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As a personal stylist, I work with clients who want to change how they dress and what their image is. Clothing is one part of it, but how they feel about their body is another aspect of it. Developing a healthy relationship with your body is no easy task!

That is why I’m excited to share this special interview of my friend Jared Levenson, who is an Eating Disorder Therapist in the Bay Area. For those who are struggling with weight loss or wanting to be more active or wanting to accept their body as-is, Jared has a fresh perspective on these challenging topics. 

KK: Since your speciality is helping people to lose weight without any fad diets, what is your “secret” for how you help people achieve that?

JL: I help people first stop binge eating, and then after they have stopped binge eating to lose weight. So, my specialty is really focusing on compulsive eaters or people who might themselves be food addicts. My secret? Stop trying to lose weight! Seriously. It sounds weird, but you first have to stop compulsive eating behaviors first. Trying to lose weight or go on a diet before you’re ready emotionally is only going to hurt you. Yes, hurt you. There’s a painful side to diets and weight loss that many people don’t talk about, and I’m here to talk about it. 

KK: I’ve heard you use the phrase “eating intuitively,” can you elaborate on what that is?

JL: Intuitive Eating is a beautiful healing journey. I’ve gone through it. Heck, I’m even certified in Intuitive Eating, a specialization on top of my Master’s Degree in Counseling. I got into Intuitive Eating because I used to binge eat all the time when I wrestled in high school. I even got anemia (where your blood doesn’t have enough iron and you have low energy all the time), and abused weed to manage my depression/anxiety. Then, I became a zen monk for 13 months and stumbled into intuitive eating principles. Long story short, my eating habits regulated and I fell in love with mindful eating.

However, Intuitive Eating is weight loss neutral. Intuitive Eating recognizes the tremendous harm done in terms of people trying to lose weight via dieting, and gaining all the weight back and ruining their metabolism in the process. To wrap up this answer, I say I help people to eat intuitively and go on a journey that results in weight loss. 

KK: What are some of the root causes behind the behaviors of binge eating and stress eating?

JL: The root cause is deprivation, physical or emotional. This is one of the hardest concepts to grasp. 

We first start with physical deprivation. Oftentimes people don’t realize that they are binge eating because they are secretly dieting! What do I mean by secretly dieting?

Oftentimes you try a diet and unconsciously pick up rules about food that you carry with you. For example, one woman I worked with started trying Weight Watchers in middle school. Even though she no longer followed Weight Watchers, she still would find herself evaluating foods by their points. This meant oftentimes she would neglect her hunger.

And if you neglect your hunger, guess what? You’re at risk for binge eating. So we first address hunger and the beliefs/obstacles preventing you from connecting to your body and getting satisfied.

After that work, we dive into meeting emotional needs. There’s no way around it. Stress eating is in large part caused by unmet emotional needs. So we start learning mindful eating skills and different ways to handle stress and learn how to handle intense feelings.

KK: One thing I love doing for my work is helping people embrace their body as-is, imperfections and all, by finding clothing that flatters them. What do you see your clients struggling with in terms of their body image?

JL: Body image is extremely tough, but so necessary to talk about. I think the best advice I got on this topic was from Linda Tucker, who said that we live in a culture of tremendous body shame. 

We live in a culture where social media, magazines and so forth … all of these say our bodies are not good the way they are. So, given this culture, to expect that there will be moments of disconnection, where you hate the way you look and who you feel you are. 

But given this expectation, given this built in struggle to love yourself, there is hope. In the pit of darkness, you can learn to love aspects of yourself and your body. And perhaps most healing of all, you can start to trace back and own your story. By this I mean, can you remember a time when weight wasn’t an issue? Perhaps this was back before you first started dieting. 

You might have weight less back then too. What happened? Well, for many people, dieting happened. And dieting actually leads to WEIGHT GAIN! Long-term science has established this without a shadow of a doubt. Unfortunately, and this is the understatement of the year right now, because tremendous, awful shame results when you try to lose weight and fail. 

So for years, many people believe they are flawed somehow. They carry this image of their body and who they are based on perceived failures. However, it’s not your fault. 

It’s not your fault you couldn’t lose weight. You were in a paradigm that could never work. Dieting seems like it works in the short-run, but just doesn’t work long-term. So, I think the most healing thing for many people, is being able to start forgiving themselves for all the self-hatred they have directed their way over years of dieting and weight loss failures.

KK: Can you talk about your personal training background and how you got into eating management? 

JL: Yes, I worked at a gym and hated it. I was told to get people on diets which went against the very fiber of my being. Fortunately, I was able to become self-employed and start a practice where I focused more on eating intuitively and emotional healing instead of high-pressure “magic” bullet diets.

KK: For someone who wants to get into shape, but has always had an inconsistent exercise schedule (like me!), what do you recommend?

