Episode 90: Coping in College: Eating Disorder Risk in College Students with Allison Mandell
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Episode Description
In this episode of The Up-Beet Dietitians podcast, Emily and Hannah are joined by a fellow non-diet dietitian, Allison Mandell. Allison is especially passionate about studying the correlation between college students and their risk of developing an eating disorder because of her past history and personal investment in it. If you are a college student or know someone who is a college student, we highly recommend tuning in to learn about potential factors that could affect someone’s risk of developing disordered eating habits. Allison also shares what to look out for if you think someone (or yourself) may be developing some dysfunctional eating behaviors. If you’re looking for help for yourself or someone else, Allison shares great places to start.
Additional Resources
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hello guys welcome back to a brand new episode of the upbeat dietitians podcast we are getting back into our
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I was gonna say guest train but that just sounds stupid we have guests back on the podcast now we took a little
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Hiatus from it just too many like life events for Emily and I going on the last few months that it was just hard to also
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throw some guests in there and get our schedules to all work out so we took a little break but we are back and
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bringing our Hiatus to an end does Allison Mandel Allison's a friend that we met recently at a nutrition
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conference she is a non-diet help at every size aligns and weight inclusive registered dietitian she works as an
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eating disorder dietitian at a partial Hospital an intensive outpatient program in New Jersey during the day and as a
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remote dietitian for a private practice at night as an undergrad she completed a dual degree in nutrition and psychology
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and she later completed her master's at Rutgers University where she wrote her thesis exploring the relationships of
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psychological care characteristics and disordered eating behaviors with dieting among college students
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Allison specializes in Eating Disorders disordered eating and intuitive eating she started her career working with
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adolescents and young adult women with eating disorders at a residential treatment facility in New Jersey
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passionate about helping other humans heal and normalize their relationship with food in their bodies Allison
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believes that food is so much more than nutrition food is an experience and a way to connect with others and make
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memories we are so excited for you to listen to this episode enjoy
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hello everyone it feels like forever since we've had a guest on here so we are so excited to bring Allison on
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she's going to talk about a really awesome topic today and let's get right into it Allison thank you so much for
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being here we appreciate you being here I'm so excited that this all worked out
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let's get right into it tell us about you we'll give a little backstory because sometimes we talk about how we
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know each other we met Allison in this past at this past fincy 2022 in Florida
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another very similar minded dietitian like us who
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preaches Hayes intuitive eating food Freedom all the fun stuff and she
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it's all clicked and we also know um Chelsea Chelsea was on here as well we
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should mention Chelsea blisters no Chelsea yeah so go listen to Chelsea's episode and then listen to as you're
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listening to Allison's not not at the same time um but we all hung out together I don't
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I don't know if they care to hear that they're dying too much they're dying to know they want to know our our dietitian
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social lives so anyway Allison let's talk about you walk us through what do
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you do for work a day in the life previous education Hobbies
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anything you want to share if you want cool so I am a eating disorder
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registered dietitian I spend my days working at a PHP IOP program so a
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partial hospitalization and an intensive outpatient program and then two nights a
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week I do remote nutrition counseling for a private practice that is based in
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Connecticut which is kind of a new thing for me right now but I really really like it so I'm happy about that I am yes
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like you said and intuitive eating he's aligned anti-diet registered dietitian
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and I'm sure just like you guys that is not stuff that you've learned in school
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so um yeah so I learned all of that actually while I was well actually it
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was like previously before graduate school I was like going back to school so actually this is a great time to kind
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of introduce why I'm so knowledgeable at this specific topic so to make a long story short I spent
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um an extended period of time in undergrad because of my disordered
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eating eating disorder ways and when I graduated school
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I got a Bachelor's degree in nutrition and psychology and when I left school I
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wasn't able to become a dietitian because my GPA was you know for lack of
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better words like completely um because of my inability to use my
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brain because I was barely eating an undergrad and by the time that I finally got you know my together it was too
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late and so when I graduated school I spent about two years serving
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kind of really trying to figure out what I wanted to do and I remember this
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distinctly because this was just like my aha moment that I um when I was serving
