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Welcome to the Designed for Greatness podcast, conversations with Candice to help you elevate your mind, body, and spirit and own your divine greatness.
Episode 15: Using Nutrition to Land in Body Love with Dr. David Wiss
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[00:00:00] Hello. And welcome to the design for greatness podcast conversations with Candice to help you elevate your mind, body, and spirit and own your divine greatness.
Today you have my interview with Dr. David Wyss. He is an expert in all things nutrition, and I'm so excited to have him here for you guys to meet him and glean powerful insights from his wealth of knowledge about nutrition and mental health. So to get you acquainted with Dr. Wyss, I will give you his bio.
This is his bio. David became a registered dietitian nutritionist in 2013 and he founded Nutrition in Recovery, a group practice of registered dietitian nutritionists specializing in treating eating disorders and substance use. He earned his PhD in public health with a minor in health psychology from UCLA by investigating links between adverse childhood experiences and mental health outcomes.
Dr. Wyss is a nutrition and health consultant, a functional medicine practitioner, a [00:01:00] recovery coach, and he has a wealth of knowledge to draw on in regards to health and wellness. He just came out with a new app called Why Is My Nutrition? which helps bridge the gap between nutrition and mental health.
And David, you're absolutely awesome. I'm so
thank you. Yes, I'm so excited to be here. I feel your energy coming off of you, and it's so warm and so inviting. And I'm really excited to build some ideas together. Yes,
yes. Well, the synchronicity between the mind, body and spirit is my wheelhouse. And I love how you are the same.
And I can't wait to pick your brain. So to start out with. I would love to get your expert insights on eating and weight release and the most healthy, effective ways to reach our healthy body size goals. What are your
thoughts? Oh, I have so many and it's changing over time. You know, this idea of, body weights becoming more and more of a sensitive topic.
[00:02:00] And there is so much controversy in the space. it does seem like there's a little bit of tension building in the field between, uh, you know, People that are, actively, seeking weight release versus people that are moving toward a more body acceptance paradigm. And, um, I just, I represent the middle ground.
I think that there's a way for people to not get sucked into any camps and really figure out who they are and trust that the body has a natural intelligence and when you start to live in alignment with what your body points to, and, and, and there's an integration, as you would say, of mind, body, and spirit.
there's a level of trust that's required for, bodies to operate. And yeah, I, I get to work with a lot of people and I see people have sometimes a lot of numbers. in mind, I want to weigh this number. I [00:03:00] want to look, I want to fit into this dress. And a big part of the work that I do is get people to think about the big picture of their lives and to sort of operate under the assumption that, you know, we're not always in full control.
We have influence. Uh, we have influence over our health, but, it's ultimately not. A choice and it's not always up to us. But what we can do is, take certain steps to, uh, live in alignment and, and see what the universe has in store for us. And I tend to favor that model over the. make it happen.
I talk to people a lot about the difference between, making something happen and letting something happen.
I love it. That control force energy is never healthy. If we can learn how to flow and live into what, what is. And then work with what is, that is so much more powerful. And I love how you, how you put all of that.
When [00:04:00] I work with my clients in my body love program, the first thing that I have them commit to is to try to love themselves like crazy. And I know in the world that sounds a little bit woo woo, a little bit, you know, frumpy, it's not loving yourself like crazy is the number one most important thing that we can do.
in order to put ourselves in a place to And it is powerful. So I, I love, I love how you put that, um, help my listeners understand the difference between food addiction, disorder, disordered eating, and simply craving a certain type of food.
yeah, I appreciate how you emphasize the radical self love and.
how important it is to start there. I think a lot of people want to do a lot of work to get there. And I think we're on the same page. If you can get someone to cultivate some of that from the beginning, you're going to be way more likely to get where you want to go quicker. Right. [00:05:00] and of course everyone asks, well, what if I don't love myself?
Right. that's the work. Let's, let's integrate some, uh, deep spiritual work and let's get there. And that might mean having to look at your relationship with food in the context of, as you mentioned, ultra processed food addiction. eating disorder, uh, compulsion, craving. We have all these terms, emotional eating, loss of control eating, um, and they're all on a continuum, on a spectrum.
I think we used to use the term food addiction. And then I think we softened it in some of the language and said, well, let's call it addiction like eating, right? So it's, it's resembling an addiction, but a lot of people pushed back on the term food addiction, at least in the scientific literature and in the eating disorder community.
And they said, you know what, food's not addictive because, you know, One, [00:06:00] everyone says you need it to survive. Two, not all people are addictive. And there was a pretty strong pushback against food addiction from the eating disorder community. And myself and other scholars and clinicians, we've worked really hard to figure out, okay, how do we.
refine this message because the data is crystal clear. People have neurochemical responses to food that do hijack the brain and make it difficult to think about other things. So in the last few years, we've sort of changed the term from food addiction to ultra processed food addiction to be able to specify that we're not just talking about food.
We are talking specifically about NOVA4 classified ultra processed foods, which are, uh, Very different in terms of their neurochemical response for some people. So, uh, that is one. Uh, Area of Progress. We've specified the term. Of course, there's going to be people that say, well, I, I eat addictively [00:07:00] with nuts or fruit or, actual whole foods.
And I think we've sort of come to this idea that that could be something else that could be, um, more of a compulsive eater profile. And there's also a lot of people that have addiction like symptoms because they don't eat enough in the first place, right? So if someone is trying really hard to release weight and they're, they're dieting a lot and they're not getting enough food, it can play out in this monster of appetite, right?
And that can sometimes feel Like an addiction. And I'm not saying that it's not, but I'm trying to best answer your question of like, what's different about these things, right? Ultra processed food addiction is based on the DSM 5 criteria for substance use disorders. So there are 11 criteria listed to have an addiction and we break it down into mild.
moderate and [00:08:00] severe. And these are, uh, symptoms like loss of control continue to use despite negative consequences. And so in the, in the world, people self identify. you know, as food addicts. But in research, we use these instruments, the Yale Food Addiction Scale 2. 0 and the modified version to really get a sense of whether or not someone meets that criteria.
And then of course, the next question is, well, if someone does. What do we do about it? Right? and that's when the eating disorder question comes in, you know, Um, I think it is important when you're assessing mental behavioral health particularly in the realm of eating is to look at overlapping characteristics, eating disorders are generally, you know, characterized by, certain behaviors like binging or purging or unhealthy weight control behaviors.
They're characterized by [00:09:00] extremes, right? A lot more body image dissatisfaction. So, you know, one of the, one of the. areas that I've done most of my work has been at the intersection of food addiction and eating disorders. What if someone has very clear addiction like eating patterns, but they also have a long history of dieting and body image dissatisfaction, right?
And you get both of these constructs overlapping with each other. The question becomes like, okay, now how do you treat that? Because generally. In the field, they've been looked at as very different things. Okay. If you were to just like go on to Instagram or search the internet, a food addiction. provider or coach might be saying what seems like the exact opposite as someone that's in an eating disorder world.
So just to give you an example, you might see someone online influencing [00:10:00] that, you know, food addiction requires cutting out all sugar and making carb ketogenic diet. And then you go on to another influencer in the eating disorder space, and they're saying, no, it's your avoidance of these foods that are causing the problem.
You need to learn how to make peace with these foods and you need to learn how to eat them intuitively. And so we're left with these very, very. polarizing messages, right? And they seem to be at odds. And so what I've noticed is that a lot of my clients and patients and people on the internet are confused.
They say, well, you know, and they, people call me and they're like, well, what do you do? What, like, what kind of services do you offer? Are you food addiction or are you intuitive eating? And, you know, I've always been baffled by the question to think that, you know, why couldn't someone, uh, integrate knowledge from all these different areas and bring them all together to create frameworks that would [00:11:00] be individualized and personalized for the person.
And, you know, I get a sense by the look on your face that, you do something similar, right? Bring in wisdom from different domains so that each person can find a message that resonates with them and realize that that actually might be different than the person sitting next to them. That might be different from their cousin, that might be different from their best friend, and that we're all biologically unique and we live in different social and environmental contexts.
And yeah, people do need to figure out a message Uh, that resonates with them and use the right language based on their own psychological and psychiatric profile. Cause everyone's going to be different. We have different bodies, we have different cultures. So I've just been obsessed with helping people figure out their own unique lane to build their own nutritional identity rather than taking on someone else's.
I absolutely love that [00:12:00] and I am 100 percent on board with that. The thing that I have realized, I've worked with over 300 women now in this body love weight release program. There is no cookie cutter way to, to plan your food and it needs to be. tailored to each individual person. There are frameworks, there are guidelines, there are, for sure, really important things to go by, but when it comes down to it, that's why we have our own body.
That's how we can check in to our own self, and our bodies will tell us, once we check in, what we need, how much we need, the types of food we need, when we need it. It is powerful to understand that we can get those answers inside. We don't need someone else telling us all of the specifics.
yeah, if you do that kind of work with someone, yeah, you're, you're, you're not just helping them nutritionally, you're helping them become more empowered and, and that can spill over into other areas of our life, right? If, if someone is looking [00:13:00] for a nutrition guru and you teach them how to be their own guru pretty soon, the level of confidence that can come in the food and body domain can spill over into these other areas.
And maybe that person will be less dependent on some outside or external influence in some other area of life, like in relationships, right? So yes, food and body work can be very empowering for people. 100%.
So what I, what I do then is I help people understand. What their body is telling them, learn to hack their body is what I call it to hack their own body so that they can then be in control.
And once that, as you say, it's so empowering, they then step into who they really are. They own that they have gifts and talents and strengths to offer this world. And then they step up to their purpose and it ripples into every facet of life and learning about your body, learning how to listen to your body [00:14:00] and follow its cues.
It just gives you that confidence to then step into that and, and it is so, so powerful. I have another question for you and, and it kind of piggybacks on what you were saying about, eliminate the food or moderate it or don't do it. All of the different things that were being told. Speak to processed food for me for a minute.
I know through research and through my own experience that our hunger cues, when we tap into what our body is telling us, they get skewed when we eat a lot of what you're calling ultra processed foods, the sugars and the flours, and when we're able to eliminate or limit the flours and sugars, the processed foods, the It recalibrates our hunger scale and we're able to then tap in more clearly with what our body is telling us.
Will you speak to that for a minute?
Yes, I absolutely will. I think it is worth spending a quick minute just to do some terminology because, [00:15:00] uh, we do have the term processed foods and ultra processed foods. And it's it's it's worth discerning between the two, because a lot of times, at least, you know, in the online space, I'm seeing people using them interchangeably.
And we do have a very specific. Classification system, uh, developed in Brazil called the Nova Classification that breaks food into four categories. The first is unprocessed or minimally processed foods. So these are things in their close to natural state, right? You think about a fruit, vegetable, and the example I like to give is a corn on the cob, right?
It's minimally processed. It's been cut off. right? We have category two foods, which are sugars, salts, fats. These are processed culinary ingredients. So these aren't necessarily foods per se, but these are things that we add to foods in order to make them more palatable or perhaps store longer, et cetera.
different flavors, et cetera. [00:16:00] Number three is Processed foods. Now, processed foods are a combination of category one, category two foods. So if you were to think about, canned corn, right? So you took the corn on the cob and it was cut, it was rinsed, washed, stored in a can with some salt, most likely in order to, uh, uh, have it have a long stable shelf life.
Okay. And then we have category four, NOVA4 foods, which are considered ultra processed foods. And these are generally foods that, most individuals wouldn't be able to make at home. So they contain little, if any intact category one foods. So you can't really identify what food group is in it super easily.
So the example is the corn chip or the Dorito, right? And I think it's, safe to say that these are foods made by large scale industrial practices and, um, they're generated [00:17:00] for profit. they're made by multinational billion dollar food companies. And these companies do have a lot of money to lobby for their products and to do market research.
And so, you know, we talked about food addiction earlier. I really became interested in food addiction when I read a salt sugar fat by Michael Moss, his book from 2014 described how food companies They use neuroscience and brain imaging and they have research laboratories, a lot of the same laboratories that were used by the tobacco companies to figure out how to maximize their products for maximum profitability.
Right. And so I think it's, I think it's not even up for debate that these ultra processed foods were designed to override our natural body systems. And so I think we're in alignment if we are going to teach someone how to be intuitive around food, how [00:18:00] to tune into their own body cues. some people will be able to do that.
with, you know, a wide range of foods and be inclusive to having fun foods or even Doritos here and there. But for other people that have genetic predispositions to addiction, perhaps they have a lot of adversity in their life. Perhaps they've done a lot of dieting. Ultra processed foods are going to make it difficult to start trusting the signals that you do get.
yeah, there's going to be people that find their road to intuitive eating by, stopping the food fight and learning how to make peace and just eat the chip or eat the muffin. And there's going to be people that find their road to intuitive eating from deciding that those foods don't sit well with me.
And that the only way for me to really feel confident in the message that I'm getting is to eat mostly category one minimally processed foods. And [00:19:00] then to also eat, you know, Processed foods. And I think the main point I wanted to make about the discernment is that processed foods are everywhere and not necessarily as bad as people think.
If you go to a restaurant, they're serving you processed food, right? Like whenever you do something to food, it's a level of processing. So processing isn't necessarily Problematic. There's a lot of reasons why food is processed for palatability, storage, uh, for culinary experiences, but it's the ultra processed foods, these packaged snack foods and convenience foods that are truly built to, Make money and override our own biological systems and that are showing up not only in the research around diabetes and BMI, but my focus has been on how these foods affect mental health.
How they can lead to cognitive decline, [00:20:00] depressive symptoms, and, uh, dementia later in life.
Right. It is so infuriating, truly, that these big companies have researched how to get people addicted to food. How to make their food processed in a way that creates them just wanting more, more, more, more. And it truly infuriates me.
And as you're saying, it affects mental health, it affects diabetes, it affects so many other things, so I appreciate the work that you've done to call them out. I know you were part of a group that took a stand on that, and I appreciate that, and thank you for pointing those things out. when I work with my clients in the Body Love Program, I require three things.
First, that they're willing to love themselves like crazy, as we spoke of. Then I require them to plan what they eat and eat what they plan, which obviously no one is perfect at, and I'm not going for perfection here. Um, but then the third thing is to analyze what happens along the way so that we [00:21:00] can then shift and move and become.
the guru of our own body. So when it comes to planning what you eat and eating what you plan, the thing that I really want to speak to and understand from your point of view is how do we endorse intentional eating without falling into that restricted eating or that diet mentality? Because we have to have a plan.
Yeah. Thank you for that. That is the work. It's like very clear that going too far with you know, dieting is a problem. We also know that not having intentions or plans can be a problem. So how do we find the happy medium? And I think, you know, we talked earlier about how each person is different and each person will have their own little sweet spot.
But I have found that when we think about creating a meal plan, There's a lot of different ways to approach that. I think the traditional way that most [00:22:00] people have utilized has a very quantitative effect to it. It feels like it is a math formula. Someone has done calculations on calories or macronutrients and come up with a set of Parameters or guidelines by which the meal plan is centered around, right?
So, most people associate meal plans with something like one cup of this, you know, three quarters of a cup, this, this many ounces of this. And I do think that some people would benefit from that approach, but the majority of people that feels. It's like a pass fail sort of a diet plan and, yeah, it's exhausting.
It sounds, it feels exhausting. It feels like something that can be very. mundane, and tired. And so I've never incorporated that math centric approach in my [00:23:00] practice over the years. I've been way more interested in helping people develop what I like to call guiding principles for eating. So a meal plan could look like Some, like I said, some printed out sheet with a menu on it, but it can also be a set of principles that someone develops, uh, based on their own, introspective work and their own, uh, patterns.
So, for example, a meal plan, in my opinion, could be, I'm going to eat. three meals and one snack and an optional dessert. You know what I mean? So that could be a starting place and someone could say, I'm going to have my first meal within 30 minutes of waking up and I'm going to try to have it before I drink my coffee, right?
Uh, lunch is going to be approximately this time. I have a snack and dinner and that each of my meals, there's going to be at least three different food groups, right? So you could use a system to [00:24:00] identify, you know, this is clearly what we're aiming to eat. By using a system where you aim on what to eat, you don't have to put so much of your focus on what not to eat.
I think a lot of diet plans do focus on our, here's your numbers, here's your list of foods that you can never eat. Now go, let us know how it works out, right? And it feels like I said, a lot of pressure when you build a plan full of guiding principles and you just start listing out all the things that you do want to do.
You have a much more clear roadmap of, steps to take. So it could look something like. I'm going to have three meals and two snacks. I'm going to get all the food groups daily. I'm going to get three food groups at all my meals. I'm going to see that there's a fruit or a vegetable present at meals. I want to get all the colors of the rainbow every day.
I'm going to drink two liters of water first by lunch, second by dinner, right? And you could start, I'm going to check in with my hunger and fullness. before and after meals. I'm going [00:25:00] to sit for a few minutes in the, in the morning and set some intentions for positive body image, right? And you can build this whole plan, right?
