EP#2- A Conversation on Intuitive Eating in College with Brenna O'Malley, R.D. and Founder of The Wellful

[MUSIC] Welcome back to another episode of Everyday in Dorfins. This week I had the chance to talk with Brenna O'Malley. Brenna is a registered dietitian and the founder of the mindful health brand and virtual private practice, the Wealthal. Brenna specializes in helping people move away from dieting and disordered eating patterns to develop a healthier relationship with food and their body. She's passionate about changing the language we use to talk about nutrition and health in the media, online and in food marketing. It was so wonderful to catch up with Brenna and discuss topics related to health, nutrition, wellness, and specifically intuitive eating, especially how to practice intuitive eating when in college. Generally in life there's so many uncertainties that can happen, but especially in college when you're entering a new environment for the first time. There's just so much to process and so much to deal with. And oftentimes social events revolve around food, eating, and drinking, and going out and doing these kinds of activities. And it's really challenging I think for a lot of people to adopt a healthier relationship to their body and their mind and practicing positive self-talk. And the way you consume food and think about eating can really affect yourself of steam and confidence levels. So we had a really wonderful discussion about how intuitive eating can be a really mindful approach to developing healthier eating habits and a healthier approach towards seeing and appreciating your body. Before you get to hear from Brenna, I want to throw out a quick sponsored shout out to Inker, which is, as you guys know, the app that I used to record this podcast from. Hi Brenna, how are you doing? I'm good, how are you? I'm good, it's so nice to reconnect here on this podcast. Thank you so much for coming on to the podcast this afternoon. Yeah, I'm so excited to be here. I think this will be an awesome conversation. Yeah, and talking about eating habits and intuitive eating and nutrition is so important, especially for college students who are coming to campus and there's so many changes that are happening all at once. So I'm really excited to talk more about what inspired you to create the well full and your nutrition philosophy and all these different topics that we're going to discuss later today. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I started the well full in 2017. So I had just finished or I was finishing up my last year in college. And basically I had like, I was already studying nutrition and had worked for some other really awesome food companies and food marketing and that space and then some dietitians and private practice and growing their practice and doing some virtual pieces. But I just still felt like social media was already big, but getting bigger at that point with a lot of different food blogs. And I was following a lot of influencers who are health focused and it just felt like every time you were scrolling, you were scrolling by contradictions basically of someone really being super excited about this one way of eating or cutting out these certain foods and then someone else was saying the opposite. And I just felt like, and I was talking with my friends about this too, there was so much miscommunication and it just made you feel like you were always missing the bow kind of. Everything was really confusing and a lot of pressure. So I really started the well full at first to be a newsletter that would help to just be an unbiased voice of some research, some different opinions about things. And then since then it's kind of evolved as I've also become a dietitian since I started it to be more about intuitive eating and non-diet approach and really figuring out what helps you feel good and feel best and to navigate those messages. So it's really evolved from just that email newsletter into now a virtual private practice and we have some group coaching options and a blog that we have contributing writers for. So it's been really cool to kind of see it evolve like that. I love how organic that evolution was and I think what you're doing is so incredible because I've also scrolled through Instagram and you see all these different contradictions like which diet is the right diet for you. There's keto, there's plant based, there's paleo, like there's so many different types of diets and now there's I guess a lot in the literature about how diets don't actually really work which I'd love to also talk a little bit about but I've also just found nutrition in general and eating to be so confusing when it I really don't think it should be and I love how you have adopted this approach of just intuitive eating and kind of moving away from dieting to find what makes you feel good and feeling good is so much more than just exercising a lot of it does have to do with what you're putting into your body. Definitely right and how you feel about that too. I think there can be a lot of stress like both from personal experience and then just you know in general the way that we talk about food and exercise and all of these things is kind of stressful. It's like you know are you doing this right are you doing this enough are you you know all of these kind of conditional pieces which I think adds a lot of pressure to those like already kind of rocky relationships a lot of the times especially when you're going through like high school adolescents college like getting your first