Episode 7: The Power Of Dip

Happy Monday, everybody, and welcome to the seventh episode of The Work Of Becoming podcast! Today, I want to talk to you about the power of dip. I know when you saw the title of this episode you were probably thinking, “Ooh, what’s dip? Is dip a fancy new acronym she’s gonna teach us? Is it some sort of change skill I don’t know about?” No, no, no, no, no, no, no, my friend. I am talking about dip as in ranch, as in French onion or buffalo dip, okay?

The reason that I want to talk about this with you today is because a lot of people in my audience who are interested in behavior change want to eat healthier. And so, today, we’re gonna talk about healthy eating and a couple tips I have to make that actually happen.

So, let’s rewind. If you rewind, and you go back to the beginning of my life, I had really been pretty steeped in diet culture from the time I was, like, six until the time I was, like, 25. I tried every diet known to man. I was constantly trying to lose weight. It was a whole thing. So, during that time, I was told that dip is unnecessary calories. And so, even though I loved ranch, and I loved dip in general (I love sauce, I love dip, I love anything like that), I had basically removed it from my diet completely because I believed it was this, quote, “unnecessary calories.”

So, as I worked with a nutrition coach and kind of settled my relationship with food and started eating way more normally in a way that really supported myself, I still didn’t add back dip into my diet because it was just something that I didn’t really think about, and I didn’t really buy. But then, about three years ago now, I was, again, working with a nutrition coach, and I was trying to eat more vegetables. I was really, really trying to hit a certain amount of fiber because I knew it made me feel really good, and that was a goal that I had. I remember going to the store and walking past the aisle in the produce section with all of the dips, and it caught my eye, French onion veggie dip.

I had this epiphany like, “Oh, my gosh! I bet I would eat so many more vegetables if I had something exciting to dip them in,” right? Now, this doesn’t seem like an epiphany, but it was an epiphany for me in that moment and, if you look at my life now, I went to Trader Joe’s yesterday, and I bought nine different dips and, okay, that’s a little extreme, but before you judge me, we only go to Trader Joe’s, like, every couple of months. So, when I go, I’ve got to really stock up, okay?

But the point I want to get to here today is that, often, we have really, really rigid definitions of what healthy eating is. We have areas of food that are acceptable, and we have types of food that are acceptable in our definitions of healthy eating. And so, if you’re in that place where you’re trying to eat healthy, but you have these rigid definitions, one of the things I would encourage you to think about is the difference between helpful eating and healthy eating.

Helpful eating is eating in a way that is helpful to you. It is helpful to your mind. It is helpful to your body. It is helpful to your emotions, okay? A lot of things that we may not consider traditionally, quote-unquote, “healthy,” like eating ice cream when you’re sad, that’s not, quote-unquote, “healthy.” but sometimes when you’re sad, eating a bowl of ice cream is exactly what you need. It is helpful.

The real lesson here today is that A, I eat way, way, way, way, way more vegetables on the weeks that I buy dip to dip them in, and so, that is what I’ll continue to do because, for me, I focus on eating in a way that is helpful to me, not following anyone else’s standards of what, quote-unquote, “healthy” might look like, okay?

Takeaway number two from this podcast is that if you want to eat healthy, make it freaking enjoyable! Buy things that taste good. Cook your vegetables in butter, for gosh sake, right? Take a look at any restrictions you have around food, any rules you have around food, even if that’s a rule about, like, “Oh, it has to be homemade versus takeout,” figure out what your food rules are, and then ask yourself, “Are there any of these food rules I can let go of in order to eat in a way that is more helpful for me? Okay, that is what I’ve got for you today!

As one last reminder, we do work with a lot of clients in Alliance Coaching on eating in a way that focuses on their behavior. So, we’re not macro coaches, by any means. We’re not gonna actually look at your diet at all, but what we are able to do is help you with things like meal prep, having systems around eating, getting your mind management to a place where you can feel like you’re eating intentionally, all of those things.

So, if you’re at all interested in getting some help with your eating patterns, Alliance Coaching might be a place for you to be!

I will see you all in the next episode!