Ep 84 Kendall North Redefines Nutrition, Weight Loss & Diet Culture in Midlife

00:00:00] Meegan Care: So welcome to the podcast, Kendall North. Your business is called Deeply Nourished and you’re a holistic dietitian. Tell us about you and who you help.

[00:00:12] Kendall North: Okay. So I have been a dietitian for many, many years and it started for me growing up in a, in a large family of girls on a farm.

And I was always so curious as to why my sisters were slim and I wasn’t um, and at that time, and of course, all of the societal messaging and the family influences weight was a real focal point for me. You know, and, and how I developed my own attitudes and beliefs around food and my body. And I went on an exchange when I was 15, came back when I was 16 and I gained heaps of weight.

And of course, you know, that wasn’t very nice as a, as a, you know, a 16, 17 year old. And that was where my, my weight loss journey began. And my curiosity, So rather than go down, I always loved food. Like I just was really drawn to food. So rather than sort of going down the chefing line, which I want which I had originally sort of thought, I sort of changed my focus and I was like, I really want to learn about food and nutrition and basically like at that stage in my head, I was like, why am I the chubby sister?

Um, So that led me into to studying at Otago Uni with a Bachelor of Science in Human Nutrition. And then I went on to do my Dietetic degree. So yeah. And so before I answer that second part of your question, I think you know, that was like 20, you know, 20 years ago. And a lot’s happened since then.

And in my, in my twenties as a dietitian. Like I was a dietitian. I was doing really well. I was a group fitness instructor. Everything was, was great, but I was just so disillusioned with, with, with myself and my own journey, like having. All of the knowledge in the world and being active, it just created so much internal angst, you know, anxiety and pressure to look and be a certain way.

And on top of my already underlying issues that I had started to develop when I was a teenager. And so it just showed that, you know, all of the knowledge in the world isn’t enough to complete. Or live a life, you know, happy in your body and maintain a really good balance in your weight and overall health.

Yeah. Yeah. And so I went on to I had children and that was really challenging. And then after that I actually added in a degree in education at Victoria and, and taught health and and food and nutrition at, at high school. And I was like, okay, there’s a couple of cogs there. I’ve got nutrition, you know, the expert nutrition education.

And then I was like, shit, there’s still things missing. So I went and did a professional coaching course. And so really that started that whole momentum of, of behavior change.

[00:03:07] Meegan Care: Right.

[00:03:07] Kendall North: Yeah. For you personally? For me personally. Yeah. So so once I had added in all of those those things, I then have received really intensive mentoring to help work through all of my all of my journey to be able to do it for others.

Yeah.

[00:03:27] Meegan Care: Wow. And so then did that. End up changing how you work

[00:03:32] Kendall North: with people.

[00:03:34] Meegan Care: Absolutely.

[00:03:35] Kendall North: Cause not only was I just, yeah, well, I was so disillusioned with myself. That was one of the reasons I sort of, you know, and you, of course you have children and, and your whole life gets turned upside down anyway. So sort of coming into that new phase, I was like, actually being a dietician isn’t.

And the model that I had learned wasn’t fulfilling. It wasn’t robust enough for what I knew that needed to happen in order for someone to get the full transformation of, of their life, not just focused on body. Yeah, because there was

[00:04:08] Meegan Care: other layers that you were seeing that weren’t being addressed from your original training as a dietitian.

[00:04:15] Kendall North: Yeah, yeah. And absolutely. But also that you know, the humanistic model is a complex model and we know that, you know, most things are sort of 80 percent mindset you know, and behavior. And that’s the missing cog as to how people can move from getting educated to. actually doing the behaviors that, that enable you to live a healthy life.

Yeah.

[00:04:37] Meegan Care: Yeah. Cause there’s like that gap, it’s like a void that we have to somehow jump over. And so we know all that information in the world doesn’t necessarily lead to sustained behavior change.

[00:04:48] Kendall North: Yeah. And I was living proof of that. And I felt, yeah, so disillusioned professionally. And personally, and so it was not until I came back with a fresh, with a fresh perspective and having done my own personal work and working again with, with clients, particularly woman really looking at this this stuff from, from a, through a whole new lens.

[00:05:12] Meegan Care: Wow, I just, I’m really, like, feeling into how robust you as a coach must be to have that mindset piece that you’ve worked on more recently, as well as your own journey, and then that very evidence based approach. Strong, strong backgrounds as a dietitian. Yeah,

[00:05:34] Kendall North: absolutely. Huge.

[00:05:35] Meegan Care: Alright, we’ve got lots to get into.

This is exciting. So

[00:05:38] Kendall North: much. This is like the craziest topic that, you know, is so conflicting and so massive. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:05:44] Meegan Care: Yeah. So when we’re, we’re so obviously my audience is midlife women and you’re a midlife woman, right? So, so tell us a little bit about where you’re at with your, your personal journey.

[00:05:59] Kendall North: Yeah. So I in terms of so I’ve got two children in there, 10 and nine sorry, 11 and 10 now and so I, my personal journey through where I’m at now with my health and wellbeing is really unpacking or having unpacked all of the, for lack of a better word, bullshit attitudes and beliefs that I picked up along, along my journey and to then put them down.

And so, so now, because basically when you have, you know, perimenopause, like you’ve got, essentially, if you haven’t dealt with all of the stuff lurking and you haven’t processed all of those things of the, of the decades before, then in perimenopause, when, you know, physiologically your body starts to change from, Having its whole purpose around procreation to then to then moving forward into the next, that next step.

It’s like, well, what does that look like? I don’t have to look or be your, a certain way to attract the right partner to have babies and, and, you know, be, be okay and safe. What do I want my, this next phase of my life to look like? And feel like because perimenopause is so challenging. And of course, like for me it’s mood.

You know, when, when those levels of estrogen start fluctuating you know, it’s looking at health as a whole, especially for me that I can develop or have developed the tools and the strategies that don’t don’t crash me off course that enable me to work through. Those those feelings and emotions and, and poor behaviors to be able to, to, to keep going.

[00:07:45] Meegan Care: So that’s a really important piece, eh, because you, you talked about when we move into perimenopause and this, this sort of broader phase of midlife, our, physiologically our body’s going from this, drive, whether or not we have children, but the sort of biological drive in a way to procreate to something else that’s beyond that.

Yeah. And so then our body function changes, but our mood changes in the way our brain works changes and our values and our drivers are changing as well. So it’s like this massive overhaul. Yeah. Through menopause. It’s no wonder we lose our way.

[00:08:25] Kendall North: Absolutely. And you know, and so women come to me as a dietitian and go, Kendall, I can’t control my weight.

[00:08:32] Meegan Care: Yeah.

[00:08:34] Kendall North: And it’s like, okay. Yeah. And that’s a huge driving force because of course, you know, societally We have learned that in order to be to be loved and safe and secure, we need to look and be you know, a certain way or look a certain way. And so, yeah, which is, which is very, very challenging.

[00:08:53] Meegan Care: Yeah. And, and. Yeah, how fantastic. So when women come to you and they say Kendall, I’ve put on weight. I can’t lose weight It doesn’t matter what I do. It’s not budging, right? We hear that so much in midlife What do you say to them? Where do you start?

[00:09:12] Kendall North: Where do I start? Yes. So, okay, right. I want you to think of um, pimples and especially in perimenopause.

I went through a phase, I think it was more go, you know where I was getting the cystic acne. Have you, like, what do you do when you squeeze a pimple or acne? What happens?

[00:09:30] Meegan Care: It makes it worse.

[00:09:31] Kendall North: It makes it worse. Yeah. Yeah. You focus on it. It goes all red. Yeah. Yeah. It’s, it’s painful. It gets worse. And it goes gross and yucky and, and yeah, so does squeezing the pimples stop the pimples from coming back?

[00:09:49] Meegan Care: Definitely not. No, no,

[00:09:50] Kendall North: no, no. And so when I talk to women, you know, it’s like, if you it’s like a pimple, like weights, like a pimple, if you focus on it and using all of the old ways in which you’ve tried to control your weight in the past then it’s just going to make the problem worse because And saying that, you know, weight is a problem, and it is an issue for, for women.

But you know, there’s, there’s two things, It’s about looking at the core of the issue, the core of the problem. What is the core issues of, of having pimple breakouts? What’s the core issues of you being out of weight out of balance with your weight? And so these sort of two things that I focus on and, you know, looking at the systems and which woman have used historically to control their weight.

So unpacking all of these thoughts, feelings and emotions and beliefs around food and the bodies. And, and looking at ways they can they can create new, new dialogues. And so that’s sort of the first thing. Cause it’s. You know, growing up in an era, like you think of like our grandparents were on cabbage soup diets, you know parents were on weight watches we’re on keto and fasting and what, what’s our, what are our kids going to, going to do, be doing?

It’s just that, yeah, it’s just the same cycles reinvented over and over again through diet culture. Yep. Yeah. And

[00:11:20] Meegan Care: when you. You know, I’m putting myself in those shoes, right? I’m going to Kendall Knowles. She’s a holistic dietitian, and I just want to lose weight. Like, you’re my answer. You’re gonna tell me what to do, what actions to take, and I’m gonna lose weight.

And then you come back to me and say, well, it’s a little bit more complex than that. Like, how, I mean, obviously you’re framing it beautifully for women, because this is the work that we need to do. I wholeheartedly agree. Yeah. All of the weight and beauty standards and what it means to be a woman and all of that kind of stuff is wrapped up In diet culture.

[00:11:59] Kendall North: Yeah,

[00:12:00] Meegan Care: Is that like a massive kind of learning curve for your clients or are they like, right?

