaculture.
And if you think this is good and your partner wants to support you better, get him to listen to this podcast and perhaps even watch the masterclass, the workshop that Jeff taught specifically for men. You’re going to enjoy that podcast. I don’t have much more to say. I just want to roll out this interview for you because I think this is going to be a tool that will have great impact for many of you to my team, let’s roll in the interview with Jeff.
Stephanie: Welcome to the show, Jeff.
Jeff: Hey, great to be here.
Stephanie: it’s an honor to have you. And I have been dreaming about this podcast for years of having someone to discuss these topics with from another perspective, so we’re going to talk about food and body image and the relationship in a men, women or men relationship of one partner going on the journey of the non diet approach and intuitive eating and so forth. But here’s my first question, obviously, my world is filled with people self identified as women and we understand socialization and diaculture particularly affect women. However, I’m pretty sure it affects Men’s as well.
Jeff: Yeah, it really does. it’s different in the way that it does because men aren’t as objectified in the same sense that women are typically. I think that’s a big difference, but there’s still a lot of pressure for men to meet a certain ideal, a certain beauty standard that there is for men, especially these days. but also, so not necessarily thin and lean, but lean and muscular. So you’ll often hear guys joke with each other, you know, about, about their body size and, oh, do you even lift bro? And that kind of a mentality where you have a person who could be in phenomenal, incredible shape, physical condition, and yet they’re given a hard time because their physical condition doesn’t lend itself to showing big muscles and that kind of a thing. And so there is that aspect of it. And so, you know, so a lot of men will suffer from body dysmorphia or body dysmorphic type behaviors and beliefs, often it’s kind of classified as what we call muscle dysmorphia. So it’s specifically related to the muscular, aspect of their body. And there’s even a term that’s been coined for eating in a way to support being big and muscular called bigorexia. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard that term.
Stephanie: No, but I love all those terms. Throw them at me. I’m getting an education here.
Jeff: Yeah. So, you know, so you have those kinds of things where for women that are trying to stay lean and thin and meet up to society’s standards of size, men may engage in certain disorder eating behaviors for the same purpose of gaining muscle or, you know, they restrict in certain ways to stay lean so that their muscular definition is visible and that kind of a thing.
Jeff: And so, yeah, so there’s, so it’s different, definitely, but there is still that aspect. And so I guess 1 of the things I see that’s. Noticeably different is that unless a man is significantly larger, there isn’t quite as much pressure on them to just eat as little as possible. You know, I think that a lot of women have experienced that it’s like, little as you can tolerate. In fact, I’ve even had nutrition professionals in some of my training say that is a good approach to take is diet people on as little food as they’re able to tolerate that kind of mentality. And, whereas I think that guys are often pushed more in the supplement range and the hardcore training and still very problematic patterns, but it’s, but it looks a little different. So
Stephanie: I’ve had in my early, like, we’re going back 9 years ago in my first 3 years of practice, I was attached to a gym. So I had a lot of, body builders that presented with binge eating pattern. Because of this, like, they had to eat 6 or 7 times a day to like, eat enough to gain the muscle and they developed binge eating because of the requirement of the competition they were doing.
Jeff: Yeah, and where I see that most problematic is in this bulk and cut. Yes. Kind of phased training where I’m in a bulking phase. So I eat as much as I can, you know, people are talking about in a lot of the groups, cause I still, even though I’m a completely non diet,coach now in, in all of my work with my clients, I still hang out in some of these fitness groups where it very much is your typical kind of fitness advice, because I do like to offer in another perspective and hopefully open some people’s eyes to just something else out there. And then also just to kind of keep my finger on the pulse of what’s the conversations that are going on. So I can better address men when they come to me or in my content and that kind of a thing. But yeah, I see that, that all the time that what I see with the binge thing is the bulk and cut phase kind of a thing, but also the cheat day mentality.
Jeff: And it’s almost a place of pride. Yeah. To say how much they ate. And it reminds me of one of the, one of the conversations in one of these groups, one of the guys was training and he was kind of proud of the fact that he was had started training for a show and that he had his own bodybuilding coach and, you know, all of those kinds of things and kind of talking about it.
Jeff: And so they’re excited to share how cool that was. And he was in very much a sense bragging about the fact that his coach made him extremely meticulous on his diet tracking during the week, but he had a cheat meal every week where I mean, the guy basically prescribed binge eating problems for this guy because he had 1 hour that was his cheat meal. One hour to eat as much as he possibly could. Anything he wanted, as much as he wanted. But he had to, and had to be in that hour. So it was literally, here, I am prescribing to you to have a binge eating episode. And he did. He would eat multiple Big Macs, multiple large fries, milkshakes like, to the point of nausea. And he was bragging about, you know, how much he could kind of get in. And that, it was just very… Oh, it just broke my heart that this person was being coached to do this by someone who’s supposed to be a professional.
