#86: Raising Anti-Diet Kids with Nutrition Coach Diana Rice

Diana Rice is a certified, intuitive eating counselor and a certified parent coach with a mission of helping families enjoy a healthy relationship with food. Her online platform is Anti-Diet Kids where she teaches parents how to bring the concept of intuitive eating and rejecting diet culture into their parenting.
Diana and I talk all about anti-diet culture, what it means to reject diet culture, and how to embrace intuitive eating. She is also a Plan to Eat customer and uses the program minimally and innovatively! We talked a lot about her meal-planning strategy and how she eliminates stress and decision fatigue related to meal planning. Enjoy!

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Plan to Eat podcast, where I have conversations about meal planning, food, and wellness. To help you save time in the kitchen, reduce your grocery bill stress less about food. And delight in dinner time.

Roni: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Plan to Eat podcast. Today, I have an episode with Diana Rice who is a registered dietician. A certified, intuitive eating counselor and a certified parent coach. With a mission of helping families enjoy a healthy relationship with food. Her online platform is anti-diet kids where she teaches parents, how to bring the concept of intuitive eating and rejecting diet culture into their parenting. Diana and I got to talk today all about. This idea around anti diet culture, what it means to reject diet culture and embrace intuitive eating. We talk a lot about her meal planning strategy as well. 

She has a really neat meal planning strategy that I think [00:01:00] eliminates a lot of the stress and decision fatigue related to meal planning. So I really hope you enjoy that. Overall, we have a great conversation and I hope you enjoy this conversation with Diana Rice.

Hi, Diana. Thanks for joining me on the podcast.

Diana: Thanks so much, Roni. This is going to be fun.

Roni: Yeah, I'm excited. Let's just get started by having you give the quick rundown of who you are and what you do.

Diana: Yeah, I'm a registered dietician, and I am also a, uh, certified intuitive eating coach and a certified parent coach, and I specialize in, uh, helping families break the generational cycle of dieting and body shame, and, uh, And raise kids who, um, are very confident in, you know, the, the foods that they want to eat, getting enough for their bodies.

Um, you know, trying all different kinds of food. Uh, this is not something that women in particular of my generation, I guess I want to [00:02:00] say are skilled in when you've grown up with good food, bad food, and going to Weight Watchers meetings with your mom and just, you know, even just the things that we see.

See on the cover of magazines, you know, like shed 10 pounds in 10 days or whatever. Um, I think that we're seeing a tide change on that right now. Uh, so really what I do is help parents, particularly women, sort of shift to a new way of thinking for themselves and then implement feeding strategies and body talk in their homes so that their kids don't end up going down the same path.

Roni: Oh, wow. That is really cool. That's, that's good work right there.

Diana: Yeah, yeah, I kind of fell into it. And now that I'm in, I'm like, wow, this, I'm never leaving. This really needs to be done.

Roni: Yeah. For real. Yeah. So you gave some examples there of, you know, things that we see in diet culture, but can you define diet culture in case that's not a familiar term for anybody listening.

Diana: Yeah. So I often [00:03:00] use the definition from Christy Harrison, who is the author of the book, Anti Diet. Uh, and of course my Instagram platform is Anti Diet Kids. And I started that, because, um, there's so, there are quite a lot of resources out there for adults in rejecting diet culture for themselves.

But I didn't see that anyone was really bringing it into, you know, how do we nip this in the bud? How do we, you know, You know, not, um, you know, start doing this, uh, all over again with our kids. So her definition of diet culture, and there, there are other people. This is just the one that I tend to default to.

Um, it's a system of beliefs that worships thinness and equates it to health and moral virtue. Uh, it promotes weight loss as a mean of means of attaining higher status. So not just attaining health, but like attaining, you know, better treatment in the world. Demonizes certain ways of eating while elevating others.

I actually rely on this point quite a lot in my work because a lot of times parents, parents will tell [00:04:00] me it's not about their size of their body. All bodies are good bodies. I just make, my kid is so picky and you know, he, he never wants to eat, you know, fill in the blank or I grew up eating this and you know, my kid never wants to eat it.

And I'm really all about, Helping our kids foster, meeting their nutrient needs in a way that works for their, you know, their sensory needs, their cultural preferences, um, and so not, not demonizing any kind of type of eating, um, and then lastly, oppresses people who do not match up with the supposed picture of health, you know, that's anything from people hearing a very rude comment on the street from, about their body size or, you know, not getting the medical care they need.

Uh, and it is really important to point out that although a lot of my clients are, you know, women who would love to shed those last 10 pounds that they see on the cover of magazines, um, you know, the diet culture and any system of oppression is always going to harm the people with the least privilege.

So, you know, the, the people who [00:05:00] suffer most from diet culture are, um, you know, people with, uh, with, uh, Largest bodies, you know, marginalized skin tones, you know, different abilities. Uh, and so, I firmly believe that when, if and when we can put an end to that marginalization, it gets better for everybody, right?

You know, we're going to stop worrying about losing those last 10 pounds because we're going, I believe, I'm going to talk about this as if it's going to actually happen, we're going to live in a society where, um, that is just not, uh, going on anymore.

Roni: Mm hmm. Yeah, there's the you talking about all of those things makes me think of the idea of like pretty privilege, being able to like go about the world and have people respond really positively to you because you fit the supposed standard that is set in the culture for what is viewed as pretty here or anywhere else in the world, I guess.

Diana: Yeah. We have data that people in larger bodies don't get promotions at the same rate that thinner people do, or [00:06:00] like don't even get the job in the interview because we have associations between, you know, what does a large body say about a person's discipline or, you know, self care, things like that.