I'm gonna, whatever other wellness behaviors someone is interested in, in terms of You know, movement, sunlight, hot, cold, whatever other components of someone's wellness plan can all be built into what people like to call, you know, a meal plan. And then once you have all this criteria of stuff that you're working toward, there's just an endless world of possibilities there, and it feels expansive rather than, I'm moving through life with this piece of paper that someone gave me, and I'm going to see how many days I can do this before I fail, binge, and then cancel my appointment or let someone know that it's just not working out.
Right? So there are ways to help people become deliberate and intentional with eating and have it not feel like a punitive pass fail [00:26:00] experience. I love it.
Well said. Amen. Thank you. Thank you for that. I want to switch to intermittent fasting. I would love to pick your brain about it. I absolutely love intermittent fasting.
I love how it promotes cellular autophagy. I love the mental acuity and increased energy that comes through intermittent fasting. There's so many benefits. The key for me is to make sure that during my 6 8 hours of window of eating time, that I still honor my hunger scale, that I only eat when I'm actually hungry, that I stop when I'm satisfied.
I realize many experts dislike intermittent fasting, stating that it's restrictive and it leads to binge eating. I don't see that in my practice, and I have thoughts on intermittent fasting.
Yeah, it's another perfect example of how I am of two minds. You know, I certainly, um, have seen the benefits of [00:27:00] intermittent fasting for people.
And I've also seen the flip side of the coin. Um, I probably have a little bit of a bias toward seeing the flip side. Uh, just because of the nature of the work that I do, I tend to work with people that have a, proclivity toward extremes. So when I have a kind of mental behavioral health focus practice, I get people that take things too far and that have addictions and disorders.
So I do see. people that have maybe tried intermittent fasting and said, this feels great. You know, I'm going to stretch the window more, right? I'm going to make my feeding window less and my fasting window larger. If this feels good and I like it, maybe it'll feel better. And so it's definitely something that can be dysfunctional for some people.
And I think, you [00:28:00] know, those are the important messages that are coming out of today is that. It could be an incredibly helpful tool for one person and not be the best thing for someone else. And, you know, I definitely saw some research recently that suggested that it might be less helpful for women compared to men.
This was just, you know, a study. And I think it was based on the idea that You know, there's different hormonal shifts, right, that occur across the, gender and sex spectrum. but yeah, I think that if someone like benefits from that parameter of having guardrails, guidelines, it gives you a very clear thing to do.
Um, I would never be the one to push back on it, but to highlight our point earlier about being positive. Instead of thinking about intermittent fasting as these are the times that I can't eat. You'd want to think about it like, Oh, this is the window. This is [00:29:00] the time that I eat. And these are things that I'm going to aim to eat.
Right. And then you, you, you, you make it into an expansive experience rather than a new set of rules, because people do like rules, by the way. We were talking earlier about like building a plan full of guiding principles, not giving someone something that's too rigid and restrictive. A lot of people want that.
They want. the rigid rules because they can't see them succeeding without those really clear, uh, things in place. Um, but I have found that sometimes the people that want the rules the most are the people that would benefit from being, more flexible. It's kind of like the people that resist yoga the most are the people that would benefit it from the most, right?
The people that have the hardest time with meditation are the people that need meditation the most, right? The people that have the hardest time with cognitive flexibility, [00:30:00] right? Are the people that need it the most. So, yeah, it's so cool that you have found, an approach that, that works. And I'm guessing you've experimented.
with different ways to approach it in order to make it work for your life.
Absolutely. And, and you're right on with different people respond differently to it. And depending on your background, your circumstances, your DNA, your genetics, it all comes in and it all has. And influence. And truly, the best way is to be intuitive about all of it.
Uh, I love it. I love it so much. I want to shift our focus a little bit because you are doing such amazing things in this world. And I love bringing people on my show who are truly living into their greatness and using it to fulfill their missions and serve others in such powerful ways. So I would love to hear you state what do you feel your mission is and why and, and what brought [00:31:00] you to where you're at today?
Yeah, I'm super invested in a paradigm shift in the nutrition space. it doesn't feel like a, uh, a safe place. Often, and these days, it just, it feels like an, a, a field that's filled with contention. I think a lot of that has to do with How food companies have controlled the narrative, uh, around health and have influenced people, particularly registered dietician nutritionists, my colleagues, right?
A lot of, a lot of narrative pushing and agenda controlling comes from, you know, uh, major corporations trickles down through healthcare professionals and plays out with. the general population. So nutrition has felt like a shallow space to me. and I think in alignment with the work you do, bringing in, [00:32:00] you know, mind and spirit.
