About

Your body is your life’s partner, not your life’s project.  What if you could focus on nourishing yourself for vitality and worry less about your body’s size and shape? What if you could step over the threshold of midlife and see elder hood as a time to emerge as your truest self? What if you could approach midlife and beyond as a time to break free from old beliefs about your body? Few things will bring more empowerment and ease into your life than learning to trust yourself and your body. Debra Benfield, or Deb as we know her, has helped hundreds of women heal their relationship with food, eating, and their bodies in her 35-year career as a Registered Dietitian/Nutritionist specializing in preventing and treating disordered eating. She brings her research, training, passion, clinical and lived experience to the intersection of pro-aging and body liberation. Deb’s work is rooted in helping her clients: shifting their body relationship from their life’s project to their life’s partner, recognizing internalized ageism and ending it, Untangling from diet/wellness culture, nourishing their bodies in midlife and beyond to support growing older in alignment with their values, and seeing midlife and beyond as a time of Emergence Today, in part one of our conversation with Deb Benfield we explore diet culture and the hold it has over our society and how we can learn to look out for it and fight it for ourselves and our loved ones. We also discuss the power of midlife to emerge as our truest most authentic self. This is an episode you won’t want to miss!  Our discussion today included: The importance of stepping outside of yourself as a single mother and facing fears  Deb’s efforts to change what diet culture focuses on The power of midlife to emerge as our truest self Lessons offered in puberty and menopause How your relationship with your body allows you to reconnect with your authentic self Menopause as a time of Emergence The power of creating practices in your life The five times a day to practice embodiment Diet culture and how disordered eating is promoted in the name of health Looking at the intergenerational effects of diet culture Red flags to watch for in your life and loved ones Misperceptions of what disordered eating looks like Thank you to our sponsor: HER Patreon Resources Mentioned in Episode: DebraBenfield.com Do Old People Need Less Food by Virginia Sole Smith Ageism Unmasked by Tracy Gendron Let’s End Ageism TED TAlk by Ashton Applewhite Breaking the Age Code by Becca Levy Dr. Rachel Goode, Episodes 55 & 56 of Mama Needs a Moment I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/herhealthcollective/support