Our society has a keen knack for creating stigmas that make us feel less than. Diet culture and this restrictive mentality around food are slowly killing our bodies natural rhythm, and that is what Dana Monsees is dedicated to helping correct. Entrepreneur, nutritionist, and founder of Real Food with Dana, Dana is passionate about helping people realize that smaller is not necessarily better. How To Break-up With Diets & Regain Your Power This episode is all about healing your relationship with food, finding a nutritional path that works for you, and dismissing what society thinks of your size and being content with who you are. Dana is here to create a space to think about how you approach food, explain why restriction diets are not always better, and share ways that you can motivate yourself to make the changes you want to make. Dana believes that by understanding diet culture and what it subconsciously forces us to do, we can break free of these limitations and find our bliss. When you are able to find the middle ground between crash diets and falling off the wagon, you can find a place of true body acceptance. Dana encourages you to ditch the diet cycle, break down your fearful or anxious relationship with food and exercise, and start removing those triggers to trust your body. By focusing on an abundance mindset you can stop relying on controlling your diet and exercise to give your life sanity, and instead enjoy the freeness of the human experience. Dana has a wealth of nutrition knowledge and strong opinions to help you make sustainable lifestyle changes and improve how you interact with food and your body. It is time to break free of the diets and beliefs that have kept you hating your body and start embracing the beauty you hold inside. How do you relate to Dana’s story of disordered eating and regaining your strength? Share with us in the comments section on the episode page.   On Today's Episode Thinking critically about the things we do as a society and how it impacts our body image How to identify a shame spiral and get out of it without destroying yourself Identifying where your nutrition overload is coming from how to remove those influences Practical ways to pull back on the way you restrict yourself in all walks of life What it is like to navigate the Olympic weight lifting space without becoming body obsessed   Quotes “Food and sustainable lifestyle changes can make a big difference in peoples health without doing any therapy type nutrition or medical intervention.” (11:24) “A lot of the clinical manifestations that I see in my practice are because people are overstressed, overworked, under eating and over exercising because they don't feel worthy enough in their bodies to take up space.” (15:37) “Just being in a larger body doesn't predispose you to have all these health conditions. It is the lifestyle choices that you make that are actually causing the health conditions.” (31:25) “List the millions of diets out there that have all worked for someone, and that still doesn't necessarily mean it is going to work for you.” (45:24) “It is because I have finally come to a place where I care about nourishing my body instead of trying to make myself take up less space.” (1:04:37)   Resources Mentioned In This Show Break the Diet Cycle Course - Sign-up With Your Email For Future Launches Real Food with Dana Website Real Talk with Dana Podcast Follow Real Food with Dana on Facebook | Instagram | Pinterest Contact Dana at realfoodwithdana@gmail.com Women’s Ideal Body Types Throughout Time - BuzzFeed Pre-Order The Core 4 by Steph Gaudreau   Check out the full show notes here! Follow Steph on Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube | Pinterest I'd really love it if you would take 1 min and leave us a rating and review on iTunes!