In this episode of Shoulders Down, Leah chats with psychotherapist, mindset coach, and author Kathy Most to explore what’s really underneath emotional eating and binge eating. Kathy shares her own experience developing disordered eating in college and how that experience ultimately led her to a career helping others heal their relationships with food and their bodies.

Together, Leah and Kathy unpack how food can become a coping skill for uncomfortable emotions and unmet needs. The role of control in emotional eating, and how self-compassion and curiosity can break cycles of shame and self-judgment. They also explore the mind-body connection, how our thoughts shape our experiences with food and body image, and why learning to feel our feelings and reconnect with the body is essential for rebuilding self-trust and intuition.

You’ll hear about:

• Kathy’s personal experience with emotional eating and binge eating and how it shaped her career as a therapist
• Why food is often the symptom rather than the underlying problem
• The connection between emotional eating, control, uncomfortable emotions, and unmet needs
• How self-compassion and curiosity can help interrupt cycles of shame and self-judgment
• What it actually means to feel your feelings and rebuild trust with your body

Mentioned in this episode:

• E-Squared by Pam Grout: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/601492/e-squared-by-pam-grout/
• The Guest House by Rumi: https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/guest-house/
• 👩‍🔬 How Intuitive Eating Impacts Your Metabolism and Digestion - Leah’s previous episode exploring how your thoughts and beliefs about food can impact digestion and your body’s physiological response

More from Kathy Most:

• Website: https://kathymost.com
• KM Mindset Library on Substack
• KM Mindset Library on Insight Timer
• Life Lessons from Both Sides of the Couch, available October 6th

More From Leah:

• Download your free Intuitive Eating Starter Pack
• Apply to The Embodied Method, my 1:1 coaching program
• Join my self-paced course, The Return
• Subscribe to Leah’s Youtube Channel
• Subscribe to my personal Substack
• Follow me on Instagram for more intuitive eating content @leahkern.rd
• Visit my website to learn more about my coaching offerings
• Subscribe to my weekly newsletter to get a nugget of intuitive eating inspiration delivered straight from my heart to your inbox each week.
• Send me a voice message on Speakpipe
• Email me: Leah@leahkernrd.com

🎧 Join the waitlist for my audio course, 10 Steps To Food Freedom. Doors open in early November and waitlisters get an exclusive 30% off discoumt code.

In this episode of Shoulders Down, Leah sits down with Sarah Jane Garcia, a certified intuitive eating counselor and specialty pharmacist, to talk about her journey from bingeing and restriction into obsessive “clean eating,” and ultimately toward a more peaceful relationship with food. Sarah Jane shares how her pursuit of health gradually pulled her deeper into wellness culture, even leading her to become an integrative health practitioner herself.

She opens up about how pregnancy and motherhood intensified the pressure she felt to optimize her health, from restrictive protocols and supplements to fears about feeding her children the “right” foods. She shares the experiences that helped her recognize her orthorexia, discover intuitive eating, and begin dismantling the beliefs she’d absorbed about food, health, and personal responsibility.

Leah and Sarah Jane also explore the tension between wellness culture and conventional medicine, Sarah Jane’s evolving relationship with her work as a pharmacist, and the importance of making room for nuance rather than trading one rigid framework for another.

You'll hear about:

• How Sarah Jane’s relationship with food evolved from bingeing and restriction into orthorexia
• The ways wellness culture can prey on anxiety, perfectionism, and the pressure to optimize our health
• How pregnancy and motherhood intensified Sarah Jane’s food fears
• Sarah Jane’s experience navigating wellness culture and conventional medicine as a pharmacist
• Finding nuance around medication, mental health, food, and wellness

More From Sarah Jane:

• Website: sarahjgarcia.com
• intuitiveeatingcollab.com a membership for moms healing their relationships with food and body while working to break the cycle for their children
• 👆Use code SHOULDERS19 for the exclusive listener discount of $19/month

More From Leah:

• 📚Download your free Intuitive Eating Starter Pack
• Apply to The Embodied Method, my 1:1 coaching program
• Join my self-paced course, The Return
• Subscribe to Leah's Youtube Channel
• Subscribe to my personal Substack
• Follow me on Instagram for more intuitive eating content @leahkern.rd
• Visit my website to learn more about my coaching offerings
• Subscribe to my weekly newsletter to get a nugget of intuitive eating inspiration delivered straight from my heart to your inbox each week.
• Send me a voice message on Speakpipe
• Email me: Leah@leahkernrd.com

In this episode of Shoulders Down, Leah sits down with Jackie Liu, a third-year medical student at Harvard Medical School and co-lead of advocacy for Medical Students for Size Inclusivity (MSSI), to explore weight stigma in medicine and what it takes to create more size-inclusive healthcare (HINT: GLP-1s are NOT the answer).

Jackie shares their personal journey from struggling with disordered eating and body image to discovering fat studies and weight-inclusive approaches to health. Together, Leah and Jackie unpack how weight bias can become embedded in medical training, the ways fat phobia shows up in healthcare settings, and the incredible work MSSI is doing to advocate for more equitable care.

They also discuss the rise of GLP-1 medications and why informed consent and patient autonomy are essential components of size-inclusive medicine. This conversation offers a hopeful look at the medical students and future providers working to challenge weight stigma from within the healthcare system.

You'll hear about:

• Jackie's journey from struggling with body image and disordered eating to discovering fat liberation and weight-inclusive care
• How weight bias and fat phobia can become embedded in medical education and healthcare culture
• Why Medical Students for Size Inclusivity exists and how the organization is working to create change
• The barriers to providing truly weight-inclusive healthcare
• GLP-1 medications, informed consent, and the importance of protecting patient autonomy

Mentioned in this Episode:

• 📊 The Weight Loss Research Nobody Talks About with Ragen Chastain
• 💛 Lived Experience with Ozempic—Jamie's Story & An Overview of The Facts
• Medical Students for Size Inclusivity (MSSI)
• Association for Weight and Size Inclusive Medicine

More From Jackie:

• MSSI's GLP-1 Informed Consent Guide

More From Leah:

• 📚Download your free Intuitive Eating Starter Pack
• Apply to The Embodied Method, my 1:1 coaching program
• Join my self-paced course, The Return
• Subscribe to Leah's Youtube Channel
• Subscribe to my personal Substack
• Follow me on Instagram for more intuitive eating content @leahkern.rd
• Visit my website to learn more about my coaching offerings
• Subscribe to my weekly newsletter to get a nugget of intuitive eating inspiration delivered straight from my heart to your inbox each week.
• Send me a voice message on Speakpipe
• Email me: Leah@leahkernrd.com