Rebelling

Amy Parrish (00:45)
Hey y'all, welcome back. This is Amy, and today I'm joined by Melinda Staehling, a certified nutrition specialist and Menopause Society certified practitioner. She has a private practice in Oregon where she supports clients navigating eating disorders and chronic health conditions. Melinda's late in life, AuDHD diagnosis inspired her to create the podcast Departure Menopause.

where she explores the menopause transition through a neurodivergent affirming and weight inclusive lens. And that's how we met. We were both starting podcasts around the same time, and we've supported each other through all the podcast ins and outs, sharing the highs, lows, and weird logistics of launching a show. We're also both sober.

We both worked for years in the food and beverage industry, and we're both drawn to the unconventional. Melinda is a good friend who brings warmth, curiosity, and a fearless commitment to challenging narratives around health, the body, and aging.

In this episode, we wander into the knowing that lives in our own bodies, the kind of insight that comes from paying attention to cues, energy, and all the subtle signals that can get overlooked. We talk about what it means to trust your own experience and honor the rhythms and patterns that make you uniquely you. Together, we rethink what it really means to know something

how neurodivergence shapes our relationship with our bodies, and the radical possibilities in listening to ourselves differently. Here's our conversation.

Amy Parrish (02:40)
Yeah, is your mic plugged in, always check your links. Don't forget to push record, I think is on my desk somewhere here.

Melinda (02:47)
love that for you. Can we have a few minutes

at the end to like talk about my shit? Okay, not on the podcast separately from that.

Amy Parrish (02:54)
Yeah, 100%.

your literal shit or just

like life shit.

Melinda (03:02)
⁓ Not my literal, well, we do talk about nutrition a lot today, so we could talk about that, but it's not that interesting. So my life shit. My life shit. We can talk about rebelling and bowel movements as much as you want.

Amy Parrish (03:10)
Okay, yeah, totally. We don't have to...

That sounds great. What should we call the episode?

Melinda (03:20)
you

my god. Something, I don't know. We don't want to put poop in the title. That's not good. It's just not appealing. ⁓

Amy Parrish (03:27)
Yeah, yeah, I don't know. Like, no, I don't think so.

not getting your shit together, rebelling.

How to not get your shit together. ⁓

Melinda (03:46)
I

was like, I listened to your podcast this morning, the first one to orient myself and I loved it.

Amy Parrish (04:01)
The, it's not a, ⁓ the one, performance of knowing one, where it's just by myself. Yeah, yeah. And then I just did the interview with Dana, which was really fun and interesting.

Melinda (04:02)
the first one in this series.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

I didn't listen to that because I thought it would make me nervous if I heard another person's interview before I did mine. So I'll listen to that in the future, but I wanted to get some like context for what we were doing today. ⁓

Amy Parrish (04:32)
Yeah, ⁓ what did you think? When you listened to that, what was the context that you came up with?

Melinda (04:43)
⁓ I think I was listening, like trying to listen like in the broader sense of like what's Amy doing here, but I also wanted to make some connections for today. And I was like, ⁓ everything's a connection. Like, every single thing is, you know. Yeah, so I mean, it's big though, capitalism.

Amy Parrish (05:07)
Mm-hmm.

Melinda (05:08)
white supremacy, ableism, disability, like everything's a connection, you know? So it kind of sent me in a tailspin, but at the same time I was like, I'm really glad we're having this conversation. Yeah.

Amy Parrish (05:21)
Well, and it's like, it's why I wanted to talk to you about it because it is so big and being able to break it into pieces with people who like that's their that's the ecosystem that they're in.

Melinda (05:27)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Amy Parrish (05:39)
versus just trying to, I don't know, so we can all learn together. There's not a right or wrong answer. It's just figuring it out and figuring it out by talking about it.

Melinda (05:45)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

Amy Parrish (05:59)
What was the thing, when you listened and then you said everything, what was the thing that you were most drawn to wanting to talk about?

Melinda (06:11)
I think these rules that we're literally born into, these frameworks and these rules that, you know, because I talk about menopause a lot, but then I'm thinking where does all this come from? And I have younger people that I work with.

and they often talk about the rules and then like rewinding from there to like when you're born and just thinking about how these structures and these frameworks are in place for us before we even exist on the planet. And that sort of compliance and the expectation, thinking about a little baby and whether

Amy Parrish (06:49)
Mm-hmm.

Melinda (06:59)
they're eating the right way or pooping the right way or crying. I was thinking about little Amy and raising her hand in class and being called on and not having the answer or what that could feel like if we just had a few more question marks and not so much defined shit happening.

