What We Talk About in This Episode

In episode 14 of The Joyful Health Show, we interview Certified Health, Life, and Mental Health Coach Kassandra  Baker about the very common question, How do I accept my body if I don't lose weight or if I gain weight after starting Intuitive Eating? Kassandra shares her personal story of eating disorders, weight gain, and how she landed in a healthy place with the help of prayer, outside support, and practicing endurance when it comes to intuitive eating. 

In this episode we discuss:

• Releasing the value a smaller body has on us to find our value in Christ

• Worldly identity formation versus the freedom of a Christ-formed identity

• The number one tip to enduring through a period of body size change

Connect with Kassandra on her website at Kassandrabaker.com and email her at [email protected] to get started with a Breaking Free Strategy Session.

Resources for Episode 14

1. Schedule a Breaking Free coaching session with Kassandra Baker

2. Take our Free Masterclass: Stop Dieting and Discover the Joy in Food and Fitness

3. Read the book The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness by Timothy Keller

4. Pray through your intuitive health journey with Body Blessings Course

This post may contain affiliate links. If you purchase using any of these links we make a small commission at no additional cost to you.

Guest Bio

Kassandra Baker

Kassandra Baker knows what it’s like to have a love/hate relationship with food and her body. It’s her own personal experience and recovery from two eating disorders that drive her passion to encourage women to find freedom. She is a Certified Health, Life, and Mental Health Coach and Public Speaker, helping women who are trapped in unhealthy habits such as perfectionism, disordered eating, legalism, and people-pleasing, so they can LIVE FREE in Christ.

Learn more about Kassandra and work with her on her website at kassandrabaker.com

Introduction

Kasey

Hi Joyful Health Friends. This episode marks our Season one finale, so thank you for listening along during our very first podcast season. And don't forget to join our Facebook group in the show notes so we can hear from you too. We are so grateful to share this conversation with you today. Because we are so steeped in diet culture and used to equating weight loss with success.

It can feel disheartening if you don't lose weight when beginning intuitive eating to downright terrifying if the scale goes up. We want to address that fear and encourage you to stick with it. And this episode So get ready to hear a personal story and a lot of wisdom from Kassandra Baker, who is a certified health, life and mental health coach.

She has struggled with this in her own life and now guides other women through this very same process away from perfectionism and disordered eating and towards living out freedom in their body that they already have in Christ. We hope it blesses you today, too. Let's get started.

00:01:11:18 - 00:01:13:05

Aubrey

Hey, friends, welcome to the Joyful Health Show. I'm Aubrey, registered dietitian and I'm Kasey, a personal trainer. And together, we are here to help you discover joyful health by grace.

And welcome to this week's episode of The Joyful Health Show. Today, we have the privilege of talking with Kassandra Baker. She's a certified health life and mental health coach to help answer the question, how do I accept my body if my weight stays the same or if my weight goes up when practicing intuitive eating? We're so excited to have this very needed conversation.

So thank you for being here, Kassandra.

00:01:59:09 - 00:02:02:21

Kassandra

Hey, everyone. Thanks so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here today.

00:02:03:16 - 00:02:43:17

Kasey

Yes. OK, so Kassandra, for a little bit about you, for people who don't know her, she knows what it's like to have that love-hate relationship with food in her body. It's from her own personal experience and recovery from two eating disorders that drives her passion to encourage women to find freedom. She is a certified health, life and mental health coach and public speaker, helping women who are trapped in unhealthy habits such as perfectionism, disordered eating, legalism, and people pleasing so that they can live free in Christ.

OK, so I am really grateful to you just here. This is a snapshot of your story there, but I would love to hear some more how you got to where you are now. What would you like to share with us about like a personal story, the struggle that you've had, and how God has met you and and how He is continuing to author your story where you are today.

