A "Healthy" Relationship with "Unhealthy" Food ft. Jordan Syatt
Having a good relationship with food is complicated. Sure, we should be eating our fruits and veggies, of course we should exercise, but when does this go too far? Is not being able to eat cake at a birthday party truly "healthy?" Today, we talk to Jordan Syatt, a record-holding powerlifter and formerly Gary Vee's personal trainer, about how to develop a healthy relationship, even with "unhealthy" food. Note: We discuss restriction, binge eating, and eating disorders in this week's episode.
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Guest
Jordan Syatt is a world-renowned powerlifter and personal trainer. He formerly trained Gary Vee and now creates informative content educating people on health and fitness.
The Takeaways
If you or someone you know is struggling with an eating disorder, please see the National Eating Disorder website for immediate help and resources.
01:57 to 09:09 - Jordan Syatt shares his personal experience with binge eating and extreme restriction throughout his wrestling career in high school to college as he struggled to meet weight classes.
09:09 - Powerlifting helped Jordan shift his focus from appearance and weight to performance.
11:49 - One of his role models and champion powerlifter, Louis Simmons, would regularly go out for pizza after the gym and Jordan joined him. Exposure to a food that was previously off limits, especially in the context of his powerlifting community, was exactly what Jordan needed.
You can learn more about exposure therapy for eating disorders here.
Exposure Therapy in Eating Disorder Recovery
Exposure Therapy for Eating Disorders: A systematic review
12:55 - Ultimately, the context of your relationship with food matters in what health advice you should follow.
22:24 - Jordan created a Big Mac challenge, where he ate one Big Mac a day, while remaining consistent in his exercise routine and healthy food for his other meals. He lost 7 lbs.
His challenge proved that one Big Mac, alongside a healthy exercise and nutrition routine, will not erase progress.
24:23 - Jordan’s advice for assessing your relationship to food and exercise is to move towards what you’re scared of, because usually it is what you need.
If you’re scared of eating “unhealthy foods”, such as cake, donuts, Big Macs and pizza, you should repair your relationship with them by eating them occasionally.
If you’re fixated on counting calories and you’re scared if you go over, it may be better to let go of that number.
If you’re scared to counting calories, it might be beneficial to be aware of your food intake and calorie expenditure.
You can find more resources on Eating Disorders below.
Eating Disorders in Men are not Talked About Enough – And They’re on the Rise
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Juna [00:00:00] Hey, guys, it's Juna. If you're enjoying the podcast, please don't forget to
leave us a rating and review. It really helps us out, and it helps other people find the show.
Food We Need to Talk is sponsored by a grant from the Ardmore Institute of Health, home
of Full Plate Living. Just a warning to our listeners. This episode does mention the topic of
eating disorders. Eddie, I want you to meet someone.
Eddie [00:00:23] Okay, I'm ready. Who is it?
Juna [00:00:24] This is Jordan Syatt.
Jordan Syatt [00:00:26] I will say I come from a family of people who are very overweight.
So I was the only person in my family who was athletic. No one really focused on food or
nutrition or food quality. They didn't really have an education on it at all. So in my house,
like, we didn't really have the best nutrition at all.
Juna [00:00:44] You may know him as the personal trainer or the ultimate entrepreneur.
That is Gary Vee
Eddie [00:00:50] Juna, My son loves Gary. He quotes him all the time.
Juna [00:00:53] Okay, so maybe you've heard some of this, then please give it up for Mr.
Gary Vee himself.
Jordan Syatt [00:01:01] Thank you so much. The reason I win is because I'm not worried
about the person in the middle. I didn't change for them. They changed for me. The same
advice I give everybody else. Hard work. Patience. Bring value. Patience. Hard work.
Juna [00:01:15] He's a social media phenomenon.
Eddie [00:01:18] Whoa. So, Jordan Siad, is his trainer motivating the motivator?
Juna [00:01:22] Yes. So back to the story. Jordan and his brother were both on the shorter
side, so when they were younger, their mom wanted a way for them to defend themselves.