Um, and it's just not true. I mean, we, I don't know if you want to get into this right now, but the foundation of my work is that intentional weight loss does not work And that you can have a large, plenty of research shows you can have a larger body and achieve health goals if that's what you set out to do, you know, and, and it's really just more of a, aesthetic oppression that we are putting on people, which really sucks, really sucks.

Roni: Yeah. Not equating like the number on the scale with actually being considered healthy. Those can be, those are not mutually exclusive, exclusive. Yeah. So to back up a little bit, I'm curious how you got started with this line of work. Does it come from your own personal story or experience?

Diana: Yes, but [00:07:00] in, in a non direct way. Um, so I became a dietitian. Um, it was sort of a career change for me. I worked in media for a couple years after I first graduated college. And got more and more interested in food and in particular in family feeding. Even though I didn't have kids at the time. And so I went back to school to become a dietitian.

And, once I got out there in the world of nutrition professionals, I kind of realized that I had a very different approach. You know, for me, I've actually been very blessed to have a healthy relationship with food my whole life. A huge part of that is that I am a thin person. I was a thin child.

Nobody ever told me to go to a Weight Watchers meeting, right? Like, you know, it was just, it was easy for me. To eat what I wanted to eat and stop eating when I was full because nobody was ever telling me any different. And so when I realized that so many other people didn't have that experience, both, a lot of other nutrition professionals who either got into the business [00:08:00] because they wanted to learn the very best way, to be healthy.

And, you know, most likely be in a thin body, and, you know, just sort of being a dietitian at all, just exposed me to more of the social justice elements of, you know, what we call, uh, weight centric health care is if you're in a large body, you should lose weight, weight, inclusive health care is, like, obviously, this has been a choice.

You get health care, regardless of your body size. Um, and so I started getting, exposed to more of those concepts and then what I've been able to do since I already had an interest in family nutrition was kind of harness my own background of having had a childhood where I did have a healthy relationship with food and like we did, we had, you know, all the stuff that parents these days are worried about, you know, we had Kool Aid and potato chips and Oreos and all that stuff.

They were just never off, this is what I preach to parents now, they were never off limits, but it also wasn't like, this is what's for [00:09:00] dinner, Kool Aid and Oreos, or whatever, you know. Um, and so you know, I am able to draw on my background of having a healthy relationship with food as a kid and advocate for all kids having that type of relationship with food.

Regardless of their body size, and it was in becoming a certified intuitive eating counselor that I learned, how to help adults intuitive eating is a book by two dietitians, Evelyn Tripoli and Elyse Fresh, and is a method for ending the cycle of yo yo dieting and shifting towards Eating as much as your body needs of satisfying foods that you like to eat and calling it a day Um, you know, there's a there's a portion at the end about gentle nutrition So if you're like, oh, maybe I should increase my fiber It's like what foods do I like that have fiber in it not I need to choke down this bran or whatever and so Both advocate for all kids to have the [00:10:00] experience that I did and I help parents heal their own relationship with food So that, I mean, the most important thing in a parent raising their kid to have a healthy relationship with food is being able to have their own, like, inner compass, you know, sort of correctly dialed in, um, so that they can make those decisions about, Well, no, we're not going to have Oreos for dinner, but yeah, we'll, we'll definitely have them afterwards.

We'll pack them in your snack tomorrow or whatever that is.

Roni: Yeah. That's so interesting hearing you say those things really, it, the light, I feel like the light bulb went on for me to be like, it's. It's just as much about, or more about the parents and their influence on kids as it is about how the kids are viewing themselves and food and things like that.

And to me, that feels really important because I think a lot of kids in the nineties probably had this experience of people in their lives. You know, you talked about the Weight Watchers and things like the adults in our lives, modeling Needing to be thinner, wanting to be on a [00:11:00] diet, you know, Atkins and all of the things came out during our childhood.

And so, I feel this very deeply in like looking back at my own childhood and being like, yeah, I see there were some problems.

Diana: Yeah. Yeah. And that's what everybody, and you know, part of it, part of what I do is, um, since it is, you know, diet culture is the water we all swim in, people don't really identify those as problems. It's just like, well, yeah, of course you try not to eat too much and, you know, you skip breakfast or you just have a little granola bar for breakfast and that's supposed to get you through, whatever, uh, or, you know, good food, bad food, like, Some people enter parenthood and they're like, well, I'm teaching that this is a square and this is a circle.

I should be teaching that ice cream is bad and apples are good, right? Um, and so a lot of what I do is help parents identify why some of that stuff is even problematic and the underlying, systems of oppression that it comes down to, basically.

Roni: Right. Yeah. Are there myths that [00:12:00] people believe about what anti diet means that you continually see?

Diana: Yeah, oh man, I run into this all the time. Um, this is pro I didn't realize getting into this business that my number one job would be dispelling the myths. I was like, no, let's talk about, like, the good stuff, what to do instead. The, the number one myth is that if you are not strictly controlling your, your dietary intake and adhering to, um, like a strict exercise schedule, we call it, I call those sort of, uh, Extrinsic factors, you know, I can have this many Weight Watchers points, or I can have salad, but not a burger, you know, like, those are all decisions that don't come from within the self.

Roni: Mm

Diana: Um, and what, what, what I advocate for is making those decisions from within the self. What am I hungry for? How much food is my body telling me that it needs? But a lot of times. People believe that if we are not holding ourselves to those extrinsic standards, then everything's just going to go to hell.[00:13:00] 

Like, because we believe this for so long. We believe you cannot trust yourself to eat nutritious food, you have to force yourself to do it.