Uh, is so important to make nutrition feel like a more deeper experience where people can actually do meaningful healing work. So I've really tried to shift the conversation around nutrition from just fitness and appearance and more toward relational health. Depression, anxiety, and it's really exciting times because we have these emerging fields of nutritional psychiatry, nutritional psychology, and there is a deep interest in utilizing food as medicine.
for mental health outcomes. And that just gets my heart, uh, fluttering because I know that there's a lot of people out there who don't respond well to medications that are desperately needing a new chapter and haven't even considered. That maybe gut based, anti [00:33:00] inflammatory eating, uh, food healing work could be the thing that gets them there, right?
It hasn't even entered their consciousness that the food they eat is more than calories and that it has a profound impact on their mental well being. So, I'm trying to be part of the voice that gets people thinking about nutrition in these contexts to think about how Nutrition can be used to help heal from PTSD.
Nutrition can be used in early recovery to rewire your brain from a substance use disorder. Nutrition, positive nutrition can be a part of healing a ruptured relationship with your body. Right? And that it has a lot more to it than just calories, macros, and percent body fat and people are waking up to it and saying, yeah, there's something there.
And, those of us that are a part of this conversation know that [00:34:00] it's an uphill battle and that the Western medicine industrial complex doesn't support, you know, nutrition interventions for depression and that it's not likely to become mainstream overnight. But it's definitely going to get there eventually, and I think most people can agree.
Absolutely. I believe it's on its way, truly. I mean, we are what we eat. Calories are not created equal. It is so important. I mean, there are specific regimens for people on cancer, right? There are specific eating It's so critical, the things that we put into our bodies. It affects our minds. It affects our spirits.
We cannot We cannot be so in a box about nutrition and, and that's, that's awesome. I love it. I love that that gets you out of bed in the morning to bring people health through the way that they eat. It's, it's awesome. so in order to show up in the world, you're [00:35:00] putting yourself out there. You're in these contentious arenas.
You're, you're creating waves and ripples to create change. How do you manage all of the neg Negativity. How do you tap into that love that you have for yourself and your why every day when you're faced with
opposition? Yeah, thank you for that. I do believe that if someone lacks a strong sense of self, It will be hard to navigate the nutrition arena as it is today, contentious, filled with not only debate, but anger and social justice issues that are super, super important.
So a lot of charge. And, you know, if I'm completely honest, I definitely felt like I was at a fork in the road a few years ago because I am interested in, addictions. and how they interact [00:36:00] with food and eating. And if you were to look at my publication history, a lot of my work has been on food addiction, ultra processed food addiction.
And I was at a crossroads because clinically I do a lot of work with eating disorders. I help people that have anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder, and the full spectrum of disordered eating. And in my field, my clinical field, the majority of people, uh, say ultra processed food addiction doesn't exist.
And they took that position because, it conflicts. with the message that comes out of a lot of eating disorder, philosophy, treatment, etc. And so I was at a crossroads and there was a time when I thought, Oh, wow, if, if I want to be accepted, you know, in this field, I have to abandon this conversation about food companies and about public health, [00:37:00] because it seemed to be like a canceled topic in that if you're saying these things, you're scaring people.
And I had to do a lot of soul work around it to be able to see that if I bail from something that I really believe in, that I'm selling myself short and that I'm compromising my career. And so, yeah, I've sort of been the guy. that doesn't identify with either camp in, in a, in a pure form. I said, Hey, let's mediate these conversations.
Let's bring them together. Let's write papers about what happens when they're both. Uh, occurring at the same time. And, you know, so I, I've spent a lot of years educating the food addiction community and researchers and clinicians about eating disorders. And I spent many years educating the eating disorder community about ultra processed [00:38:00] food addiction.
And the cost has been, is that Both sides look at me like I'm crazy sometimes because I'm interested in the intersection, right? They're like, wait, you, are you with us? Are you with them? Which side are you on? And I was like, can you, can you pause and consider the possibility that two things can be true at the same time?
And so, yeah, the work that I've done at the intersection of those two constructs and to promote nutrition for mental health has definitely had its. Costs, it's definitely taken a toll, uh, but it's been so worth it because we are emerging into a new landscape where people will use our wise minds.
Well, and I think that soul work that you spoke to is what gives you the stamina, the grit to, to stand up and truly own your truth, truly stand in your power. That soul work is, is important. And that's, that's something that I. and passionate about and super interested in because that [00:39:00] is what allows you to then use your greatness to bless this world.