Jordan Syatt [00:01:31] So she walked in the living room one day when I was eight, and
she was like, I'm going to put you two in wrestling. And the only wrestling that I knew at
that point my life was WWE style wrestling. So I remember being like, You want me to hit
someone with a chair? And she was like, No, you idiot. Like Olympic star wrestling. And I
didn't know what that was, but I was like, okay, cool. And I fell in love with it. And I was
fortunate to be good at it.
Juna [00:01:51] So good that he actually made varsity as a freshman in high school.
Eddie [00:01:55] Whoa. That's not bad.
Jordan Syatt [00:01:57] I was a short kid, so I was about 112 hundred 13 pounds when I
got into high school. But when I made varsity, I made varsity for the 103 pound weight
class. So I had to cut a lot of weight, like I didn't have much fat on me, but I did cut like
from 100 and 113, 103, and I was 14 years old, so I had no clue what I was doing. I didn't
know how to do this. All I knew was that in a month I was going to have to make weight for
my first competition.
Eddie [00:02:22] What did he do?
Juna [00:02:23] Well, he lost weight.
Jordan Syatt [00:02:26] For that first month. I ended up losing about like 4 pounds or so
over that month, which when you have the knowledge of this, I guess it makes sense. Oh,
that's good. That's a good amount of weight to lose in a month. But all I knew was, is now
I'm 108 lbs and I have to weigh 103 lbs. And so in my mind, I like, well, this is really bad.
Like I'm not going be able to wrestle. And I told my coach, I was like, weigh in is tomorrow.
I'm not going able to make it. I'm 5 lbs overweight for tomorrow. Like basically he was like,
listen, put on some sweatpants, sweatshirt, wrestle for a two hour practice, don't drink
anything, don't drink any water, just wrestle. And then we'll weigh you after practice. So it
went 2 hours, sweat a ton, didn't drink anything. I had Cottonmouth. It was really bad. I
went from 108 lbs to 104 lbs.
Eddie [00:03:10] I'm getting thirsty just listening to him. But he lost 4 lbs in a month and
then 4 lbs in 2 hours.
Juna [00:03:17] Yes. To be clear, those 4 lbs that Jordan lost in 2 hours, they're not fat,
they're just water weight. But still, it was another 4 lbs down and he was still 1 lbs away
from the target he needed to hit to compete. So he went to his coach and he said.
Jordan Syatt [00:03:32] I'm still a pound overweight. I'm going to lose a pound by
tomorrow. And he was like, Listen, go home. Don't eat, don't drink. Just go home. Go to
bed. When you wake up, you'll be 103. And I was like, How does that happen? So I went
home. My mom had made dinner and everything. I was like, No, I can't eat. I'm 14 years
old. What do you mean he can't eat?
Eddie [00:03:50] So he's skipping dinner, not drinking water, and has a competition the
next day? Yeah.
Juna [00:03:55] As you can imagine, he was hungry, thirsty and super nervous about
making weight so he could barely sleep. And after just a few hours of horrible half sleep.
Jordan Syatt [00:04:06] Woke up and I was like, 102.5 lbs.
Juna [00:04:09] Boom. He made weight for the competition. You can only imagine how
this situation would translate to a 14 year old boy.
Jordan Syatt [00:04:16] I spent a month just eating more fruits and vegetables, doing
more exercise. I lost 4 lbs and then I ended up losing like 5 lbs in a matter of like 16 hours.
So I was like, why would I put so much effort into my nutrition for a month if I could just
lose this much in 16 hours? Like this is way better?
Eddie [00:04:36] At this point, Jordan seems to be eating healthy food, but in a really
unhealthy way. I'm expecting some twists and turns to his story. Might there be just a little
bit of unhealthy food?
Juna [00:04:48] As usual, you are ahead of the curve. That's exactly what's coming up
next. As everyone may have gathered by now today, we are talking about our very, very
complicated relationships with food. What is a healthy way to think about food? Does it
mean eating whatever you want, whenever you want? Does it mean eating perfectly all the
time or does it mean neither of those? I'm Juna Gjata,
Eddie [00:05:13] And I'm Dr. Eddie Philips.
Juna [00:05:15] And you're listening to Food, We Need To Talk. The only podcast that's
going to bring you an epic story about wrestling, powerlifting, ice cream, first dates, Big
Macs and baklava, all in an effort to talk about eating healthy in one single episode.