job moving somewhere all of those things are like huge changes and then to also feel this pretty extreme pressure around those things can just be you know a lot to navigate. Definitely and I found that food is very personal and also really political and so when you let's say you first come to college and you're trying to make friends and a lot of that has to do with not only just like going out but also going out to like eat or have lunch or dinner whatever it may be and maybe your eating habits are very different than the people you're starting to become friends with so navigating that can be quite challenging like how do you how do you navigate that kind of situation when you have a different eating structure or habit or preferences than the the group that you're in. Yeah I think I think there's like a couple different ways that that can happen right because I think there's one everyone's probably going to have everyone has different experiences with food right you all grow up in different households and like different parts of the state or the country of the world and so you have different things that you're bringing to that but then there's also you know your relationship with food and other people's relationships with food and as you go to college and everything kind of blends together and merges you might be hearing more about things that you didn't hear about before like you know someone may be like dieting in a certain way or kind of restricting or feeling badly about certain foods or that might be something that you're kind of already struggling with they kind of bringing to the conversation so I do think it's definitely hard because you're sort of meeting these new people there's a lot of like pressure and newness of you know making friends and making connections and like having a good time and getting to know people and all of those pieces too so I think that there isn't enough said about like that that's really normal that to feel that way and that pretty much everyone else is also feeling that way right of like you know being maybe like think hyper thinking about those food choices or feeling like uncomfortable in like your body or comparing your plate to somebody else's or all of those other pieces and I think we just had a blog post go up like this this week of that we're recording but we'll be like a few weeks ago probably when you air this but it was just about like how common behaviors around food and body image are like disordered in college and how that's normalized and I think that that's just a conversation that we need to have more of that it's not that those things are normal but they're really normalized and like we don't really we kind of just take them for granted and I think that can make it really tough for those transitions to and then knowing that it doesn't have to feel like that like you don't have to be thinking about food that much throughout the day or like worrying about what you're going to wear because of like how you look like of course we always have like some degree of like maybe thinking about what we're going to wear like being excited about clothes in that way but not like preventing you from going and having fun with your friends right so knowing that those things are normalized and like a lot of people are having similar thoughts and it doesn't have to continue to be that way forever or for all of your years of college too so I think kind of like zooming out like that to see that we can change those things too. Yeah I that really that reminds me of this Instagram post that I saw actually about these different habits that have been adopted like on college campuses are really just like in like a younger culture about certain behaviors that are normalized around food and eating and dieting and there was one post that said how basically like when you go out some people will say oh I'm going to have like just a salad for dinner so that I can have more to drink in that way not like eating a lot before hand and just very very small new I think come from those types of behaviors or discussions. I'm guessing maybe that was also discussed in that blog post that you guys wrote recently. I'd love to talk more about those little nuances that kind of pervade in our social circles that talk about disordered eating and make it more normalized. I think you're in college now too. What are some things that you, are there any things that you feel like you notice that are kind of like that? Yeah, that's a great question. I would definitely say the eating thing before going out. I'm going to have a really light dinner. I'm just going to have a snack or coming back from a night out. A lot of food actually revolves around going out, which is interesting. I think that's a great question. and play her with navigating it with gluten intolerance, but personally, and with just family events, and that kind of a thing. But the idea is still that you are allowing yourself that permission for all foods. And you're just thinking of it. So if we're using those internal cues, we're thinking of it, if you don't like a food, that's kind of an internal cue too, right? Or if a food makes you feel really, really stiff, maybe in the amount or the type that you have it, that's some information we can take in and say, OK, next time maybe I will change this about this experience. Or I'll know that when I do this, I don't feel so great. And so kind of similarly with a food allergy or intolerance or a medical need with your diet, whatever that is, you can kind of think of it. It's not a