Roni: hmm. Mm

Diana: even if people aren't taking it, you know, that seriously, um, there's this concept that if you're not trying to do the right thing by eating healthy food, then, you know, your, your internal demon is going to take over and you're never going to eat anything healthy.

And when it comes to parenting in particular, so there's that, which like, I would say, you know, believing that if you trusted yourself, you're never going to eat anything healthy is sort of the mindset of people who haven't yet let go of diet culture. And then the pendulum swings to the other direction as well for parents who are like, yes, down with diet culture.

I'm never dieting again. I never want my kids to experience that, which is like. Yay, we're on the right track. But then this pendulum can actually swing too far in the other direction of, um, [00:14:00] so I'm going to let my kid make all of their food decisions. You know, when to eat, what food to eat. I never want my child to feel, you know, restriction.

And, um, this is the more nuanced myth to get across is that that is actually not the best approach Either. Because same with everything that we're doing for our kids in childhood, we are teaching them how to take care of themselves well as we launch them off into adulthood. So, you know, maybe, you know, setting aside an hour every afternoon for your homework instead of just do your homework whenever you feel like it, or, um, you know, having a scheduled bedtime as kids get older and more responsible, learning to do laundry and keep their rooms clean and things like that.

And so, um, Parents providing scheduled meals and snacks and even saying no to foods in between those times, if that's appropriate, or, you can absolutely serve ice cream for breakfast, please do, but, you know, you might. Choose if [00:15:00] your kid is wanting ice cream for breakfast every day of the week, you might say, yeah, it's yummy.

We had that yesterday. Uh, we're going to have Cheerios today. We'll have ice cream again soon. Like that kind of thing where you as the parent are looking out for the child's overall nutritional intake because they can't yet. They're too young. Although I do firmly believe that, Even without having consciousness of nutritional, you know, we need this many carbs and this many, like whenever I do, it's kind of ironic, but I sometimes have my clients do, uh, like a MyFitnessPal style logging of their kids food, and every time they're hitting their macros that they need to, to grow, sometimes they're not getting, uh, enough, uh, total calories.

Usually it's the carb that's too low when they're not getting enough total calories. Um, and that a lot of times has to do with the parents not offering enough carb sources. Um, so I do believe that from the food that parents put out, if we are doing our jobs of offering generally balanced meals and enough, you know, sweets and chips and things like that, that, you know, [00:16:00] are going to communicate to kids that those foods are not off limits, then kids can take in the nutrition they need to grow.

And We just, you know, dust off our hands and we can, we can call it a day. But, that does take a little bit, not a little bit, a lot. It's hard. It's actually really hard. Whenever I tell parents to do this. Like, actually, that's why I love Plan to Eat, is that like, grocery shopping and planning food is a big chore.

And anything that we have that can take the edge off of that, um, or you know, outsource any of it basically, um, is an excellent tool in our toolbox. And so, it is the parent's responsibility to plan, uh, nutritionally appropriate meals. And, you know, schedule snacks and, and take the kid's preferences into account, versus, you know, the myth of, well, my parents always told me exactly what to eat, so I'm never going to tell my kid what they can and can't eat.

I don't, I don't recommend telling kids, like, you can never have that [00:17:00] particular food. It's just like, we're not having it right now.

Roni: Mm hmm.

Diana: you know, I also don't recommend that you tell kids they have to clear their plate or things like that. They should be, you know, it's from the available food that the parents put out.

The kid's body determines how much of it they're going to eat.

Roni: I have a feeling that people listening are feeling glad that there's parameters like they're, you know, that like that the concept is like there are still parameters because we all know that, you know, if you let a six year old just, you know, run wild and free, it might not be popsicles all day

Diana: Yeah. Yeah. And it's not that week. I I'm one thing I'm always working on is helping parents recognize that we can trust our kids to get the right foods for their bodies. But the, I always use the analogy of sleep, like a six, we don't say, Hey, just go to bed whenever you feel like it to a six year old.

Um, we not only have like a designated bedtime, but we actually have a routine leading up to the bedtime so that the kid knows what to expect. And it probably includes winding [00:18:00] down, brushing their teeth, getting in bed, lights out, sound machine on, whatever it is. And uh, I can't tell you how many adults I work with who don't do this,

Roni: Right?

Diana: even for their own self care.

Um, so the, the idea really is that you are taking care of your child in the way that you hope they will be able to take care of themselves as adults. As adults, and what I know from working with my adult intuitive eating clients is that always making sugar off limits or forcing yourself to eat vegetables, that also doesn't work.

So it's, it is quite nuanced, but you're teaching kids to, what I recommend is teaching kids to to take in the foods that just feel right to their bodies, serve nutritionally balanced meals on a regular basis. I can't tell you how many of my adults, adult clients are eating one meal a day and they're not even doing intermittent fasting.

They just don't get up and go make themselves any food. And so, um, I want kids to learn that that is a very bare minimum of self care, is eating [00:19:00] regularly. And the best way to do that is through parental modeling.

Roni: Well, and I can understand how parents might feel apprehensive about letting their kids have more freedom when it comes to their food choices if they don't even trust themselves to make good food choices.

Diana: Yeah, what I really think it comes down to is, do you or do you not believe that a human being, um, will, you know, just sort of devolve into a giant bag of Doritos if left to make their own food choices, or do you believe, uh, that we survived on this planet for so long by getting the foods we need from the available food and calling it a day?