Eddie [00:05:30] We really push the envelope here. Don't wait. We have Jordan eating
fruits and vegetables in a radical attempt to drop weight precipitously whenever wrestling
match was coming. And I'm guessing that doesn't lead to the healthiest relationship to food
or to his body.
Juna [00:05:55] As many people will know, consistently under fueling yourself can have
really serious consequences.
Jordan Syatt [00:06:01] That's when my obsession with food became about my obsession
with not gaining weight came about to the point where I went from a very happy, go lucky
kid who was just all like, I'll eat whatever I like. I'm not really that picky to being like, Oh, I
can't eat that because it's bad. I can't eat this because it's bad. And as soon as I would
weigh in at 130, awesome. Well, then I would binge and I would easily get back up to 112
and about like, I don't know, 45 minutes to an hour and a half. I would gain all that weight
back very, very easy. And then I would do the same exact cutting process for the next
competition a couple of days later. So I'd binge eat during that day and maybe the next
day, and then I would starve myself for the next like two or three days. So I was gaining
and losing upwards of 10 to 12 lbs every other day or so for competition in wrestling.
Eddie [00:06:45] Juna, if Jordan is now a really well-known health and fitness
professional, he hopefully found a way to heal his relationship with food.
Juna [00:06:52] It's true he went from having this really tumultuous kind of seesaw
relationship where he was super restrictive, running 15 miles, lifting every day, and then
like bingeing after wrestling competitions to now being Gary Vee's personal trainer and not
having binged in over a decade.
Eddie [00:07:09] But how did he begin to do that? What was his turning point?
Juna [00:07:12] Well, as with many things, the first step is realizing that you have a
problem, which on the wrestling team is kind of hard because it's what everybody else was
doing.
Jordan Syatt [00:07:22] I vividly remember having like legitimate binge eating parties with
other wrestlers, like where I can't even make this up, where my buddy David, who is also a
wrestler, we used to go to Friendly's and we would bring our other two friends who were
not wrestlers because they just wanted to watch us. They didn't believe how much we
would eat and David and I would each get our own entire I can't make this up an entire ice
cream cake. And Tucker and Eli would watch just being like, Oh, my God. And Dave and I
would be eating it like crazy and being like, Oh, how can you like, this is easy. Like, we
didn't understand how they couldn't get it.
Eddie [00:08:02] I'm just picturing these guys eating an ice cream cake for each of them.
But because other people were doing the same thing, it just seemed completely normal.
Juna [00:08:12] Yeah, totally. Reminds me of high school when all my friends were like,
always on diet. So I just thought it was the thing to do it. And I never even questioned yet
because everybody around me was doing it.
Eddie [00:08:21] It also stands out to me that we're hearing about disordered eating from
the male perspective, which is something we don't often see in the media.
Juna [00:08:29] Right. So Jordan didn't really realize that it was disordered eating until he
went to college.
Jordan Syatt [00:08:35] I realized, like, I didn't want to eat in the dining hall and I would
like go to the dining hall with Tupperware and I would take food from the dining hall, put it
in the Tupperware, bring it back to my dorm and binge alone because I didn't want to do it
in front of other people. And they didn't understand like they didn't have the wrestling
backgrounds. And I didn't have a group of people who are normalizing what was very
unhealthy behavior.
Eddie [00:08:54] When Jordan's in college, he's no longer surrounded by wrestlers, but it
sounds like the bingeing was continuing.
Juna [00:09:00] As someone who was taking Tupperware to the dining hall many times, I
can tell you there is no lonelier feeling than eating alone from a Tupperware in your room.
Eddie [00:09:09] But how did he stop the binge eating and restricting?
Juna [00:09:12] Well, the answer is probably going to make you a really, really happy
camper.
Eddie [00:09:17] It is.
Juna [00:09:18] It's the same thing that helped me with my relationship to food and my
body, a.k.a. the one. The only. Lifting heavy weights.
Jordan Syatt [00:09:27] Yes.
Eddie [00:09:27] Resistance exercise for the win win.
Juna [00:09:31] And you get excited.
Jordan Syatt [00:09:34] I honestly think that powerlifting is what saved my life in that
aspect, in terms of taking my focus away from trying to be lean to like how how strong can
I get? Because that's when I started being like, Oh, I need to eat to fuel my workouts. I
need to eat to feel all that's left. And that's when I started putting much more value on my
strength and what I could do in the gym than how much body fat I had or how much I
weighed.
Eddie [00:09:58] For those of you that don't know, powerlifting is a strength sport where
the objective is, well, basically to lift the most weight.
Juna [00:10:05] Fun fact Jordan is a five time world record holding powerlifter.
Eddie [00:10:11] wow.
Juna [00:10:19] So Jordan ended up going to train at a gym called West Side Barbell, one
of the most famous or infamous powerlifting gyms in the entire world.
Jordan Syatt [00:10:30] I can't imagine walking away from it. I'll be here till I'm either in a
wheelchair again. When I go, I'll be in that.
Jordan Syatt [00:10:37] Room, the dead man room, you know, hanging on that wall. The
West Side till I die.
Jordan Syatt [00:10:44] West Side and New York. Like West Side Story?
Juna [00:10:47] Apparently not. It's actually West Side in Columbus, Ohio.
Jordan Syatt [00:10:52] I still struggled with it when I went to West Side. Like, I remember
still having issues with my weight and with food. But I think one of the best things about it
was every day after training, we would go to this pizza place called Minnelli's.
Juna [00:11:05] And if you're going to Minnelli's with Louis Simmons, the king of West
Side Barbell, a legend in the world of powerlifting.
Louis Simmons [00:11:13] When I was 50 years old, I got a 920 was the third best squat
in the world and won 63 of those 65 didn't live to 17 and squantted 730 and bench captain.
Jordan Syatt [00:11:23] There's no way in hell I'm going to go to get pizza with Louie and
not get pizza. It's just like, I couldn't do that.
Eddie [00:11:29] It sounds like not only was Jordan no longer solely focused on looks and
weight, but he was also eating foods that he might have previously not allowed himself to
eat when he was restricting for his wrestling.
Juna [00:11:40] Exactly. And for people who struggle with overly restricting, this may be
one of the main ways that you can fix your relationship with food.
Jordan Syatt [00:11:49] It was like proving to myself it was overcoming this fear,
improving myself, okay, I can do this. It's not going to ruin my progress and it's actually
helping me out my lifts better. It's helping me lift heavier weight by essentially forcing
myself to eat pizza with Louis on a regular basis almost every day. I was like, Wow, this is
amazing. Like, I can still do this.
Juna [00:12:09] This was not only a change from what Jordan had been doing in high
school, this was almost the exact opposite.
Jordan Syatt [00:12:14] And I went from massively starving myself to after every single
lifting session, drinking a quart of chocolate milk and then going to an all you can eat buffet
and trying to eat as much as I could. And I don't think that that was healthy. I know that
was not healthy, but I do think it was an important part of my process of now getting to
where I am today, because I think that helped me get more in touch with my hunger cues.
It helped me get more okay with carrying a little bit of extra body fat, realizing really no one
cares at all, and understanding that I can live a healthier, happier life, slightly higher body
fat and I would significantly lower body fat but unhappy in the disordered relationship with
food.
Eddie [00:12:55] This is what's so fascinating about having a good relationship to food.
We spent so much time on this show talking about eating mostly whole foods. They're
good for you. Trying to maximize diet quality. Yeah. And presumably trying to get the most
nutritious foods we can. Yeah, but if you are struggling with being overly restrictive or
hyper focused on weight, sometimes the healthiest thing to do may actually be the
opposite.
Juna [00:13:18] So this is what makes it so hard to talk about topics like relationship to
food, because the best thing to do really depends on who you're talking to.
Eddie [00:13:27] For Jordan, it sounds like he was using food to reach his goals of making
way for wrestling, but then he would go binge on ice cream cake. His next challenge was
eating a more balanced diet that actually happened to include pizza after his workout.
Jordan Syatt [00:13:41] There are scenarios in which, for some people actually removing
these traits entirely for a brief period of time is the right move, just completely taking
certain foods out of their diet. There are other people in which doing that would make it
way worse. Where like you take out all of these foods and make it off limits. Now it's going
to make it way worse.