Amy Parrish (07:14)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, like there's. ⁓

Melinda (07:29)
Yeah.

Amy Parrish (07:34)
almost so that the world isn't so prescriptive.

because.

you're thinking about okay, little baby, right? And then it's, you know, ⁓ you need to feed your baby this because that's what works. what if your baby can't eat that, what if you can't breastfeed, but then you get shamed because you're supposed to do it that way? I mean, it starts.

Melinda (07:48)
Mm-hmm.

Amy Parrish (08:08)
to your point, it just starts so early.

Melinda (08:10)
Yeah. And you probably, know, as a mother, you probably have more in-depth experience with like that early, early time. But I know it happens because I talk to people all the time, you know, and it just, it's in us from such an early age, these rules, or you weren't the type of baby, you weren't the type of kid that...

could do this or did do that, you know, and just thinking about how that follows us through the whole life cycle.

Amy Parrish (08:47)
Yeah, like you're not good at math. So then you're just not good at math for the rest of your life.

Melinda (08:54)
Yes.

Amy Parrish (08:56)
maybe you are, you just weren't at the time. what about evolution?

Melinda (09:07)
Yeah, and maybe there's, know, the good and bad thing hits so hard because, you know, I have that story. just, is there another way of doing that? You know?

Amy Parrish (09:21)
the idea that everything is so permanent and set in stone because otherwise if we live in complexity, then there's so much unknown that can happen all the time.

Melinda (09:38)
Yeah. And that's, I think that's scary for most people.

Amy Parrish (09:47)
Is it scary for you?

Melinda (09:51)
in certain ways, yes. I mean, in the zones where I think about it all the with food and body stuff, I know how much complexity there is. But in other ways, you know, we're in this really scary time on the planet. And I think I bump up against that all the time. Or just like, you know, being ridiculous, like I needed a new, I needed a new glasses prescription.

and I got my glasses this week and I can't see out of and it's just such a fucking saga, like between, you know, going back to your optician and getting a new prescription and like whether or not you're gonna say the wrong thing so they feel offended.

and then going to have to go to the glasses store and trying to get that again. And then all of these people trying to explain the math part to me. It's showing me all these numbers and I'm like, I just instantly freeze up. I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, I'm not a numbers person. And that's my story. How am I gonna be able to decipher what the fuck you're talking about? Because I'm not a numbers person and I have to be the middle, middle.

in the road person between getting my glasses made and this doctor's. So I just think we all bump up against it, all of this rules stuff. And at the end of the day, I just want to be able to see.

Amy Parrish (11:20)
Yeah, and then, but also like when you go, I mean, I'm even thinking about like when they put the things up and they're like, okay, what line can you read? And I'm like, should I be able to read that other line? Right.

Melinda (11:33)
They don't tell you. They don't

tell, like, I'm like, mm, yeah.

Amy Parrish (11:40)
What am I supposed to be able to do here?

Melinda (11:44)
Ugh.

So yeah, so there's just so many places in our day-to-day that I think we bump up against that, where I don't have the context for that complexity because it's not my world and I don't have the language to talk about it.

Amy Parrish (12:06)
huh. Which is why you turn to an expert. Expert.

Melinda (12:06)
And it just...

Yeah, yeah, an expert. But then I have a bad experience, you know? Like I feel like, shamed for not knowing math, or I didn't want to buy the ultra designer frames, so I'm not like getting the frames from the optician. So blah, blah. Like I didn't spend enough money to get great service, or it goes on. It just goes on.

Amy Parrish (12:35)
But you're, I mean, you're making such a good point because it's all of the minutia of that kind of stuff that creates the idea that we have to know, all of this stuff. Like, I'm, you know, I'm 54 years old. I should be able to know how to do X, Y, Z because I should be able to do that. I should.

Melinda (12:59)
Yeah.

Amy Parrish (13:01)
be able to buy the glasses at the optician instead of going over to somewhere else where they're less expensive. I should be able to know how to read a glasses prescription because I've been wearing glasses for 30 years.

Melinda (13:16)
how to access your out of network benefits because you couldn't find what you needed with your shitty eye insurance. It just goes on forever.

my god.

Amy Parrish (13:33)
Do you think that? Okay, I'm gonna see if I can reel my thought in.

when a client comes to you and you're the person who is this is your ecosystem. This is you know what you do and then they don't know. My guess is you're not thinking you you should know this. I can't believe you don't know this.

if they don't know something.