Roni: Yeah, right. You mentioned using, you mentioned plan to eat just a couple of minutes ago. So, um, why don't you tell me a little bit about, how you use plan to eat, uh, with your clients. Our listeners always love to hear like the nuances of other people's meal planning process. Cause it kind of like in, you know, it's kind of enlightening to see how other people use it.

So I'm [00:20:00] interested to hear about your meal planning process.

Diana: Yeah. So I found, um, with, you know, I say that I'm a pediatric dietician, but all of the people I work with are adults, even if we're working on a child's selective eating or whatever it is, I'm working with the adult. And although there are a lot of best practices that I recommend in order to address whatever the issue is, selective eating or whatever, any client that I was working with, and I have, I have clients who they are empty nesters, you know, just everyone that I was working with there.

The underlying refrain was grocery shopping is just so chaotic. Cooking is so chaotic. I just wish I had a couple of. You know, foolproof meals that I could just rely on and serve over and over again. And this is something that I already naturally was doing. You know, I think it's a lot easier when you have a healthy relationship with food to cook what you want to eat, and like also I don't stress out if I'm using jarred [00:21:00] sauce or, you know, I use a lot of processed ingredients.

Because they evolved because we can't, you can either work in your kitchen all day or you can have an actual job and use, you know, shortcuts. There's, there's, you'll drive yourself crazy trying to do both. But I think that diet culture teaches us that, um, actually, I mean, this is actually kind of dark.

I think that the narrative against processed food emerged as women joined the workforce. And, it's like, how, how can we, how can we continue to hold these women back? We should tell them that they're terrible mothers, uh, one, for being away from their babies all day long, uh, but two, for relying on these evil processed ingredients instead, because a good mother would cook everything from scratch.

So, you won't hear it described that directly, but I do think that that's what's going on. Um, and anyway, so for me, I use plenty of processed items in my meals, or like, you know, uh, uh, Steam in the bag, broccoli florets. Technically that's a processed item, but you know, it is just whole broccoli in [00:22:00] there or whatever.

And as my clients were expressing this, you know, I just wish that I had a handful of full proof meals to fall back on. I was like, well, that's what I already do. I just have like my, my 10 or 20 things and you know, I, that I cook and you know, I just kind of look at my schedule and see what, what I need to cook that week.

And I was already using plan to eat, and about you guys at a nutrition conference. It was before the pandemic, that's for sure. So I've been using it for a long time. Um, you know, exporting the grocery list and it just takes, I have ADHD, so like anything that makes me not have to, like, start the task from scratch is for like, you know, that, that, task initiation thing.

Um, and so, Uh, I came up with this concept that I call capsule menu planning, which is what I more or less already do with my own meals, but I kind of refined it. And, um, so how I actually use plan to eat is I don't have 100 or 200 recipes in there. I might have 40? 30? And I don't use all [00:23:00] of them at once.

Um, also by recipes, sometimes that's what I'll have in a recipe that I've inputted. hamburger buns, manwich sauce, a bag of, you know, steam in the bag green beans, and, you know, ground beef. the whole dinner, right? And so that's not a recipe! But my family loves sloppy joes. And, you know, so when I click that I'm planning that for the week it sends those four ingredients to my grocery list.

And, and so, you know, I just have one or two, No, probably like five, you know, sort of more intensive recipes that, you know, are not recipes I developed, like soup recipes and chilies and stews and stuff. Those are things that I cook, like, in bulk. Like, I'm not making I have two little kids, by the way.

I'm not making, like, a stew from scratch on a weeknight, but I might have made eight servings or, um, eight family meal sized portions of that stew. five Saturdays ago [00:24:00] and, you know, I defrosted out of the freezer and you've got the function to, you know, have your, your freezer stash in there as well. So that's how I use it.

And I kind of, formulated this concept of capsule menus, which is born out of, or sort of a copycat of the capsule wardrobe concept. Are you familiar with that?

Roni: Yeah. Yeah.

Diana: It's, um, as I started into it, like, the number of parallels, I was like, oh, wow, like, this actually really works. The concept of capsule wardrobes is that instead of having 200 items in your closet, you have, like, 30 or 40.

And you're not that limited in, in your outfits because you can wear a classic pair of jeans with a white t shirt or with, you know, a lacy tank top, you know, and those are two totally different, you know, outfits for different occasions or whatever. But the concept is actually, it's, it's simplifying things so that you're not overwhelmed every time you walk into your closet.

And, knowing what works for you and [00:25:00] your style and kind of, you know, issuing fashion trends of, you know, everybody says you got to wear these wide leg jeans these days, but, you know, you buy a pair and it actually doesn't match with anything else in your wardrobe. And you're like, why do I even own these?

Right? And so the concept with capsule menus especially for families with young kids, is that you have, um, in the beginning of the course I encourage my participants to, just make what, what do I like to eat? What did my husband like to eat?

What are my kids like to eat? And, you know, kind of come up with a list of you can start with 7, 14, 21, you know, maybe if you don't cook seven nights a week, you start with five and you plan for takeout for the other nights. And then you kind of refine them down to a rotation that you can sort of set on autopilot using the plan to eat menu function.

And, um, and you can even build them so that like, If you made, tacos on Wednesday and you have leftover [00:26:00] chopped tomatoes and onions, uh, then you're making pizza on Friday and now you've got those as the toppings. And so you can kind of string them together like that, or, um, have, have options where, You don't actually have any fresh ingredients at all, like everything that you're cooking comes out of the freezer, so that if there's an event at your kid's school, or your spouse is working late and you guys just decide to order pizza or whatever, um, you're not like, you know, you don't have this, you know, bunch of greens wilting in the fridge, you just save that meal like you had planned it, but You just keep it in your freezer stash and, you know, three weeks later, it'll show up again or something like that.

