An Interview With Lyndi Cohen

The nude_nutritionist talks about curating your feed, the idea of a happy weight, being a businessperson in this space, and two questions that will completely change your perspective on diet culture.

I am so excited to share an interview with Lyndi Cohen with you. Lyndi’s book, Your Weight Is Not The Problem, and I don’t say this lightly, changed my life. It not only helps us unpack diet culture to create a healthy relationship with food but is so grounded in reality; looking at how we build habits and the role of social media.

On Instagram, Lyndi is the nude_nutritionist who has built a (big) following through her supportive and relatable approach to food and our bodies. Lyndi’s podcast echoes this with its great title, No Wellness Wankery.  

A massive thank you to Lyndi for being so generous and honest in our conversation.

Lyndi Cohen

Natasha Stamos: I was actually so blown away, when I first read your book, I'd never read anything like it before. And I really found it quite affirming and life changing. So, thank you.

Lyndi Cohen: That's a very nice thing to say, I'm so glad. I mean, I feel like merely the custodian of the information I found out. So, I felt like it changed me so profoundly, I just felt like I had to share it.

NS: Okay so if you’re happy to get started, let’s talk about the book, so why the book?

LC: Listen, I'll be honest, you don't earn much money from writing books. I don't know if anyone's ever told you that, but you don't... I was merely passing on the information that I had been taught. Growing up, I had wished I'd come across something that would take away how much food controlled me in my life, I thought there was something very wrong with me, I thought I was the only one. And I wrote it. Because I imagined myself as a 16-year-old girl feeling so lost and alone and thinking you would help her so much. And then I realized it would help so many other people. So, from a business perspective, it didn't really make good business sense. But it felt like a really nice way to kind of introduce as many people as I could, to the things I thought were most important, at a price point that is approachable for most people. And I think that's one of the important things I think, as an online creative people can earn a lot more money through selling content in other ways, but I don't I feel quite purpose driven. And what I do, probably because of my lived experience,

NS: Yeah, absolutely. Chapter one really speaks about how diets have failed society and that young girl that you're talking about, and these messages that we've received repeatedly, why do you think that these messages are so pervasive in society?

LC: Because I think I think it's a way for businesses to sell more stuff to us. You know, I’ve seen disordered eating from generation to generation between mums and daughters. It's a way of keeping women controlled, I think. I'm not going to embellish the economics of being thin. But at the moment, there's a new trend at the moment for like the hyper fineness that we saw in the 90s. It's kind of re-emerging. And it tends to be in line with like, financial fluctuations, economic fluctuations at the moment with the cost-of-living crisis. It's so interesting how the beauty ideals skew to what is unattainable, which is that like, super thin, ideal.

Why it's so pervasive, I guess, because it's so compelling. And you can do so much work and learning to like yourself, and you still have days where you have the self-doubt. Because we're sold the idea that you'd be happier if you were thinner. Because of being told that we're not good enough the way we are. And I feel like if women decided that we were enough, we put so many businesses out of business.

NS: So true, and you are a businessperson and you have a business. And the book is a part of that. But obviously, you know, you're on social media, and you've got your program and stuff like that. How do you balance all those elements of the business and still make sure that the core message remains the same?

LC: I think I've a very clear philosophy, in fact, as a result, it means that I sometimes make, I guess, short term, bad business decisions. So, I’ve turned down so many offers, because I I'm so strict about who I will work with, what brands I would endorse what influencer I would have on my podcast. And so I think it's a very it's a short term loss, but it's a long term gain. Having such a clear perspective and opinion in the nutrition space (is a benefit).

I think there are people, healthcare professionals’ and influencers who have been doing this work as long as I have, and they have adopted many approaches, and now they're doing this diet, and now they're endorsing the five two diets. And now they're doing, you know, menopause diet. And it's constantly. evolving. And I feel like what I love about what I do is since I've been I've been practicing as a dietician, nutrition as my, my messaging has remained, to its core, very similar, which is just about instead of using a guru or a so called Wellness guru to tell you what you should or should not be eating, you use your body as the guide to help you work out what is good for your body.

And of course, we rely on the evidence, and the research is constantly evolving. However, fundamentally, we have to be able to maintain things for the rest of our life.

So even if the girlies are drinking celery juice, if it doesn't make you feel good, don't do it. And I think that is kind of a bit of a timeless advice. But from a business perspective, I don't think that makes good sense. I'd make way more money if I was able to profit off people's desire for evolving trends and something current, I could write new books every year and reach the masses by doing it. But I don't and I think in the long term, it'll prove to be a good business decision.

NS: One of the things you mentioned, which was one of my favourite things in the book, is ‘if you can't do this for the rest of your life, don't do it’. And that idea of sustainable change, perhaps isn't as sexy as some of the other options and these fast options that we have. I think your book does a fantastic job at looking at the way that we build habits and how we go about doing that. If you could distil a couple things as to how people can get started to make sustainable changes when it comes to their relationship with food, what comes to mind?