Melinda (14:06)
I'm not, well, I'm not thinking that, but I think that's always something that we have to keep as practitioners at top of mind. in, I think like in motivational interviewing, they have that phrase resisting the righting reflex always checking yourself and resisting that urge to say ⁓ I know, I have the solution.

Amy Parrish (14:31)
Mm-hmm.

Melinda (14:32)
and like sitting on your hands and remembering that the person across from you has a deeper knowing about themselves than you ever will.

Amy Parrish (14:45)
And then can that be?

Like, does it have to be either or?

Because I know for me, there's a lot of things that I don't know that I should know. And when someone tells me, I can take it in and digest it put it into my own life, if that makes sense.

Melinda (15:13)
Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, none of us, of us can know everything, right? And hopefully we have people that are around us that offer consent and, and complexity, like you said. Can I give an example from like us? And you can totally get rid of those if you don't want to, but it's like you and I talking last week.

Amy Parrish (15:33)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Melinda (15:40)
about you having these ongoing UTIs.

Amy Parrish (15:44)
Yeah.

Melinda (15:46)
And I have this experience where I'm like, there may be another solution to this or another way to look at this.

And I just keep thinking about that conversation and how that should be, quote, common knowledge for people our age, and it's not. And why isn't that out there in the, why isn't that in the rule books? That should be one of those unwritten rules, how you access your out of network benefits and what happens when you start getting

recurrent UTIs, ding, ding, ding. But it takes it takes so much to get to that point, way too much effort. Did that make any sense?

Amy Parrish (16:34)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it's because really what you're talking about is is I think common sense and so

there are so many important things missing from the common sense that are not there because women's health isn't important. so common knowledge is not really it's just not as out there because it's not, it's not, it hasn't been seen as

something that's needed.

Melinda (17:16)
Yeah, like the first example I think of top of mind for our topic today is how much women, AFAB bodies change from the time they're in puberty to college. And somehow we miss that boat of reminding everybody that this happens and it's a thing and

We think that we should all somehow maintain the same body shape and size as like this, this like really elusive time between high school and college. And we carry that with us, whether we're 25 or 35 or 55 or 80 for the rest of our lives that somehow our body changed.

Amy Parrish (18:11)
What is that? What is that like? What is that for you? What does that mean about knowing?

Melinda (18:20)
I mean, I think that's where we get we come back to like your first episode where it gets super big and that knowing becomes becomes those heavy frameworks of capitalism and white supremacy and ableism and what is what is a good body size to have and all of all of those things.

Amy Parrish (18:48)
It makes me think that there is so much change that happens between puberty and then teens and then late teens and then early twenties and then going into as you get older, your body gets different.

but we rely on that first sort of body image as the thing that's like, know how I'm supposed to look and I'm gonna spend my whole life working towards this image of what my body should look like for my whole life.

Melinda (19:21)
Mm-hmm.

Yes, you have this brief moment in time and for the rest of your life, you should take that as permanent and spend all of your time and energy getting back to that place.

Amy Parrish (19:50)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, like I'm not good at math. And so then forever in perpetuity, that is my story about myself. This is what I know about myself. This is what I know about my body.

Melinda (19:57)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm. And so whether you're in, whether it's math and you're in, you know, the optician's office and you have that full body reaction or you are at the doctor and they ask you to get on the scale or you bump up against some stupid social media post where they're telling you to start some diet or fitness program or whatever.

we're always trying to get back to that place.

Amy Parrish (20:39)
And it's such a blanket statement.

Because my guess is in the work that you do that you see how.

like someone else's knowing about.

How do I want to say this? There's like a general knowing that sort of encompasses everyone when it comes to how much rest you need, how much energy you have, the ways you should eat, the ways you shouldn't eat, the shape your body should be, et cetera, et cetera.

we just turn outward for information about our bodies instead of turning in to where the sense is.

Melinda (21:33)
I mean, some of that just is in relationship, having those conversations over and over and doing like archeological digging into where all this stuff comes from exactly like what we're talking about here. what are, you know, making lists? are the diet culture rules? What are the food rules? What are the family food rules? What are the social body image construct?

Like, where does all this come from? And then trying to eke out some piece of what is true for me here and now.

Amy Parrish (22:16)
And a lot of this happens in isolation because of the shame that's involved.

Melinda (22:19)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. For sure.

Amy Parrish (22:27)
Like the knowing that happens, I'm thinking about myself as a teenager and getting Seventeen magazine, And so you get Seventeen magazine and these beautiful teenage women are in fabulous clothes and effortlessly beautiful. And I didn't see myself there.

Melinda (22:37)
Mm-hmm.

Amy Parrish (22:55)
Like that was just not me.

And so when the outside world...

doesn't reflect you back at you.

What do you think that does to your sense of knowing about your own body?

It's interesting to think about because when you, when you get an idea of what you're supposed to look like or who you're supposed to be.

And there's not like there's not. It's all so narrow.

Melinda (23:38)
It's so narrow and I think about, you know, we're sitting here in white straight size bodies and we both have this experience starting from Seventeen Magazine and such a young age. whether you have, you know, more internalized like disability or you're an AuDHDer

and have a very different experience on the inside than might be what's on the outside. Like that's one thing. And then I think about all of the other people that like didn't see themselves in Seventeen magazine, like at all from a very external place, you know, be it body size or race or, you know, gender or whatever.

I just think that, you know, it's like there's no winning with, there's no winning with white supremacy and capitalism and patriarchy, you know, we're sitting here and we have from a pretty privileged perspective and given that thought that we're not enough and like we'll never match up like from such a early, early start.

That's just so different from so many people's experiences, you know, on a much more external, like visceral level.

Amy Parrish (25:03)
And it's.

Mm-hmm.

And it's such a, it's just like, just keeps making me think about how narrow it is. there's just so few options in.

a white supremacist capitalist ableist culture.

Melinda (25:30)
Yeah.

Can we talk about some of the food rules? because I think it's it's helpful to think about eating and food because we all have that, you know, experience. Like that we're supposed to eat three meals a day. And we're supposed to eat most of those meals, sitting down in community with our family.

Amy Parrish (25:37)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Melinda (26:01)
And if we aren't able to do that, there's something, there's like a friction there. And that starts super, super young.

Amy Parrish (26:10)
what do you think about that?

Melinda (26:12)
I think like, you know, just coming up with that expectation that a family is supposed to sit down for dinner. And if that's not completed and you don't raise your hand to be excused and things wrap up and you know, everything is quote normal. There's, there's like friction and tension and the whole family knows that something's not being performed the way it's supposed to be.

Like that's like a really common one that comes up. And I think everybody could probably relate to that.

Amy Parrish (26:47)
Yeah. And also just all the rules about the food you're supposed to be eating or the food that you're supposed to be feeding your family.

Melinda (27:00)
Yeah, you should have full access to all of the tastes and textures. There's a certain amount of financial stability that should be there to provide for that.

Everyone should eat the same thing.

It goes on and on and on.

Amy Parrish (27:26)
Yeah, like.

Everybody should be hungry at the same time.

Melinda (27:33)
Mm-hmm.

Amy Parrish (27:35)
Everybody.

like

Melinda (27:39)
should finish, everybody should finish all the food on their plate, except if their body doesn't conform to what we think it looks like, in which case they should stop at some point eating and then perform that they're no longer hungry.

Amy Parrish (27:59)
Yeah, like there's so much gatekeeping around how much you're allowed to eat, what you're allowed to eat.

the kind of food you're allowed to eat. I just think about, like I think about my mom, I think about another. ⁓

person I know that's in her seventies that they're just like still like, I'm being bad because I had a piece of cheesecake. And it's just like, really? Are we still in that frame of mind?

Melinda (28:39)
Like if we're having some sort of carb type food, if we're having like a carby food, we have to say something about it. We have to make sure we say that like, oh, you know, like you said, I'm being bad or this is like, this is a treat.

Amy Parrish (29:01)
you

There's so much value placed in the performance of owning shame around.

Melinda (29:18)
Mmm.

Amy Parrish (29:22)
like kind of bucking the system.

Melinda (29:25)
Yes, yeah, I like what you said about the performance of it. Like going out to eat and ordering a side of veggies because you think you should, even though when you're like, all I want is fucking fries. And then watching, yes, yes. And then watching the family.

Amy Parrish (29:42)
With the aoli please.

Melinda (29:51)
Coercing the child to eat the broccoli at the foreign dinner table when like all the kid wants is some fries

And it just repeats itself. Like that question comes up so many, how many vegetables should I have?

Amy Parrish (30:12)
and it creates.

What you said is so important because...

Kids are not allowed to know what they like and what they don't like. They're told what food you like, what foods you should like, and what foods you shouldn't like. And you're immediately kind of taught that you don't know what you're doing when it comes to what you're eating.

Melinda (30:29)
Mm-hmm.

And that relationship, that like piece of the food experience teaches us from such an early age that not just the food is unsafe, but like that the world is unsafe because that's the first time that we really have a lot of agency.

Amy Parrish (31:09)
Yeah, like I'm full. No, no, you're not. I don't like this. Yes, you do.

Melinda (31:17)
Mm-hmm. can't have that until you have this.

Amy Parrish (31:23)
Right. Like no dessert for you. You didn't eat your dinner.

So food is punishment, also reward.

Melinda (31:33)
Yeah.

I also think I need to do an interjection here that we're not blaming parents, because this system has been, and I think that's what your whole podcast series is about. I think this system has been set up for all of us for generations, and there's a structure to it, and there's a purpose to it to keep us all in this like...

very narrow window of what is good and what is bad. So I just want to make sure we're not talking about like shame and blame on an individual level.

Amy Parrish (32:11)
Yeah, well, I mean, and I can speak to that, just as someone who has a, my youngest is a very, particular eater. He has a lot of food sensitivity, like texture, color, he doesn't like green food, period. he's a very visual eater. And as someone who

made all of my organic baby food, you know, and then didn't want the kids to have juice. I had all of these rules about what it looked like to be a good mom when it came to what you feed your children.

Melinda (32:40)
Mm.

Amy Parrish (32:55)
not thinking about the stress that it caused.

Melinda (32:58)
Mm-hmm.

Amy Parrish (33:02)
because I was holding up food as an achievement instead of understanding what it was doing to my relationship with my kid.

Melinda (33:13)
Yeah, yeah, and like putting that sense of safety as a priority for your kid, know, like having that, how are you grounded in this experience, you know? What are the textures and tastes that are appealing to you?

Amy Parrish (33:37)
What do you think the biggest thing that...

is the thing that you wish people knew.

or didn't know when it comes to eating and body.

Melinda (33:58)
I think for food and eating stuff, like...

that food does not play the role in our health that we think it does. I think that's like probably the biggest one that we, you know, there's so many other things about our health and our body besides food.

that we don't have as much, we just don't have as much control as we imagine that we do, you know? And I think we touched on it earlier, but like that bodies change. They just, don't stay the same, be it body size or level of ability. I think that, I think we have like a really, really tough time with that, that change is inevitable.

Amy Parrish (34:59)
And that seems like it has to do with...

using logic instead of a sense of your body as you as you change.

you think you know what you're supposed to look like.

Melinda (35:18)
Mm-hmm.

Amy Parrish (35:21)
instead of having a sense of time passing and that change in any body is normal.

It's interesting to think about the normalization of it and also not normalizing it at the same time.

Melinda (35:40)
Yeah, normalizing and not normalizing. Things are going to happen. I'm going to get COVID and need weeks to recover. But at the same time, we have no support system for taking time off work. We don't even really know what's going on with the body when that happens at this point because it's so new.

Amy Parrish (36:08)
Say more about that. where does that take you? Thinking about that.

Melinda (36:14)
I think that takes me with like...

So many people having unexplained health conditions, things that maybe don't improve with the usual...

medications, diet plans, all of that, and then getting swiftly taken up into health misinformation. I think that is where that takes me.

Amy Parrish (36:54)
When you say health misinformation, again, that kind of points me back at the the common knowledge or common sense that we. The narrow lanes that we rely on to tell us what to do instead of being.

observing what's happening and being in the reality of that.

Melinda (37:19)
Yeah, yeah. And I think maybe I can be more specific. Like, I think of people, you know, that have complicated health and it's so easy to get caught up. I know this has happened in my past with like trying a new diet plan or purchasing a supplement protocol that you find on the internet or there has to be some, there has to be an answer if I can't find it in...

in one source in conventional medicine, then I have to be able to find it elsewhere. And it always comes back to me as the individual having to fix that problem.

Amy Parrish (38:03)
and then you as the individual fixing that problem.

I don't know, I'm thinking about supplements and diets and...

For in my brain right now, that is tied to what we look like instead of what we feel like.

Melinda (38:25)
I think so, but I mean, you know, in this context, like think about how much of that's offered up to the neurodivergent community. Like think of all the different ways that we can like improve on ADHD or, you know, oh, you're autistic, you definitely need to be eating this way or that way and cut out gluten and cut out sugar. And we're going to cure the autism with like, yeah.

Amy Parrish (38:47)
All

electrolytes.

Melinda (38:53)
I think that's still like really, really common.

Amy Parrish (38:57)
which then says that you're the problem and you need to be fixed.

Melinda (39:03)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Amy Parrish (39:08)
like.

Melinda (39:08)
And I think,

yeah, and I think we still turn to those things like the food and the supplements and the exercise as the first line in so many places, be it complex health, be it neurodivergence, be it your body size is outside of the quote norm of what it should be, because those are the individual resources that we have.

instead of this question that you're asking about more of a collective and more of a shift. But it's always going to be easier, you know, to point it back to the person in the framework that we're in now.