So you didn't really like waste any money on it. And, uh, this is also really beneficial. So I think it's super beneficial for parents because, I think we have this concept. Uh, I see it a lot at the, in like January, beginning of the year, like no more processed food. I'm going to meal plan everything.

I'm going to do so and so's. 30 day program to a fresh, clean diet. And the [00:27:00] recipes probably are really good, but if you're not used to, or you don't have the bandwidth for an hour of prep, um, what I see all the time is that people do it for maybe three weeks and then they fall off the wagon, like every other kind of, New Year's resolution.

Um, and so I use a very gradual on ramp approach with like, if you're first. Capsule is seven meals and it's frozen pizza, chicken nuggets, and like, if that's what you need to do to kind of like stop the bleeding of like how my meal plan, and then, you know, when you're in a routine with that, then we can add on some more things that involve cooking.

And so basically this is how I use it now is I've got my handful of recipes in there and I have them saved as menus. I always tell my clients that I don't, um, I haven't had a three week cycle in my whole. You know, time of using plan to eat where I actually cooked all 21 of those meals. Like things come up or I'm like, well, this is, it says tacos tonight, but I'm really feeling pizza or whatever, move things around.

And, uh, the reason that I started recommending this to my clients and I [00:28:00] started out by just, um, you know, sharing plan to eat with them and saying like, here's a way you could use it. Was that people needed a way to stop the bleeding, like meal planning is so insane and it's concept that if you're going to do meal planning, it is going to be everything from scratch.

And or or that like just like long complicated recipes that like if you do Tuna and mayo on a wrap with lettuce or whatever like that's not meal planning But as a dietitian from a nutritional perspective, you're still getting all the macronutrients that you need I don't know why it's not meal planning and then for kids It you know sort of simpler meals are generally better I mean, there are some adventurous kids out there, but a lot of kids don't really like mixed foods Um, or they, they have their favorites and they like to see them over and over again.

Repetition is actually the number one. tool for helping selective eaters expand their palates. So they might see the taco meat one night and be like, nope, not touching that. And then, you know, same thing happens, you know, three, four, five weeks in a row until [00:29:00] one day they're like, actually, we'll have taco.

Like, it's weird how this works. It actually happens, but it's because of that familiarity and the, and, they see that their grownups are eating it. And so it's clearly not poison, um, and what you can even do is that if your kid is like truly never gonna eat the taco meat or whatever, you can get, okay, I'm planning tacos tonight, this is what my partner and I want to eat, I'm not compromising on that because I hate to see it when, um, parents compromise on what they want to eat, you know, But I also don't want them to force their kids to eat the same thing.

So, you know, little Johnny's never gonna eat the taco meat or whatever. We're just gonna make him some chicken nuggets that night. And if he wants to eat a tortilla too, and some taco toppings, that's fine. But, you know, he's made it clear that, um, you know, this is not a food that he has a preference for.

So now, and, so I would like, in my taco recipe in Plan to Eat, I would like add, Um, Chicken nuggets. And then it sends to my grocery list. And I probably, like, most of the time I already have chicken nuggets. But, like, I would just be [00:30:00] double checking in my mind, like, do I have those in, in the freezer for this week?

Um, so it can be really helpful for, for kids too. And, and this is how most childcare facilities do it. Like, my kids school or, like, any daycare, they're not making something new every day. They've got a rotation of meals that they're just gonna, you know, serve on repeat. And, uh, this is basically operating our kitchens as a small scale food service, you know, operation, which it kind of is.

And the reason it's stressful is that we're not treating it that way.

Roni: Yeah, you said there. I feel like I have so many comments to

Diana: Yeah. Sorry. I've been here a long time.

Roni: No, I love it. I love your, you know, your on ramp helping people to just get started cooking because I think that that is one of the biggest barriers to entry is people say for whatever reason, whether it's, we need to make a dietary change.

Somebody has a food allergy. Now we got to make a dietary change. Um, we need to cut back on our spending and going out to eat is super expensive. Whatever the thing is, there are a lot [00:31:00] of families who feel really intimidated by the meal planning process and thinking it has to look a certain way. You got to plan seven days a week, three meals every single day.

And, but if you come from number one, not having meal planned before, but also not being familiar with the kitchen, it's so intimidating and it's so much, and I can see why people do not stick to it because. There's too much to do and people don't have time for this stuff. If you know, you can gradually make time in your life, but I think you first have to see the benefits manifest in your life before you're willing to set aside time on your weekend to make extra lasagna or whatever.

And I love your freezer, you know, having one meal or multiple meals a week. They're just like all from the freezer, all from canned goods. I'm all about Flexibility in your meal plan and just like things come up or just one night. You're like, I'm exhausted. I don't want to do this. And we're just going to order pizza or we'll go, you know, through the drive through or something.

And I love that idea [00:32:00] because, uh, there's just like the intentionality behind that feels. Like it's just so beneficial to your future self to be like, well, I have these things and we can just eat them at any time. And it also allows you to have the flexibility of like, well, tonight we didn't feel like eating that other thing, but I have all the ingredients for that other meal that we didn't eat last week.

So let's just do that instead.

Diana: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And the thing, you know, you can get your family's preferences on that, and it really is, teaching your kids good self care in that way as well, of like having, um, that flexibility, like rigidity with diet, I, and I just mean rigidity with, um, Putting food in your mouth,

Roni: Mm hmm.