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I had a manager who and I'm forgetting how this kind of discussion came about but she basically said to me that you
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know her father went and paid for school unless she lost weight and for some
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reason I mean that's incredibly problematic but for some reason that was just like my aha moment and I was just
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like what the are you doing Allison go back to school you want to be a dietitian and you know I could never
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really see myself being anything but that so you know thankfully I had a
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pretty um a good rapport with um the didactic director
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um at Rutgers because she had been a previous professor and when I decided to
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go back to school I had emailed her I was like you know I found this certification program at another school
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and I wanted to get her thoughts on it and so then I went to go go see her and
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it had been like over two years since I had seen her and when I went back she was basically telling me that I could
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come back to school as a non-matriculating student take the courses that I needed to apply the
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dietetic internship and like that was great and so I went back to school ended
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up doing a lot better than I think anyone thought that I was you considering my my um my past as an
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undergrad and you know they asked me to stay on um for graduate school and my dietetic
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internship and that's kind of where I started learning more about intuitive
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eating and anti-dying and and Haze and all of that not because of school but because of the stuff that I started
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doing outside of that um and I ended up getting a job as a
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dietary and at a residential eating disorder facility which I ended up spending about two and a half years working at not only as a dietary aide
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but also as a dietitian and that kind of strengthened my knowledge you know
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within Eating Disorders but also because of the amazing dietitians that I worked with you know I just learned so much
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about intuitive eating and anti-diets and all of that and you know that's kind of how I ended up
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you know just knowing everything that I do about that type of stuff and I guess
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going back to how I know Chelsea um the whole anti-diet Hasting kind of
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clicked for me when I started listening to um then drunk dietitians now with the
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actual pork pod and that podcast just got me to see that there was just another way to live and I think it now
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was maybe a year and a half ago I'm forgetting the timeline but
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um Chelsea the Podcast manager needed help on the podcast and I dm'd her and we got to talking and so now I help out
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with the social media for that podcast but now we're friends and that's how we all know each other so small world
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such a small very small world we're hoping you have Jenna and Sam on the podcast because I mean it's just like we
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have to at this point like we all like kind of know each other it's the whole thing so yeah it was pretty funny awesome but I mean I guess besides you
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know working and and doing all of that I like I love listening to podcasts I mean
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I love what the actual pork pod I love maintenance days that's another one of my favorite podcasts
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um what else do I like to do I like to read I've started getting really into reading fiction books and I have like in
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the past couple of months I don't know why I just like have completely like dived right into that and so now all I
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do is read on my Kindle so I mean I like doing that too and trying new foods and
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yeah I think that's all I can really think of right now sums it up well thank you so much for
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sharing that whole story about your history of disordered eating and eating
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disorders and going through college with all of that I mean it's hard enough in dietetics as we all three know but
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it's even harder when you have anything else going on health related too like I
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can only imagine how much difficult more difficult that was for you so thank you for sharing all that it's very vulnerable
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um well that does make total sense why this is like your topic like this is your thing we cannot wait to hear your
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expertise on this and I'm sure your clients totally relate to this too and like really appreciate having someone
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who has been in their shoes I'm sure in a lot of ways um people tend to really appreciate that
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from their dietitian so anyway let's get right into it let's talk about for those maybe who are
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tuning in and they're hearing us throw the words around a disordered eating and eating disorders they may be wondering
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like what the difference is I don't think it's really talked about very much actually like the difference there so will you please break that down for us
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sure so you know disorder eating and eating disorders are two separate they're they
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are two separate things but they are both equally serious so
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um and I know this definition really really well because this is what I did my thesis on but um so disordered eating
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is kind of described as like a wide range of a regular eating behaviors and
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that's the definition in the DSM-5 or the diagnostic and statistical manual