The Cost of Weight Loss: A Story of Eating Disorders and God’s Intervention

00:03:14:02 - 00:03:43:20

Kassandra

Yeah. Growing up, my life looked pretty great. I grew up in a good Christian home. I did well in school, had lots of friends, and so it looked pretty nice. But underneath I was kind of like this perfect storm that was kind of gathering. So I struggled with depression. Anxiety probably started for me in middle school. And it was around that time that I started dieting as well, which then soon disordered behaviors, eating behaviors started to come up.

I'm also a highly sensitive person. I feel deeply and I, you know, also of course, was growing up in a society that said in order to be somebody, in order to be beautiful and loved and healthy, you have to look a certain way and be a certain size. Your body does And so all that came together and did develop into a binge eating disorder.

And then that started in middle school. And then in my late twenties, I developed orthorexia, an unhealthy obsession with healthy eating. And so to say that my life with these two eating disorders and the depression and anxiety was difficult seems like such an understatement. So I like to give the picture of me laying on the ground and then this hundred ton rock on top of me and there's no light or oxygen that can get through.

And I call that rock Ed in the gang. Ed stands for Eating Disorder, and the gang represents that people pleasing perfectionism need for control that oftentimes can go with food struggles. And it wasn't until I was in my twenties that I, the Lord, started my recovery journey, but by that time I'd almost been struggling for two decades.

And it was really through a Bible study and counseling that the Lord really started my recovery work and recovery for me started with dealing with the underlying traumas and wounds and things that had really happened that helped contribute to it. But it was during this time that I also developed orthorexia. And as the weight and the compulsive exercising increased, the weight continued to come off that I never experienced.

And in that moment, all of a sudden I started getting all this praise from people and it was very quick to say, I told you you're only more attractive and more beautiful and more valuable when you're in a smaller body. And while I know my friends and family didn't mean to hurt me in that way, it was very clear that I was praised more and what felt like loved more by being in a smaller body.

And then in 2014, I experienced the first of four traumatic brain injuries. And so in one moment, that first traumatic brain injury basically the Lord took away my ability to do the extreme behaviors of the orthorexia. So I thought I had found freedom because I was in a smaller body. But the problem was, is that when I could no longer do those behaviors all of a sudden and was going crazy and he was not OK and so in that moment I kind of realized maybe I'm not as free as what I thought I was.

And it was during that time that I found out about intuitive eating. I tried to do it on my own. But when you're in an eating disorder, trying intuitive eating by yourself is like jumping off a cliff without a parachute. And so I realized quickly that I needed a team of people to help me. And so that's when I started working with a dietitian who specializes in eating disorder recovery.

I got diagnosed for the first time. And what happened was these team members came around me and started chipping away at the rock. You see, I thought I had to get myself out from underneath there. But the reality was there was no way in my own strength that I could get myself out. And so it was very long, very hard and very painful, the most difficult thing I've ever done in my life and had to go through.

But it was so worth it because now God is allowing me to do this work, which has been my dream, to help other women who are struggling. And now I just simply get to be a vessel of helping other women who are a little farther behind me. In this journey and to walk alongside them.

Why Is Gaining Weight a Huge Fear?

00:07:41:07 - 00:07:50:04

Aubrey

Now, that picture of the rock and having that team and that community of people helping to chip away at it. That is a beautiful picture. And I think there's so many things in our lives that we need, that we need that support team. We need God to bring those people around us and to pray for that. And most of all, we need him to chip away and remove that rock. And so, Kassandra, I know now that you work with people who are going through similar struggles, and I know today that we want to talk about this, you know, fear or maybe even reality of weight gain or weight even weight maintenance, even for some people who are starting intuitive eating and they're breaking away from diets, even just staying in the same size body for them is scary or terrifying. And because of what our culture says or what we're seeing is what our value is. And so I'm wondering, you know, when you work with women, does this problem come up a lot and why do you think it is such a fear for people.

00:08:56:09 - 00:09:24:17

Kassandra

It's utter terror for most of us who are on this journey. And for me, recovery did mean weight gain. And I think it's important to note, like, I always believe that being in a thinner body meant being healthier. But as I went through recovery, what became very clear was that if I was going to be in that smaller body, then it was going to take an eating disorder in order to be there.