Stephanie: So, patterns of body image presents itself a lot on those, like, I want to call them sports or training area, but does it also affect, I’m going to use air quote here, like the term dad bods. Yes. So body image is beyond just the trainer that people who train, am I correct?
Jeff: Oh, yeah. Yeah, for sure. And that’s one of the problems because one of the things that I, if somebody wants to participate in bodybuilding and they know what it involves, go for it. If you want to do that and you know that it’s going to bring on these disordered patterns at different times. And you’ve chosen to do that because you enjoy it more power to you. That’s fine. The problem is that I would say the bulk, the vast majority of the advice given to plain old guys a guy with 3 kids works a job. Married, you know, lives in the suburbs, you know, whatever, just has a little bit of extra time during the week, but it’s really pretty drained doing all the family, the dad things they’re often given the same advice that a bodybuilding coach would give to a bodybuilder who’s prepping for shows. And so they’re encouraged to engage in these kinds of behaviors and they’re often. There’s debates over what level of body fat percentage is quote healthy or sustainable. And at what level of body fat can you see your ab development? And some people are like, Oh, it’s at 12 percent and other people, Oh, it’s at 14. And then there’s discussions about what’s the best way to measure body fat percentage. That’s the most accurate. And, you know, I’ll often present questions like, well, why do you need to know this? what will that tell you? And then they’re like, Oh, I just want to know. And so there’s a lot of this stuff that gets in there.
Jeff: That really distorts a lot of the thinking for the dad who literally their goals are like, often I’ll see in these groups, somebody will say, what’s the best advice to lose weight and do this and that. And they’ll get all kinds of bodybuilding advice. And then my question is, what do you want to do? What’s your goal? I just want to be healthy for my kids. And I want to be around when I’m 70 years old. And yeah, I don’t want to die young. Okay. This is not the way to do that. A bodybuilding lifestyle is not the way to do that. Here are some things that you can do and what’s interesting is most of them are exactly what we teach our clients when we’re teaching them a non diet, intuitive eating, weight neutral approach to health.
Jeff: Movement, eating according to the cues that your body is giving you, paying attention to those things. If your body is telling you something, go to the doctor and get it checked out if you have the means to do that. And all those kinds of health promoting behaviors.
Stephanie: So it goes beyond the Jim Fitzpah world, but the type of advice, what I’m hearing for you is the type of advice, the way the body looks. It may be different for the men world, like the male type of world, but it creates the same symptoms as we have in women’s world, which is distorted eating behavior and body hatred.
Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. It really does. And what I often have said is that it presents itself a little bit differently, but when we start to, when I work with my guys one on one and we start to explore the clean your plate club issues and the late night.
Jeff: Eating where they find themselves burying in the pantry and eating in the middle of the night and all of those typical things that we deal with women, the emotional eating, when we unpack it all goes back to the same underlying issues that restriction, not. Yeah, inconsistent eating patterns that and instead of just saying, hey, let’s look at some of these underlying root causes. Let’s just put the weight loss stuff on the back burner. I know you want that. But you know what? That’s not even the problem. That’s if it’s. If you are actually the body size, it’s not appropriate for your body, whether it’s too big or too small. that’s not the problem. That’s the symptom of something else going on.
Jeff: And so try and get them to say, I’m not telling you that you’re at the right size or not. I don’t know. We won’t know. But what I could tell is you’ve explained to me some things that are problematic and let’s look at those and then let’s just see what happens. Let’s let your body do what it’s going to do. And. Okay. You know, you’ve clearly have these issues with binge eating or emotional eating or that kind of thing. So why are we trying to throw you on a weight loss diet to address body size? Let’s address these underlying issues that you even know in your heart are the things that are driving.
Jeff: The health issues that maybe you’re struggling with. And so, again, it comes back at every woman that I’ve worked with. Cause I used to work with men and women, and now I pretty much just work with men. I’ve kind of focused my attention that way. but they’ll, yeah, we ultimately, we get back to the same things.
Jeff: So yeah, it’s interesting.