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um that's used to diagnose psychological mental health illnesses
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um so when it comes to disordered eating these behaviors may not justify a like a
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clinical diagnosis but like I said they are super serious so disorder eating can
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you know range from you know binge eating frequent dieting cutting out food
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groups um you know not being able to really think about anything but food or having to
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rearrange your day-to-day life because you need to get to the gym
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um it could be you know um you know anxiety related to certain
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foods or food groups or even cutting out Foods or food groups because they're you know and I'm using quotations but good
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or bad um so with eating disorders those are clinically diagnosed mental health
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disorders and in order to be diagnosed with an eating disorder uh you need to
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meet certain criteria that's in the DSM as well and you know the DSM itself is
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super problematic but unfortunately that's what you have to use and so with
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eating disorders there's anorexia there's restricting type or binge Purge
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type um then you have bulimia um us fed or other specified feeding and
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eating disorder um armpit or I think it's it's avoidant
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restrictive food intake disorder um and then binge eating disorder so
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that's kind of like the difference like one is that you need to meet by specific
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criteria in the DSM and the other one you know you don't have that criteria
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but they are both serious you know I kind of like to say that you know with disordered eating
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if you don't touch it and you don't address it then it can turn into an
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eating disorder thank you for that I feel like that's a good and very nice breakdown of everything and I don't know too much
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about the DSM so and why it's problematic but that is not why we're here today I feel like we could probably
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do maybe an entire episode on that um but I like how you broke it down I
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know that like people hear those phrases and they're kind of like and I feel like oftentimes the disordered eating gets
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put down is like oh I don't have an eating disorder so it's not as serious when that's not the case and it very
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much could those disorder eating behaviors could lead to an eating disorder and it's important it gets addressed
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let's talk a little bit specifically into like your situation and the topic
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for today so is there any type of correlation between
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disordered eating and or just eating disorders with or in college students
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so yes um so like I mentioned end episode
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I um I actually did my Master's thesis looking at disordered eating and
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psychological risk factors in the college population and you know I kind
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of knew this before because it's what I went through myself but there is a
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strong correlation with that um so I mean it also kind of makes sense
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right you're going to college regardless of where you go it's a new environment you have different stressors whether
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it's like academic or financial or social or you know it's your first time
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away from home most of the time regardless of where you're going you have new friend groups you want to fit
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in maybe you now have I guess a say of when you eat or what you eat depending
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on what your home life situation was and so that's kind of like a
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a perfect storm so to speak for an eating disorder to start coming to the
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surface because it's not what like the new environment is not what caused the eating disorder but it kind of just like
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makes the it could trigger something and that's what could make the eating disorder come
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to the surface so just from doing my own research you know it was kind of
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estimated that you know 67 of college-age women engage in disordered
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eating behaviors and you know four to nine percent of those college students
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are commonly diagnosed with an eating disorder so you know there is that that
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correlation with that and it's just very prevalent within the college population
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and you know when it comes to disordered eating or even an eating disorder those are maladaptive coping strategies for
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something you know it's a way to to deal with something really uncomfortable or really stressful and when we think about
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college you know college can be really stressful um so it's definitely super prevalent
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within that population um you know when it comes to you know
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stress um eating disorder symptoms you know that onset of those have really been
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associated with with the college population because of everything that's gonna go that that can go on and
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unfortunately you know within diet culture and this a lovely Society we live in
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um diet culture can become really prevalent within the college park within just the college
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environment itself whether or not it's you know you're doing sports or you're
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you join Greek life or you know you are trying to offset and
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I'm putting quotes here at the Freshman 15. um so like those are all really
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problematic things that that can trigger an eating disorder because of you know body dissatisfaction that might come to
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the surface um and like I said wanting to fit in all of those things and
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it's unfortunate that it's so prevalent within the population
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yeah I was dying to ask you what the Freshman 15 and how that played a role because I think that's in my brain like
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the most obvious glaring one that I think of when I think of like disordered eating and college students it's just
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like it's talked about so frequently like whether it's from parents or peers
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it's just it's talked about so commonly
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so much because honestly when I was a freshman I'm gonna age myself but when I was like
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like oh my God over 10 years ago like I had that in my mind of like okay Allison
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you're you you're going away to school you need to uh make sure that you don't
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gain weight and I was like I had an eating disorder when I was in high school but that kind of transpired into
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disordered eating afterwards and I remember distinctly like sitting not
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even sitting I was in my freshman dorm room with my roommate when I had gone away to school
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um and I was doing um Insanity I don't even know if you guys know what insanity is but it was it
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was it was insane like I did it every single day for like 90 days because I
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needed to be active or I was going to spin classes at this the school's gym
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because I wanted to make sure that my binge drinking the night before or the
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bin drinking that I was planning to do later on in the day like didn't make me fat and just thinking about how
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problematic that is it's just insane to me because that went off for so many
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years even when I like transferred out of my school for failing out for not
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doing well like I'd still spend so much time in the gym and skipping classes and doing all of
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that because I wanted to look good just stupid that's stupid
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right now to even think about it but it's so crazy how like
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in the moment and in that environment it's so normalized especially like when
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you mention the drinking that was it was so crazy like I know
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like our Hannah's College lives like we would like hear people like skipping meals
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because they're gonna drink later or like oh I have to like work out more because I drink or whatever and it's
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just no one challenges that it's it's just how it is unfortunately and
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that mindset is deep rooted in the college environment it is because of
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those like flyers that are posted like in the gym like don't gain weight or
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you know unfortunately like in our own profession like in our schooling we we
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learn that you need to eat healthy that I feel like it's our professors who are
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kind of crusading that like against that Freshman 15 type of stuff and unless you know better
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you do it and you talk about it and you just make you just perpetuate the
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problem it just makes it so much worse yes yeah Emily and I have both shared with our listeners like our experiences
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too in college I think we both struggled in our own ways too like I know I had like our dorm rooms are so tiny but I
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like had to have my scale in there like in the little amount of room that I had I had my scale that I got every single morning and I became super obsessed with
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going to the gym speaking of drinking because I could never skip a day and take a day off and you know allow my
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bodies to rest one time I literally went to the gym even though I was like ill from drinking too much the night before
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but no days off like you can't do that like it's
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our brains like the way they think about things not only in college but I mean
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they're all stages of life for different people it's just it's it stinks that we can get to that place it really does and
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now that you say that now I can have like flash yeah this wasn't even I mean I mean I was
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still in school because I was in undergrad for so long but my sister's Bachelorette weekend we were in a Ocean
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City Maryland and we got we drink a lot the night before and I still insisted on
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going to the gym the next day and I was like sweating out tequila
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exactly I'm sure the whole like it's called the co-wreck at Purdue I'm sure the whole co-wreck could just like smell
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me from like a mile away it's it's so dumb Emily you weren't there no it was
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me I don't want to name names actually but it was two of our friends I'll tell you off air um that came with me they were not ill
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so I don't know why they came I I don't know I'm not getting all these flashbacks too Alice and it's so funny like you're bringing up all these
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memories it's just so crazy yeah oh like all of these little flashbacks of being in my undergrad
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classes like whether or not I was I I feel so bad now for the crap I used to
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do like taking fish with me into my classes because I have eight fish or oh
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my gosh drinking protein shakes like in my class in the classes like like
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running from the gym to class that way I was able to kind of get to class kind of on time but
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oh my God no wonder I did no wonder my GPA was so crabby yeah that's what
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happens right it's there's so much research now saying that or just even
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showing that you know the more that you pay attention or the more obsessed that you become with
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body image or the more entrenched you become a disordered eating you know you
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don't you're not able to pay attention in school because all you're thinking about is food and it makes so much sense
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and something that I learned actually when I went back to school is that you know your body needs a certain amount of
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carbohydrates just for your brain to process for your brain yeah and if you don't get that
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then you no wonder you can't think or do anything and like there's it's science there's a
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reason behind it I know it's just such a shame that we didn't learn more about like what you
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just said like how many grams of carbs our brain alone needs like you would you would think and maybe there's some
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programs that do do this that are different than ours but we didn't learn that kind of stuff like we were learning
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about BMI and ideal body weight and that kind of stuff exactly yeah we have a
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whole episode literally with that title our listeners know our thoughts on BMI don't worry
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um but it's it I wish that we could have learned those things more in college too
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which Emily and I plan to have episode on that topic as well with hopefully a special guest but
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um anyway I'm kind of tied to this one more quick question along like the lines of like
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disordered eating in college is there a certain type of I guess eating disorder
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like actual diagnosis eating disorder that is the most common in college students
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so from the research that I did do I it was found that binge eating disorder is
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actually the most common and the most prevalent eating disorder within the college population
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and I mean I guess you can kind of speculate for a variety of reasons why that might be the case but from what I
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found that's that's the most prevalent eating disorder okay yeah that's interesting yeah it's just so crazy how
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I'm thinking about like how we're talking about how we wish like our
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programs discuss these topics more but I'm thinking about like the students that don't have like they aren't
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pursuing nutrition no prior nutrition background and
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they're just like in the college environment and they're just like pers living in it and
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just observing everything going on and I like in my mind I'm like call to
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action we need we need advocacy we need people bringing up these things but
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I feel like mental health is something that has been slowly growing more
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at colleges and like the access to therapists but I I know at
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Purdue are caps like our main Mental Health Center was always
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like there was a wait list and it was hard to get into and even then I like heard about some of the
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experiences people had there and it was there was a wide variety I I also
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went there so I can speak other I had good experiences but I know that some people didn't and they did have a
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section for eating disorders but I feel like since we talked about how much it was
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normalized people might not think that they have a problem that they
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need to go it's It's like because people praise those those behaviors right so oh yeah it's
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like when someone decides to say like oh I am dieting for this or no I can't eat
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that because I need to fit into a dress for whatever formal whatever goes on in college I don't know I was a terrible
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student I don't exactly know what happened those behaviors are phased right so it's
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what people think that they're healthy and they're normal and there is nothing
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normal about fasting there's nothing normal about spending three hours at the gym because
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and then skipping events or not being able to literally think about anything else other than food like that's not
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normal and yeah it's just so unfortunate that it is so normalized um within our
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society ah yes I like I'm just getting more flashbacks I was I just remembered that
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like I was I spent a lot of time at Purdue's gym was like kind of my thing which was
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encouraged by others who were like wow you're so dedicated you know that whole thing um but that meant medication I hate the
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d word gosh don't get me started or discipline which one do you see more oh my gosh you're so right
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but I was surrounded of course in that environment by people who like were really into like bikini competitions
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which that could be a whole can of worms to get into I was like dead set on doing a bikini competition Emily do you
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remember this when I like thought I was going to do this I yes I did one I did do one I did like five or six of them
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yeah no way yeah what when did you like during college in
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undergrad yeah exactly like I thought I was gonna have the time for that like I was double