[00:12:06] Kendall North: Yeah, because they’re, you know, because woman like I’ve got a 70 year old woman at the moment, you know, she’s had her whole life of dieting. I mean, she’s come to me because she just doesn’t want to do it anymore.

And so, you know, it’s really looking at unpacking and, and, and erasing, not erasing, but addressing all of those, those those thoughts and, and all that education and, and reteaching her. What is important for her body and, and coach her through how to implement that cause essentially the second thing of the problem is women have got underlying unmet needs.

And women, we are so dedicated. Throughout the decades of our life and that procreation stage to serve others. To give and love and, and do everything for anyone else. When women come to me, it’s like, I need to work on myself. Like it’s about me now. And you know, and it’s about tuning in. Yeah, it’s a, it’s a stopping and tuning in to what you really want.

And, and what you really need to move forward in that next phase of your life.

[00:13:20] Meegan Care: Hugely. See, I’m really interested from a practitioner point of view, because I think I get women coming to me in my work where they’re sort of, they’re realizing that, they’re like, there’s something deeper I need to do. And I wonder if you get women coming to you and they’re a little bit more, I, I just need to shift my weight and then I’ll be okay.

And then this whole door is opened for that midlife kind of transition and journey.

[00:13:45] Kendall North: Yeah. And that’s pimple popping. You know, I pimple popped my whole life. I pimple popped in my profession and it’s, you know, and and so yes, it is absolutely common and it’s thinking, well, what am I missing? What do I need to work on?

Yeah. Yeah. And when it comes to nutrition you know, nutritionally at the end of the day, women have gone decades or years of undernourishing because if you’re in that, in that diet cycle, so you’ve got a weight issue. So then you, you you Go on a diet, whatever it is, or you do some sort of some sort of what’s the word I’m looking for?

Intervention. So whatever intervention somebody does it’s going to have these rebounding issues, right? And so for women, it’s like they, all of a sudden they take away food.

They’re not nourishing their body and their mind. They go into that whole focusing on the negatives rather than the positives. They get cravings and they get that rebound effect of, of cravings and binging um, and then of course, constipation, gut issues, headaches, poor mood, grumpy, poor sleep, and all of these issues just snowball out of control over the, over the course of these years.

And so then, you know, but the snowball that explodes at the bottom of the hell. And then so they look up to the top again and then start again on something new and they’re stuck in that cycle. Yeah. And

[00:15:17] Meegan Care: it’s

[00:15:20] Kendall North: just awful. And so no matter what it is, it’s like, actually, how do you get out of that cycle?

Stop popping pimples and, and focus. And so with nutrition helping women build a really strong scaffold. Of nourishing food as a, as a baseline, because I guarantee that if woman actually start to give the bodies what they require nutritionally, then they’re not going to have those off those rebounding effects of mood and hunger, which drive them to take and possibly eat certain foods.

You know, you think about like, you know, if you have a, if you have dinner, if you actually eat a really nourishing dinner, you don’t want a whole mess of big dessert or a block of chocolate.

[00:16:10] Meegan Care: That’s exactly right. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I remember early perimenopause because those Physiological changes. I would have breakfast.

I would have second breakfast. I’d still be hungry at 1130 I’d be having third breakfast and then lunch and it just went on and on like that and I had no understanding of What you said around the foundational You know getting those structures in place of really good nutrition because we’ve been so indoctrinated that if you want to be healthy in quote marks, right, and lose weight, then just eat less.

[00:16:48] Kendall North: Absolutely. Eat less, move more. It was, you know, that tagline.

[00:16:54] Meegan Care: Yeah. And then we end up exhausted, moody, falling asleep, eating all the sugar and all the carbs in the afternoon so I can just get a bit more energy. It’s that sort of endless cycle.

[00:17:06] Kendall North: Absolutely. And then, you know, cause a woman, the biggest struggle that women have is crashing at three o’clock.

Hello. Yeah, exactly. And you think as a woman, like what you need to do between three o’clock and bedtime. Yeah. You know, that’s huge. And if you haven’t fueled yourself well, and really taking care of your body, then essentially your body is hungry. It doesn’t want slow burning you know, healthy sources of, of, you know, carbohydrate and lean protein and vegetables.

It wants sugar and carbohydrates, you know, cause it, it feels it’s gonna, it sits under threat.

So it goes back to the fundamentals of actually taking care of your body because once you have focused, it’s like, You think of a waterfall, think of the waterfall in Pukekura Park. How many times have you seen bubbles, you know, get put into the waterfall?

We don’t start taking bubbles out one by one. We start to actually sort out the, the water supply and, and flush it out with good food. Because if you’re flushing it out with, with good food, automatically the food that you rely on you know, dissipates away.

[00:18:14] Meegan Care: Exactly. And then. For me, life became more simple once I sort of sorted out my breakfast.