And so I don't believe that God is asking any of us to use an eating disorder in order to be in a smaller body. And that is knowing that in your head. And then, you know, living it out is one thing, right? Because we hear all the cliche pat Christian answers like, oh, God loves us. It's just where we are.

And we're each created unique and beautiful. And while there is truth to that, the Bible backs up those statements. I want to be like, excuse me, I'm going to go hit my head against the wall, because that does me no good in this moment. It just tells my head that. But it never changed anything on an experiential or feeling level.

And so that was just really hard. But for me and many of the women that I work with many times, the reality is, and the difficulty with this [intuitive eating] process is that it does mean being where you're at. And oftentimes it may require weight gain because the reality is, so many of us are using disordered eating and eating disorder behaviors to be in a smaller body. It’s a process.

And I wish I you know, I wish I could say, here, just do this, this and this, and then it'll take care of it. But the reality is like what it took to remove that weight, that 100 ton rock off of me was long and slow and complicated and a lot of different areas that really required. And that's why I think oftentimes we need someone outside of ourselves to do this work because we live in a culture and in this earthly kingdom that says one thing and basically I think of Shadrach, Meshach and the Bendigo, right, where they're like standing in front of everyone and literally facing death.

If they don't bow down to that idol and well, you know, we're not necessarily facing death in this regard. There is a certain death to caring about what the society says. If we're no longer going to bow to what I call the beauty idol, the thinness and beauty and health kind of idol, that we have in our society, and that is a sort of death.

And that's a hard process to grieve and then to work through honestly. Learning how to keep our eyes on Jesus and loving Him more and recognizing how his love can push out our love of and desire for wanting to be what the society says we have to look like.

00:12:12:06 - 00:12:43:01

Kasey

Hmm. Yeah. This is so important. You were able to define that fear and put it into a visual of this rock that felt like it was weighing on you. And then that enabled you to see, “I need someone outside of me to help lift this rock.” Amanada Reynolds, one of our coaches, just wrote a post about how the rocks in our life can feel way too big, but then Jesus, in the resurrection, is the stone that was rolled away.

So this, like, fear that can sometimes feel really fuzzy for people of I started intuitive eating or I want to start into the intuitive eating, but my clothes are getting tighter and then this fear rushes in and then it makes them want to stop and to stop trying this new way and go back to the old way of dieting or disordered ways of eating and exercising, what would you say or how would you speak to that fear.

How Can We Address the Fear of Weight Gain?

00:13:21:13 - 00:14:21:12

Kassandra

So our current society measures success in regards to health and beauty by weight loss. But when it comes to approaching life with an intuitive eating, lying down, you know, the beauty idol, what it actually really requires is being able to say, I'm going to live in a different kingdom. I'm going to focus on losing the weight of diet culture and measure success by the weight loss because you see the weight that I lost of the hundred ten rock, I lost 100 tons way more than whatever number I actually gained on my physical body, yet I know that the reality of even gaining one pound can feel so crushing and so it's tough but it's kind of like a paradigm shift like learning to see what is God's kingdom how does God see this and living in that reality and that takes time learning how what does that reality look like and the other thing that's really tough is saying or we have to dive down into like why is gaining this amount of weight so terrifying to me?

What thoughts, what emotions are coming up underneath that? Because the fear of that is a symptom of underlying thoughts and beliefs that are going on that need to be addressed to be able to move forward.

00:15:07:03 - 00:15:28:03

Aubrey

So when you're talking about, you know, digging down and finding that underlying belief, what would you say? You know, let's say someone does that. And I'm going to give a couple of examples. And then, Kassandra, I'd love for you to give a couple of examples of things that you've seen. You know, if I gain weight this will happen.

If I gain weight, then I will no longer be perceived as successful. 

If I gain weight, then I will no longer be as desirable, physically desirable. 

And and then would you say, what are some other ones? And do you take it even deeper than that with your clients?