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majoring I worked like three jobs at a time like okay that's crazy I mean I chose the bikini
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competition over my my GPA so yeah how oh my gosh oh my gosh I'm dying to know
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more about that but I won't make you go into that because I'm sure it's a whole thing but yeah like because I was surrounded by those who were doing that
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I thought that I also had to do it because that's like what like the perfect health gym goer person would do
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you know or just so easily influenced sometimes especially at that age like when your frontal lobe is not fully developed
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you're just trying to like figure out who you are and I thought I was going to be a bikini
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competitor which who knows maybe I end up no I'm never gonna do that let's be honest I'm never gonna do that but like
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I wouldn't recommend yeah yeah gosh my brain is like being flooded with
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memories today this has been this has been crazy yeah oh my goodness it's crazy to me that I
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thought that could continue on with going to school and
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doing all of that stuff and it's still do bodybuilding competitions and
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nope yeah at all it's just crazy to me that that's like what I used to like I
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have done probably like every diet out there
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and uh it's just stupid to me well let my body through I know and I
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know we have so many listeners that are like listening like yes yes like I totally relate and so I want to go on to
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our next part which is whether it's someone listening who's like a college age student a high school student or older
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um and you can definitely specifically talk to college agents what we're here to talk about today but I guess generally speaking too like what are
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signs and symptoms for our listeners to kind of take note of um because I don't want them to be in
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our shoes where we're looking back Five Ten Years Later being like oh I wish I would have recognized that then so what
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can they maybe be aware of um that could be a sign and disordered eating or potentially an eating disorder
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I feel like the first thing that kind of really sticks out to me is cutting food out cutting out a food
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group or cutting out a food and this is not if you're allergic if you have an allergy don't have it but you know if you're
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just cutting food out or you're cutting out a food group or you're skipping meals um or you're
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asking you know because you think it's healthy clothes or you have constant
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fatigue and brain fog um chances are that there might be some
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disordered eating behaviors going on but you know without really knowing
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your history or knowing what's really going on with you like it's hard for me to just say like oh that's disordered but you know just
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I feel like being honest with yourself can be really helpful too um I think skipping classes is probably
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a big one also if you're skipping classes to go to the gym or you're skipping or you're sleeping in because
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you're so tired because you're not eating enough um just different things like that and
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you know it's it's funny that you ask that because um after my thesis defends
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um someone on my committee actually asked me like how how can this be prevented or how can you know professors
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or instructors at school like how can they help their students or what can they really notice and I just and they
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they all knew my history about it um and I kind of said like if you notice that you have students who their grades
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are slipping or if they're not showing up to class or you just notice that
32:30
something's off maybe you're just saying something because I know for me if someone noticed if someone just said
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like hey Allison your your grades are slipping a little bit or Allison like you're not showing up for class so I've
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noticed you missed a couple classes what's going on just like that that attention that little attention to
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detail can definitely go a long way so even if you're not the one who's going through it but you have a friend or a
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sibling or just someone that you know in your class and you notice that something is going on with them
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and ask them you can ask how can I support you you don't have to go out and say like hey I think you're being
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disordered but you know like hey I noticed this yeah I noticed X is going
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on um be okay just doing something like that can be really helpful yeah
33:21
yeah I I like that
33:26
snaps there we go yeah we talked about the issue we provided
33:32
examples and you gave us something to work on um
33:39
[Laughter] where are some of the places like if
33:46
people to use some self-reflection and they realize that maybe some of these behaviors aren't the healthy healthiest
33:54
um saying healthy nowadays like
34:01
what does it mean someone actually asked me at work the other day like like how like how do you
34:08
define health and I was like a really loaded yes yeah
34:14
but say someone wants to look into getting help themselves wants to find
34:20
help for someone else if they don't know where to go and they're feeling really stuck what are some places for them to
34:26
start like who should they work with the resources anything you have to share
34:31
yeah so I think the first thing to do is to seek out you know trained and
34:38
credentialed eating disorder clinicians and I mean I can go off about that but I
34:44
think it's really important to make sure that whoever you're seeing help from has the has the education how's the
34:52
credentials to really help you and that's because with eating disorders they're animating like they're really
34:59