And then maybe sometimes my lunch would be sorted, but my breakfast would just sustain me through the day and it took a few weeks to kick in, but it really got there. Yeah. So, so a counter that I’m hearing in my mind, putting myself in the shoes of a woman who would like to lose weight, and I’m one of those women that’s put on weight.

I don’t weigh myself, but a significant amount of weight in menopause.

[00:18:44] Kendall North: Yeah.

[00:18:45] Meegan Care: And I come to you and we’re talking about this, and this is great, you’re wanting me to eat more food and more nutritious food and get that thing going. My brain is still saying that, well, I’m not going to lose weight, I’m just going to put it on.

[00:18:57] Kendall North: Yeah.

[00:18:57] Meegan Care: Because we have all of that conditioning. How do we unwind that as women?

[00:19:02] Kendall North: Yeah, that’s a huge one. And it’s a process and I think, you know, and I’ll answer that. But first of all, we are conditioned and that those cognitive distortions essentially to to do everything perfectly.

Like we are perfect women. We , we do everything perfectly. We, we don’t make mistakes. And so it’s, and, and that happens with nutrition, is that people go think, okay, I wanna lose weight. And traditionally. People will then go and follow a diet plan that has a certain amount of calories with a certain amount of protein and whatever else.

But it’s too fast. Our body, our physical body and our mind are not built to make changes quickly. And so like you said, you started with breakfast. And when people come to me, if I see them in one session, Like they’ll get something out of it, but, but I don’t know how they’re going to respond after they changed their breakfast.

And so that’s why it’s important when you get mentorship and coaching to actually get support in order to overcome the other rebounding issues that may arise when you’ve changed one thing, it’s always going to offset or change another. So when you had changed your breakfast, what did you notice?

[00:20:17] Meegan Care: I noticed that I wasn’t hungry at 1030.

I had better energy in the afternoon. And then over time, so that’s been with me for months and months now, the shift. I just feel more nourished, like I’m not craving carbs. All the time. It’s pretty boring. ’cause I don’t, I can’t eat eggs, so it’s like, well, hmm.

[00:20:40] Kendall North: Yeah. But it’s

[00:20:41] Meegan Care: just the same every day.

[00:20:43] Kendall North: Yeah.

[00:20:43] Meegan Care: It’s made a massive difference to me.

[00:20:46] Kendall North: Yeah. That’s really awesome. And that’s the thing, I guess because you had that level of consciousness and, and drive to wanna be reflective and, and to look at, how you change and evolve with your breakfast and what that meant for you and what you could do to progress where whereas most of the women who are so stuck in that mentality of a plus B equals C do this and do this and you’re going to get this outcome when we know that that’s not how, how it rolls, maybe for a short time, if you do a plus B, you might get weight loss outcome, but when we know that that’s not sustainable.

[00:21:18] Meegan Care: Yeah.

[00:21:18] Kendall North: And so you implementing that slowly meant that you know, you could, your body and your mind had time to actually adjust to the changes rather than, yeah.

[00:21:28] Meegan Care: Yeah. So I’ve done the, I’ve done the old midlife keto diet thing. Yeah. And, and. I think, I’m a little bit ashamed to admit, but I even bought some scales.

Yeah. Because there was like, weighing yourself every day. This is a few years back. Yeah. Jesus, I just don’t want to be focused on food all the time. No. And measuring out half a cup of this and a half a cup of that. And knowing what, I’m like, I have got far more interesting things to do. It becomes an obsession, right?

[00:22:01] Kendall North: I was talking to her, it becomes an obsession rather than a skill that you’ve built into your whole toolkit. Yes. You know, and I’ve got a you know, a girl who’s done bodybuilding and, you know, I’ve just got her to chuck out the cup that she uses to measure her food. Cause it’s just, you know, like, and it’s just a small wins.

And so it’s behavior change knowing that that’s the cog, which gets the, gets everything revolving in the right direction. That’s the, that’s the cog, which takes the most work. Yes. Because, I mean, at the end of the day, like, we know, we know what’s healthy and what’s not. But most people come and say, but I don’t, but I can’t do it.

Yeah.

[00:22:48] Meegan Care: Yeah. And I also, this is just opening up so many doors for me, Kendal, because I’m thinking about when I did that little keto thing. I was, became focused on my weight and that became the, the issue that I was really focused on. And if I can just lose some weight, then I can fit into these jeans and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

But since I’ve just sort of made that simple shift around my breakfast and it has been months now, I noticed. I can bring in more exercise that I, like, the weights, like, I have more energy for that. It’s not such a struggle and it has been a huge struggle through menopause to want to do that. And then, like you said, that slow scaffolding is starting to happen.

So yeah, really reflecting on what you’re saying and finding it really useful for myself. Yeah. Awesome.

[00:23:37] Kendall North: Cause I mean, the scale, like, you know, like we use the Te Whare Tapa Whā model, you know, the four dimensions of wellbeing and that they’re all interrelated and, and what’s good if you can get your physical body and eating and sleep and, and nutrition sorted, then you’re going to have positive rebounding effects of more energy, positive mood, exercise, sleep.