rule, like an external rule of this is a bad food or I will be bad for having this, but this food doesn't really make me feel good or this food doesn't really serve me in that way. And I think that kind of shift in how you're looking at it can be helpful, but then it can also be helpful to look at the other ways that that might sneak in there, right? So if we're talking about gluten intolerance or like stiliath, then you might say, especially when they're co-opted by diaculture, because bread is such a hot topic and carbs, which just, we all need. They're really great for us. They're our body's favorite source of fuel. It'll be my nutrition tidbit. But if we think of let's say if I thought of my-- which I had in the past on this-- thought of myself as, OK, I'm gluten free, because still everyone's my family, all of that, then I can't have bread, right? So it feels like this restriction and like bread is bad or maybe I feel kind of good about it because bread is so demonized in our culture that it could make me feel almost like better than the other person kind of a thing, if that sort of moral value that sometimes comes with certain diet rules. But if I shift that to thinking about, OK, that I can have-- doesn't mean I can't have the gluten free alternatives of these foods that taste really good. They might not be as good as the gluten version, but I can still go to a party and have cake. I can still go to a sandwich place and get a gluten free sandwich or all of these different things. So I try to make it more normalized instead of thinking that I need to square off every single event that might imply like social things. It might be not so fun to sit at a place where there aren't any gluten free options for me, right? But kind of allowing yourself that permission in different ways or where you can can help it feel less restrictive, even if you have to listen to those restrictions from like a safety medical intolerance or allergy point of view. So trying to add in some of that, I think, can be really helpful. And that's also where it can be helpful. That can be hard to do. And I think-- but knowing that it doesn't need to be as restricted, you can still create some of that all food spit within your own parameters. Definitely. And I think that's just such a healthier mindset to adopt. Because if you think, oh, because I have this whatever condition it is, I can't have XYZ foods. I think it will only make you crave them more. And then when you actually do consume those foods, the guilt that comes over you is just so massive. And then it feels like 30 steps backwards when it really isn't. And I think, for example, I love ice cream, love ice cream. And I-- something that I've done to kind of reframe my thinking around that is like, I'll eat it. But I know that if I eat like half a pint or something, I'm going to have a stomach ache. And I don't feel great. And I don't like that feeling. So instead of thinking, oh, I can't have ice cream, because it's really high in sugar, and it's an unhealthy food to eat, I can just not have half of the pint. I can still have a serving and be satisfied with it and move on with my day and not have to think about it so much. So I like that point about making it work for you and also just taking maybe what you might think those external cues are, but really realizing some of it's actually internal and guiding your sense of awareness around what you're reading by the internal cues, rather than all the external cues in what society tells us is right or wrong or what our friends are doing. So I really love that mindset shift. Yeah, I think that's like an awesome example too. And just like the nuance of it, we want-- sometimes we want more ice cream, sometimes we want less ice cream, but if it's allowed and it's just there, and it's not such a loaded food, then it feels much less stressful too, navigating that. Yeah, and this also reminds me a little bit about just mindfulness in general and the practice of mindful eating. Would you say that intuitive eating is the same thing as mindful eating, or is there some sort of crossover between the two? Yeah, so it's interesting. I think that I definitely learned about mindful eating before intuitive eating. And I think that that's a lot of people's leading-- or now intuitive eating is much easier to find. I feel like there's a lot more information, especially on social media and everything than it was three or four years ago. But yeah, so mindful eating is included in intuitive eating, but they're not the same because there is different research based on both of those. So intuitive eating has its own research specifically around intuitive eating in their 10 principles. And applying that and then mindful eating also has research around it. But it's a little bit less concrete of being defined. So it can just mean a lot of different things. And so a lot of the times it involves including mindfulness around your meals that might be switching-- or like taking a few deep breaths beforehand, or eating in a more calm environment, or noticing these different things about what you're eating, which are all really helpful pieces. And it applies to intuitive eating in the principles where we're talking about how we're eating and our own meal experience. And especially noticing satisfaction, which is noticing how satisfying a food is to you. But it's also that sort of done feeling of when you're eating something and maybe the taste is starting to change. Or it's you're kind of noticing that you're not as interested in that mood anymore. And