Body Size and the Gospel

00:15:50:10 - 00:16:35:22

Kassandra

Yeah. I think oftentimes, as we are really digging down until like the core thoughts and wounds that are kind of underneath it, it comes down to a lot of times those around us have literally communicated maybe actually verbally or in nonverbal communication that our value comes from what size our body is. So the thought of gaining weight means that in this and that realm that you are less than and when you hear the thought you are less than and you are not lovable and you are valuable as a person because of the size that you are, I mean, that gets to the very core of our identity and our worth.

And that's what's so paralyzing. How can I go about in this world if that is what gives me value? 

And so that's where it's really important as we recognize these thoughts is to be able to then say, OK, so but what is the truth like from a kingdom perspective, is that what is really true? And so but it takes time to have that truth build up and then it really takes time for that truth to transition from just a truth to feeling.

Because when the feelings can come, that is one true transformation. And for me that really came through not just knowing about the gospel, but experiencing the truth of the gospel. So I kind of have like this short little clip that I read to myself because if the world says you were not enough, if you are bigger than blank and for each family or each person, what that number might be is different.

So it's again, it's subjective because nowhere in the Bible do I ever find you need to be a size blank in order to be healthy and valuable. And that I get to find that. And I see the passage in Scripture, where it talks about God creating large and small animals. And I see in creation all around us a creator who creates variety, not a creator who created all women to be the exact same size and mold.

And so nowhere in Scripture do I see the support for that. We are all supposed to be more like that biblically. I just don't see that being supported. But when I come to realize, like, because many of us, especially, we've grown in the church, have heard those Pat Christian answers all our lives. Like if you believe in Christ the new, you can have freedom that you can that you are loved and just as you are.

But I didn't understand the truth of that. So is it OK if I take just a minute to read this love letter from Jesus to me that really changed everything?

Kasey

Yes. And did you write this in prayer on your own, or is this taken from something else?

00:18:59:03 - 00:19:31:01

Kassandra

So Timothy Keller was the one who kind of taught me how to teach and speak the gospel to myself every day. So based off, like, listening to his teachings, I then sat down and then took the time to personalize it for me. So that's where this came from. And OK, so this is Jesus to me. 

A Letter from Jesus to those Struggling with Body Size

In this episode, Kassandra shares a beautiful letter she wrote to read to herself everyday, to help preach the gospel to herself, especially as it concerns our struggles with placing our worth in a certain body size. She was so kind to share her letter with us, so that readers and listeners might be able to personalize this letter and use it in their own life.

This letter was written with great care and formed solidly on Scriptural truth. If you do share, please always give credit to the author, Kassandra Baker.

Jesus: (INSERT YOUR NAME), I know it’s not easy living in a world where you are constantly bombarded with messages that you are not enough.  But you are unique and one of a kind.  I didn’t create you to fit the world’s beauty standards.  Only when you live in the truth that you are my daughter will you be free. 

When I was in the Garden of Gethsemane, I was deeply distressed because I knew what was ahead of me.  I asked the Father if there would be any other way for you to be saved and to not have to go through the cross.  But the only way for you to spend eternity with me in Heaven was for me to be tortured and crucified to pay the price of your sins, including your love of the beauty idol.  I agreed to lay down my life because I love you so very much. 

As I was being beaten, whipped, spit on, abused, tortured and carrying the cross to where I would die, I was thinking of you. I must do the will of the Father to save my precious daughter.  Having her with me is worth all this pain and suffering.  As I suffered for hours, I thought of you.  My love for you kept me on the cross.  I died and rose again so we can spend eternity together.  Because of this, you are free from sin and no longer a slave to what others think of you and conforming to this world’s beauty standards."   

And when I spoke this to myself again and again every day, what it did is brought the eternal heavenly kingdom into view. And that became more real and more valid than what the earthly kingdom was telling me. About my body and about my weight. And this great love is bigger than any hurt that someone can say about what my body looks like and how I might be less than it hurts.

