This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rethinkingwellness.substack.com

Writer, speaker, and weight-inclusive health/fitness professional Ragen Chastain joins us to discuss the potential side effects and other downsides of using GLP-1 drugs (like Ozempic and its ilk) for weight loss, the massive influence the manufacturers of these drugs are having on the public discourse about them, why the media don’t often report on these conflicts of interest, how drugmakers have co-opted talking points about weight stigma and weight cycling, how opposition to these drugs in some integrative- and functional-medicine spaces still perpetuates stigmatizing ideas about body size, and more. 

Paid subscribers can hear the full interview, and the first half is available to all listeners. To upgrade to paid, go to rethinkingwellness.substack.com. 

Ragen Chastain is a speaker, writer, researcher, Board Certified Patient Advocate, multi-certified health and fitness professional, and thought leader in weight science, weight stigma, health, and healthcare. Utilizing her background in research methods and statistics, Ragen has brought her signature mix of humor and hard facts to healthcare, corporate, conference, and college audiences from Kaiser Permanente and the Diabetes Education Specialists National Conference, to Amazon and Google, to Dartmouth, Cal Tech and canfitpro. Author of the Weight and Healthcare newsletter, the book Fat: The Owner's Manual, co-author of HAES Health Sheets, and editor of the anthology The Politics of Size, Ragen is frequently featured as an expert in print, radio, television, and documentary film. In her free time, Ragen is a national dance champion, triathlete, and marathoner who holds the Guinness World Record for Heaviest Woman to Complete a Marathon. Ragen lives in Oregon with her fiancée Julianne and a rotating cast of foster dogs.

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Support the podcast by becoming a paid subscriber, and unlock great perks like extended interviews, subscriber-only Q&As, full access to our archives, commenting privileges and subscriber threads where you can connect with other listeners, and more. Learn more and sign up at rethinkingwellness.substack.com.

Christy's second book, The Wellness Trap, is available wherever books are sold! Order it here, or ask for it in your favorite local bookstore. 

If you're looking to make peace with food and break free from diet and wellness culture, come check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rethinkingwellness.substack.com

In this bonus episode, Christy discusses the science (or lack thereof) behind the wellness-culture slogan “sunlight before screen light.” 

This episode is for paid subscribers. Listen to a free preview here, and sign up for a paid subscription to hear the full episode!

Get full show notes and references here.

Christy's second book, The Wellness Trap, is available wherever books are sold! Order it online or ask for it in your favorite local bookstore. 

If you're looking to make peace with food and break free from diet and wellness culture, come check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rethinkingwellness.substack.com

Employee well-being consultant and health coach Heather Sayers Lehman joins us to discuss how workplace wellness programs often make people LESS well by promoting disordered eating, body shame, and even some woo-woo wellness trends. She also shares her history with diet and wellness culture, how having thyroid issues made her vulnerable to wellness misinformation, and more. 

Paid subscribers can hear the full interview, and the first half is available to all listeners. To upgrade to paid, go to rethinkingwellness.substack.com. 

Heather Sayers Lehman, MS, NBC-HWC, CSCS, NASM-CPT, CIEC, CWP, is a behavior change expert and certified health and wellness coach. She has enjoyed a passionate career in health and well-being for over 30 years. Heather is a TEDx speaker who loves speaking engagements for employee well-being and conferences.

She founded and operates Overcoming U - Cultivating Employee Well-Being. Overcoming U provides in-depth health and well-being courses, webinars, and health coaching for employee wellness programs. The focus is building skillsets and changing mindsets to create and maintain healthy habits. 

Heather hosts the podcast The Air We Breathe: Finding Well-Being That Works. She enjoys candid conversations with experts, doctors, creatives, and activists, debunking health myths, navigating health enhancement without diet culture, and learning to seek peace over perfection. 

She authored Don’t Eat It. DEAL With It! Second Edition: Your Guidebook on How to STOP Eating Your Emotions to help you create a healthier relationship with food. The guidebook enables you to improve self-talk, expand emotional coping skills, create mindful eating practices, and foster self-compassion.

You can find Heather at HeatherSayersLehman.com and OvercomingU.com. She is available for one-on-one health coaching, employee wellness program consulting, and weight-inclusive, anti-diet health education for employees.

If you like this conversation, subscribe to hear lots more like it! 

Support the podcast by becoming a paid subscriber, and unlock great perks like extended interviews, subscriber-only Q&As, full access to our archives, commenting privileges and subscriber threads where you can connect with other listeners, and more. Learn more and sign up at rethinkingwellness.substack.com.

Christy's second book, The Wellness Trap, is available wherever books are sold! Order it here, or ask for it in your favorite local bookstore.

