TW: eating disorders
Hey Financial Feminists, Tori here! As we get ready to dive into the holiday season—a time overflowing with festive foods and, unfortunately, food guilt—I sat down with the incredible Deanna Wolfe, a registered dietitian and business coach, to unpack the pervasive impact of diet culture on our lives. We’re exploring how diet culture impacts our day-to-day lives and the sneaky ways it continues to perpetuate disordered eating. We’re talking about intuitive eating, Ozempic, BMI, all of the buzzwords and topics you’ve been hearing about, and ways to start healing your own self-image and relationship with your body.
Key takeaways:
Diet culture & its roots: Diet culture isn’t just about food—it’s a system rooted in patriarchy that profits from making women feel inadequate. It worships thinness, equating it with intelligence, worthiness, and success, all while perpetuating fatphobia and unrealistic beauty standards. Deanna explains how diet culture leaves women feeling like failures when they don’t meet these impossible expectations.
- TIP : This holiday season, challenge diet culture by refusing to engage in conversations about diets or weight loss. Redirect discussions toward how food brings joy and connection rather than shame.
Credentials matter: With social media flooded with “nutrition advice,” Deanna stresses the importance of seeking guidance from registered dietitians who have undergone extensive education and training. Unlike uncertified “nutritionists,” dietitians provide evidence-based, personalized support.
- TIP : Before following advice online, research the credentials of the source. Look for professionals with certifications like RD or RDN to ensure you’re getting reliable information.
Intuitive eating & body neutrality: Intuitive eating helps rebuild self-trust by teaching you to listen to your body’s hunger and fullness cues instead of adhering to restrictive diets. It aligns with the concept of body neutrality, which focuses on respecting what your body can do rather than how it looks.
- TIP : Practice tuning into your hunger and fullness signals using a scale from 1 to 10 (where 1 is ravenous and 10 is overly full). Aim to eat when you’re around a 3 or 4 and stop at a 7. This helps avoid the extremes of starvation or overeating.
Unlearning harmful patterns: Many of us inherit damaging beliefs about food and bodies from family or society, like the “almond mom” mentality of extreme restriction. Deanna emphasizes the need to unlearn these patterns to foster a healthier relationship with food.
- TIP : If you’re a parent, avoid making body-focused comments—about yourself or your children. Instead, model body-neutral language by focusing on what your body can do rather than how it looks. For example, say, “My legs carried me through a long walk today,” instead of critiquing their size.
Challenging the male gaze: The male gaze, fueled by patriarchy, often dictates how women feel about their bodies. Deanna and Tori explore how this gaze can manifest differently throughout life, from dating to pregnancy, and how rejecting its influence can be liberating.
- TIP : Reclaim your body’s narrative by affirming its value beyond aesthetics. Write down three non-appearance-based qualities you love about yourself, such as your creativity, resilience, or sense of humor, and revisit them regularly.
Notable quotes
“Your body is not your business card.”
“The most powerful thing you can do is not shrink your body and stand in your power.”
“Diet culture normalizes disordered eating and leaves women feeling like they need to change themselves every day.”
“If you’re a mom right now, one of the biggest tips I would give you is to not comment on your teen’s or your growing child’s body.”
Episode-at-a-glance
≫ 04:34 Intro: Deanna the Dietitian
≫ 13:50 The impact of diet culture
≫ 19:14 The Ozempic discussion
≫ 25:54 Social media and body image
≫ 31:51 Debunking the BMI myth
≫ 34:29 Intuitive eating explained
≫ 36:22 The journey to body confidence
≫ 44:41 Unlearning generational diet patterns
≫ 48:05 Body neutrality vs. body positivity
≫ 52:31 The male gaze and body image
≫ 55:03 Scaling a dietitian business
Deanna’s links:
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Meet Deanna
Deanna is a pioneer in the online space, creating a loyal community of 300K+ through her Instagram and TikTok @dietitiandeanna. Her top 10 mental health podcast DEATS with Deanna is also where her audience trusts her with sound non-diet nutrition advice and female business inspiration.
Deanna has helped 400+ women grow their online business inside Online Entrepreneur Academy and owns three 7-figure businesses. She is regularly featured in articles from Health Magazine, The Today Show, the New York Post and is a speaker at many health & entrepreneur focused organizations. Deanna is featured as “The Most Influential People in Wellness” by Ness.
As a speaker, writer, 7 figure business owner, mama, body confidence activist, and coach, Deanna takes her Instagram community along her compelling journey of disordered eating recovery & business growth.
Transcript:
Deanna Wolfe:
Coming back to non-weight metrics, how is your digestion? How is your energy levels throughout the day? How’s your sleep quality? How’s your body respect? How’s your mood? How’s your relationship to food feeling? I think all of those are more important metrics that I would check in on as a non-diet dietitian than it would be to be like, “Oh, let me see your progress pictures and your weight today and your BMI.”
Tori Dunlap:
All right. It is the holiday season everybody. What is your favorite holiday snack? Kristen, what’s your favorite snack? Pumpkin pie. Oh, it’s good. Pumpkin pie is good. I’m a pecan pie girlie at Thanksgiving. I like a good pecan pie. I was such a picky eater growing up that everybody’s obsession with Thanksgiving, it did not equate for me. And still even up until a couple of years ago, I was like, turkey’s fine. It’s fine. The cranberry sauce though, and the rolls very, very good. I think it’s very hard to get turkey done well. I think … Well, I need to check with my mom. I told her I would like to cook Thanksgiving this year and I was going to do not turkey at all. But I’m not sure what the plan is, so I need to check in with her. This is my fun little holiday thing that I’ll tell you about Thanksgiving really quick.
I have a lot of drama in my family. My extended family is … Yeah. There’s a lot of drama. We’ll keep it at that. And so when I was seven, my parents bought a trailer, like a camper trailer almost solely because they didn’t want to do Thanksgiving with the whole family. So for 10, 12 years we would go away on Thanksgiving to a coastal campsite and my mom would do Cornish game hens in the trailer, just the three of us. And it’s been Thanksgiving like that forever. Sometimes my Nana is there. It’s very much tiny family Thanksgiving. Little bit of football. We are not a turkey trot family. Absolutely not. So yeah, it’s very low-key and chill.
But an unfortunate thing that happened on Thanksgiving that actually equates very well with this episode, you have probably heard me mention if you follow us on Instagram, that I had a particular ex-boyfriend who called me fat on a beach. Told the story here before as well. Was my first real serious boyfriend who had a lot of good qualities as well. But I don’t even remember this happening. I think I blocked it out. My mom told me about it after we broke up. He came for Thanksgiving to my family’s house, and I have always loved bread. Bread is fantastic. Who doesn’t? And apparently I was reaching, I think for my third roll and he said something like, “You’re going to have another one. You’ve already had two.” Like he was monitoring what I was eating. Mom tells me I put it back and that she was like, “Your entire face fell and you put the roll back.” And that shit is what we’re talking about today. Where holidays are a fun time, but they’re loaded with so much food shame. Whether it is from people in our lives, whether it’s just society, whether it’s ourselves, we feel so much guilt about food and about eating, period. But especially I think around the holidays because we’re around food, because we’re around … And we’re celebrating. We want to eat and there’s nothing wrong with that and there’s nothing wrong with eating those really rich, joyful foods.
But we want to talk about that today because we want to make sure that we are respecting the power that food gives us, the joy that food gives us. The goal is not self-love all the time. You’re not going to love yourself all the time. It’s just like body neutrality. So we want to talk about our relationship with food period, but especially as we’re going into this holiday season, we want to be equipped with tools where we feel good about the choices we’re making, where we don’t feel shame and we’re also able to indulge because that’s not a bad thing. So we brought one of my Instagram friends and an incredible dietician and business coach onto the show to talk about it.
Deanna is a pioneer in the online space, creating a loyal community of 300,000 through her Instagram and TikTok at Dietician Deanna. Her top 10 mental health podcast, DEATS with Deanna is also where her audience trusts her with sound, non-diet, nutrition advice, and female business inspiration. She has helped 400 women grow their online business inside Online Entrepreneur Academy and owns three seven-figure businesses. She’s regularly featured in articles from Health Magazine, the Today show, the New York Post, and is a speaker at many health and entrepreneurial focused organizations. She was also featured as the most influential people in wellness by Ness. We get into what it takes to be a registered dietician and why you should be cautious about food and nutritional advice you get online. I’m looking at you TikTok. We also talk about how diet culture impacts our day-to-day lives and the sneaky ways it continues to perpetuate disordered eating. We’re talking about intuitive eating, Ozempic, BMI. A lot of these buzzwords and topics that you can’t stop hearing about. And Deanna also shares some practical tips on how to find body neutrality and promote it to those around you, including children in your life.
This episode is a great reminder of the idea that your body and how it looks is the least interesting thing about you and is a great lesson if you’re working to heal some of your own self-image and your relationship with your body. This might be triggering to some listeners, especially those who might have a background in disordered eating. We talk about that briefly in a really celebratory way in terms of recovery. But if this is something that you know is going to be rough, we can skip this one. Don’t worry about it. We’ll see you next time. All right .let’s go ahead and get into it. But first a word from our sponsors.
Deanna Wolfe:
Tori’s just getting back from vacation so we’re diving in.
Tori Dunlap:
We are diving right in. Yeah. I am excited to be back. And also I wish I was still drinking Hugo spritzes. Have you had a Hugo spritz? Do you know what this is?
Deanna Wolfe:
No.
Tori Dunlap:
Oh, okay. So Italy is like the Amalfi Spritz, that’s the big … Or excuse me. Aperol Spritz. And then there’s the Amalfi spritz, which is I believe Lemoncello, which is so good. And then there’s the Hugo spritz that has elderflower. And I love Aperol spritzes in Europe. I don’t like them here because they use too much Aperol here. It’s too bitter. But when they do them in Italy, it’s great. And then I’m obsessed with Hugo spritzes now, so that’s all I’m ordering.
Deanna Wolfe:
It sounds like a lavender matcha latte in alcohol form so I’m done with that.
Tori Dunlap:
Kind of. Yeah. It’s very refreshing. A lot of mint and lime, which is exactly what you want when it’s hot and yeah, it’s perfect.
Deanna Wolfe:
Amalfi Coast, I did it a few years ago, and so picturesque.
Tori Dunlap:
Beautiful. So many people because it was July for us. So many people.
Deanna Wolfe:
Yeah. Yeah. It’s like Instagrammers paradise.
Tori Dunlap:
It really is. And yeah. Positano is beautiful, but the food is shit. And so I spent an afternoon there and I was like, “I have to get out. There’s too many people. The food’s terrible. I got to leave.” It was not great. So pretty though.
Deanna Wolfe:
I love that.
Tori Dunlap:
We’re so excited to have you on the show. Most people look at any fitness body adjacent professional world and especially dietitians, and they seem to not understand all the work that goes into being one. I especially think with social media where anybody can be like, “This is the food you should or should not be eating.” Can you talk about your background and why you decided to become a dietitian and what you had to do to get your credentials?
Deanna Wolfe:
To be a dietitian, you have to jump through hoops honestly. I had no idea going in. I wanted to be a doctor and I failed organic chemistry and I thought, what next? And you now have to have four years undergrad, specifically in dietetics, which you can do in your junior and senior year plus a two years masters. It’s a requirement in order to sit for the dietetic exam. So six years of schooling. Plus … I forgot about this part. An unpaid internship. So you work for a year and get $0 and you might spend anywhere from 10 to $20,000 on an internship. You’re paying to work for other people.
Tori Dunlap:
And paying with housing or you’re actually … How does this work?
Deanna Wolfe:
You’re paying out of pocket.
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah. Okay. Great.
Deanna Wolfe:
So it’s very hard to find diversity in dietetics because of that. You have to already have money to be a dietitian, which is sad. There are some routes where now you can go back to school and it only takes a year or two, and I have a whole podcast itself on that. There’s a lot of different routes that you can go, but it’s basically a six to seven year journey to be a dietitian. And it’s upsetting then when on my own page, so many people tell us that big pharma, big food pay for our degree when that’s not the case at all. They might have given in the past, which they haven’t for 20 or 30 years. Coca-Cola might have paid for a space at a event of ours or given our corporation money that oversees our own degree, but that doesn’t mean they paid for our schooling, our teachers, how to understand the human body and all of those things. That’s very controversial right now though.
Tori Dunlap:
Well, and what do you do when people online say, “Oh, she’s just an influencer who talks about food,” despite your certifications and your master’s degree? Checking those credentials.
Deanna Wolfe:
I think people don’t know the difference. And I could be blue in the face to educate people and I will still be called a nutritionalist or a dietitian. Most dietitians work in a hospital and a lot of them are called the food lady. You’re just bringing me my meals and I’ve gotten a lot of comments that are like, “Well, if dietitians work in hospitals, why do hospitals’ food stink so bad?” So dietitians equal the terrible quality of hospital food. And that’s not what we do in hospitals. Typically, it’s deeper wound care, tube feedings, nausea, diarrhea, vomiting. That’s the type of clients that … The patients we see in a hospital.
What I say is that critical thinking, knowing how to learn and read research, we had to do a full year on that alone. And what we’re trying to do as dietitians is not tell people, yes, eat X and don’t eat Y. Dietetics and nutrition is very gray. There’s not black and white. And I think the people that online are black and white are the ones that have never been to school for it. Because we learn the research, we know what the research is out there, we’re able to read the research and tell you, okay, this is what the research is saying so you make your own informed decisions about it.
Tori Dunlap:
You bring up a good point that I don’t think I even know. What is the difference between all these things? We have dietitians, we have nutritionists. Talk to me about if somebody educating me about food. Who might they be and what credentials do they have?