I'm not taking that away. But this love, what she did for me he gave it all for me so I can lay down what maybe I would wish and prefer for my body to be in order to care for my body and honor him the way he wants, and to accept the size that he created my body to be wow.

00:21:45:11 - 00:21:46:17

Kasey

I'm speechless right now.

00:21:48:03 - 00:22:11:01

Aubrey

I'm glad that my video is not mine because I'm like tearing up over here. That is beautiful and I would love Cassandra if you wouldn't mind sharing that. And we could help people like insert their own name in there.

And if that's helpful for someone, would you mind that?

00:22:13:23 - 00:22:15:00

Kassandra

No, not at all.

00:22:15:24 - 00:22:45:21

Aubrey

OK, yeah, that's beautiful. And I love that you're like, it's just a process and it's something that we repeat over and over to ourselves every day because we're, we're creating this new neural pathway we're creating, we're washing over things that are happening in our mind. And these beliefs that we've had, we're literally giving our brains like an oxytocin wash, which creates this rewiring of our brain.

And oxytocin is a love hormone. And I think that's just another really cool picture of how Jesus’ love can change us. And I love what you shared, Kassandra, and I think you could have of course, you guys could personalize your own letter and totally change it up. But what better truth than what you just shared with us?

Maybe just in addition to that, can you talk a little bit more about the reality that health is not based on our weight? And if we do gain weight, even if we feel like we're in a body that is already considered overweight or whatever by society's standards and we're by our own standards, can you talk about how health and weight are not?

How Weight and Health are Connected (or not)

00:23:43:08 - 00:23:49:20

Kassandra

And they don't always go together right. So like I was talking before when I was in that smaller body, it wasn't actually healthy because it was taking an eating disorder. But interestingly enough, when I was going through recovery and after several years, I've come to find that my set point weight is actually around the same around where I was all the years I was struggling with binge eating disorder.

And I always thought, oh, if I weren't doing this bingeing, then I wouldn't be this size. I would be much smaller. So I've been in my current body size and not been healthy before. Right. Because, you know, I don't believe that if I believe the Bible supports that, it matters how we take care of our bodies.

And so when I was struggling with binge eating disorder, I wasn't able to take care of my body. I mean, I was using it as a means of coping with life and being able to ultimately get into a smaller body because the restriction led to the bingeing. But it ended up, you know, being a body that wasn't healthy because again, I was in an eating disorder, but now I'm in this same size body that I was before the orthorexia, and I'm healthy for the first time because I'm in this size body that is healthy without an eating disorder.

It allows me to eat, to enjoy all foods. I don't feel out of control around food. I do not think about food all the time the way that I used to before.

And so it's interesting. And oftentimes, like as I was trying to work through the process of accepting that my body wasn't at the smaller body size that I would have preferred if I could have picked a lot of it was learning how to feel my body in the bigger sized body. And I recognize that so much of what I was feeling was connected to it, like I always tell myself, oh, I can't be comfortable in a bigger sized body because that's not healthy or whatever.

But when I was going through that process, I learned that so much of the feelings of being in a larger body were not so much the actual physical feelings, but those physical feelings were connected to wounds and trauma of what people said about my body. And so as I worked through those and was able to learn how to tolerate and feel this body size and separate the wounds from the body size, then I was able to start accepting and recognize that I'm not as uncomfortable in this body. It's more difficult. You're telling me that I can't be comfortable in this body. Does that make sense?

How Can We Find Support When Struggling with Weight Gain?

00:26:51:06 - 00:27:28:14

Kasey

For you personally and from all the research that we've done with health at every size and intuitive eating, it's much less about your body size and more about those healthy behaviors. And when you were reading the letter, it was like the whole focus on body size felt like a big boulder, like I could feel that, and then I could, like, sense it shrinking and maybe even just, like, falling to the ground underneath your feet rather than something that's crushing you from above.