Diana: it never really, I mean, unless you have a really, um, you know, high needs, like medical condition, it's for the majority of us, it doesn't serve us well to be super rigid about exactly what we're eating or the meal plan or I, you know, I know so many people who, um, tried meal planning once, and because the fresh ingredients wilted in their fridge, they're like, [00:33:00] this is a waste of money.

It's actually cheaper to go to the drive through, you know, because, first of all, fresh produce is so expensive to begin with. And, if I don't end up cooking it, it just goes to waste and then I feel guilty. And so, the way that I teach people to do it kind of, um, circumvents those challenges.

And it's, it's very based on. whatever the individual, like, if you do have an hour to cook dinner and you love cooking fresh produce or whatever, go to town. But, you know, I don't actually, um, people will say to me like, well, well, what kind of recipes are in your course? And I'm like, ooh, there aren't any, there, there actually are, there's like meal inspiration.

You know, if we were doing like, you know, the tuna wrap or something like that, people might say, oh yeah, I could do tuna wraps, that would be good, um, but I don't actually have a ton of recipes that I recommend that people, you know, because they, they could import recipes from my plan to eat account into theirs, but I recommend that people kind of start from scratch.

based on their own food preferences and recipes that they've liked in the [00:34:00] past. Because every family's food culture is going to be slightly different and the bandwidth that you have. I personally do a ton of weekend food prep. Like even if it's not a stew I'll make Five pounds of taco meat and put them in two cup containers.

And now when we have tacos, I just thaw that and I don't have to fuss with, you know, cooking raw meat and, you know, that is what I do. Uh, my kids, uh, don't do any weekend sports. I have my weekends available. I know other moms who don't even see the inside of their house on the weekends. And so if that's not a strategy that is going to work for you, then we don't use it, right?

But so, so many. You know, influencer, you know, meal planning programs are it's so easy, just do what I do. And, you know, one person's life is not your life. And that actually is the problem with diet culture is that we think that there is this defined way to do being healthy. And [00:35:00] when it doesn't work for us, we feel like the failures versus the whole problem is that we're holding ourselves to extrinsic criteria versus what works for us.

Roni: Right. Well, yeah. And clearly the foods that, that you and your family love might not be the same flavors that some, you know, I have friends that we, you know, we share recipes back and forth all the time. And I know that their family likes the same kinds of spices and things that our family likes. And so it's always a reliable recommendation, but there's a lot of times when I'm like.

You know, somebody that, you know, maybe like extended family or something might recommend something. And I'm like, actually like, that's not our jam. And so it's really, uh, so it's really silly to think that we would all want to eat the exact same way as yeah. Whatever influencer or YouTube personality, something like that.

Because. We all have our own preferences, and particularly when it comes to children, every child, just as adults, uh, but like, you know, child, children [00:36:00] can go through phases much more rapidly, I think, than parents, than adults do, as far as like, this week I like this thing, next week I like this other thing.

Diana: Oh, totally. Absolutely. And I'm very big on, you know, if, like, my kid, my kid told me yesterday, for some reason we were talking about, like, what if you had a babysitter who said you have to take three bites of broccoli to, before you can leave the table? Because my family never does that. And I was like, but what would your reaction be?

And she goes, well, I love broccoli, so it wouldn't be a problem. Not one week prior, This kid sees broccoli on the table and is like, So I said nothing. I said nothing. Um, but yeah, it does. So, you know, my recommendation there would be, um, just because you plant broccoli because you thought your kid liked it and they didn't take a single bite.

Just It's okay. It's okay to have a meal with no vegetables. We'll, we'll be okay.

Roni: Yeah.

Diana: And, uh, it still lets the parent prioritize the meals that are going to be most satisfying to them as the parent. Which, [00:37:00] you know, is a little bright spot in, in our day because food should be delicious. Um, But I, I do think that there are, Unfortunately, a lot of parallels between telling a kid what they're supposed to eat, they're supposed to eat broccoli, they're supposed to have three bites of chicken or clear their plate or whatever, and then setting them up as adults who are going to be more susceptible to.

Not believing that they should choose what they eat, that they should listen to a diet plan, or, you know, whatever. We may not be doing it in childhood for the purpose of weight loss, but if our kids grow up getting used to other people telling them what and how to eat, then they will be adults who are susceptible to diet culture telling them what and how to eat.

And that's the number one thing that I want parents to avoid for their kids.

Roni: Right. Yeah, it's kind of like the idea. Of like, you see, pictures of babies, toddlers who can, you know, like squat down perfectly, or they pick [00:38:00] something up from the floor and they do it with perfect form. And as we get older, we. Change the way that we move our bodies from these natural patterns, because we sit in a chair all day and, you know, whatever, all of the, you know, negative things that we do just to not support our body is, and I feel like it's the same way with eating like kids are naturally all of us as we're younger, we're naturally more intuitive.

We're going to listen to our signs of hunger and fullness and things like that. And we kind of detrain ourselves from those things, particularly when we're listening to other people that say. Only 1200 calories a day and whatever all of the things are. Yeah,

Diana: Yeah. That's a great analogy. That's, that's perfect because it's, it is the, the culture and the built environment that, makes us lose that flexibility, you know, just physically. And then it's exactly, you know, the culture that makes us lose that trust in our own, you know, intuitive eating abilities.

Roni: right. So going back just a little bit, I mean, you mentioned that your kids aren't involved [00:39:00] in a bunch of weekend sports and things, but I'm, I'm imagining there are lots of families who have very busy schedules. 

Diana: Mm hmm.

Roni: But we all hear that, you know, eating meals together as a family is really good.