Deanna Wolfe:
A dietitian would be the pinnacle or the gold standard I would say, because they have the six or seven years. There are different routes to go. And honestly, now that I coach other health professionals, I think there are some routes that can be helpful for women that don’t want to spend that amount of time in schooling or don’t have the money. And there are things like NTP, where you’re using other certifications in order to learn more or do functional type of testing and learning that background, which dietitians can do too. But dietitians can be the gold standard. And other than that, there’s certifications or schoolings that might take a year. There are definitely some certifications that take a month. I would try to steer clear of people that only have that type of work done. But there are other certifications but I would say dietitians are the gold standard. Not that others don’t have education, but it’s just not as much.
Tori Dunlap:
One of the things you’re doing in your work now, but I think is not commonly understood for people who don’t work in this industry is how poorly paid it is in a traditional sense. Was that a shock to you when you graduated and started working?
Deanna Wolfe:
It was. The average salary coming out as a dietitian is $56,000. So I felt like six figures was incredible. And when I became an entrepreneur and somebody challenged me and said, “Well, what about seven? Why haven’t you thought about seven?” And now I’m a multi seven figure entrepreneur. I could have never fathomed it. And that’s what I’m trying to change the game for women is knowing how to sell, knowing how to market clearly, knowing how to stand in their power, knowing how to charge their worth, whatever that means. But people want and need nutrition education and they’re willing to pay you. You’re just working for people that are underpaying us and not knowing all that has gone into what we’ve done.
Tori Dunlap:
I want to spend a good chunk of our time talking about diet culture. Because for me, diet culture equals patriarchy. It is a way to control women. It is a way to make ourselves literally physically smaller but also emotionally smaller. It is a way for the patriarchy and this multi-billion dollar industry to profit off of our own self hatred. So talk to me about how deep this shit goes in terms of diet culture, in terms of trendy body types. Talk to me more about that.
Deanna Wolfe:
The sad thing is diet culture is a system of beliefs that worships thinness. It equates it to you’re smarter if you’re thinner. You are richer if you’re thinner. It really equates thin as the virtue that everyone should look up to. Is an increased status in society. And what you, and I hope I am trying to put out there is that the second women have more power it feels like sometimes we go back into this thin society focus. Every time we gain a little bit as women, we then backtrack and it’s like, no, you’re just here to be skinny and be at home and cook meals. And as a dietitian, which we’re taught that stuff, it’s hard to overcome that at times. So I think the sad thing with diet culture is all of the pieces that it represents behind the scenes is like, oh, you are smarter and you have better healthcare when you’re thin, when in reality that’s not true.
Tori Dunlap:
Well, I think it’s also a worthy thing too. We don’t believe people who aren’t stick thin to be worthy. Worthy of love, worthy of opportunity, worthy of success. And of course fat phobia is tied into all of this. But I think that that’s really what we’re talking about is it’s like you’re not worthy if you’re not skinny. And also it’s never attainable. The skinny that society expects is never attainable because the moment you get skinny, then you’re too skinny. I think that that is the part that shows me and hopefully shows everybody listening that this is not winnable. This is a game that has been rigged and that sets us up for failure every single time. The only organization or the only person that wins in that is the patriarchy and the multi-billion dollar industry who’s committed on making us hate ourselves.
Deanna Wolfe:
Also that weight loss is always positive. When I hear time and time again from clients, I lost weight when I was deep in my depression. I lost weight when I became a mother, and I hated my life.
Tori Dunlap:
Because I was sick. Because my dad was dying. Yeah. Yeah. Totally.
Deanna Wolfe:
It’s not always a good thing. And I think we always are quick to judge somebody. Oh wow, you look so great. I’ve been trying to stop body comments. Whether you are pregnant … The second you get pregnant, people think they can say whatever about your body and it is a crazy world out there. Or even if you’ve lost weight or gained weight, people think they can make comments about your body and that’s something I’m really trying to change is stop talking about women’s bodies. We could again say your body’s the least interesting thing about you, but people are still talking about people’s bodies. So unless we stop that, our bodies will always be the most interesting thing about us if that’s what’s always in the news about the people that are important and that are trying to be important because of their bodies.
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah. Maybe we can talk more about that because I think a lot of it is done and well intentionally. Something happened to me last week. We reposted a TikTok from three years ago, and I’m skinnier. I’m skinnier and you can definitely see it. You can see it in my face, you can see it in my body. And it was one of those, you could see my full body in the video. And I got multiple comments that said something like, “Oh my God, you’re glowing. You look so good.” And again, we’re thinking, oh, it’s really nice, but really what’s happening is you’re complimenting skinny me three years ago. Now, I don’t think it’s Skinny me three years ago, but you’re like, “Oh my gosh, something’s changed about you. You look so great.” I’m like, “I’m thinner. I’m thinner.” So I think the rule is just don’t say anything. But then of course compliments are hard. I don’t know. Talk to me about that.
Deanna Wolfe:
So the compliments instead that I try to veer people to are, your energy is incredible or I really love being around you because of X. And I think if this airs near the holidays, everyone gets together at the holidays and it’s like, oh, Aunt Sue is talking about her paleo diet or keto or fasting, whatever. And it’s like we’re always having these conversations about how you’re changing your body. And if it can be less about, oh, you look glowing because you lost weight and instead comments about your energy, how much you love that person, you inspire me because … So those are the different hooks and slogans I’m trying to get people to say instead of your body. It’s interesting that people weren’t like, “Oh, are you on Ozempic?” Because I think that’s the cop out that almost every woman who’s losing weight right now gets is, oh, you took the easy way out with Ozempic.
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah. We haven’t talked about Ozempic on this show. Do we want to get in there?
Deanna Wolfe:
I have a whole podcast on Ozempic. That could be a whole nother one.
Tori Dunlap:
I find for me, what’s been really interesting about the Ozempic thing is my brain has not caught up to Ozempic. I’ll give you the example to explain what I mean. Kelly Clarkson, love her. She’s fantastic. Lost a bunch of weight and my brain went, oh, okay, if she can do it, I can do it too. That’s what my brain did. I was like, “Oh, she looks great. Okay. She was curvy. She had a similar body type to me. Okay. If she can lose weight, I can do it too.” And I literally thought this for probably a month because she pops up on my social media. I was like, “Oh, okay. She’s probably working out, she’s eating well. I can do this.” And then my brain out of nowhere, it was like a light bulb went off, was like, “It’s Ozempic, Tori.” And I was like, oh, of course it is. And we now know she’s come out and said Wegovy or one of these. And I was just like, my brain has not caught up to the reality that there’s a hack for this. And I don’t mean that in a derogatory way, but that there’s now a medication that you can take where it’s not diet and exercise as much anymore.
Deanna Wolfe:
I’m going to stop you there because most people think it’s a hack or it will kickstart your weight loss.