And so, like, Jesus has put all things underneath his feet. He has conquered death. And so that's really like the biggest stone, the biggest gravestone that we could fear and so as a Christian like that weight is lifted, but it takes practice, like you said, practice of getting that truth from your mind to your heart in that practice, of speaking that truth to yourself, in living it so it can be scary to start living that truth.

I know you talked about like Bible study and counseling being some of those small steps towards healing and getting that support? Are there any other small steps that people can take practically to start moving that truth in addition to, you know, speaking that truth, praying that truth in your heart, facing the Lord and turning away from the values of society.

00:28:35:13 - 00:29:06:00

Kassandra

One of the other, I think, important aspects of removing that 100 ton rock was understanding that cultural identity formation of the current culture, identifying information versus a biblical identity formation. And so our culture says that our identity is I'm going to go out and say who I want to be, and then I'm going to go out and I'm going to become that and that's who I'm going to be. Maybe you're familiar with the great work of art, “Let It Go” By Frozen right now, right? “No wrong, no rules for me. I'm free” so that's an example. But ultimately, our cultural identity is crushing because what happens if I work so hard, which I did, I worked by using an eating disorder to try to get my identity, by saying I am somebody, by being in this smaller body size and then I go out and I can't do it.

Or maybe you could do it for a while like I did. But then eventually it was like you couldn't maintain it and so ultimately, it puts us on a pendulum swing of like we feel really good if we did what we were supposed to or we feel really bad if we did it. So it's like this dizzying pendulum swing back and forth that's not secure.

And ultimately, my eyes were resting on me all about me. But Paul talked about the biblical identity formation and first Corinthians four, three and four says, I care very little if I'm judged by you or by any human court. Indeed, I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me.

And this biblical identity formation can be found in Timothy Keller's book, The Freedom of Self Forgetfulness and I feel like this has been key for me to be able to accept the weight gain and the larger body, because Paul saying here, I don't care what you think about me, which is what our whole culture thing, right? Like it doesn't matter what you think about me.

But he says, it doesn't matter what I think about myself. And I think about all the times that I stood in front of a mirror or was looking down on my body. And I just, like hated it. And I wanted to cut it away and I wanted to just, you know, like there was so much self-loathing, but that was transformational.

Like Kassandra, it doesn't actually matter what you think about yourself. What ultimately matters is what God says about us. And so true freedom from body image struggle is not thinking more of myself, but it's also not thinking less of myself and shaming myself because that's still pride focusing on myself. It's just actually thinking about myself less. And so body image freedom for me means that I just don't think about my body.

Like how many times today have you thought about your big toe probably not at all, unless you stubbed it this morning right.

00:31:50:13 - 00:32:02:13

Kasey

That's really funny because I was literally just standing here and I have my foot propped up and I was rubbing my big toe and my little toe together, but I wasn't conscious of it until you named it.

Kassandra

And that's what I did for so many years. It's like it was just all thinking about my body. And so I believe this first Corinthians four passage supports a biblical approach to body neutrality when it comes to our body. And so it's just a matter of like when my body is hungry I take care of it. If I stub my big toe, I sit, you know, I take care when my body communicates something to me.

But I'm not thinking about it all the time. And that then gives me so much freedom to go out and to live my life and to live in the moment. 

Process of Accepting Your Body Through Body Size Changes

Aubrey

The whole time you're thinking or talking, I was thinking about a selfish plug, I guess, but our brains, which is we start with grace and follow the joy, and we really have to start to form our identity on God's grace, on what Christ did for us, on who He says we are. So make that our foundation instead of going out and trying to make our own identity.

And then from there, kind of like what you're talking about. Kassandra from there, we can just respond by following the joy of Christ, whereas we're following Jesus, we can just sort of respond to these things that are happening in our life, whether it's We need to pee, we got to go use the bathroom, we're hungry, right? Or this person in our life is causing an interruption.