If you're looking to make peace with food and break free from diet and wellness culture, come check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rethinkingwellness.substack.com

Journalist and author Kate Leaver joins us to discuss her experience with long Covid, all the weird wellness-y stuff she tried out of desperation, and why it’s so hard to think critically about interventions that promise healing when you’re so sick you barely have the energy to read an email, let alone do a deep dive into the science. She also shares how working with a naturopath as a kid sparked her eating disorder, how she found her way to recovery, and lots more.

Paid subscribers can hear the full interview, and the first half is available to all listeners. To upgrade to paid, go to rethinkingwellness.substack.com. 

Kate Leaver is an author, journalist and former professional fairy. She’s worked for a glossy magazine, a leading Australian women’s website, an evening radio show, and the digital offshoot of a major literary franchise. She covers topics like love, science, celebrity, pop culture and why dogs are so great. She’s currently writing her debut novel and she publishes the newsletter ENTHUSIASM. 

If you like this conversation, subscribe to hear lots more like it! 

Support the podcast by becoming a paid subscriber, and unlock great perks like extended interviews, subscriber-only Q&As, full access to our archives, commenting privileges and subscriber threads where you can connect with other listeners, and more. Learn more and sign up at rethinkingwellness.substack.com.

Christy's second book, The Wellness Trap, is available wherever books are sold! Order it here, or ask for it in your favorite local bookstore. 

If you're looking to make peace with food and break free from diet and wellness culture, come check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rethinkingwellness.substack.com

In this bonus episode, Christy discusses the GLP-1 hype pipeline, how celebrities like Oprah have helped keep the hype flowing, and how to keep your cool when the whole world is losing their sh*t over the latest wellness/diet fad.

This episode is for paid subscribers. Listen to a free preview here, and sign up for a paid subscription to hear the full episode!

Get full show notes and references here.

Christy's second book, The Wellness Trap, is available wherever books are sold! Order it online or ask for it in your favorite local bookstore. 

If you're looking to make peace with food and break free from diet and wellness culture, come check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rethinkingwellness.substack.com

Registered dietitians and diabetes educators Jessica Jones and Wendy Lopez join us to discuss why people with diabetes don’t need to focus on weight loss, why the popular wellness-culture notion of diabetes “remission” or “reversal” can be harmful, how the popularity of Ozempic and other GLP-1 drugs as diet drugs is affecting people who use them for diabetes, the continuous-glucose-monitor trend among people without diabetes, Jess’s experience navigating prediabetes and other health conditions, and more. 

Paid subscribers can hear the full interview, and the first half is available to all listeners. To upgrade to paid, go to rethinkingwellness.substack.com. 

Wendy Lopez and Jessica Jones are nationally recognized Registered Dietitian Nutritionists and Certified Diabetes Care and Education Specialists. With over a decade of clinical experience, they have helped thousands of individuals improve their relationship with food and achieve better health outcomes. Wendy and Jessica are the co-founders of Diabetes Digital, an innovative telehealth platform designed to empower individuals to manage and prevent diabetes through 1:1 virtual nutrition counseling. Through their previous work with Food Heaven, Wendy and Jess have made a lasting impact on nutrition and wellness, promoting healthier relationships with food and inclusive health education. The Food Heaven Podcast, boasting 5 million downloads, explores evidence-based nutrition, mental health, HAES, intuitive eating, and body respect.

If you like this conversation, subscribe to hear lots more like it! 

Support the podcast by becoming a paid subscriber, and unlock great perks like extended interviews, subscriber-only Q&As, full access to our archives, commenting privileges and subscriber threads where you can connect with other listeners, and more. Learn more and sign up at rethinkingwellness.substack.com.

Christy's second book, The Wellness Trap, is available wherever books are sold! Order it here, or ask for it in your favorite local bookstore. 

If you're looking to make peace with food and break free from diet and wellness culture, come check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rethinkingwellness.substack.com

Writer and linguist Amanda Montell joins us to discuss “magical overthinking” and the cognitive biases that make us vulnerable to misinformation, celebrity culture and its intersections with wellness culture, how to deal with panic headlines, cultish language to watch out for in wellness spaces, and more. 

Paid subscribers can hear the full interview, and the first part is available to all listeners. To upgrade to paid, go to rethinkingwellness.substack.com. 

Amanda Montell is a writer and linguist from Baltimore. She is the author of the acclaimed books Wordslut, Cultish, and The Age of Magical Overthinking (Bookshop affiliate links). Along with hosting the podcast Sounds Like a Cult, her writing has also appeared in The New York Times, Marie Claire, Harper's Bazaar, and more. She holds a degree in linguistics from NYU and lives in Los Angeles with her partner, plants, and pets. Find her on Instagram @Amanda_Montell.