Amy Parrish (39:57)
Yeah, like 100%. The point you just made is incredibly important.

The first line, what did you say? The first line of defense is food, supplements. It's not.

looking at, I don't know, what's your work life like? how much time do you get to spend resting every day or being active in other ways besides working? What other things do you have in your life? Where could you use some help?

Melinda (40:35)
Have you had a good night's sleep in the last six months? Yeah. Yeah.

Amy Parrish (40:42)
Yeah. How much do you have to drive every day?

Melinda (40:47)
How much money do you have in the bank? Do you have social support? Do you have friends?

that you get to like sit around and play your game or knit on your sweater all day last weekend. Yeah. But I think it usually comes back to like those things that I was talking about. Yeah.

Amy Parrish (41:01)
you

because in, I love the way this sort of is circling, like in the myth of knowing, we have that certainty, the idea that like.

I know what to do. I'm going to go on this diet. I know what to do. I'm going to buy all these supplements. I know what to do. I'm going to

make it about what I put in my body instead of about my environment or the ecosystem that I'm in.

very individual.

Melinda (41:54)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, and it bumps up against so many things. Like almost kind of what I was talking about at the beginning with my glasses. Like I'll meet someone that has a new health diagnosis and they go to medicine, you know, and medicine has its place, absolutely. But a lot of times medicine will say, ⁓ no, you need to change your diet, go on a fitness journey. You need to do all these.

behaviors and perform all of that without asking like How would it be for you to eat differently? Do you have the capacity for that? Do you have the money to go do that? Do you even like all of those tastes and textures and smells to like make a salad? Or is this like an impossible task that I'm sending you off to do?

And so often that question doesn't get asked in the doctor's office because there's an expectation that we can all just go and do that. Join a gym, make all the food ourselves, know, on and on and on.

Amy Parrish (43:14)
It's the one, it's again, it's the one solution. there's one way to deal with this and this is it. Whether that works for you or not.

And if you can't change your diet and like start cooking salmon every day for yourself and like, then I don't know what to tell you. I guess you're just out of luck.

Melinda (43:40)
Yeah.

Yeah, or like if you feel more comfortable maybe having some like, if you're neurodivergent and like supplement drinks are a helpful way for you to make it through the day, like you should constantly be trying to do food exposures and expand your palette and keep on trying like getting new tastes and smells and textures in the mix. But if you're like,

a fitness bro and you drink the same supplement shakes because you're like, you're on your journey, then that's fine. It's totally okay if you wanna have like a couple of those like protein drinks a day.

Amy Parrish (44:27)
It's the constant.

wanting people to do better when they aren't doing good in the first place.

And then.

giving some people just have permission to

Melinda (44:42)
Mm-hmm.

Amy Parrish (44:44)
Like, ⁓ well, if you're doing this, then it's okay for you to, if you're, you know, a fitness bro and you're drinking protein shakes a couple times a day, that's okay. But if you're neurodivergent and often eating is just like such a pain in the ass, well, you know, you really just need to try harder.

Melinda (45:08)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. you're not, yeah, if you're not doing like quote good or you're just, you're doing differently.

And I think like, I just think that we haven't been taught and we haven't been given the room to ask these questions. Like, what would it be like if someone drank a few protein shakes a day for years on end? You know, is that an okay way to be? And I'm gonna put aside like, we want people to be safe. know, I know we want that for everyone.

But a lot of times people will come in, and I'm speaking just directly in nutrition practice land, their labs are fine, their nutrients are fine, but it's just easier for them to have the protein shakes. So why are we constantly trying to bring a salad in? Why?

Constantly.

Amy Parrish (46:19)
I love that. Why

are we constantly trying to bring a salad in? Like a salad is a solution for everything.

Melinda (46:26)
Yeah, vegetables are a solution to all the problems.

Amy Parrish (46:33)
which is the major theme of knowing about food is like, eat your vegetables.

Melinda (46:41)
And I think that it touches on that shame piece too, because really, you know, and when we're in a close container and so many people do ask me that, like, how many vegetables do I really need? You know, because there's a question and it's deep and it's like, I'm not getting to that place. You know, there's some number out there.

Amy Parrish (47:07)
It takes, it takes the...

It takes the ability to sense about your own body what works for you and makes it very prescriptive.

Melinda (47:26)
Mm-hmm.

Amy Parrish (47:29)
Again, that outward, like outward knowing about what's good for your system.

when yeah maybe I eat six vegetables a day but also it totally stresses me out.