Tori Dunlap:
No.
Deanna Wolfe:
This is a drug you have to be on for the rest of your life.
Tori Dunlap:
For rest of your life.
Deanna Wolfe:
It’s not a fucking hack. It is a serious medication that has been around for 20 or 25 years. We just have never used it in the weight loss space before, until weight loss became so important. So I’m fine with Ozempic or whatever for the people with diabetes who may need it to manage their diabetes. But for the Bravo real housewife who’s trying to lose the last five pounds, that is not what it’s for and it’s not going to jump start anything. 75% of people gain it back within one year once you stop taking it. So it won’t jump start anything. It’s not a quick fix, a hack. It’s a pill that you think is going to do that. And maybe if you’re very overweight and you really need help or you have issues with your blood sugars or whatever, that’s where that route goes.
Tori Dunlap:
I think that’s what we’re looking at, especially in the age of social media. I actually just … Again, I think I keep repeating myself. But I saw this post the other day of a woman going, Ozempic, Gua sha, you have technics, you need moisturizer. And she was listing all of the things that were now being peppered with … Especially on TikTok, where everything seems like an affiliate link and an ad at this point. Everything on TikTok shop is trying to get me to buy something. We’re in a different stage now of diet culture where it’s branded as wellness, but it’s just different clothing. It’s the same thing. It is buy this product and this product will solve your life. Get on Ozempic and you will be skinny and people will like you and respect you, which is actually true. We know studies that skinny people get more respect than fat people do, but I think that there now is so much pressure. There’s always been so much pressure, but the pressure looks different now.
Deanna Wolfe:
I think this is a good circle back to what diet culture is and it claims to be in your best interest.
Tori Dunlap:
Yes.
Deanna Wolfe:
But leaves you feeling like a failure. Lack of perfection. And you don’t fit into the beauty ideal and that’s your fault. And I think that we as women take that harder than men. They don’t give a shit about all of that typically. They do. I don’t want to … But I do think that’s where a lot of it falls is it’s telling us, oh, you’re going to be a better person and all these things, and then it’s your fault if it fails. And that’s why we’re in this continuous cycle.
Tori Dunlap:
Well, and it does fail. 99% of diets fail, and it’s not about willpower, it’s about psychology. It’s like restriction does not work. And that’s again, not because you’re not strong enough, that’s because you’re not meant to live your life in constant restriction. It’s the same thing with money. And I literally have the 99% of diets don’t work quote in my book because I’m like, it’s the same thing with spending. If you tell me I can never, ever spend money ever again on anything I like, not only is that not of effective strategy, that fucking sucks. That’s not a fun life.
Deanna Wolfe:
Are you on a body journey right now because looking at Kelly Clarkson and stuff on what they’re doing?
Tori Dunlap:
Oh, yeah. I’ve been on a body for a while. I can’t get into too much or I’m going to start crying. No. I think that I’ve had a couple really stressful years and my body has taken on the brunt of that stress. And I’m going to be honest with you and with the listener, it’s because of the business. It’s because of how much pressure I’ve both felt and put on myself to write a book, have it be a bestseller, travel all over the world speaking, which is great and glamorous until you realize that you haven’t had a proper night’s sleep and a good amount of food and you’re eating out all the time because you’re in hotels and you can’t cook for yourself. And people are so mean on the internet. And that has an impact on my health, not just my mental health, but my bodily health too. And I think that I’m trying to get to a point where … And I feel it so often. But there are days just like everybody has days where I’m like, I don’t feel like I’m doing enough. I don’t feel like I’m exercising enough and I feel like it’s my fault and I feel like maybe I could be doing more in terms of eating healthier.
And so yeah. It’s the same way that I often will look at women who have had some work done and I go, oh, why don’t I look like that? And then it takes my brain a while to go, she’s had Botox Tori, she’s had fillers, she’s had surgery. My butt doesn’t look like that because I don’t have a BBL. But my brain has not caught up to the reality because I think we’re all seeped in diet culture. We’re all seeped in patriarchy. And so even myself who I like to think that I am more outspoken than most and more comfortable I think than most people with my body, I still look at so many people and I’m like, “Oh, I can do that.” And then it takes my brain … There’s a delay before my brain kicks in and goes, no, that’s unachievable without surgery. Or Oh, that’s unachievable without needles and fillers.
Deanna Wolfe:
Well, why people follow you is because you are so real and you’re not fake and you’re not … So I think it’s needed. So keep being who you are.
Tori Dunlap:
I appreciate it. But it’s also not easy. Like we were talking before we hopped on, and if you follow us on Instagram, you might know this. I posted a photo in my bikini on vacation and we lost 40,000 followers. I have to have a fun conversation with our marketing team today to talk about the impact of that because yes, I 100% believe that those people don’t belong in our community if they’re not comfortable with it. But that impacts our business. That impacts the success of our business. Even me saying 40,000 followers is a potential threat to losing brand deals and spooking brands. And I look at all these comments and I’m like, this is bullshit. This is all patriarchy. And it was from other women, which is the thing that really breaks my heart. But I’d be lying if I said that I am not affected by it because of course I am.
Deanna Wolfe:
What’s funny is in the time period that you’ve lost 40,000 … Not to compare, but I’ve gained 40,000. But for me to sit, and this doesn’t change me as a person, my team’s like, “Oh, great. Let’s capitalize on it.” And I’m like, I’m still going to … I don’t know if it really is going to translate a ton for your business. I still think you’re going to sell the shit out of everything. Maybe people aren’t going to notice that 40,000 anyway. So I do think just seeing the other side of it, I still think you’re killing it.
Tori Dunlap:
Thank you. It’s going to be okay. For me, it’s so interesting. And again, larger conversation, but so interesting that we expect the people who we follow who we think are friends, but are actually complete strangers to check certain boxes in our brain. And then when those boxes aren’t checked or you check boxes that they didn’t want checked, the expectations are completely unrealistic. So yeah, a lot of the comments were like, “This is unprofessional. I’m unfollowing you.” And I’m like, “If you can’t have me at bikini photo, you don’t get me at Roth IRA.” It’s Financial Feminist. It has to be both. We’re talking about money, but we’re also talking about patriarchy. And what’s happening is … And again, all the love to these people, the internalized misogyny, the fat phobia, all of that is coming out where they’re realizing I don’t like myself as much as this woman likes herself, and that makes me feel threatened, that makes me feel insecure. And so I’m going to try to put her in a box that I’ve predetermined she needs to fit into.
Deanna Wolfe:
I have pivoted my own business and lost a lot of people because gone from talking about just food as a dietician to money and money is polarizing. So you probably already have a very [inaudible 00:28:20] audience. Right? I don’t know if you feel like that. But talking about income as a female is … I’m sure you get a lot of hate about that and I do too.