Maybe it's my two-year old and it's OK. I can step off and love them right now because I'm not trying to go out and get my identity. I'm starting from this place of grace, and I'm just following the joy of the Lord. So I love that. I am curious, is there any other, like, practical tips you can give to our listeners to just start soaking in these identity verses soaking in the word helping to go back to the Lord and help them form him, form their identity.

00:34:10:21 - 00:34:36:09

Kassandra

One of the things that comes up is you already referenced it, Aubrey, is the importance of repetition. You know, we have been thinking these thoughts about our bodies and about food and health for many women, it's decades. And so just to actually break free and for our mind to rewire from that is not going to be a one week to week thing.

This is going to be a lifelong journey and so oftentimes we're like, oh, I've been doing this for two or three months and it's, you know, I'm not where I want to be. So I set realistic expectations of what this journey looks like. And that's one of the things I love about intuitive eating is that it's a practice that is something I'm going to be working on and practicing my whole life.

And that's the same way with my thoughts because it I would say I'm recovered, but that doesn't mean I don't have a bad body image day or or don't still struggle at times, but I'm no longer bombarded with it like I was, and now I have the tools to be able to fight it. When I do, I have.

And so things that really stick out to me. One of the things I sign up to almost all my clients is creating a 911 list. And so as we do this work, I realized that I needed to hear the truth way more than I was hearing the lies of Ed and the gang. And so that meant I created this list of like all these different kinds of truths, scripture verse.

And so recovery for me meant practically rewiring the brain like ten times a day. Pulling out my 911 list every time Ed was telling me not to eat something or that I needed to do an extra so much exercise, I would bring that out and I counter it with that. I didn't feel at those times or necessarily even believe it, but eventually, after doing it for years now, I don't even have to pull the 911 list out anymore.

Right, because my thoughts are the soundtrack. And if the diet of the unhealthy soundtrack goes up, then it usually to me is an indicator that there's emotions and lies and maybe even some wounds that are going on underneath that need help. Because ultimately I was using food and body image and trying to control my weight as a means of trying to cope with those things.

And so now there are helpful information for me to be able better help care for the true self that God created me to be.

00:36:50:08 - 00:37:12:13

Kasey

I just thought about the Scripture when God first gave us the Ten Commandments, it was written on tablets of stone and Hebrews 1016 says, this is the new covenant I will make with my people. On that day, says the Lord, I will put my laws in their hearts and I will write them on their minds.

So in their hearts and on their minds. So being able to practice it with your hands kind of moves it from that paper to your heart and your mind as you practice it. Like you said, it is a practice. And being able to have those open minded expectations when starting intuitive eating, a lot of it is trust is to be able to like when we are on a diet, we're trusting the results that this diet can give us.

But we know personally, you know, personally we know from our clients we know research says that that doesn't last and often leads to more harmful results. And so you know, when we are able to start taking a step towards trusting what the word says, trusting what our body is saying, then you know, taking those small steps, then we can say, well, what does this look like when you can start listening in, when you're not expecting, you know, and if you're not expecting weight loss and then and you're mostly expecting just, OK, what am I looking for?

And you get curious and you just don't have those really rigid, narrow minded expectations. And then and then you can't lose, you know, at that point because like we said, that's already we have that foundation of grace underneath our feet that's not going away. So I think that can also take some of the fear away as well.

So yeah, and I, I have written a few verses, but you talked a lot too about like kind of what will this cost you? Like, you know, you had to go through an eating disorder so that you could achieve a smaller body and that's what it cost. And then Jesus says if you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it.

But if you give up your life for whose sake? Are you giving up your life for whose sake of the diet which is consuming your mind? Is that for the sake of, like you said, this beauty idol? And maybe we don't even know that it's a beauty idol because we think it's for health or we think it's for good, you know?

But Jesus says if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it. So, yeah, I just really enjoy this conversation. Is there anything else that you want to leave our listeners with as we wrap up.