Juna [00:13:59] So let's take calorie counting, for example.
Jordan Syatt [00:14:01] For some people, counting calories is a really good way to help
them get better control over their food, their portion control, and even develop a healthier
relationship with food. For other people, calorie counting is the worst thing they can do. It
can trigger severe disordered eating habits, whether it's orthorexia, whether it's anorexia,
bulimia.
Eddie [00:14:19] So for many of us, that don't have an eating disorder like my patients I
talked about cut down on your soda or how much ultra processed food you're having
because that's going to have a huge impact on your health.
Juna [00:14:30] And the reason this gets messy is because for other people like me or
Jordan who get carried away with restriction and maybe take it too far, we may need to do
literally the opposite of that.
Jordan Syatt [00:14:41] For me personally, I had to stop calorie counting for a while
because any time I started a calorie count, it would trigger binge eating. Because
essentially what would happen was as soon as I put a limit on how much I could eat that
day, then every single bite of food I took that day was a countdown until, well, now I'm all
out. And then once I was all out, even though I had eaten plenty, I felt hungry because my
entire mindset was just revolving around the food I was eating. And when all you're
thinking about food, of course you're going to be hungry. Of course.
Juna [00:15:13] I totally relate to that.
Eddie [00:15:15] Okay. You know, can I tell you what I struggle with as a physician and
even as a podcast host?
Juna [00:15:21] Eddie, confide in me. No one else is listening. It's just me and you. You
can. You can tell me.
Eddie [00:15:26] I don't want to demonize food and tell people that there are good foods
and bad foods. And I don't want to say certain foods are off limits because, you know
what's going to happen.
Jordan Syatt [00:15:34] This is basic human psychology 101. When you tell someone you
can't do this well, all of a sudden they're going to want to do it immediately. You might be
able to resist it for, I don't know, an hour or a week or a month. You might be able to resist
it, but at a certain point there will be a breaking point in which you cannot resist it anymore,
and that's when people end up bingeing.
Eddie [00:15:54] But on the other hand, there's no denying that eating more vegetables
and fruits instead of, I don't know, sodas and candy, it's going to lead to better long term
health.
Juna [00:16:02] I guess part of this is having to be self-aware. Am I the type of person that
goes 100 nothing and needs to learn to be more balanced and more forgiving with myself?
Or am I a type of person that's just kind of eating whatever, whatever? And it might
actually benefit me to be a little more structured with my diet?
Eddie [00:16:18] And when we say diet, we mean capital D diet, not a beach body
challenge. It's your food choices. Overall, it's important to remember your nutrition is not
one food. It's not one single choice. It's a compilation of all of your choices. Over time.
Jordan Syatt [00:16:33] No one got fat from eating one donut, just like no one got skinny
for having one salad. Progress in either direction takes time. Health is made up of far more
than any single meal or food that you eat at any point in time. Your health is far more than
just food. There are so many aspects to health, exercise, nutrition, interpersonal,
intrapersonal, work, life. So if you're going to reduce your health down to a donut, well, you
have a really ignorant understanding of what health actually is.
Juna [00:17:00] There were so many years where to me my entire health was literally just
hitting my calories and making sure it was all clean food.
Jordan Syatt [00:17:07] And can I ask how that actually played out in your real life?
Juna [00:17:10] It meant that I was terrified to go out with my friends. I would say no to
social gatherings all the time because there was food there that I wouldn't be allowed to
eat. It meant that I wouldn't have cake at people's birthdays. I would like make up some
excuse. I would barely have cake on my birthday just because I didn't eveb ask. And the
worst part, guys, when my mom would make baklava from scratch, I would never touch it.
Eddie [00:17:34] You wouldn't eat your mom's homemade baklava?
Juna [00:17:37] Can you believe it?
Eddie [00:17:39] Can I have your piece?
Juna [00:17:40] No, absolutely not.