And, and it goes on the positive you know, positive rather than, rather than Yeah, because with our bodies, you know, like when the, when the focus becomes on weight and we’re pimple popping and it just gets worse. I mean, cause weight still weight can still be a health goal, but it’s not the goal that’s going to get your butt out of bed to make yourself a good breakfast and, and.

And be, you know, be active. And so woman, I see it’s like, what is beyond, what is beyond weight? So in this new season of your life okay. So you’ve, we, we look at the bodies and the relationship with food and unpack all that really give gratitude to what your body has done for you to this point, even when we are older.

We try to wreck it and sabotage it and we’re mean to it and we, we talk to ourselves horribly and all of those sorts of things, actually what our bodies have done for us and then pick a new focus as to what we want from our bodies. And the next season of our life. And for most women, when I sit down and really get to the nitty gritties through coaching and looking down through the layers, women want to be happy, healthy.

They want to be able to eat and enjoy food. They want to be able to walk up the mountain, play with their grandkids, not get an illness that stops them from doing all of those things. Like that’s the essence of life.

[00:25:26] Meegan Care: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. That’s huge. And then I’m thinking, well, you’re helping your clients to connect to that.

And then that’s such a deeper why then I want to lose a few kilos. I want to fit back into those genes or whatever it is. Yeah, which is

[00:25:45] Kendall North: it, you know, and when people have that, that anxiety. That frantic anxiety over wanting to lose weight quickly and get into the jeans that’s about coming back and, and, and using those techniques of mindfulness, you know, meditation, breathing whatever it is that people do to bring yourself back and calm your body, calm your brain stem, get out of fight flight freeze mode and going to a conscious state.

Going will eating, will starving on one hand or will eating a block of chocolate, take me closer to my goals, my actual deep goals or further away from my goals. And so it’s working through the ickiness of those big emotions that cause people to impulsively make choices one way or the other.

[00:26:40] Meegan Care: That ultimately don’t serve us.

[00:26:42] Kendall North: No, that don’t serve us. That just keep us in that weight loss cycle.

[00:26:48] Meegan Care: Yeah, I think that, I think that’s really helpful, eh? Because I think there’s maybe a perception, for women that either I’m going to need to diet to maintain a good weight, or find a good weight, or I just let it all go.

Yeah. You know, whatever. Yeah. And sort of, and that’s a sort of a collapse in what I see. I wouldn’t say that’s accepted. It’s like one way or another. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which is

[00:27:17] Kendall North: really sad, isn’t it? Because us as women, you know, we’ve got so much more to give and so much more life to, to live you know beyond, beyond 40, you know, there’s that old cliche life beckons at 40.

Yeah, and it’s because you can learn to have a whole new appreciation for your life and what you want.

[00:27:38] Meegan Care: Yeah. Yeah. And I have found though that like, you know, from that sort of 45 to 50 age, you know, that life begins at 40. Yes, but we sort of have to unpack all of those belief systems and all of that templating that we’ve had from most of our parents and grandparents that actually life just kind of gets smaller and smaller the older that you get.

So that’s a real I call it an act of rebellion because you’re saying, saying no to that. And I, I hear that in your work as well.

[00:28:11] Kendall North: Absolutely. Cause once you say no to all of that rubbish how freeing is it? Like it’s so unbelievably freeing for you to feel empowered to choose. It’s like, I actually choose I choose this, like, what do I want to focus my life on now?

Do I want to die focusing on my weight?

[00:28:31] Meegan Care: Yeah,

[00:28:32] Kendall North: yeah,

[00:28:33] Meegan Care: yeah, exactly. Huge lessons there. I watched my mum go through that diet for all of her adult life until she, you know, six months before she passed away and she finally reached her, her desired weight, but that was because she was sick.

[00:28:48] Kendall North: Yeah. It’s terrible.

It’s just terrible. It’s so soul destroying.

[00:28:52] Meegan Care: Yeah. So what, what for a woman who maybe in perimenopause or early menopause, they’re like, well, this is all well and good, Megan and Kendall, you’re talking very beautifully philosophically, but I haven’t got energy to drag myself through the bloody day.

What do I do? Where do I start?

[00:29:10] Kendall North: Yeah, that’s a good question because, you know, again, a woman comes to me and I’m confused about what I should be eating.

[00:29:16] Meegan Care: Yeah.

[00:29:16] Kendall North: I don’t know who to listen to. And I certainly sure don’t know where to start. And that’s of course, you know, like when I say woman and of course I’ll speak broadly, but you know, like I do and we, I’m sure you do too, I know you do as you know, really That first session, it’s about listening and about getting a really good understanding of, you know, someone’s lifestyle, their medical needs, their, their history and around, you know, around food and helping them understand.