serious and if you don't go to somebody who knows what they're doing
35:05
you know I don't think it's going to be productive I might end up making it worse and
35:11
I think this was like maybe two years ago and if one of my friends listens to this she's gonna think it's hilarious
35:16
but she act when I was at work two years ago and I remember this distinctly she had showed me an Instagram profile and
35:23
it was this girl who was giving eating disorder support like she was like marketing herself as
35:30
like an eating disorder coach or a specialist or something like that and when I was I you know went on to her
35:37
Instagram and I went on to her whatever website she was having because of course I needed to see what was going on and
35:43
she didn't have any credentials it seemed as if she had her own personal lip experience and now she thought that
35:51
she'd be able to help others which news flash that's not the way it works just because you went through something
35:56
doesn't mean that you are qualified to help somebody go through that same
36:01
process themselves and you know I actually messaged her on Instagram and I was really I thought I was being nice
36:08
compared to how I could have been and she read the message and then she blocked me and you know that was the end
36:15
of that but I would think nowadays with social media too you really just have to be careful with who you ask for help so I say first
36:21
off go to somebody who's credentialed and trained and you know somebody who you know will be
36:27
validating so you know seeking somebody who is from
36:34
that non-diet weight inclusive Health at every size space can also really be
36:39
helpful too because you would be surprised there are some eating disorder clinicians who
36:45
also put on their profiles that they'll help you with weight loss and you can't do this you can't do both so
36:51
yeah that's a good point I have I've stalked many websites of
36:57
I'll call them peers I suppose who say they have like if they see clients
37:03
one-on-one like they'll list like all the different clients all they see and it will say like eating disorders and
37:08
then like two bullets down weight loss or Weight Management and you're right that's just a conflict
37:14
like even if they don't push on that person both of those things they likely don't have that Haze weight
37:21
inclusive antedia approach where it would be fully optimized for the
37:26
person who has an eating disorder that needs that most likely right but yeah I would say that that's
37:32
not really somewhere to go for sure that there is I'm sure there's stuff on college campuses that could be maybe
37:39
helpful I don't know I never seeked it out myself so I don't actually know what's what's on there with all the college campuses to help out but you
37:47
know there's nowadays with social media it's you know I guess it's a good thing and a
37:52
bad thing that being able to search for health is there but also you know looking on
37:58
um I think like the national eating disorder website they have they definitely have
38:04
you know um providers and stuff like that that you can look into helping
38:09
um I know that edrd Pro is another site that you can look on and they have a
38:16
whole list of eating disorder dietitians that that can definitely help you out so
38:22
just looking at that could be helpful yeah and we can link those below as well we'll do that in our show notes
38:29
well Allison those were our big like jarring questions on the topic we like to always ask our listeners if there's
38:34
anything else that we didn't ask that you felt was really important on this topic that you wanted to share or do you
38:39
feel like we did good covering the bulk of it I think if I was just gonna say one last
38:46
thing it's that you know Eating Disorders disordered eating mental
38:51
health in general is just so stigmatized and I feel like it's not talked about
38:56
enough because people are shamed like they feel shameful or they
39:02
feel like maybe they're not sick enough and they just don't feel like they deserve the help but
39:09
regardless of where you are like you deserve that help and I think that it's
39:14
important to really remember that and believe that and
39:19
the more that we talk about mental health the less shame there is attached to it less stigmatized it becomes and
39:27
you're the better treatment you're going to be able to get and I think that's why I am so open with kind of where I came from
39:34
and all the mess-ups and all the crap that I went through because you know it's kind of how I became the
39:41
dietitian that I am and even though I don't disclose to my clients you know my past
39:47
I just because it's it's I know people have mixed feelings about that but I mean I don't do it but you know it's it
39:55
kind of just make made me the person that I am and that's I'm cool with that yeah exactly
40:04
exactly well that was a good way to wrap it up but I think if there was like one way to sum it up that's the way to do it
40:12
well our listeners know and now you get to finally partake and uh we always do a
40:17
bonus question at the end where we sometimes cover like kind of a heavy topics around here especially like
40:24
disordered eating eating disorders they're not always like light and butterfly and rainbows so we try to like
40:30
end with a really positive note and talk about a fun bonus question so Allison just to make sure before we get into the
40:37
actual question do you like cheeseburgers I do okay
40:42
because we've had incidents before where we kind of like pick a random question and our guests are like I don't even like like that food and we're like well
40:48
you're at what's pick a new one so okay we'll go with it then so our question now so we'll let you go first is the
40:54
guest what is the best type of cheese in your opinion to put on a cheeseburger cheddar oh wow confident I love it
41:03
yeah I mean do you feel as though it's like the
41:09
melting quality of it the taste both like what makes cheddar like such a competent choice for you
41:16
I don't really think it's necessarily the melting quality I think it's the taste like there in my opinion there's
41:23
nothing better than a bacon cheddar cheeseburger um
41:28
maybe it's because when I was younger I never had them but yeah I think that
41:33
cheddar is the way to go but cheddar not just on Burgers I think chowder really on everything except you're a cheddar
41:39
girly they're all a long song pizza but just general true
41:46
um Emily no I don't have a thought in my head about this because I want all the cheeses so I'll let you go next
41:52
I so you're I already know your answer too but whatever
41:58
you're gonna hate me for this but I prefer hamburgers
42:03
I knew it cheeseburgers because I don't like melted cheese I Allison I'm lactose
42:10
it's a whole thing but I still eat dairy but something about melted cheese freaks
42:16
me out but I will no I think I have to agree with cheddar because I was thinking I was like maybe swiss but the
42:24
cheddar like I like I I don't I don't know what this spectrum means about me but I feel like
42:32
sharp cheddar just has such a like nice taste to it I probably like it if it didn't melt as
42:39
much okay so just like a block of cheese
42:46
I mean honestly that would probably be really really good too I felt I mean cheese is so good
42:52
all that extra calcium that's right yeah yeah that's right yeah yeah I knew that
42:58
was gonna be your answer Emily I am surprised that you did pick a cheese though oh no I was gonna choose a cheese
43:04
and then I remembered that I don't like melted cheese yeah so you knew my answer before I did but yeah it's not the