Stephanie: So I was going to ask this, so I’m imagining someone listening to my podcast right now, who’s a woman in a. Woman to man relationship, or even a man in a man to man relationship. And they’re like, how do I approach the topic with my partner who doesn’t know anything about intuitive eating and body image? Like, how do I talk about this? Yeah. Do you have any advice on that?
Jeff: Yeah. I mean, that’s a good question. And I actually have a webinar. It’s a free webinar that is available for their partners. So if they. this can be a great tool to say, Hey, you know what? I’m having a hard time articulating this. Cause usually when they start asking the questions, it’s because for whatever reason, they’re not on the same page and they’re feeling frustrated, they’re feeling unsupported or they’re just like, every time I talk PR my partner is kind of like. Nice. So this is your new diet, right?
Jeff: So cool. I’m here for you, whatever you need, let me know. But yeah, you know, cause they’re used to them being on and off different diets. but I do have that webinar. And basically what it’s designed to do is for partners to be able to send somebody there and say, Hey, If you know, you said you want to support me, here’s something
Jeff: And it’s really aimed at men because it’s me talking. It’s my male face up on the screen talking. And so while, you know, it’s great for guys to send to their, female partners, because I’ve had guys whose wives are, you know, the role is flip flop there. I got totally on board with intuitive eating and their wife is hung up in the diet mentality. It’s great. but anyway, that outlines it outlines the principles of intuitive eating what it is what it’s not just what Hayes is what it’s not just real briefly kind of, hey, this clear up some of those misconceptions that people often have. And so that can be a great tool. and I guess the reason I mentioned that here is 1 of the things that I think can be helpful when we are trying to figure out what to say to our.
Jeff: How to bring this up how to start talking to them is understand that we’re often not our partners. best, the best person to engage our partner in an area that they are uncomfortable with. You know, that’s why I, you know, many spouses and partners go to a therapist. It’s not that they can’t talk to their spouse or their partner. It’s because. There’s certain things that are best addressed and dealt with from someone else. You know, you find it’s not uncommon for somebody to say, oh, my gosh, I heard something today and it was so powerful. And it just really got me. And then you’re like. Haven’t I told you that five times and suddenly some rando on the internet says something in it.
Jeff: You’re just like cuts right to the heart. It’s like, because there’s often that other baggage that, that comes along with it, whether you know, good or bad, it’s just, there’s things there that interfere with that. And the dieting is an example. They’ve seen you do 10 different diets and to them, this is just another diet.
Stephanie: Yeah,and also find that the body image, like women on my world have a lot of discomfort in their body and talking about that with their partner. Is difficult, because I don’t know if they’ve been hiding it. They’ve been there’s many ways that it’s expressed in the relationship, but it’s really uncomfortable to have that conversation with your partner that you’re uncomfortable in your body. Any advice on that or any.
Jeff: Yeah. I mean, it’s so individual because so many people have, it depends on what’s driving that. You know, we have the, your standard run, I’ll just call it run of the mill society’s standards of beauty that Every woman, I don’t know how any woman can escape it, but every woman is going to deal with that. So you have that where there is that general pressure. And so they’re always, and there may be the sense feeling inadequate or that their body is size, but. All it takes is a certain comment at a certain time to change how one person is impacted by that versus another one. Because you have people in thin bodies who are extremely,uncomfortable with their body. And then you have people in larger bodies who are. The most comfortable and relaxed about it. Yeah. And would walk around naked publicly and have no issue with it. So you have these different things. And so it really is very individual on how you deal with that. and because, you have trauma, you have Yeah. Sexual assault. And if you even think about how sexual assault is, impacts different people you have. One group of people at one extreme end where the sexual assault sends them down an extremely dangerous promiscuous route and then on the other end, you have ones who then can’t be touched. and everything in the middle. and it’s not even the level of sexual assault or trauma. Yeah, so our human minds are so interesting in the way that they process that information. So back to your question, it’s really hard to say that. But, I mean, talking and communicating is definitely important. If it’s a really significant issue, obviously, a counseling or therapy would be ideal if you have the means, I mean, not everybody does because it’s extremely expensive, but that would be 1 way, but, Again, coming back to that webinar, something like that might be a helpful tool, podcasts like this, where you can direct them, you know, I do have a podcast of my own called men’s intuition, where I talk about these intuitive eating and non diet, questions that address the different kinds of fitness, health and nutrition topics and so it may be that you can direct them to that as a conversation starter. And then as they start to become more aware. I think that they may be more open to understanding when you do share some of those body image concerns, because it’s easy for us guys, you know, our wife says, oh, does this make my butt look big? You say? Oh, no, no, no. You’re beautiful. And we don’t see the disconnect underpinning right? We don’t realize that that comment is actually not as helpful as we might have thought it was because we just told them no, your butt’s not big. You’re beautiful. But if it was big, you wouldn’t be, you know, that’s kind of so understanding how those things can impact a person, can be a a challenging thing, but if you know that they understand that if you’re on the same page, as far as how you’re communicating, that could really make it easier. So I guess that would be 1 way to address that is to try and open their minds to some of this other way of thinking.