Where they want to go, so that’s the first thing. Is it really looking or having a reflection on? Journals good like an actual journal. Sometimes I just get women to journal, you know, the thoughts that they’re raw thoughts and feelings and emotions Writing down all of those old core beliefs around food and their bodies and And then giving appreciation, of course, and then looking at you know, what they want for the body.

So that’s the first thing. It’s mostly mindset, but then with nutrition, it’s of course, I do a very comprehensive nutrition assessment and, and it’s about like, okay, so you’ve got, we start here and we want to come here and we’ve got obviously all of these steps. Stone stepping stones. And it’s about helping woman understand to stop.

What’s the next logical step that you can take small step to stop you from trying to leap so far that you’re going to fall into the water and have to get back out and start again. And it’s that. It’s education around the process. Cause this is new for people. This is so new. Like knowing that me telling a person what they should eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and snacks is not essentially what women need.

It’s about going, what is the first nutritional thing that that you need to do that’s going to have the biggest impact on your life and your so that you can then start to, to, to figure out the course of action that you’d want to take and that’s kind of cutting through that overwhelm. I’m sure you see the woman with overwhelm.

So I don’t know if that answered your original question, but it does. It does.

[00:31:38] Meegan Care: And that’s, but it, it also highlights for me what a massive, shift in perspective and mindset that takes, so like you said, lots of education around that, and that it’s actually quite radical because we get all of these marketing messages around just do this diet and you’ll lose your meno belly, just take this supplement and you’ll whatever, lose the weight, you know, and so it’s a real shift around that.

Can you give like a concrete example of what one of those small steps along that journey might look like for one of your clients?

[00:32:19] Kendall North: Yes, let me think. Um, Okay, so an example would be a woman came to me and completely and utterly overwhelmed with food and dieting, no energy to do anything other than exist and get kids to to bed.

And isn’t it interesting, I think of one example and then all of a sudden I start to think about all my clients. I’m like, oh! That was coming in. Exactly. I’ll give you this example. That’s the, on the top of my head is that she she wasn’t eating, she was fasting and she wasn’t eating breakfast. And so the very first step is regular meals for women.

Women don’t like being stressed. If we’re starving, our cortisol levels are shooting through the roof and and things don’t go well. So the first thing is, is regular meals. So for her, it was like, right. Yeah. We need you to start, you know, how do you feel about having breakfast? And she was like, yeah. And I was like, what do you feel comfortable?

She goes, I don’t have an appetite. I doesn’t, you know, whatever. And I was like, okay, yeah, that’s cool. Remember that little stepping stone. I was like, what would you feel comfortable? Oh, also knowing that she’s an avid dieter, calorie counter control over food. So what could you manage for breakfast?

And she was like, I could manage the cereal that I normally have with some milk. I can’t remember what brand it was. And I was like, okay, well, so that’s, I said, is there anything else that, you know, you feel like you could manage? She was like, oh no, I think that’s, that’s, that’s enough. Of course there was other elements at play.

And so she went away and she implemented her breakfast. And as we, again, as we put in those stepping stones, those concrete stepping stones over time, cause I mean, I deliver this and coaching packages so that I’m there holding, holding hand, giving tools, strategies, resources, so that eventually my clients can go a happy way on their life and do it themselves.

Right. So over time, she was like, okay, right. My breakfast isn’t, keeping me full now. So then we worked on the quality of her breakfast. And then what, and so we just, so you can see that it was all just scaffolding up. So breakfast and we, and her coffee wasn’t serving her. And then we started to increase the quality of her breakfast.

And then like you said, with you, All of a sudden it’s like, Oh, I feel, I feel more energized at morning tea time. I’m not relying on more cups of coffee and in the, in the biscuits from the cookie jar or whatever, or you’re not in the fridge or at a cafe eating slice or whatnot. And then you think, okay, I’ve got more energy.

Oh, my gosh. Okay. Well, then I’m not as starving for lunch. So I can then eat, sit down and eat my lunch. And then in that process, just, just continue. So you’re, you’re constantly adding in elements as to what is most important to the client and is going to have the biggest impact. The lowest hanging fruit.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:35:18] Meegan Care: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:35:19] Kendall North: Rather than going, right. You have this for breakfast, this for lunch, this for dinner. Okay. Yeah. I’ll see you in three weeks. That doesn’t work.

[00:35:26] Meegan Care: Why doesn’t it work, Kendall?

[00:35:29] Kendall North: It doesn’t work because because none of those rebounding issues are accounted for. So someone might have what they call a perfect what they call a perfect breakfast, but then it might cause them to, they might have gut issues from it, or they might get constipated.

Or they might be too full at lunch and they not have lunch, or they might be they might not be able to afford it, or they might, they might have something happen and they can’t prepare that food that day. Or they’ve decided that they’re going to have fish for lunch every day. And then all of a sudden I don’t like fish anymore.

And then they’re like, sure, well, what do I do now? Like and so I guess again, it’s teaching women the flexibility and the eating. Like you want to, in teaching women to make the best choice. and the situation that they’re in and, and that being enough.