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah. Because again, we’re not comfortable with women liking themselves and with the pursuit of wealth and the pursuit of getting to a happy, healthy relationship with themselves. We’re really uncomfortable with that. And when we haven’t done work on ourselves, somebody else showing what’s possible doesn’t feel like an opportunity. It doesn’t feel like, oh, this could be possible for me, or a portion of this could be possible for me. It feels like a threat.
Deanna Wolfe:
I love that mindset shift. It doesn’t feel like opportunity, it feels like a threat.
Tori Dunlap:
That’s my empathetic response to all of this is it’s like, oh … Same thing when people come to me and they’re like, “I can’t save 100K at 25, so I’m not going to listen to her at all.” And I’m like, okay. So what’s happening is that you are writing off everything I have to say because it’s very easy to say, “Oh, I didn’t go to college,” or, “I didn’t graduate debt free,” or, “I didn’t live in Seattle,” or, “I didn’t do all these things she did, so I’m just not going to do it.” And it’s like you are seeing that as this is not possible for me, or this is maybe calling me out that I’m not doing enough, as opposed to being like, “What one thing can I take away from her? Maybe she has some good advice even though she has a different lived experience than me.”
And I think it’s again, a larger conversation because it’s very hard to speak truth to power when power is a corporation, a billion-dollar corporation that’s not going to hear you or talk to you, but it’s very easy to go on your or I’s social media because we’re real people and all shit all over us. Because one, I read the comments and I wish I didn’t, but I do-
Deanna Wolfe:
You read the comments?
Tori Dunlap:
I do. I do. Because I’m trying to be a good social media manager. I’m trying to be good. Because I also like clapping back because that’s a huge part of our brand too. But I think that with my empathetic response is people feel so tired and so overworked and capitalism has fucked them up so much and that they see somebody and they get mad and it’s because they are so powerless in a society. They’re so powerless in their navigation of life that it’s easier to go after this person because it makes me feel powerful for just a little bit of time. I didn’t expect to go here today. I’m sorry. We’re going to move on eventually. I’m on rant mode now. But I think that that’s what it is. And I have so much empathy for those people because those are the people that are struggling. Those are the people that don’t feel like they belong. Those are the women who don’t feel like they have safe spaces where they can love their bodies and pursue wealth unabashedly and do all of those things.
Deanna Wolfe:
I was going to just tie back to the diet culture really quick. The issue with all of it is that it really does normalize disordered eating.
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah.
Deanna Wolfe:
Let’s talk about that. And women to be disordered again. And that’s why for me, coming back to non-weight metrics … And even Tori, maybe you can take this home too of how is your digestion? How is it your energy levels throughout the day? How’s your sleep quality? How’s your body respect? How’s your mood? How’s your relationship to food feeling? I think all of those are more important metrics that I would check in on as a non-diet dietitian then it would be to be like, “Oh, let me see your progress pictures and your weight today and your BMI.” The BMI fucking sucks. It is literally from the 1800s. I’ve done a lot of posts on that too. Body mass index, do not listen to it if you’re overweight or obese. I don’t give a shit. It is more to do with a lot of the things instead of what your BMI is, because that was never meant to be used for an individual. It was meant to look at populations and a male.
Tori Dunlap:
Our marketing manager has a child and he is two, maybe three. And he had his BMI weight at the doctor. That’s how early this shit starts. That’s so fucked up.
Deanna Wolfe:
Yeah. It is.
Tori Dunlap:
I think the other part of diet culture that I wanted to touch on is obviously even in you talking, and we wouldn’t have you on the show if you had a different mindset to this, but I think when people hear dietitian they go, oh, they’re going to put me on a diet because that’s in the name, or they’re going to shame me and I can never have chocolate cake. I can never have a burger. I can never have anything. And so me working with a dietitian means that I’m going to hate my life. So tell me it’s not all just salads.
Deanna Wolfe:
It’s not all just salads because I hate salads. I literally went five years without eating a salad because I had to overcome the restriction I put on myself of oh, a salad’s low calorie. We don’t want you to focus on calories or on foods you hate or tell you what the half naked man in the grocery store is telling you of like, “Oh, don’t eat this product because it has XYZ.” We want to give you the information to say, how can you make sure you’re eating enough fiber to feel full throughout the day instead of just eating the chips? Can we add some pita chips with hummus for a little bit of chickpeas and fiber so that you feel fuller? So the dietitian will never put you on a diet. Literally every client, I work with … A lot of dietitians, lot of nutrition, health coaches, physical therapists who are so anti-diet that I’ve helped them do it in a whole new way online. And that’s what I’m most excited about is helping dietitians. And maybe they want to focus on weight loss, but they do it in different ways. How can you improve your metabolism? How can you look at your plate differently?
And I think there’s a way to go about getting to your set point weight without restriction, and that’s I think the goal of everyone is to be an intuitive eater, have your weight be neutral over time. And that’s a cool thing with intuitive eating is once you’re really able to embrace all the principles and learn nutrition along with intuitive eating, you’re able to sit at that set point weight, which is really more healthy over time than the yo-yo of like, let me diet, let me restrict to get to a weight and then gain weight. That’s so unhealthy for us.
Tori Dunlap:
You mentioned intuitive eating. We got a question about it. Because I have friends who do it. I try to do it as much as I can. A common theme on the show, especially this year is learning how to build self trust. I feel like intuitive eating, huge part of that. Talk to me about what intuitive eating is and isn’t.
Deanna Wolfe:
Intuitive eating is not a diet. And it was formed a while ago around 10 principles. And I created my own program with parts of it, but there’s parts of intuitive eating that I think miss. I love all the principles. It’s like reject the diet culture. You have to know how to honor your hunger and learn how to feel your fullness. So you have to really learn. And a hunger, fullness scale would be huge to really understand when I go out to eat, how can I make sure I’m not at a zero because then I’m going to overeat. Intuitive eating means you’re never going to be a zero to 10. You’re not trying to be this pendulum all day. You’re trying to keep your hunger here so that you can feel your hunger and feel your fullness. So that’s a big tip.
But I think it’s not a diet. Intuitive eating to lose weight is clickbait content because it’s not there for that. But I think there are some things intuitive even misses and what I do like to still approach with clients who maybe have read the intuitive eating book is like, hey, here’s some actual nutrition education, which it doesn’t quite cover. Here’s how to get your nutrients in if that’s helpful. Some people don’t need that who are deep in an eating disorder or disordered eating, they don’t need to know numbers anymore. They probably know numbers so specifically for every single thing they eat. But I think some nutrition along with intuitive eating is the way to go.
Tori Dunlap:
Do you feel like intuitive eating crosses over into other areas of your life? I feel like it has natural tie-ins to how we can be doing a lot of things beyond our relationship with food.