There's lots of studies that promote the mental health benefits and all everything like eating meals together as a family is very good for your relationships and your mental health and, and learning to eat more intuitively. But if you're super busy,

Diana: hmm.

Roni: do you have any tips on how to make that work? Mm.

Diana: Yeah. Um, so I, I know exactly which studies you're talking about and one thing about them is that it is not necessarily, I'm a big advocate of of the food modeling, but it is not necessarily the fact that you're all eating together versus the fact that there is a time carved out from the child's schedule to connect with the parents, and that, you know, if something is really stressful at school, they can talk about it, or they can celebrate their wins, or the parent can just start, you know, asking questions because, you know, if the kid's in the middle of a video game, that's [00:40:00] probably not going to be a good time for that.

And so the real benefit, that comes out of those studies is kids having the opportunity To connect with their parents and share the struggles in their life. And so that can happen when you're driving in the car to sports, you know, if you, so long as you, you know, maybe you say, okay, this is a no phone zone.

You know, we're going to, we're going to talk to each other, whatever it is, like you're, you're similarly putting in a structure as if you would with a family meal. You know, the family meal could be breakfast. Like, if everybody is, you know, up and, you know, getting ready to leave for school or work at the same time, the family meal could be breakfast in that case, weekend family meals, um, this is another reason why I'm a fairly big advocate for, I call them convenience items, but a lot of other people will call them processed foods of, um, you know, uh, is, is a, frozen lasagna really going to, you know, Kill you versus a freshman lasagna.

If it takes that [00:41:00] stress out of your, um, out of the parent's life in terms of, you know, or a slow cooker meal or something like something that's just ready as soon as you walk in the door. And this is another thing I teach in my program is that like, if you know that Wednesday nights you have games until 8 PM or whatever, then that can be the night that you do your slow cooker meal and then it's ready when you walk in the door, or,

Roni: Mm hmm.

Diana: Mean, my kids are in elementary school, so I talk about chicken nuggets a lot, but like, chicken nuggets are ready in 5 or 10 minutes, that, that kind of thing.

And, uh, I think that we forget, diet culture teaches us that, the, the health that comes from food is exclusively the nutrients and the ingredients. That we're putting in our body or not. And that's actually not true. Research doesn't pan that out. Like, I want people to be taking in the nutrients that their bodies need, but, also the amount of stress that we have around food, and whether we're able to just be relaxed and confident about getting enough of the foods that we need to nourish our bodies, all of the, you know, uh, the degree to which, you know, eating disorders are mental health conditions, and, you [00:42:00] know, Having poor mental health weighs on your physical health and is going to, uh, you know, potentially lead to long term, other long term health consequences.

So we really forget that, the, the ben, some of the benefits of eating together, um, are just modeling being relaxed around food, eating food that you enjoy. So yes, it's about the nutrition, but it's also about, you know, just the social experience of it. And so if it takes a frozen lasagna or something or drive thru or whatever to make that family connection happen and to, to facilitate modeling.

That, you know, all food is good food, then that is similarly in the best interest of your kid's health, and if it helps your mental health to just not have that on your plate for, you know, however many nights a week that you need to, uh, I know most parents would feel guilty that they're serving their kids all this processed food, and it just seems to me like the system is, is built to so that you can't win.

You [00:43:00] either can't put your kid in extracurriculars, which now they're never going to get into college or whatever, or you can't serve them healthy, quote, unquote, healthy home cooked food. Or if you want to do that, you need to quit your job so that you can be cooking it earlier in the day while they're at school.

And now you're not contributing. I mean, I'm all about, you know, people want to be stay at home parents, but if you want to do something just with your time, I don't want you to feel like. You have to lose that in order to have a healthy family, you know, like, you know, we can we can broaden our view there.

So that was a long winded answer. But, um, the, the, the, the bottom line is the, the, the dinner meal is not the be all and end all. And if it takes some convenience items to make it happen in a low stress way, that is actually a positive for your family.

Roni: Yeah, right. I feel like I already know the answer to this question, but I just want to ask, how do you feel about distracted eating? Like your kids being in front of the TV or on their [00:44:00] Gameboys? I don't know if Gameboys are a thing nowadays, but

Diana: My kids don't have them. But, um, I I think it's a Nintendo Switch. My kids also don't have those, but I think that's the one.

Roni: Okay.

Diana: Yeah. You know, uh, as an adult, when my kids are at school and it's time for me to have lunch, I go heat up my lunch and then I sit back down in front of my computer, right? Most of us do that.

Roni: Yeah, for real.

Diana: So I, I do think that it's a little bit idealistic to think that none of us should be doing that at all, or that it's okay for adults to do it, but not kids. It really, when I talk to clients about this, it really comes back to, is the device, um, hindering, facilitating, or just neutral in terms of the kid's food intake.

Um, hindering would either be forgetting all about the food in the first place and kind of not eating, or distracted eating and, you know, being out of touch with their, their, bodily cues that are saying, you know, we're getting full now. Yeah. [00:45:00] And we have to, the parent has to kind of just use their spidey sense to figure out if this is going on or if it's neutral.

Um, I would say my kids, my kids for the most part, probably have like, if they're, when we're heading into summer break, their lunches will probably be in front of their, um, tablets because it's something that they enjoy doing. And I get to go wash the dishes or something. Right. And, um, so in my, my kid's case, I would say it's neutral.

They're just, they're eating it. Same way they would if the tablets weren't there. And for some kids, it's, it's very positive. It facilitates them being able to get in food at all because they are dysregulated sitting at a table with other people chewing and, you know, like, you know, this happens a lot in the cases of neurodivergence.

So I definitely don't think that we should be completely writing it off, but the parent does need to use it. I call it the parental spidey sense of what is actually going on here. And then, generally speaking, if it works for the family's dynamics, I would recommend having at least one meal a day where there aren't any [00:46:00] devices and people are connecting with each other, if it works for, if it works for the family.

Yeah.

Roni: that, uh, makes a lot of sense. And I think we are all guilty of eating our lunch in front of our computer just to like get a little bit more work done.

Diana: Or like, I mean, for me, I work from home, there's nobody else here. I love, I would love to go out to lunch with, you know, somebody, first of all, that's going to take a long time, be more expensive, but there's nobody here to talk to. So I might as well read an article or something, you know? Yeah.

Roni: Well, have we, I feel like we covered a lot. Was there anything else that you wanted to contribute real quick before we wrap it up?

Diana: I just always, I always, uh, encourage my clients that, you know, This is hard. Even just, even if your relationship with food is actually in a great place, meal planning is still hard. Feeding kids is still hard. Um, whatever tools that we have, whether it's convenience items or a meal planning app that can just take the edge off for us.

I, [00:47:00] I firmly believe in, uh, that the advances of technology are here to, you know, Facilitate our lifestyles and we should, utilize them if, uh, if they are the right fits for us. But it's always going to be kind of hard just like, you know, keeping your house clean is kind of hard. Like there isn't like a magic bullet of, of making this easy.

Um, and then for a lot of parents, you know, this, most parents right now are in the millennial generation and, there's this like emerging, um, knowledge that, you know, we've got to be like cycle breakers to a degree. It's not just with food, um, but also with, just like overall parenting, you know, not screaming at our kids, being there for their emotions of like, Hey, I hear you're feeling frustrated right now.

And like just sort of being the Mr. Rogers, right. And, the more and more work I do on this. Because I am, I did add a parent code certification, uh, to my, my resume when I realized that it is not all about the food, it is about [00:48:00] what people are bringing in psychologically to everything is, um, you know, this is kind of like a sandwich generation where we're driving without a roadmap, where we want better for our kids, both in terms of their relationship with food, their ability to process emotions, their abilities to pursue their own dreams and not be like, kind of put into a box, whatever it is.

It's hard to facilitate those things for our kids without having, uh, you know, that, that, that dialed in internal compass of our own for whatever it is. And people are angry that this wasn't their own childhood, and that's okay to be angry about that. Now, this is not necessarily a universal experience, but if anybody's listening and being like, Oh yeah, I never thought about that. Um, you know, I say on paper that I, I help kids have a healthy relationship with food, but really what I do is help adults connect the dots on, you know, the, these things are very hard and they're hard by design, but there are, we're learning more and more about what really supports kids and how to put it in place.

And we can do these things for [00:49:00] our kids. And you know, that is sort of, you know, To get real meta, like we're, we're advancing society in doing so, and that's kind of, um, you know, it's like, on the one hand, you're just saying, eh, let's order pizza. On the other hand, you're advancing society, and you're teaching your kids positive coping skills, and, um, you know, yeah, that's, that's just what, uh, what seems to be a theme in my work.

Roni: Yeah. I, I love that. I feel like we could have a whole

Diana: Yeah, right.

Roni: specifically related to that unpacking our childhood issues. Well, why don't you tell everybody where they can connect with you online in case they're interested in learning more about the work you do?

Diana: Yeah, definitely. Um, my Instagram handle is anti diet kids. So anti. diet. kids. I also have a Facebook group that's called raising anti diet kids, which has become a really cool resource just for, you know, even just like posting these questions of, I don't want my kids to have a childhood like I did, but [00:50:00] what do I do instead?

Dead. Just yesterday, we were doing a meal inspiration thread. People were expressing that if you post your kids' lunch on any other Facebook parenting group and there's like a piece of candy in there, you'll get ripped to shreds . And so we don't do that in my group. , and then, I have a, uh, Substack newsletter called the Messy Intersection, which is, um, I call it the messy intersection, basically.

'cause what I was just describing of. This sort of messy place in between becoming a parent yourself, your body is changing. Your relationship with food is changing and you want to, uh, you know, it coincides with wanting to do better for your kids. Messy because we don't have a roadmap. So that is a Substack newsletter and podcast, which is at, um, I think dianarice.

substack. com

Roni: Excellent. Well, I'll make sure we link to those in the show notes so everybody can connect with you and learn more about what you

do. 

Diana: And, um, the capsule meal planning course will be for enrollment, um, right around the time that, uh, back to school starts. So like late August, early [00:51:00] September. Um, And so if anybody is interested in, usually I'm teaching people how to use plan to eat in that course, but, there's actually quite a lot about breaking down diet culture, breaking down, um, a lot of the patriarchal norms that go our, um, our ideas about feeding.

And then, um, there's a whole module on. Positive feeding dynamics. And so like, you know, the, the actual interactions you're having with your kid around the table and how to utilize those for, uh, helping them have a healthy relationship with food.

Roni: I love it. 

That sounds Awesome.

Well, thanks for joining me. It's been so enlightening. I've loved this 

conversation. 

Diana: Thank you so much for having me. This was really cool.

Roni: All right. Well, as always, thank you for listening to today's episode. There are links in the show notes so that you can learn more about Diana and connect with her. If you were interested in working with her.. 

And if you've been enjoying the Plan to Eat podcast, it would mean a lot. If you could hit subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts. The bigger our audience, the more cool people we can get on the show to have [00:52:00] these great conversations around food, health, and wellness. So, thanks again for listening and I will see you again in two weeks.