[00:36:18] Meegan Care: Love that. Love that. Yes. Cause I’m thinking about what are, what is the first thing that we do if we think about wanting to lose weight?

We drop food items. We try and not have the cake and the chocolate and the, this and the, that, and we, we bring in the salads and all the rest of it. I’m sure you do. Punish, punish,

[00:36:34] Kendall North: punish, punish, punish, punish, punish.

[00:36:36] Meegan Care: Punish.

[00:36:36] Kendall North: Punishing our body into submission is just hurting it. Cause then when you fail and not perfect, then you beat yourself up and goodness knows, you know, like the woman, when women start to really tune into, into these thoughts, cause remember our thoughts elicit emotions and emotions, illicit behaviors, or then really when you go back to it, it’s like, why am I, why am I binging on a block of chocolate when I’ve just said to myself.

That I don’t want to have chocolate because I want to lose weight. Yeah. Absolutely. Going back to the drawing board. And of course, like I, I’m not a therapist um, a psychologist, I, I work on positive psychology principles. It’s like, what can you, again, what can you add in rather than focus on taking out

[00:37:26] Meegan Care: Got ya.

Yeah. And I think what that is doing is empowering us to be able to nourish our bodies for the rest of our life. Rather than rely on this diet plan that Kendall gave me that I have to, you know, adhere to. Otherwise I’m having all of these guilty thoughts and shame and internal punishment.

[00:37:48] Kendall North: It’s just like being dictated to and you know what, like, I haven’t really met anyone who really loves to be told what to do. It’s not just me then. We like, people like to be told what to do around food because it’s one less thing they have to worry about. But the, of course, I’ve mentioned it a lot of times is they, that doesn’t account for, for actually the unmet needs that are going on behind, you know, below the surface, which is actually what do like when you’ve gone through this process of course of nourishing and this new phase of your life, like what do you actually want out of life, your day to day life?

[00:38:29] Meegan Care: And those are questions that we need to take time with and really look at. And I think for a lot of women, we just haven’t had time to look at it. We’ve maybe got married, had children, had a career or whatever, some parts of that. And the, what do I really want?

[00:38:50] Kendall North: Yeah.

[00:38:51] Meegan Care: Has been way in the

[00:38:54] Kendall North: Absolutely.

[00:38:55] Meegan Care: Yeah.

[00:38:56] Kendall North: Absolutely. And it seems so simple, but it’s How amazing is it as a person, you know, when you’re doing the work and you’re on the journey to actually have the ability to tune into your body and listen to what it’s telling you. It’s

massive,

[00:39:17] Meegan Care: isn’t it?

[00:39:18] Kendall North: It’s just massive. Yeah. It’s massive. And when you go into that flurry and that deprivation weight panic and you drop everything in order to get a certain outcome of weight. And you’re depriving yourself of. And we’re gonna talk a little bit about the different levels of love and connection through food.

Through doing having the energy to do the things that bring you joy and calm. You know, whether it be exercise or looking outside or or having when you go into that deprivation panic of being moody and hangry and raging at your kids or your partner or whatever. Fights, your relationships go downhill.

You know, your sleep’s upset. And that’s, of course, that whole, you know, that whole Te Whare Tapa Whā, one thing goes, one side of the wall goes, then the other, you know, it becomes a really unstable structure.

[00:40:12] Meegan Care: Well, Kendall, you have given us so much to think about. And I’m also very aware that we’ve really just Scratch the surface.

[00:40:22] Kendall North: I know.

[00:40:23] Meegan Care: But it is, you know, this is, I firmly believe that this is our task in midlife and it is, if we do this work through whatever lens, like working with yourself, working with me, we are on the path to liberating ourselves for the rest of our life.

Yeah. And that’s, that’s just so huge. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Is there anything we have not spoken about that, through this conversation, there’s something you really want people, women, to hear?

[00:40:59] Kendall North: Well I want women to hear and I want women to understand that when you release yourself from being the victim of societal Expectations and, and release yourself from being the victim of having a poor relationship with food.

And you do feel liberated. Even if you do have weight issues or you are carrying a bit of extra weight, that stuff becomes, I won’t say irrelevant, but that stuff doesn’t become the focus, you know? And Yeah. And on the other side of that is just, is life. On the other side of that is life, I would say. So, I guess just the messages is that if you are or have experienced, you know weight issues or you have a poor relationship with your body or food, you’re feeling overwhelmed, confused, and you don’t know what to do, who to listen to, where to start.

Then please get in touch with, you know, myself or you, because the, the other process that I’ve learned is that it doesn’t matter where the journey begins you know, myself or you, or some other practitioner will be a stepping stone that moves you closer to, to the next stepping stone of being able to access what you need.

[00:42:26] Meegan Care: Yeah, love that so much. So how can women get in touch with you if they want to spend more time with your wisdom or indeed work with you?