Deanna Wolfe:
When I became an intuitive eater, I gained 15, 20 pounds and then my weight settled after that. But it led me to respect my body. It led me to be way more confident in my body. I think when you are a dietitian, you’re a perfectionist, you have this disorder … And you’re so unconfident. I don’t know if you’ve ever met … I think there’s a lot of dietitians that really struggle with perfectionism and confidence in what they know even after seven years of schooling. And if you’re listening and you’re a dietitian, I know you’re probably like that’s me. Or anybody in the nutritious place. You really struggle with that. So being able to become an intuitive eater, I literally do not give a shit about what people say about me or my body. I can stand in my power and I’m confident. And I’m able to move in ways that I don’t have to spend hours at the gym anymore. So I’m a completely different person than who I was before intuitive eating, honestly.
Tori Dunlap:
As open as you’re willing to be you mentioned overcoming an eating disorder. I think feeding our bodies is an act of resistance against patriarchy, against this relentless push for women to eat less, be smaller even if it’s the opposite of what is healthy for us. So obviously hard to boil down into this episode. We could do a hundred episodes about this. But how do you think about recovery as a form of resistance?
Deanna Wolfe:
What I wish I learned earlier in recovery was to say fuck you to everything I knew and erase it all. And I had to say what everyone else is talking about with health, I need to take it out of my brain and be … And you are. You’re a little angry at diet culture when you start this process, you’re like, how did I get this deep in this? And I’m so restrictive and I hate my body and I gain five pounds if I eat anything else because you’re eating literally … I was eating so little. I was tracking macros insanely. I went on the raw vegan diet. I tried everything and I was so angry at the amount of energy and mental load it took on. So when you first start, you probably are angry at diet culture, and that’s where I think you have to start. Knowing that everyone wants us to shrink our bodies, and the most powerful thing you can do is not do it and stand in your power.
Tori Dunlap:
Did you find that with building a business, did that contribute to building your sense of power and your self-assuredness?
Deanna Wolfe:
Yes. At first it’s hard. You have a lot of imposter syndrome. It sounds like it shows up for you when you read the comments.
Tori Dunlap:
For me, my imposter syndrome, I don’t really suffer from imposter syndrome anymore. It’s more just like the effectiveness of these comments on my being is more just like my heart breaks for them, if that makes sense. I get mad. I’m like, God, we’re still doing this? I think that’s more my emotional response. Yeah, there is sometimes where I’m like, “Oh, that wasn’t nice. That doesn’t make me feel good.” But I think more my emotional response is just like, “Oh God, I thought we were done with this. I really thought that … Okay. Fuck, we’re still here.” And it just reminds me of how much work you and I have and everybody who’s fighting against this.
Deanna Wolfe:
What’s an example of something where you’re like, we’re still here?
Tori Dunlap:
Oh, I’ll read it for you because I just read it for Kristin right before we jumped on. Okay. So this was after the bikini photo. This was from a woman. I’m not going to obviously say the name of this person. “The whole body confidence thing where women want to show off their out of shape bodies is wild. I am not in bikini shape, and as such would never dream of wearing one in public, yet alone posting a picture. I don’t understand where this level of confidence or maybe it’s delusion comes from.”
Deanna Wolfe:
Do you think you’re delusional?
Tori Dunlap:
Me? Absolutely not.
Deanna Wolfe:
Right.
Tori Dunlap:
I think I’m hot as fuck. Okay. And then I said, “This is a very sad thing to feel. I wish you the feeling someday of absolute comfort with your body. It’s your vessel and the only one you have and the ability to not shame others for what you’re not able to do now.” It’s literally like, “I hate myself. I don’t like my own body, so I can’t imagine someone else liking theirs.” And I’m like, “Oh God. First of all, honey, I’m so sorry that this is your life.” I don’t mean that condescendingly. That must suck. I don’t like myself enough to put a swimsuit on and then second, I can’t imagine somebody else doing it.
Deanna Wolfe:
It’s sad as women. And she’s comparing herself to you and what she looks like to you, which you’re not comparing yourself to her. You’re like, I’m going to be fucking me no matter what size. I’m going to put on a bikini because I deserve to have put on a bikini no matter what my body looks like.
Tori Dunlap:
Right. Well, and I think that’s the other part too that maybe we should talk about. Because again, my Kelly Clarkson thing or my like, oh, that person has Botox. The comparison trap too. And if they can do it, I can do it. And it’s the same thing with money. Oh, someone became a millionaire, I can do that. And it’s like, what if they have privilege? And the thing I always have to remind myself, especially with models and actors, their job is to look professionally hot. That is their job. They have trainers, they have dieticians, they have probably three dieticians. Their professional job … Kylie Jenner’s job as a model is to look professionally hot and it’s working because she got Timmy. But that’s the other thing is that we compare ourselves to things that are unobtainable or that are unrealistic for ourselves or to random people we’ve never met.
Deanna Wolfe:
I want to just circle it into the fact that I created a business, but I feel like I don’t know what your initial income was, but you were talking about building a seven-figure business and you’re like, all right, maybe I don’t have the brain power for having the perfect body right now is what I’m hearing. And I’m like fucking great. I focus so much of my time and energy when I was younger in my young 20s on being the littlest possible that yeah, I took a 40K job when I had six years of schooling and a master’s degree. And now every job after that, I went back. I did not take the first … I’m blanking on the actual word.
Tori Dunlap:
Negotiated.
Deanna Wolfe:
Negotiated. Yes. And I did hit a six-figure income, but that’s why I started my own business was because I took that 40K job and I was like, why do the people with the pinnacle of the knowledge, are literally getting 40K as their annual income? And that’s what made me upset and that’s why I’m more dietitians, more nutrition coaches should be making more. And I think that’s what you’re saying is stop focusing so much on what you’re looking like because people are going to want you in a different way if you know how to sell and market better and stand in your power of who you are and your background instead of just what you look like. And I coined the term your body’s not your business card.
Tori Dunlap:
Well, and it’s also you have to figure out again what you can take from certain people and allow that to inspire you and also understand that your lived experience is not mine. It’s not yours, it’s not Kelly Clarkson’s. Again, I love her. I’m not meaning to pick on Kelly today.
Deanna Wolfe:
I do too. She was my first concert I ever went to.
Tori Dunlap:
Oh, fantastic. Great choice. I think that it’s, again, back to diet cultures and just the comparison game is women is that we’re meant to see each other as enemies. We’re meant to see each other as both idols until we don’t like somebody’s behavior and enemies because they’re a threat to the one seat at the table that we’ve been told we all have to fight it out for. So what if we all just like ourselves? What if we all just like ourselves a little more and like other people a little bit more and stop giving everybody else a hard time, including ourselves. What if?
Deanna Wolfe:
And fight for money?
Tori Dunlap:
Yes. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. We talk about overcoming generational patterns on the show. Patterns of money. Habits that lead to unhealthy lifestyles. Big part of that is unlearning unhealthy relationships with food that were either passed down to us by relatives or instilled unto us by family members who wanted us to be restrictive with our eating. What was this process like for you? Can you share a little bit more about what you had to unlearn and what that unlearning was like?
Deanna Wolfe:
We termed this almond mom. Do you agree?