LC: That question, is a very valid question, Would I be able to do this for the rest of my life? I think we often create a goal weight, and when we reach that weight, we are then no longer willing to do the things that helped us get to that weight. And so, I'd encourage people to instead create a goal lifestyle. So, like imagining, what does your best version of yourself, what are they doing every single day? How you want to live your life, then what we do is we start to maybe just pick one habit you can do to get you closer to that lifestyle, ask yourself the question. And the question from the book. Even if I didn't lose weight, would I still do this? And if you're able to say yes, then please go forth. add it in. And slowly, we'll have it over time as your body will naturally find a weight that is comfortable for it. And because you weren't chasing a goal weight, you're going to find that it's so much easier to maintain those habits or keep your goal… You’ll probably be in a way that feels happy and comfortable for you. Because this is a term, I've been referring to more and more is this idea of a happy weight.

The term happy weight is a term I'm using a lot more frequently now. And you've probably read about it in the book. But just to reiterate, it's not what you weighed in high school or on your wedding day, it is the weight where you are free and that you feel free. You're free to go to sleep without thinking about how many calories you eat per day, you have the energy to do the things you love, your hormones are stabilized, you have the energy to do the things you'd like to do. That is your happy weight. And I think it's the natural consequence of doing things that feel good for your body. It's not an overnight thing. And I think that's one of the biggest challenges as you said, why it's not sexy is because to get to that goal weight, that happy weight, it just takes a long time. It can take especially king if you've got years and years of having an unhealthy relationship with food. So, for most women, it's at least you know, it's many years, maybe many decades of hating their bodies and being at war with food. And they expect that a three-month transformation is going to help them heal everything. It does take years to start to become an intuitive eater and feel relaxed. And that's the hardest thing I think I have in my job is trying to continue to help people feel motivated to keep chasing that goal of feeling at peace with food. When they're constantly running into an old friend who's recently lost weight, and it feels so compelling, I could just do that too. Or sometimes they look in the mirror, and we all have days where we hate ourselves. So, as I say, it's almost impossible to live in a society that thinks the most impressive thing a woman can be is thin and not have days where you hate yourself. So typically, I find with people they, they forget why they are trying to create a healthy relationship with food, they go back to dieting, and then ultimately, they come back because they give it another shot. And they go, it's just, I've done this before, I don't want to keep falling into this trap.

NS: One of the chapters, How to exist in the real world and still like yourself, absolutely leads on from what you were just saying. I think our relationship with social media is one that you spend a lot of time talking about in the book, there can be some really good stuff on social media, and there can be some really detrimental stuff. How do you choose to navigate that space?

LC: Firstly, as a content creator, the irony is not lost on me that I am creating content to help people feel better about themselves on a platform that functionally mentally makes people feel awful about themselves. However, I think it's more useful than a turn off and contributing to the liking of ourselves. Without doing this, I how can we navigate it, I think we need to get really, and I just want to say like, I find it really hard to manage social media time. Because it is so incredibly addictive, it's becoming more addictive.

But curating your feed is essential. And it's an active pursuit.

So, you can't just allow the feed to automatically show you, whatever it thinks it needs you to see. And so what that means is if you are seeing constantly you don't like you're actively saying I'm not interested in. If you see content you want to see more of, as in, you know, it makes you feel positive and good afterwards, then you give it a thumbs up. However, even if you are watching, you've created a feed that supposedly makes yourself feel sometimes you're going to see content that doesn't make you feel good. And the total amount of time you spend on social media has to be controlled.

Sometimes I feel like we are just passengers watching other people live their lives. Almost like the side characters. Instead of being the main character in our lives, I I think I use social media, my phone for three hours a day, if I look at my insights. And if I asked my friends of a similar age, how many hours they use their phone, they use the phone for about six hours. And they don't work on work in social media. And I don't think that's absurd or unusual. So, this idea that we are spending probably a quarter of our lives on our phones, scares me. I think we don't understand how much we're being influenced. I think it used to be that you become like the people you spend the most time with. And now I think it's much more accurate to say you become like the people you follow on social media. So, if you are following insecure, scared vulnerable people as in like, people who are narcissistic, then I think you probably start to value those things more. And if you opt into following people who truly like themselves, then I think you get a little bit of that magic as well.

NS: That's really a fantastic point. And I'll just one last question before we wrap up because I am conscious of the time, is there any media that you're enjoying at the moment?

LC: I mean, I love the power of a good novel and series to kind of put me to sleep much more effectively than scrolling TikTok before bed. Is there a media I really love the power of podcasting? I think it's a really fabulous medium. I think it allows you to also have your own thoughts and be out there living your life because you can simultaneously do it. The education can feel a bit like you're reading a book on the go. So currently that’s my favourite medium.

You can see more of Lyndi’s work on her website.