So I, I commend you for doing that soul work. what do you do to tune in spiritually? How, how do you tune into your soul?
I had some pretty marked changes in my health around 2006 that empowered me to live. what I like to call two lifestyles in one lifetime. Um, so I had a major reboot when I was 24 years old and obviously nutrition and.
Uh, movement, sunlight, wellness were a huge part of that because it gave birth to my career. but, I also learned at that time about, you know, meditation, prayer. But I think the biggest thing I learned in starting my life over was that in order for me to truly be well, I had to dedicate a little bit more energy than the [00:40:00] average person.
into the welfare of other people and that I need to practice. getting out of self in order to, feel useful. That, that a feeling of usefulness is actually a spiritual practice. So, um, instead of me talking about how many minutes or hours I can meditate, I learned that I want to think about, how I can show up and be a contributor and to think about that as a spiritual practice.
So, you know, for example, my mother has dementia and is in memory care, and I try to go see her once a week and it's not just about going to see her. Before I actually get out of my car and walk in. I might take a pause, uh, a minute to do some breathing and to be able to visualize the way that I'm going to show up when I see her.
So thinking about the difference in the quality of [00:41:00] how I show up for the world and the relational dynamics that play out rather than just the quantity and to be able to check the box and say, you know, I saw my mom for an hour on Saturday. it would be better for me to show up there with an open heart and a phone that doesn't get pulled out and to be there.
present for 20 minutes than to be there, moody and anxious and ready to leave for an hour, right? So I have learned in my spiritual practice to focus on quality rather than quantity and to, uh, think about my relational dynamics with other people truly as a proxy for my relationship, uh, with the power, right?
Is that if you want to know. you want to know about my spirituality? Like ask the people around me, you know, ask my, ask my wife, you know, my, my family, the people that work for me, right? How am I showing up? And that tends to be the [00:42:00] most, potent indicator.
I love it. It's all, it's all about our heart.
And I know our spirits have basic needs, just like our bodies have basic needs and connection and contribution and growth are, are those basic needs and having. That heart centered ability to serve and and tap into your heart every and everything you do. That is a beautiful spiritual practice. David, thank you so much for being here today.
I have loved everything that you've said. I know my listeners are just going to eat all of this up and feel so so grateful for all you've offered. As we close, is there anything on your heart that you would like to, to leave us
with today? Yes, there, it's a really exciting time in my life. I spent the last two years developing a app for, um, Apple and for Google, uh, separately.
Uh, and it's called Wise Mind Nutrition, and it really brings together All the work that I've done clinically [00:43:00] in the last 10 or 11 years and offers of a no cost or low cost resource for people that want to use nutrition and lifestyle medicine to improve their mental health. So it is part of the paradigm shift that I talked about earlier, where people can learn how to, uh, think about food differently, uh, eat differently, connect to food differently without it feeling like too much math or a, diet program.
And, uh, it shows people how their mental health may have improved or changed over time. So it tracks different outcomes, which is super exciting. And probably the coolest part about it is that it's built for people to connect with others on the app. So if you have a friend, coach, provider, family member, a colleague, and you want to share your food logs and your journals with someone.
You can, you know, request each other based on username. And so I follow all of my clients on the Wise Mind [00:44:00] Nutrition app. And I have people that are starting to follow each other to be able to see and get inspiration and we're building a little community of people who want to remember who we are.
That is absolutely fantastic. I will for sure put a link. To those in our show, and it sounds amazing. Well, thanks again for being here and for owning your greatness and making the world a better place. You're amazing, David.
Appreciate you. I appreciate you. Thank you so much.
Friends, thank you for joining me today. I hope as you listen to Dr. David Wyss, you were able to sense how passionate he is about using nutrition to generate health in our mind, body, and spirit. I hope you check out his app, Wise Mind Nutrition, which I've linked to in the show notes. Truly, when we tap into our own body and learn to be intuitive about our food intake, we will get to a place where we become the guru of our own body and live in body love.
Listening to our body, learning what it is telling us, and responding generously to [00:45:00] it is the key. That is what my Body Love Program is all about. If you would like some guidance and help to reach your body size goals, that is my wheelhouse. I will leave a link to my Body Love Program in the show notes.
And remember, the key is to learn how to genuinely love and accept yourself. I'd be honored if you would allow me to show you how to do this. And remember, you are designed for greatness.