43:10
cheese on anything so even like nachos or pizza or just I like
43:17
your your decision making on this seems very random to Outsiders it's like it
43:22
doesn't really make a lot of sense hey there's no judgment no judgment coming from I like pizza that has minimal
43:30
cheese nachos I like when it's like
43:36
I don't want to say fake cheese but when it's like like you think of like baseball okay
43:43
like game nachos like I would never like make it myself because then it's too
43:49
gooey so like cheese sauce pour it onto the like oh yes yes
43:55
which is like the ultimate melted cheese but well I will just pass that
44:00
there's no logic there's no logic but it's okay that's what makes you
44:05
makes you Emily yes Samia tell us your three cheeses I know Allison my whole
44:13
thing on this episode or this podcast is that I can't make decisions I think it has to do with like I'm an Enneagram
44:19
nine do you know that on the end of your game very well I've heard of it I've never done it myself but I have
44:25
heard of it well the nine is like The Peacemaker we like everyone to be happy we can't make decisions we hit conflict
44:32
so when it comes to like favorites with anything I can't pick um so to appease your you guys I think
44:39
cheddar sounds great and I really do like cheddar cheese a lot my go-to like we always have if we do
44:44
like homemade burgers we always have colby jack on hand but I would not argue it's like the best cheese to put on a
44:50
cheeseburger it's just a simple easy basic one have you ever had like a gouda on a
44:58
cheeseburger I haven't but I I guess I'm kind of similar to Emily where I am I okay so
45:06
maybe not super similar because I really love cheese but I'm really specific with the cheese that I like and I honestly
45:12
only like cheddar and parmesan and those are the three that I
45:19
like okay oh yeah I don't not really a big fan of
45:24
don't Branch out far I don't really branch that far when it comes to cheese yeah you know what you like I think
45:30
that's good I think that's good because then you don't have my brain where it's like oh I want like a little bit of this a little bit of this you can't make up
45:35
your decision I mean I'm like that with everything else just not to use okay that's good to know I feel supported in
45:40
this moment I don't know I don't have an answer guys I mean gouda is really good Cheddar's really good
45:47
cheese is just so good and it's all melty and delicious I love melted cheese Emily and I are Polar Opposites on this
45:53
one um okay I have to pick one I'm gonna say just colby jack make it simple it's what I always have it works
46:01
okay we learned a lot about each other we did and also we always like to leave the
46:09
listeners with an option to follow you along if they want to learn
46:14
more from you so this is your time to shine you can plug anything your heart
46:20
desires social media links
46:25
whatever you want them like if they want to hear more from you or even if it's not you and you just want to plug
46:31
something if this is your time so I tried to do the whole dietitian
46:39
Instagram and I got super lazy and I just never ended up doing it so if people want to find me it's kind of like
46:46
a mix of nutrition and my whole own personal thing
46:52
um so you can follow me on Instagram at Allison Leia
46:57
um I'm sure you guys can just put in the show notes Define me but you'll actually
47:03
if you scroll back a little bit like or maybe like a year ago you'll see that I actually got a very into tick tocks
47:10
um I was actually using Tick Tock to make my video and then I was posting them on my Instagram because I didn't
47:16
want to post on Tick Tock so a bunch of funny tick tocks on there I might get back to it
47:23
um but yeah so you'll see that um I don't really have any other social
47:28
medias maybe eventually I'll get into Tick Tock but I was so adamant for so long not to do it and then I think that
47:36
making the real I I have to say that when the first real I ever made it took
47:41
me an hour to do it oh yeah oh yeah yeah so I decided that I didn't want to do it
47:48
but me but maybe I'll do it again um so that's really all I have in terms of
47:55
if anyone ever is dying to work with me and I can be your dietitian I do work
48:01
for a private practice um Chloe Sereno nutrition so you could
48:07
find me over there if you're looking for nutrition counseling
48:12
um but other than that I mean I'm just really on Instagram
48:18
okay we'll link it all below hopefully we all get to see some Allison reels
48:24
that'd be amazing yeah they are kind of funny I do have to
48:30
a few of you with your wheels Hannah you have me dying something oh I love that
48:35
thank you I feel like maybe it was like a month or two ago but like the reals
48:41
that you just started stringing along I think I just like laughed at all of them it was so funny uh well thanks I really
48:49
do try very hard so that comment means a lot to me but the both of you like it is
48:56
really funny so it may be if I can't do it fun it really does like the the first few you make takes far too long and
49:02
you're like this is stupid but Emily I can crank out a video in like 10 seconds now if we need to like it just gets so
49:09
much easier yeah so totally worth it it's fun to express your thoughts on the internet sometimes
49:15
no it is I people have mixed feelings about this but I thoroughly enjoy having
49:21
an argument with somebody on the internet you are you're built for the internet we
49:27
need to hire you as our social media manager too because I have no issues with it eventually if it gets to be too
49:33
much I I will block the person but I especially now that I do have my
49:39
credentials to back me up I'm just like back up like dietitian I have an
49:45
argument in my DMs a month ago with um some idiot about
49:50
um the oh me promoting the the Obesity epidemic yep daily basis and uh I
49:57
actually sent that I was just typing stuff out and I actually screenshotted the conversation I sent it to Chelsea and it was like you would find this
50:03
funny so he never responded to me so it's like yeah you know that's how you
50:09
won yeah you get them and say don't respond right or if they keep going
50:14
it's just insane to me and then there was somebody else and this is when I was posting Tech talks on my Instagram but
50:19
someone was like shaming the fact that I was promoting having snacks and just
50:24
like how are you like don't take away my socks like literally anything you could ever say on the internet about nutrition
50:31
or really any topic someone will find a reason to fight it it's absolutely absurd I know it's like well everyone
50:37
thinks that they are a nutrition professional they all eat so exactly they don't eat so I guess they all know
50:43
what they're doing yeah who needs dietitians right well Allison it has been a
50:51
pleasure thank you for coming on it's gonna be such a good episode for our listeners especially those who maybe are either going into college we have a
50:58
lot of listeners in like the 18 to like 24 age group so um I'm sure there's plenty like us who
51:04
maybe are going through that and don't even know it so hopefully this reaches those ears I think that'd be so helpful
51:11
yeah no absolutely [Music]
51:17
thank you guys well thank you guys for listening so much and we will
51:23
see you next week Emily any parting words are kind of just like end their episode that was much faster than I
51:29
normally go so we'll end it now before it keeps going on yeah all right have a
51:35
good day everyone bye guys