Jeff: Unfortunately, so much of that content is just from other women. So it’s hard for a lot of guys to take that on.
Stephanie: And it’s also what I have found from coaching women to have a conversation with men is. And I want to say men or other women who haven’t been socialized to the thin ideal. People don’t understand that angle of it. They just think, well, I don’t give a shit about your body. I don’t give a shit about my body. Why do you give a shit about your body? Like, let’s talk about socialization. So often that’s the introduction of the conversation, this concept of being socialized in the 10 I deal for them to understand why it’s so much suffering for you. And it would be the same thing from a guy who’s been socialized to that.
Stephanie: Fitness look having the conversation like women don’t understand why muscular is so important, but like, it’s much more deeply rooted than that.
Jeff: yeah. And how society conditions us to think place an incredible role because if you talk to most women, most women don’t care if their male partner or spouse has abs, they really don’t. And if you talk to most men, most men don’t care if their wife has some extra fat on their body. I mean, they just don’t and so it’s unfortunate that we get that in our mind that there’s a certain ideal and then we project that onto our spouse. And that can be, I guess, that would be a good way to answer that question you asked earlier to is to,have those kinds of conversations to and say, you know, I feel this way. And it may be that the person didn’t realize that. That what they’re doing is contributing to that. And it may be some of those comments like the, when they ask, does my butt look big and you say, no, you’re beautiful or no, you look great as if a big, but doesn’t look great and that kind of thing. So sometimes it can be. As simple as explaining how that comment can be problematic. I know me when I hear that, I’m able to process that. Now, I will say this, though, when you’re dealing with somebody who may be neurodivergent, that can be a real big problem in trying to communicate that because I’ve had people in my life who I’ve tried to communicate certain things to, and they just don’t get it. And it’s not their fault. Oh, that’s something too. It’s not their fault that they can’t get it. They can’t get it because their brain doesn’t process things in that way. Having a couple of neurodivergent kids. I have been able to kind of see that firsthand how they process And so that’s important, an important aspect to
Stephanie: let’s have a conversation about imagine one of my women is going on the intuitive eating journey, letting go of diets and obviously the family is not yet on board because just 6 months ago, the family was following her diet and her way of eating. And now, so then she’s doing that shift in her life, but the partner is not on board. Do you have any. Thoughts on that on how to approach sounds. and I’m sure it’s covered in your webinar,
Jeff: Yeah, well, the 1st place to start, I think, is to find a way to explain what it is that you’re doing, If you’re trying to talk to a man about it, and this is. Again, this is, somewhat it’s extremely general generalizing here, but a lot of us guys do well with facts and stuff like that. And so what I find makes most sense to guys. And this is my client. So I start working with and just guys I talked to in general is if you’re trying to.
Jeff: Explain intuitive eating to them, starting with the hunger and fullness thing can be a great starting point. And so where they could point out with their diet that, hey, you know, I used to give myself these targets and I let this external source tell me how much to eat. And now 1 of a couple of the key principles with intuitive eating is that I’m going to listen to the signals that my body is designed To give me when it needs more energy. So it’s kind of like a fuel light on your car. It’s saying, hey, your energy is getting low. So it’s being to light up. And that’s kind of what our hunger is. it’s sort of like that fuel light that comes on and says, I need fuel or I’m going to stop here pretty soon. And so, as we start to think about that and say, what I’m going to be doing is eating in a way when I feel hungry, I’m going to check in with my body and see how hungry I am. What I need, how much would satisfy me and then I’m going to eat and I’m going to really try and once I’m done eating and once I’m full and satisfied, then I’m going to stop eating. And that’s something I’m really working on. So, I think for a lot of guys, that can make sense. And so that can be a good starting point. I guess when you’re trying to explain intuitive eating, but also the movement aspect that it’s a, Point where I’m going to be now approaching movement from the perspective of what’s good for my body and what’s going to make it strong and healthy versus how it’s going to shrink my body.