Melinda (47:45)
Exactly. the total, yeah, and the total, the like totally stresses me out piece. We don't, we don't think about how taxing that is, you know, like the weeks and the months and the years of that adding up and the tax that we pay from the stress of that. Isn't that like, isn't that more important than

Amy Parrish (47:47)
So then.

Mm-hmm.

Melinda (48:16)
a few more cups of romaine or something. When we have so many other options, I'm just thinking literally about feeding ourselves. We have the shakes, we have multivitamins, we have all of these things at our disposal, we have tools to help people and...

It always comes, it comes back to that so many times, just like.

Why am I not eating the salad?

Amy Parrish (48:45)
It makes me wonder if we overstate the importance of food.

Melinda (48:52)
Well, yeah.

Amy Parrish (48:55)
Yeah, say more.

Melinda (48:57)
I mean, I think that was, I think when you asked me like, what were the biggest things, like, that's what I said. It's just like, food doesn't do everything that we think it does. I mean, of course, like we need food to, you know, we need food to fuel our body every day. Yes, we do. But it's like, look around the world, like people that have food.

Amy Parrish (49:10)
Yeah.

Melinda (49:22)
eat so differently, you know? And we're like, we are really trapped in this culture that there is like one way to eat.

Amy Parrish (49:34)
And that's that certainty that you have to follow that one way to be doing it right.

Melinda (49:43)
Yeah, like I'm thinking about, you know, people that come into my practice that like...

they're eating as well as they could possibly be doing, you know? Even from more of a conventional sense, they're eating the vegetables and the fruits, they're eating the salmon every week. And yet still, because there's a health issue, they know that they could be doing better. And they've read the books, whether it's like,

whether it's autoimmunity or a hormone thing or there's increased cholesterol or this or that. We have so much stuff where you could do something with food, but at what cost to the rest of your life? And...

Is it even going to work? If you have an autoimmune disease, is limiting your diet even more and whittling things down to only fresh fruits and veggies? We don't know that. We don't know that at all. And people ask me these questions, and I'm like, I can't give you a prescription for that.

That becomes the whole conversation, I think, too, that you brought up. That's about disability, and that's about performance, and that's about bodies staying the same and all of this. there's no magic list of foods out there.

Amy Parrish (51:38)
No, no.

And I just had a thought, I wish it would not have disappeared.

⁓ do you think that we know?

too much about what's happening in our bodies?

Melinda (52:02)
Mmm. ⁓

Mmm, I love that question. I love that question because I think

⁓ there was just, I just read something about this the other day. Like there's some new blood panel you can do where you can test for quote, everything, like everything. And I was reading this article, ⁓ God, don't know where it was out in the ether about this person bringing that list of everything tests to their doctor and like having that conversation, you know, like here's everything and.

So much of that stuff, the doctor had to relay back, we don't have the answers to all of this. Like, you pull one lever up, another goes down. we have certain parameters where we, you know, we know people are doing quote better than not, but knowing everything and having all of that information, it doesn't help us. I mean,

We have to remember, nutrition science is so young. it's just in the last, you know, 20, 30, 40 years that we've really been doing this whole nutrition thing. And there's still so many questions about the way the studies are run and is this method of research better or more successful than that?

how many different confounding factors we have when we talk about somebody that can eat more salads than protein shakes. More knowing from an external source isn't necessarily always better.

Amy Parrish (53:54)
And it's not really economically beneficial to capitalism if you can feel that you got enough sleep, like just by checking in with your own body rather than like looking at your, you know, right, right.

Melinda (54:15)
sleep score. Yeah.

And we can, yeah. I mean, I think that's like a whole nother rabbit hole, right? we can pay for all the data on, on all of that. And this, that is that helping us is tracking and monitoring and doing, mean, that goes into so many different directions.

Amy Parrish (54:37)
Yeah, but it kind of, for me, points to...

A system can tell you how you're doing or a test will tell you how you're doing and then you outsource your sense of how you're doing to something outside of this system that is so complex and complicated.

Melinda (55:02)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. I'm personally terrified of doing that sleep tracking just because I'm in the phase of life where my sleep is such shit that I know to see that every single day compounded with the way I already feel. ⁓ I don't need something telling me. ⁓

Amy Parrish (55:32)
Yeah, got a, look, I got a bad night of sleep.

Melinda (55:36)
Okay, you need 72 hours of recovery time.

Amy Parrish (55:40)
I'm just like...

Hold on, but that may not be true for me.

Melinda (55:44)
I'm sorry.

Yeah. Yeah.