JL: Hahaha, I hear you. For many people the word exercise has all these negative associations. Let’s examine them real quick. Exercise, you need to do a certain amount to have succeeded. Exercise, you need to burn off calories. Exercise, you need to work hard. Exercise, you are good at it or you suck at it. Exercise, needs to be hard. Exercise, you need to push yourself. Ok, you get it.

However, a new term ‘movement’ is often times used because of the different connotations. Movement is simply where you move your body – for fun. Not for weight loss. Not for calorie burning. Not because you should. Not because your doctor ordered you. But because you like it.

It’s fun to go on a walk. It doesn’t have to be a long walk. It doesn’t have to be high-stakes. Do it because it makes you feel good. Don’t have all these perfectionistic expectations on yourself.  

Paradoxically, by really embracing a lighter standard for success (one where you feel good and make it easy on yourself) has much higher chances of changing long-term behavior than pretty much anything else.

KK: How do you personally stick to good habits in terms of eating and exercise? 

JL: I’ll answer this one in an untraditional way, but it’s sooooooo important to understand this way of thinking. Let me break down the question a bit first of all, how do I ‘stick’ with good habits. Oftentimes this work ‘stick’ is used. It’s almost like I have to ‘stick’ with something because I don’t really like it. Like I don’t really like eating or exercising, but I am successful if I stick with something that I don’t like to do.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s a little bit of that. But ALL healthy people who don’t have to force themselves to ‘stick’ to their health routines, they are seeing health as a skill or as an exploration. Perhaps the best analogy is actually seeing health as a game. A game that’s fun to play. So … I don’t stick with good habits … I have found ways to make it a game, or a skill that I’m mastering, or a journey that I’m going on. This way I am intrinsically motivated. And this is the key here, intrinsic motivation. 

Intrinsic motivation starts with little success, and builds it’s way up. You’ve heard this before I’m sure. Just do a little bit each day. That’s true, but we really need to be careful. Just doing something each day isn’t enough. We need to feel that we can WIN. It’s this feeling that’s really important. We need to feel that we can IMPROVE. We need to feel that we can feel good, win and improve, etc … without killing ourselves in the process. 

I also talk a lot about perfectionism. Because oftentimes people will beat the sh*t out of themselves, without even knowing it, when they fall short. This is the worst thing possible. You might have just gotten a little win, but then your too-high-standards made this experience a miserable thing for you. So you literally shot yourself in the foot with your perfectionistic judgments about your work, your worth and your progress.

So to really embrace a mentality of play, exploration, and learning without judgment. One where you can experiment, test, and try things out. An attitude where you can make mistakes, be lazy sometimes and be motivated by genuine pleasure and self-interest. This is the most important thing.

KK: You mentioned that you lived as a zen monk for 13 months. Wow! How was it and what did you learn from that experience?

Oh, it was awesome! I lived at Tassajara up in the Big Sur mountain range. Because I had the experience there of healing my body, it’s always stuck with me. Like this whole eat intuitively thing, this whole thing … it’s about realizing you have it within you. But realizing this in a practical way. It’s one thing to believe and hear, you have it within you. But how do you live it? Well, one way is mindfulness. Another way is self-compassion. I started learning these things up there. And … I started trusting my body … See, I was away from all electronics. No phone, no internet, nothing. I was fairly desperate and filled with enough self-hatred to do something crazy like this. So … if I wasn’t so unhappy I probably wouldn’t have become a monk in the first place. However, after doing it, I now see it was an incredibly, incredibly beneficial experience. To have so much time to heal, to have so much time to reflect and meditate and just be totally surrounded by healthy positive thinking people in nature for months on end … Yeah, it was awesome.

KK: Awesome! What is one tip that all of us can follow to become more healthy?

JL: You need to sleep more. Yes, there are folks that only need 5 hours. You’re not one of them. Stop fooling yourself. Seriously, stop. I tried for years getting by on 6.5-7. Now I am no longer in denial. I know full well ahead of time that I need 8 hours. I need it. No more pretending that I can get by on less than that. Coming out of sleep denial for me has been huge. 

It’s really that I was in denial for so many years about sleep. I’d always think I didn’t need it. I’m not saying I always get 8 hours or that I don’t struggle. I do struggle with going to bed on time. Fortunately I sleep through the night but going to bed is tough.

But by being honest with myself, I have the mindset where I am doing the right things generally speaking – like winding down, giving myself time to relax, and going through a night time ritual. This tip is so important! Do not neglect it! The rest becomes WAY easier if you just get good sleep! Less cravings, way better decision making, more energy, etc. And without, the rest just doesn’t work as well. So embrace the zzzzzz.

KK: Where can people find out more about you and your services?

JL: Eating Enlightenment is my website. I’m also creating tons of content, which you can find by searching for Weight Loss Enlightenment on your podcast provider or on Youtube. Thanks for the interview!

Thanks so much Jared for your sharing your expertise and personal story with us. Check out his website to learn more from him!

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash