#265: How to Avoid the Wellness Diet in the New Year with Harri Rose of Anti-Diet Riot Club, and Thinking Critically About Elimination Diets with Guest Co-Host Ayana Habtemariam

Food Psych Podcast with Christy Harrison

Coach, author, and Anti Diet Riot Club co-creator Harri Rose joins us to discuss how to avoid The Wellness Diet and other forms of diet culture in the New Year, how diet culture is trying to infiltrate the anti-diet movement, the harms of social media despite being a tool for connection, life beyond body positivity, and so much more. Plus, in ”Ask Food Psych” guest co-host Ayana Habtemariam answers a listener question about whether limiting foods that trigger digestive symptoms is a form of restriction.

Harri Rose is a coach, author and one voice in Anti Diet Riot Club. Harri believes that for too long we have been apologising for our bodies, and that diet culture and beauty standards are holding many of us back from living life.

With no memories of liking her body even from a young age, Harri went on her first diet at the age of 13. This began more than a decade of disordered eating and misery at the hands of intense dieting and weight cycling. She went to university with what she now understands as an undiagnosed eating disorder but because she ‘never became thin’, she never would have called it so. After training to be a health coach, during what she had at the time considered her recovery, she also slid the slippery slope of ‘toxic wellness’.

Harri finally fully healed her relationship with food and her body through Intuitive Eating, learning massage therapy (and discovering how incredible human anatomy is) the rise of the body positivity movement. An important strand to her work is to spread the word that bodies are not political which she does via the rebellious community Anti Diet Riot Club.

For the last five years, she’s been teaching body acceptance via her 1:1 coaching, blog and workshops and in 2019, she had her first book published entitled You Are Enough (Octopus Publishing).

Most recently, she is the creator of Wonder Collective. Wonder Collective is the first club where recovering dieters and disordered eaters can embrace the magic of life through 13 'Pillars of Wonder'. These pillars include for e.g. curiosity, play, belonging and acceptance and take members *beyond* thinking about their body, even in a positive way, to refocus on all that makes life juicy.

She is happiest in a festival field or curled up with a book. And is a self-proclaimed coffee addict. She lives in Bristol with her partner and dog. Find her online at HarriRose.com.

Ayana Habtemariam MSW, RD, LDN, is a nutrition therapist, certified intuitive eating counselor, and macro social worker based in Arlington, Va. She is the owner of Truly Real Nutrition, LLC, a private nutrition practice where she empowers clients to give up dieting in exchange for trusting their bodies and breaking free from food rules that result in feelings of failure and shame. She encourages her clients to embrace the beauty, power, and connection that their food traditions, personal experiences, and values add to their lives. She provides nutrition therapy for clients with disordered eating and those who are recovering from an eating disorder.

She is committed to increasing awareness of weight inclusive philosophies in Black communities and believes that weight-centric approaches to health and wellness only serve to exacerbate body image issues, stress, and anxiety which contribute to increased rates of chronic diseases often seen in Black communities. Find her online at TrulyRealNutrition.com.

If you're ready to break free from diet culture once and for all, come check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course.

Christy's book, Anti-Diet, is available wherever you get your books. Order online at christyharrison.com/book, or at local bookstores across North America, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand.

Grab Christy's free guide, 7 simple strategies for finding peace and freedom with food, for help getting started on the anti-diet path.

For full show notes and a transcript of this episode, go to christyharrison.com/foodpsych.

Ask your own question about intuitive eating, Health at Every Size, or eating disorder recovery at christyharrison.com/questions.