Tori Dunlap:
Yep.
Deanna Wolfe:
Yeah. That type of content and that type of why is why a lot of women are doing the work now is because our moms and dads … There’s almond dads. My dad alone would look at the Miss America pageants online and be like, “Oh, she’s not going to win,” when we would watch when I was little. I love my dad. This is nothing against my dad or my mom because this is part of the society we grew up in and we’re changing the society. Tori you are, I am. We’re changing what it looks like to be a woman in power and with people looking at us.
I grew up with a very body neutral mom. She’s very small. She is very petite. So I don’t know if I’d call her an almond mom. She’s never been over 120 pounds even when she was pregnant probably so that’s some of my content I make. But some of the stuff you have to unlearn is eating the a hundred calorie packs. I ate four almonds for lunch and I’m full. Those are all examples of diet culture. The skinny lollipops, the juice cleanses, the eating foods you hate because they’re super foods. If you don’t like kale, fucking don’t eat kale. You don’t have to eat quinoa and kale to be healthy. Or believing you have to be a size two to be healthy. You do not have to be a size two to be healthy. There are truly women at every size that are healthy. I’m not saying health is every size, but you can be a lot of sizes and be healthy.
Tori Dunlap:
I think just the unlearning. Yeah. And I think the a hundred calorie packs, that’s what I was going to say too is those the Oreo cookie, the thin packs. I still remember those. And I think that to your point, it’s nobody’s fault except diet culture. It’s nobody’s fault except patriarchy. And the relationship you have to food or your body or money or any of these things we know is so dictated by the way you grew up around it. We know that your parents, your family system has everything to do with your preconceived beliefs about what you should look like, how much money you should or shouldn’t make about what you should do with your life. And I think again, one of the most radical things you can do is figure out what do you actually want? What do you want? Not what does your mom want for you, not what does your partner want for you or society or your boss. What do you actually want?
Deanna Wolfe:
I think if you’re a mom right now, one of the biggest tips I would give you is to not comment on your teens or your growing child’s body. And that was something my mom didn’t ever talk about was my body. And I think that was really helpful for me that she wasn’t like, “Hey, you look skinny.” And she didn’t comment on her own either. And so if you are trying to have your kid be body positive, but you yourself are horribly mean to yourself in the mirror, she’s never going to learn how to be body neutral. And that’s the goal is body neutrality. You might not be body positive every day, but how can you be real about your body and say, hey, I love my legs because they carry my toddler instead of I love my legs and fake it and say like, “Oh, I love my legs.” You might never but my legs do this for me is really a helpful switch in your head too to be body neutral.
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah. Let’s talk briefly about positive versus neutral. You gave a perfect example of it. But I define it as body positive is like I love my body and body neutral is just like this is the body. This is what it is.
Deanna Wolfe:
That’s the shift is instead of being fake and the mirror, that’s not what my goal is. And you may never be body positive. You may never love the body that you were given and the one that’s nourished well. And you may never lose the last five to 10 pounds because that may be your life. And those are the little important moments. I’m known for my croissant trips on the weekend with my toddler and my 12-week-old now. You have to come to what is life worth and what I’m going to remember when I’m that old. Is it my size two jeans? Maybe not. And maybe it’s more fun to be a size 12 and have the croissants. Whatever that is. Whatever size. It doesn’t have to be a specific number, but I hope that shift helps. It’s not about lying about your body when you see it in the mirror, it’s about telling truths of my legs carry my toddler, my arms do X for me. And it’s just being really neutral to it, knowing that your body doesn’t have to make you happy or sad. It’s being very neutral. Staying in that middle ground again. Just like with your hunger and fullness, it’s staying in this neutral spot of like, “Oh, I lost a pound on the scale. I’m so freaking happy.” Or if you gain a pound, you’re so upset. It’s like, all right, stay in this middle zone.
Tori Dunlap:
Well, and what’s really helpful, what you’re talking about too that I’m only just starting to relearn now, is what markers of health we actually want to look at. It’s not weight, it’s not BMI, it’s not that you wear a size 14 in Anthropologie jean, but a 12 somewhere else. It’s like, yeah, how do you feel? How does your body feel? How much energy do you have? What are you able to do now that you couldn’t do before? And I’ve said on this show before, I haven’t weighed myself in five years and that’s very intentional. And when I go to the doctor’s office, I either ask them to not weigh me or I get on the scale backwards and I tell them to not tell me because I don’t need to know. It’s not helpful information. So I think that that’s really, really great reframe is to understand health is how you’re feeling. It’s not necessarily what you look like.
Deanna Wolfe:
Amen. You’re doing all the right things.
Tori Dunlap:
So you were mentioning again, energy, how we feel in general. Any other markers that we should be looking for? I think of one of the things I know is not great that I’m going to probably talk to you or somebody else about is my poops are crazy.
Deanna Wolfe:
I love talking about poops.
Tori Dunlap:
I poop crazy and I should probably figure that out. So what are the markers of health? If it’s not our weight, if it’s not if we have a tummy pooch, what is it?
Deanna Wolfe:
What my Food Freedom Breakthrough program checks in on is mood, digestion, relationship with food, ability to cope with stress, energy levels, sleep quality patterns, and body respect. So it’s not weight, it’s more energy. It’s not what size are you wearing, it’s more your overall mood and your gut health. And other dietitians might have different ways, but that’s what I do based on my clientele of needing to improve the relationship with food. I don’t want to know how many … Sure, we talk about having protein and fiber at breakfast, but for me to be like, make sure you have 30 grams of protein every breakfast. It can help, but that can just also … I just think the grams and the macro counting can just get excessive. So those are the things that my program uses and what I see when people are like, “Oh my gosh, my body respect went from a two to a nine.” And that’s what I’m seeing, oh my gosh, then they’re not obsessed with hitting their Apple Watch rings every day. It’s more like, all right, they’re moving their body in ways that feel good instead of overdoing it on their body, losing their period and all the issues that we have with that extreme restriction.
Tori Dunlap:
Last thing I want to talk about before we transition to talking about your business is the male gaze. We’ve talked a lot about it on of course social media and just the general idea of it. But how specifically do we feel like the male gaze and thus patriarchy has impacted the way we view our bodies and ourselves?
Deanna Wolfe:
I’m going to be honest, I’m out of that phase of life. I’m sure it’s important when you’re dating and you’re younger. And right now my whole thing is the male gaze talking about my pregnant body. I literally have had so many men touch my bump when I was pregnant. I have a 12-week-old, so I’m just out of the pregnancy. I don’t know if your audience is single females, but yeah, it’s probably a lot more stressful at that point. But there are all cycles of your life where it’s like men are ruthless when it comes to your pregnant body and it’s like, “Oh, I didn’t notice you were pregnant from behind.” Or, “Ooh, are you sure you’re not having twins?” So I just think it happens in every stage of our life. And while the male gaze might look different at 25 than it does at 35, I think it’s always there and they’re always commenting. And sometimes it’s hard to honestly clap back. I don’t know what you do, but sometimes I’m just like, “Okay. That wasn’t appropriate.” But other times it’s just like I don’t always have the perfect answer.