If you like this conversation, subscribe to hear lots more like it! 

Support the podcast by becoming a paid subscriber, and unlock great perks like extended interviews, subscriber-only Q&As, full access to our archives, commenting privileges and subscriber threads where you can connect with other listeners, and more. Learn more and sign up at rethinkingwellness.substack.com.

Christy's second book, The Wellness Trap, is available wherever books are sold! Order it here, or ask for it in your favorite local bookstore. 

If you're looking to make peace with food and break free from diet and wellness culture, come check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rethinkingwellness.substack.com

Christy answers an audience question about the “adrenal body type” and unpacks the weight stigma, ageism, and pseudoscience embedded in this twist on the dubious diagnosis of “adrenal fatigue.”

The full version of this episode is for paid subscribers. Listen to the first question here, and sign up for a paid subscription to hear the rest!

Get full show notes and references here.

Ask a question of your own for a chance to have it answered in a future episode!

Christy's second book, The Wellness Trap, is available wherever books are sold. Order it here, or ask for it in your favorite local bookstore. 

If you're looking to make peace with food and break free from diet and wellness culture, check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rethinkingwellness.substack.com

Endocrinologist Gregory Dodell joins us to discuss myths and facts about hormones, including the problems with doing diets and supplement protocols for “hormone balancing,” why weight-loss recommendations aren’t helpful for hormone health, how to manage thyroid conditions without falling prey to wellness fads, the truth about “adrenal fatigue,” the Ozempic craze, and more.

Paid subscribers can hear the full interview, and the first part is available to all listeners. To upgrade to paid, go to rethinkingwellness.substack.com. 

Gregory Dodell, MD FACE is a board-certified endocrinologist. He received his medical degree from Albany Medical College. He completed his internal medicine and endocrinology Fellowship at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center, affiliated with Columbia University. He is the President of Central Park Endocrinology, PC.

If you like this conversation, subscribe to hear lots more like it! 

Support the podcast by becoming a paid subscriber, and unlock great perks like extended interviews, subscriber-only Q&As, full access to our archives, commenting privileges and subscriber threads where you can connect with other listeners, and more. Learn more and sign up at rethinkingwellness.substack.com.

Christy's second book, The Wellness Trap, is available wherever books are sold! Order it here, or ask for it in your favorite local bookstore.

If you're looking to make peace with food and break free from diet and wellness culture, come check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rethinkingwellness.substack.com

Registered nutritionist, author, and friend of the pod Laura Thomas joins us to unpack the problematic notion that you need to eat a ridiculously large number of plants per week for gut health, and what we actually know about how plant foods affect the gut microbiome. We also get into how to distinguish good science from hype, how ultra-processed foods have become so demonized despite a lack of strong evidence, how anti-fat bias is baked into the discourse about both gut health and ultra-processed foods, and lots more. 

Paid subscribers can hear the full interview, and the first part is available to all listeners. To upgrade to paid, go to rethinkingwellness.substack.com. 

Laura is a Registered Nutritionist who helps people feel less afraid of the food they eat and more comfortable in their bodies. Through her work with individuals and families, as well as in her writing, she challenges dominant ideals about ‘good’ and ‘bad’ foods and ‘good’ and ‘bad’ bodies. She holds a PhD in Nutritional Sciences from Texas A&M University, and worked as a post-doctoral research associate at Cornell University before starting her private practice. More recently she received a diploma in Clinical Nutrition and Eating Disorders from UCL. She has published two books: Just Eat It and How To Just Eat It, both of which focus on healing our relationship with food and our body through Intuitive Eating. Her clinical work is focussed on supporting families to end the intergenerational transmission of body shame and disordered eating. She writes the newsletter Can I Have Another Snack?

If you like this conversation, subscribe to hear lots more like it! 

Support the podcast by becoming a paid subscriber, and unlock great perks like extended interviews, subscriber-only Q&As, full access to our archives, commenting privileges and subscriber threads where you can connect with other listeners, and more. Learn more and sign up at rethinkingwellness.substack.com.

Christy's second book, The Wellness Trap, is available wherever books are sold! Order it here, or ask for it in your favorite local bookstore.

If you're looking to make peace with food and break free from diet and wellness culture, come check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course.

This episode is an audio version of this week’s newsletter, which is an essay about the one-year anniversary of this podcast, what’s working and what’s not, and a new experiment we’re trying with the bonus interviews starting this week.  

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Get full show notes and references here.

Christy's second book, The Wellness Trap, is available wherever books are sold! Order it online or ask for it in your favorite local bookstore. 

If you're looking to make peace with food and break free from diet and wellness culture, come check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course. 

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rethinkingwellness.substack.com/subscribe