Best Tip for Struggling with Weight Gain with Intuitive Eating

00:39:44:12 - 00:40:11:07

Kassandra

I always encourage you by leaving you with this. The only way that you will for sure never find freedom living is by giving up. And so I think that, you know, at a young age, I committed to like, OK, even if I die at 80 with an eating disorder, I'm going to die fighting for freedom versus having lived my life not fighting for it.

And I believe that's why I'm where I'm at today just because I never gave up. When we're going through this process, if and when the weight gain starts coming, it is terrifying. And if you don't have someone outside of yourself saying, I know that this is scary, I know this feels like impossible, but let me hold the space that you can get through this and that you can gain the weight and be OK. Then if I didn't have someone like that, I don't know that I would have been able to stay in that because it was so absolutely terrifying and difficult.

00:40:54:06 - 00:40:57:09

Kasey

So who are the people that they can reach out to?

00:40:59:03 - 00:41:21:18

Kassandra

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think everyone needs even if, you know, maybe certain people need professional level care or a coach, but even if it's not that someone who just believes and has been through this journey before and says what you're going through is normal, this is not abnormal. This is part of the process. So keep hanging on. 

00:41:21:21 - 00:41:42:13

Aubrey

Yes, I agree. And and I love that quote. I think about so many things. It's like if we just yeah, if we keep hanging on long enough, you know, God is still hanging on to you. So he's not, you know, just trying to hang on. As long as he's hanging on, you can't give up right so I love that.

And Kassandra, would you help our listeners figure out how they can connect with you a little bit more about your services? And also, would you pray for us at the end?

00:41:55:23 - 00:42:25:02

Kassandra

Yeah, you can find me at Kassandrabaker.com and [email protected] and I'm just so excited to be here and I appreciate both of you. So I would like to offer 3 60-minute what I call “breaking free strategy sessions” complimentary for the first three listeners who reach out to me.

I'd be happy to just sit down and say, what are some practical steps that you could take to start implementing some of these things? So just email me, let me know that you heard me on here, and that's at info or [email protected]. And I also have a resource list on my page, which includes both of your books and your podcasts.

So they can find you there. But it's also a lot of the other resources that have been really crucial. Some of the books that I mentioned through today that have helped me to be where I'm at today. So let me go ahead and pray then.

Dear God,

I thank you so much. When you were in agony, when you were suffocating on the cross, you stayed despite the pain and the hurt.

And it wasn't just the physical hurt, Lord. You were, you were carrying the rejection of your father. You were taking the weight of each of our sins. So it was more than just the physical agony that you were going through. And you stayed, you didn't get up and didn't get off. And so I pray as each listener is going through this journey that when they want to give up and when it feels too hard and when it feels impossible that they would remember that you stayed and because you stayed and did what we would never be able to do for ourselves, that that they can say to.

And I thank you so much that this current kingdom is not the forever kingdom, that your eternal kingdom, there will be no diet culture and no focus on way. It'll be about being the unique creation that you have made each of us to be as your Creator. And I pray, Lord, that you would help us to desire and to help us to do the work so that we can live in that eternity and in each moment while we're here on this earth.

None of that would be possible without you. So I thank you so much. And we ask all these things in your name amen.

00:44:47:19 - 00:44:58:11

Kasey

Well, thank you so much. And thank you for listening, everyone who stayed till the end and friends until next time, you rest in his grace and follow the joy.

00:45:04:21 - 00:45:22:20

Aubrey

Thanks so much for hanging out with us today. We hope this episode encouraged you to stay the course on your joyful health journey, no matter what the scale says. If you want to learn more about the science behind the joyful health approach to food and movement, take our free masterclass stop dieting and discover the joy and food and fitness.

You can find the link in the show notes or on our website at Joyful Health.co. This episode concludes season one of the podcast, but we will be back at the end of the summer with a brand new season. In the meantime, make sure to subscribe to this podcast and leave a review so more people can discover joyful help by grace. Thanks so much for hanging out with us today.

This episode is our last for season 1 of the Joyful Health Show. If you’ve listened to the show and been encouraged, would you leave a review? This helps more people like you discover joyful health by grace. Thank you!

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