Amy Parrish (55:51)
And it keeps you from knowing how you go.

Melinda (55:51)
Or maybe you don't have

that because yeah, because you have to get up and fucking work. So what are you gonna do? or take care of your kid. Yeah, here's yet another way to feel like shit about yourself. ⁓ my God.

Amy Parrish (56:00)
Right, just feel like shit about yourself?

from a system that is outside of you, that tells you it knows you when...

I mean, this gets on a much bigger idea, but we have all the, we have the information that we need accessible to us, within our bodies at a lot of different levels.

Melinda (56:36)
Yeah.

Amy Parrish (56:41)
But like we started with, we we're taught from a very early age to not trust our own sense of what's happening in this system.

Melinda (57:07)
⁓ do you know how to put us on pause without stopping?

Amy Parrish (57:11)
Yeah, do I?

Melinda (57:14)
Stop it, just pause it.

Amy Parrish (57:18)
Why will it not let me pause it?

I don't know. It won't let me pause. It lets me pause when I'm doing it by myself.

Melinda (57:31)
Mm.

Amy Parrish (57:36)
Huh. I have no clue.

Melinda (57:38)
I don't know what to tell you. I just really have to pee.

Amy Parrish (57:42)
yeah, just go pee.

Melinda (57:44)
What do I do? How do I like?

Amy Parrish (57:46)
Just, it'll just run, it'll be fine. I mean, you're not gonna pee right here.

Melinda (57:48)
Okay.

No.

Amy Parrish (57:52)
You can mute yourself, I think.

Melinda (58:01)
Hi.

Amy Parrish (58:03)
Much better. ⁓

Melinda (58:04)
That

was me modeling, like knowing my interoception limits and saying, I gotta take a break. The morning liquids have like done their thing.

Amy Parrish (58:10)
saying I gotta go pee. Yeah.

And those are the kinds of things that I feel like knowing stuff like that and then asking, like saying it. Why aren't we working on that instead of more salad?

Melinda (58:36)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I know. I try to say that at the beginning of my appointments, you know? It's okay to pee. It's okay to get a snack. It's okay to go pet the dog.

But people don't, people rarely take me up on it. It's something we have to practice. It's like...

Amy Parrish (58:57)
Yeah, body autonomy.

Melinda (58:57)
because we've just

learned the opposite.

Amy Parrish (59:02)
Well, because if you're in school and you need to use the bathroom, you have to raise your hand and you have to get permission. And if like, it's not a good time, then you can't go.

Melinda (59:07)
Mm-hmm.

And God help you if you're a teacher.

Amy Parrish (59:19)
Well, right? Like, what do you do with a room full of kids if you gotta pee?

Yeah, it's it's crazy.

What did we not talk about? Like, what did we miss?

Melinda (59:35)
I think we talked about a lot. I think we covered some territory here. We didn't talk about menopause, but I think we should talk about menopause some other day. That's a whole, that's its own whole thing.

Amy Parrish (59:48)
Mm-hmm. I agree. I And I feel like this was like, I feel like it was just a really interesting sort of meandering conversation that ended up with like, what do you think? Like, what did we end up with?

Melinda (1:00:12)
I think we ended up with these expectations and these structures and these systems.

being established from before us. This is something that's been in place. that bumping up against all of these things creates a lot of challenge and tax. And it's just something that we carry with us for so long.

And now, hopefully, that we're asking these questions, we can start expanding our view of what health is and what bodies are and what's good.

Amy Parrish (1:01:09)
What's good in a way of being willing to be curious and not know?

Melinda (1:01:16)
Mm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Amy Parrish (1:01:23)
And then also like.

talking about it.

just talking about it in other ways besides diet, dieting and like losing weight or trying to be a certain body image.

more making space for a lot of different experiences.

Melinda (1:01:52)
Yeah, yeah, and like.

having that question about who is the expert and who does the knowing and expanding on that, especially in places where it's set up to sort of like have that structure and that hierarchy.

Amy Parrish (1:02:18)
Yeah, yeah, questioning everything. Yeah, all right, I'm gonna stop recording and then we'll carry on with our matching cups.

Melinda (1:02:30)
Mmm.

Amy Parrish (1:02:34)
Many thanks to Melinda Staling for joining me in a curiosity led conversation, going where our thoughts took us and for the important work she does in the world. Melinda will be back for an episode about menopause. And in the meantime, make sure you check out her podcast, Departure Menopause. Many thanks to you for listening. And if you have thoughts or questions, please feel free to email me at amy at

Rebelling.me. Looking forward to seeing you next time.