Jeff: That’s something that’s a pretty cut and dry kind of make sense thing, whether you agree with it or not. I think it at least makes sense to most guys and then the gentle nutrition thing. So while a person may have to work through them in an order and gentle nutrition last, if you’re talking to another person who is brand new to intuitive eating and thinks it’s just a, I don’t want to diet anymore.
Jeff: And I just want to eat whatever I want. That can be a, there’s hunger and fullness that are guiding the amount that I’m going to eat. And I’m going to be really connecting with and paying attention to my body in that way. I’m going to be moving my body in a way that is… It may look exactly like what it did when I was trying to lose weight, but my mindset now is on trying to just strengthen my body and feel good. Gain mobility, strength. Yeah. and that kind of thing. I mean, and depending on the person, it’s I’ll be better in bed for it. You know, whatever you want to dowhatever your relationship is like. And then that gentle nutrition where you say, now, this isn’t tossing nutrition out the window.
Jeff: Keep in mind that I’m going to be eating and mindfully thinking about what makes my body feel good. And of course, fiber makes me feel good and protein makes me feel good, but I’m not going to be focused on meticulously tracking it. And so it may be that. Some people, you know, if they’re used to an extreme dieting, they may say, oh, well, this sounds much better. Does that mean we can eat regular pizza again? Can we eat regular food again? Yes.
Stephanie: Yeah, no. Yeah. But that’s often how the conversation goes. The partner is excited because you mean we can be normal again? Yeah. Can we have pizza on Friday night watching TV? Yes, we can. Yeah. That was a very enlightening conversation for me. I want to give you the opportunity talk. Is there anything we haven’t talked about that you would like to put out in front of my audience when it comes to your specialty and your expertise?
Jeff: Yeah, it’s a good question. since mostly women are listening, you know, I listened to your podcast. but I know that it’s probably mostly women. And so
Stephanie: that’s the target. But I know there’s other gender. Yeah.
Jeff: it really is. It’s something that I don’t know the best way to do this other than to point them to resources like mine, like, my good friend, Johnny Landels, who you might look up on Instagram to.
Stephanie: Yeah, he’s starting to coming up recently on my feed.
Jeff: Good. Yeah, he is. He’s a really great guy. He came from a competitive CrossFit background. He is a beast in the gym. Yeah, he’s also sings, theater, music, performing arts, really cool guy. and he talks a lot about that also. So pointing it guys to resources like that, like mine, hearing it from other men, Aaron Flores, guys like that. And,I think that can be helpful just to hear the message from men because Intuitive eating sounds so much like a female thing. You hear women talking about it and it makes sense. I mean, women are disproportionately affected by it and their target audiences of their women and they are a lot of the women who are in the space are very well suited to dealing with the issues that women are dealing with. And so they’re focusing their message and they’re very effective in that. And it makes sense that they would, but. At the same time, what happens is that a lot of us guys think, oh, these are just a bunch of girls over here doing girl things like girl dinner thing. And, you know, all that kind of stuff, let them do their thing with their, you know, essential oils and whatever, you know, all these stereotypes that a lot of us guys get in our head when in reality, it’s not even remotely close to what it is.
Jeff: And so I think that can be a helpful way to go about it is just say, hey, you know, I know that. you’ve had trouble taking this on board, why don’t you go check out some of these other guys you know, I actually have a good friend, Ian Bickle also, he’s on Instagram too, and he’s a former competitive bodybuilder hopefully he’ll be showing up in the Facebook group soon too, but yeah, so lots of cool stuff going on like that. There are more guys coming on board, but I think that can,be a helpful thing.
Stephanie: And I can totally support that because that’s why I focus my practice 8 years ago. I said, like, this is going to be a women thing because when we were having conversation with. Both gendered in the room, the women would be more quiet and I, as soon as I put a group of just women, the conversation lighten up and I’m sure it’s the same thing for you. The conversation lights up when there’s just men in the room.
Jeff: I’m glad you said that because it reminds me of. I have a, intuitive eating course. it’s for everybody, but it’s aimed at men really called equipped to thrive. And I also have a. Men’s support community that goes along with it. That is super low cost. it’s 10 a month. They get the weekly group coaching call access to a private group. And, in that one of the guys in particular said, I’ve worked with a lot of women over the years. I’ve been a part of these different groups, whether it was over either as anonymous or different things like that, that he’s tried and he said, they’ve always been very welcoming. But there’s always been a little bit of a wall. It’s like, they will let me come this far, but not all the way and vice versa. He said, I never felt comfortable sharing this aspect, or this thing, because as a guy, they just aren’t going to get that. And so, yeah, we have some fantastic conversations like that. And that may be another resource that you could send your partner to, to, I mean, if they’re not, they don’t have to be an intuitive either, if they just want to learn about. Okay. That and hang out with some guys and just kind of talk about it. I know my guys in the group are, you know, they would love to talk to other guys and help them understand it, even if just a short time.