Tori Dunlap:
I make content about it. That’s what I typically do. That’s the other thing, men are so intimidated, they’re so pressed, they’re so mad that this woman has her own money. And then they always come for two things. They always call you fat and then they tell you that a man’s never going to love you, which is really what I think is the male gaze. A man’s never going to love you. And I’m like, “Oh yes, because that was my goal in life. That was my goal in life is to make sure that I’m palatable to men.” So yeah, I have fun with it because I think it’s ridiculous.
Deanna Wolfe:
I didn’t realize, I posted a picture of me eating a huge thing of sushi, like breastfeeding after. The men have gone wild. It’s just a little tiny side boob. Thousands of comments from the nastiest men. I think breastfeeding is a normal thing. It’s hard to cover your entire boob when your child … Anyway, so I’m just in a different cycle of life right now and the men on that … It’s disgusting, honestly.
Tori Dunlap:
It’s so funny. Okay. Talk to me about your business. You’re so passionate about helping other dietitians grow scale. Can you share more about how you knew it was time to do this and how did you scale it efficiently?
Deanna Wolfe:
This was my imposter syndrome for a while in the making because I was always just a dietitian. I wasn’t a business mentor and a business coach, and I didn’t talk about money and I stayed in my safe zone. So I had a lot of women. I sold a million plus of my Food Freedom Breakthrough program, which is my 12-week signature program that helps women improve their relationship to food in their body. So people were saying, “How do you sell so much?” I was having a hundred plus person launches, just marketing well online and through my email and through podcasts. So people were like, “How do you do this?” And so that’s when I started business coaching. But I just recently really pivoted hard into it in the past year to talk about money and to talk about how to show up clearly online. To talk about how to be your own boss.
I just quit my job four years ago, which is a whole other story. I wasn’t given a promotion because I was told I wasn’t part of the boys club, that I didn’t golf enough. Girl, you … And I’m like, okay. But the funny thing is I was building a multi seven figures business on the side, so I don’t think you could be a fucking entrepreneur and CEO now. So I was not given that promotion. That’s when I quit because I was so upset and I decided to hire on. I got really smart on how to market clearly online. And it went from … My first year in business, what, seven years ago now was 30K when I was first just doing macro plans. Five years ago I went hard. I started Dietitian Deanna. I went hard on the Food Freedom. I had my first 750K year and now we’re a million plus and on track for multi-million. So it’s just grown. It’s delegating, it’s getting clear about who I’m helping. It’s hitting on the pain points. It’s standing in my power. It’s overcoming the imposter syndrome that I still deal with, or just the limiting beliefs in my head of like, when will this all go away? I just didn’t have entrepreneurs in my family to even know what this was. I thought I’d be working in clinical or corporate America forever. So that’s been my story.
Tori Dunlap:
I think it’s do it scared always. That’s always my advice to entrepreneurs. It’s like you don’t know everything and you never will. You figure it out as you go. So you just have to do it. And I love that you’re doing it and kicking ass at it too. You mentioned food freedom. My last question, what does food freedom mean to you? I think
Deanna Wolfe:
It think it’s freedom. Freedom from everything. Freedom from the male gaze, freedom from diet culture, freedom from having to change yourself every day. It’s freedom from imposter syndrome. It really is. It’s freedom to be yourself and that’s what it means to me.
Tori Dunlap:
Thank you for being here. Where can people find about your work?
Deanna Wolfe:
You can check me out at dietitian. Dietitian with two Ts. There’s no C’s in it. Dietitian Deanna. D-E-A-N-N-A. I hang out on Instagram the most. I’m the same dietitian.deanna on TikTok. And then my podcast, if you want to check out that Ozempic one, or maybe we can have Tori on soon, is DEATS with Deanna.
Tori Dunlap:
Amazing. Thank you for being here. Thanks for your work.
Deanna Wolfe:
Of course. Thank you, Tori. I have had a blast. You’re fucking cool.
Tori Dunlap:
Yay. Thank you. Right back at you. Thank you so much to Deanna for joining us. She is at Dietitian Deanna on all socials, and you can join her online entrepreneur academy if you’re interested in growing your own online business, especially if you’re a dietitian yourself. A reminder that diet culture is patriarchy. A billion-dollar industry meant to keeping you hating yourself and to make you take up the least amount of space possible. The most radical thing you can do is say fuck that and I am going to work on my health and my own strength, regardless of what I do or do not weigh, regardless of if I have a stomach or not. And regardless of what it actually aesthetically looks like. So I’m just sending you a lot of love, period but especially around the holidays with your body, your food, all of that. There are no bad food choices and especially around the holidays. Fucking eat that pecan pie. Eat that pumpkin pie. It is there. It’s waiting. It wants to be eaten. All right. Thanks financial Feminist. I’ll talk to you very soon. Bye.
Thank you for listening to Financial Feminist, a Her First $100K podcast. Financial Feminist is hosted by me, Tori Dunlap, produced by Kristen Fields and Tamisha Grant, research by Sarah Sciortino, audio and video engineering by Alyssa Midcalf, marketing and operations by Karina Patel and Amanda Leffew.
Special thanks to our team at Her First $100K, Kailyn Sprinkle, Masha Bakhmetyeva, Taylor Chou, Sasha Bonnar, Rae Wong, Elizabeth McCumber, Claire Kurronen, Daryl Ann Ingram, and Meghan Walker, promotional graphics by Mary Stratton, photography by Sarah Wolfe, and theme music by Jonah Cohen Sound.
A huge thanks to the entire Her First $100K community for supporting the show. For more information about Financial Feminist, Her First $100K, our guests and episode show notes, please visit financialfeministpodcast.com. If you’re confused about your personal finances and you’re wondering where to start, go to herfirst100k.com/quiz for a free personalized money plan.
Tori Dunlap
Tori Dunlap is an internationally-recognized money and career expert. After saving $100,000 at age 25, Tori quit her corporate job in marketing and founded Her First $100K to fight financial inequality by giving women actionable resources to better their money. She has helped over five million women negotiate salaries, pay off debt, build savings, and invest.
Tori’s work has been featured on Good Morning America, the New York Times, BBC, TIME, PEOPLE, CNN, New York Magazine, Forbes, CNBC, BuzzFeed, and more.
With a dedicated following of over 2.1 million on Instagram and 2.4 million on TikTok —and multiple instances of her story going viral—Tori’s unique take on financial advice has made her the go-to voice for ambitious millennial women. CNBC called Tori “the voice of financial confidence for women.”
An honors graduate of the University of Portland, Tori currently lives in Seattle, where she enjoys eating fried chicken, going to barre classes, and attempting to naturally work John Mulaney bits into conversation.