[00:42:36] Kendall North: So I, I’ve actually got a brand new website that’s being created at the moment and I, on that website, I’ve, I’ve developed and developing Huge amounts of resources for people to be able to access, to get them started no matter where they are at in their life or or budget or, or whatever that’s coming.

And that’ll be www. deeplynourished. co. nz on my social, I’ve been a bit quiet on my actual socials because I wish there was more hours in a day. And sometimes, you know to be honest, I put way too many hours into social media last year and not enough time and energy into creating this stuff.

So I’ve really tried to balance that myself so that I can so I’ve got some group programs coming up. So there’s lots of different ways I can be accessed, but if someone wants to reach out, just look me up on, on Facebook or Instagram and and send me a message and we can chat through exactly what they.

where they’re at, what they need. I offer free to the 10 minute calls or a bit of a chat and a meet and greet just to see if, if, if what they’re after is something that I can help with, or we make a good, we would make a good team. Cause you know, like with coaching, like we don’t tell people what to do, right?

It’s a, it’s a collaboration of and a partnership essentially Of evolution. getting, yeah. Working towards something. Yeah.

[00:43:53] Meegan Care: Beautiful. Yeah. So you have to have some kind of magnetism or interest in each other really to make a good team. Absolutely. To be able to encourage that for the client.

Absolutely.

[00:44:05] Kendall North: Because when we’re working with these issues, there’s always going to be tears and emotions. And that’s how I know that it’s important to somebody. Yeah. It’s when I start to cry and I’m like, and then as women apologize, not please don’t apologize, please cry and have an ugly cry. If you need to, This is normal and this is what this is why you’re here.

Yeah,

[00:44:24] Meegan Care: that’s right. Yeah. Let’s not apologize for our tears when you were we’ll round things off now. But when you were speaking about, you know, how meaningful this work can be for our lives and how important it is for us for as women. I felt that emotion because it like it means so much to me. And it means so much to me to see women being able to connect to that now

[00:44:50] Kendall North: I’m getting emotional because it’s just, you know, of course, like for me having experience or, you know, had these experiences myself.

And also having, you know, it’s taken me 20 years of, of life and professional experience and and all of these education, all of this education to be able to get to a place to deliver it in a way that can actually help people. Yeah. Which is, yeah. So it doesn’t makes me emotional because it’s, I’m not going to admit it’s really hard going against the grain of society and weight loss diets.

and coaches and, you know, and when we’re focusing on things like protein and it becomes out of balance and out of context and it becomes an obsession rather than a tool or a skill then that’s when, you know, it’s like, Oh no.

[00:45:43] Meegan Care: Yeah. We’re not on trend, are we, Kendall? But we are at the forefront, I believe, of what actually women are seeking when they scratch beneath the surface.

That’s been the feedback I’ve had from women.

[00:45:58] Kendall North: Self love, self compassion. Hey, have you got women who when they actually They actually look, stop, and actually give themselves, give themselves some love and compassion. What opens up for them?

[00:46:13] Meegan Care: Oh, yeah, all the time. You know, it’s like huge for them, and I think sometimes a sense of self freedom or self ignition in their life.

That they didn’t know was missing.

[00:46:31] Kendall North: Mm hmm.

[00:46:32] Meegan Care: And this is even in amongst all of the perimenopause, menopause, all of that, because if you can contextualize that, yeah, for women in a way, that’s empowering.

[00:46:43] Kendall North: Mm

[00:46:44] Meegan Care: hmm. It no longer becomes this thing that we necessarily just What to suppress or have over and done with within a couple of months and we’re we’re yes There are struggles, but the meaning of what we’re opening up to is Yeah, so powerful

[00:47:01] Kendall North: Absolutely, and you can feel and have the best life Carrying a little bit of extra weight around your middle Well, I’m living proof of that, my friend.

Or even, even he’s not like there’s no, there’s no, there’s no perfect model. There’s just, there’s just us beautiful. We should have one thing just before we wrap up. And I think one of the things that helped me was really giving appreciation for the fact that I carry two babies. And that when they hug me, my purpose, like them, them hugging me is that all they’re feeling is warmth and love and squishiness and affection.

They don’t care what we look

[00:47:44] Meegan Care: like. Absolutely. Absolutely. And this is the inherent purpose and meaning of our body to carry us through life. You know? Yeah. No. that my belly has gotten bigger.

[00:47:59] Kendall North: Yeah. And yeah, and we haven’t even touched on how to breathe that. I, Oh God, that’s just, it opens up a whole new, a whole new world.

That’s actually a good

[00:48:09] Meegan Care: topic for another one. It is. It is. Yeah. All right, Kendall, this has been amazing. I thank you very much. We’ll call it a day, but I feel incredibly inspired by our conversation. So thank you so much. Thank

[00:48:22] Kendall North: you, Megan, for having me. Yeah. Absolutely loved it. And thanks to everyone who listens