Stephanie: Don’t, I guess my message is for the ladies listening to this. Don’t underestimate the power of the message, the same message you’re saying, but the message coming up for me. like minded person, do not underestimate that to help you in your journey. Don’t think you have to be the one like pull out the resources, the free podcasts and then further along the program, but it will help you.
Jeff: Yeah, absolutely. And it will help your partner. Yeah, I think that’s a great point. And I think that when you said underestimate, I think that’s one of the things where if intuitive eating is what it claims to be. And it really is all that guys. when they understand it, they embrace it and I have guys coming to me all the time who come to me. They’re like, yeah, the way I’ve been doing this hasn’t been working. Not really sold on this intuitive eating thing. I really don’t even know that much about it, but I’m interested in looking into it. And then when they do, they’re like, wow, this is exactly what I needed. This is what I’ve been looking for. And so just like women tend to attach themselves to it, or either women listening to this and probably when they heard about it, understood it and fully embraced it.
Jeff: That same thing happens with men when that message is. It’s tailored at them, just like with, with women, if the message is very much aimed at men and they’re hearing it, it’s not going to resonate in the same way. I mean, some of us guys do pretty well. you know, I learned all. Most of the intuitive eating stuff that I’ve learned and everything from women, and I still listen to lots of women podcasts and I’ve been on
Stephanie: you don’t have a choice, which is
Jeff: exactly right. But, you know, a lot of guys aren’t as open to that as I was, and so that can be helpful, but, yeah, going back to what you’re saying, the underestimating it,when they hear that message and it’s presented in a way that makes sense.they’ll latch onto it too.
Stephanie: Yeah. And as you were talking, I’m like, this whole concept of socialization and 10 ideal will be processed differently coming from you explaining the, like the problematic with women instead of a women to them, whatever. Right. But when you put it in your voice, from your perspective, they will get it. Much faster.
Stephanie: Oh, yes, you’re absolutely right. Goes back to what I was saying earlier about. Sometimes you hear something and then they’re like, I’ve been telling you this for 10 years. And why did you hear it 1 time from this random person on the Internet? And now it resonates with you. And it’s exactly that you hear it. Articulated from somebody who looks like you been like you and that goes for gender, race, sexual orientation, gender identity, anything you have religion, you see this all the time, you know, people say, oh, well, this person is, did you hear that? So and so is a democrat. Oh, awesome. And when you stop to think about it, well, does that really validate the fact that you are or a Republican, you know, whatever, wherever you are, the universal truth, somebody like a celebrity now aligns with you and now you’d suddenly connect with them on that different level. And I think that’s why that’s been helpful. And this is also why I shifted fromAn approach where I just took anybody who wanted to work with me to I’m specifically working with men now, because there’s plenty of women. Well, I mean, we could always use more, but there’s plenty of women working with women. And when I started looking for men in the intuitive eating space and couldn’t find them, and then when I created the. Intuitive. eating. men Instagram account. And now when you search for intuitive eating for men, almost from day one, my thing showed up at the top of the feed, which was sad because, if you know how Google works, it’s the established to the popular sites that show up at the top. Since a new site showed up, that’s a problem that means there’s not much out there. thank you for the work that you do. And that’s why I wanted to have you on the podcast as a resource to either women sending their partner to or even men needing help. And I know they will do better with you than with me. And I’m totally okay with that.
Jeff: So thank you. Some men like working with,women. you know, I actually like women doctors. Personally, for whatever reason,and dentists. but yeah, when it comes to counseling, I do, I like working with a man. So yeah, it’s, we all have a preference.
Stephanie: Where can people find you? You
Jeff: Yeah. So Instagram, I’m on intuitive. eating. min. And then my website is hope drives with an S hope drives me. com Oh, and the podcast is, men’s intuition and it’s on all the podcast platforms. You can just do a search for that. And I do offer completely free initial consultations. So if you have a band in your life and their one hour consultations. They’re not 15 minute like discovery call type things. So if somebody is wanting to do that, and even if you know, you can’t afford to work with me or something, but just want to take advantage of free consult. Come my way, I’d be more than happy to do that.
Jeff: thank you very much jeff.
Jeff: Thank you.