Jordan Syatt [00:17:44] If I have two people who are both, we'll call it a healthy body fat
percentage. They're generally healthy people. They're both at their daughter's birthday
party. Their daughter wants them to have donuts for their birthday party. One of them can
have a couple of donuts without any issue. No problem. Whatever. They feel great. Back
on track. No problem. Cool. Very healthy relationship with food. The other person, very
healthy. Body fat percentage. Like physically, they might look really, really healthy, but
they get scared and anxious at the thought of having that donut. I would say that person
does not have a healthy relationship with food.
Juna [00:18:16] That's me being terrified to eat baklava, even the tiniest, tiniest morsel
when everybody else is able to eat one piece or even two pieces, no problem, and just
move on with their lives. Jordan has a great story about this from his own life when he
asked out a girl in high school.
Eddie [00:18:33] Oh, what did she say?
Juna [00:18:35] I am so sorry to keep you in suspense, but we're going to have to wait
until after the break to hear the story.
Eddie [00:18:51] Food We Need to Talk is funded by a grant from the Ardmore Institute of
Health, the home of Full Plate Living. Full Plate Living helps you add more whole plant
based foods to meals you're already eating. These are foods you're already familiar with
apples, beans, strawberries and avocados. It's a small step approach that can lead to big
health outcomes. Full Plate Living includes weekly recipes and programs for weight loss,
meal makeovers and better blood sugar management. Best of all, full plate living is a free
service of the Ardmore Institute of Health. Sign up for free at fullplateliving.org.
Eddie [00:19:33] We're back where we left off. Jordan had asked a girl on a date. So what
did she say?
Juna [00:19:39] Eddie is just so into the gossip, guys. He wants to know what's going on.
So luckily Christina said yes. So they went to an ice cream place.
Jordan Syatt [00:19:50] She got this black raspberry ice cream cone. And I remember just
having this overwhelming feeling of a fear as the waitress was asking me what I wanted to
eat, what ice cream I wanted. And I remember just being like, I'm good. Like, I'm not going
to get anything. And I specifically asked Kristen on this date to go get ice cream. And when
she ordered hers, then I was like, no, I don't want any. I'm good.
Juna [00:20:11] As you can imagine, this does not make for the best first date ambiance.
Jordan Syatt [00:20:16] So now Kristen's eating ice cream alone, and I'm just sitting there
feeling awful, because the only reason I'm not going to get ice cream is because I think it's
going to make me fat. So then I can't even enjoy this ice cream date with Kristen. And that
was, not surprisingly, both our first and our last date.
Eddie [00:20:32] By not having any ice cream or birthday donuts or homemade baklava.
That is not healthy.
Juna [00:20:39] And it's not fun.
Jordan Syatt [00:20:41] For me. I want to make sure everyone knows you can have any
food you want. The majority of your food should be whole, minimally processed, nutrient
dense foods, fruits and vegetables, lean proteins, high fiber, whole grains. It should be the
vast majority of what you eat, but you should have zero guilt or negative emotions for
enjoying treats now and then. So if we really want to talk about health, it's not just your
ability to say no to certain things. It's also your ability to say yes to certain things in
moderation.
Eddie [00:21:07] The key word there being moderation. Baklava. Once in a while, it's not
going to kill you. Every day. Well, that may not be the best strategy, right?
Juna [00:21:17] Maybe I will run a selfie experiment and I will report back on how that
plays out. So Jordan actually ran an experiment on himself to kind of show that there is no
such thing as good or bad foods. And it involved eating a lot of Big Macs.
Eddie [00:21:33] Big Macs? What do you mean.
Juna [00:21:34] Well, you remember that movie, Supersize Me?
Movie Clip [00:21:37] Yeah. Could I get the double quarter pounder with cheese meal like.
So I think I'm going to have to go supersize. Supersize the side the American way.
Eddie [00:21:48] The. Oh, sure. That's the documentary where Morgan Spurlock, the
filmmaker, eats only McDonald's for like 30 days for every meal.
Jordan Syatt [00:21:56] I hated the movie Super Size Me. I still can't believe they show
this in schools to kids because I think Super Size Me is singlehandedly responsible for
tremendous numbers of disordered eating habits and eating disorders.
Juna [00:22:09] I mean, most people are probably not going to be having McDonald's at
every single meal and they're not going to be supersizing every single meal. That's a bit
dramatic, let's say. So he decided to do something instead that he called the Big Mac
challenge.
Jordan Syatt [00:22:24] The purpose of me doing the Big Mac challenge was I just
wanted to show people what happen when I eat a Big Mac every day and also like overall
eat a healthy diet and exercise regularly. Like, I didn't know what was going to happen, but
I was like, I'm just going to show you what happens. And I didn't manipulate anything. I just
ate one Big Mac a day, every day. And I other my other meals were very healthy, nutritious
foods. I made sure to keep my calories in check. And I walked regularly and worked out a
couple times a week and slept really well and ended up losing 7 lbs in that month of eating
a Big Mac every single day. And people lost their shit.
Eddie [00:23:01] I'm guessing his Big Mac challenge isn't for people who are already
eating a lot of processed foods. It's for people who, let's say, won't ever touch their
baklava.
Juna [00:23:10] Yes. Yes, it's for me.
Jordan Syatt [00:23:14] The purpose of the Big Mac challenge was to show people that
you can have a slice of cake at your daughter's birthday party, can have a slice of pizza,
you can go to McDonald's or whatever it is occasionally and still not only not lose progress,
but still make progress as long as you're consistent in the other areas of your life.
Eddie [00:23:27] Of course. But I feel it should be said we should not take this out of
context.
Jordan Syatt [00:23:32] The majority, again, of your food should be whole, minimally
processed foods. But every now and then it's okay. It's not going to ruin your progress. It's
not going to kill you.
Eddie [00:23:40] Here's the thing I love about our podcast. You know that we have
enough time to talk about such a nuanced and complex topic as this, something that is so
fraught with emotion for so many people. And it's actually really complicated. It doesn't
have one right answer.
Juna [00:23:56] Amen. And it's something you really can't get on like a single Instagram
post or a single TikTok video.
Eddie [00:24:02] 30 seconds is not enough.
Juna [00:24:03] No, 30 seconds is not enough to actually cover it.
Eddie [00:24:06] So what advice does Jordan have for improving our relationship with
food?
Juna [00:24:10] That's a great question. And it's a pretty tough one because as we've
discussed, it really depends on who you're talking to, which end of the spectrum you're on.
But when it comes to our relationship to food, I thought he had a pretty cool answer.
Jordan Syatt [00:24:23] If something scares you, it's probably the right move. And what I
mean by that is if stopping counting calories scares you, you should probably stop
counting calories. If counting calories scares you, you might want to try counting calories.
If taking a rest day from working out scares you, you should probably take a rest day. If
going to the gym scares you, you should probably go to the gym and work out. It's funny.
Usually the things that we're scared of are the thing that we really need to do.
Eddie [00:24:57] I love that whatever you're not doing, it may be the best place where
you'll find the most growth.
Juna [00:25:07] Okay, guys. So that wraps up this week's episode. You can find Jordan
on Instagram at SYATT Fitness and Jordan Syatt on YouTube. All links will be on our
website foodweneedtotalk.com. You can find me @theofficialJuna on Instagram and Juna
Gjata on YouTube and Tik Tok. You can find Eddie enjoying an occasional treat.
Eddie [00:25:30] And now I want to try your mom's homemade baklava.
Juna [00:25:33] Okay. You can find any enjoying my mom's homemade by inviting himself
over. Might I add? Might I add without asking anyone? Food We Need to Talk is a
production of PRX.
Eddie [00:25:45] Our producer is Morgan Flannery.
Juna [00:25:48] We want to say a huge thank you and goodbye to the wonderful Claire
Carlander and our associate producer who is going off into the exciting world of post-grad
life. Thank you, Claire. Tommy Bazarian is our mixed engineer with production support
from Jenn Weingarten.
Eddie [00:26:05] And Jocelyn Gonzales is executive producer for PRX Productions.
Juna [00:26:10] Food We Need to Talk was co-created by Carrie Goldberg, George Hicks,
Eddie Phillips and me.
Eddie [00:26:15] You can find resources on eating disorders at National Eating
Disorders.org. We'll also link in our shownotes at foodweneedtotalk.com. Always
remember, consult with your health professional for your personal health questions. And if
you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review and tell a friend.
Juna and Eddie [00:26:33] Thanks for listening!