that can be something where mindfulness comes in too, but they are different. So intuitive eating uses some of those principles, but it's not like the exact same thing. Got it. Yeah, I feel like in my head, at least they're very similar, but I didn't really realize it incorporates the aspect of taking a few deep breaths or trying to eat in a more calm environment. And I think after now realizing that intuitive eating might be more practical for a college student, because it's not as if with our busy schedules, we can find a very calm and quiet environment to sit down to have a lunch or a dinner oftentimes, like I'll eat on the go, or I'll eat while I'm doing homework or studying. So I don't feel like I'm focused on what I'm eating, or I'm kind of distracted trying to do everything at once. So mindful eating might be a bit more of a challenge, but I think intuitive eating, since they follow a lot of the same principles, maybe starting with intuitive eating might be an easier place to start with changing that relationship with food. Yeah, definitely. And I think with all of those pieces that you, if someone listens to this and is like, OK, I want to try and do eating, I want to go for this and check this out and see what it's like. I think also, as you read the pieces of it, there might be some parts that feel like, I can't do this because my schedule is so busy that I don't really have time to do maybe this sitting in a calm environment part, or whatever that is. And I think it's helpful with everything to just take it. It can meet you where you're at. You don't need to overhaul your entire-- or have a different school schedule, or class schedule, to start working on your relations with people food, or feel a little bit better in your body, or around certain foods. I think you can take some pieces right now and see what helps you, and then build from there, or see how those pieces feel versus feeling-- I think that can just make us push off things for a really long time, or feel like we need to do it perfectly. And I think a lot of this, too, is challenging the idea of this all or nothing thinking, or really commonly perfectionism that can come into food, or wanting to do things exactly right, or do them all or nothing, those different things. So I think applying those pieces in a way that works for you right now is also a really great place to start. Yeah, definitely. And what I love about intuitive eating, especially, is that it really connects with eating disorders and also diet culture, but there are two other topics I'd love to discuss. I guess we can go into eating disorders because everything we've spoken about around intuitive eating, realizing those internal cues and letting them guide you, really does relate to how eating disorder eating patterns arise. And I'd love to talk a little bit more about how intuitive eating can help those who suffer from an eating disorder and help change their relationship with food. Yeah, definitely. So I think intuitive eating depends on what you're eating. on what your even disorder kind of looks like or what's going on right now. Intuitive evening can be the goal, but what you do right now might be a little bit more like regimented or like you know with your care team, they might come up with something you know more specific to you and what's going on. So I just like to say that as a disclaimer. Like you know sometimes we can't jump right to Intuitive eating because it implies that we have the ability to listen to those internal cues, right? And so depending on what's going on with somebody if they have an eating disorder especially but also other things can make us not be able to listen to those cues right now or make those cues not so reliable. We might need to like do some work outside of that to work towards eventually Intuitive eating. But yeah there's it's really interesting because there's eating disorders and then there's clinically like subclinical signs. So a lot of that time is like disordered eating or things that don't quite meet the DSM-5 which is how we die like a diet and she can't diagnose but is how a an eating disorder would be diagnosed. And I think it's important to validate that if someone is feeling like they're struggling or either a relationship with your food feels like you know it's causing you stress, it's causing you anxiety, it's like impeding you from like showing up to your life or your day or college classes or events with your friends, that's valid too. And so even if you don't meet the exact criteria, you still deserve like care and recovery from that and it can still be like a really big obstacle in your life. And I just say that because we know that like eating disorders since 1995 to like 2008 was like the study on NADA which is National Eating Disorder Association. And they were showing that like in females like eating disorders on college campuses were increasing from 23 to 32 percent among females and 7.9 to 25 percent among males. This definitely applies to all genders. And the percentage of like eating disorder specific from like eating specifically towards like a weight loss diet or trying to lose weight for increased four times in that same period. So it's just definitely something that's increasing and that's with eating disorders but we're not necessarily seeing those rates of disordered eating right like we don't have that exact statistic because a lot of the times those pieces are normalized, those pieces might be a little bit harder to measure. So I think it's just important to mention that you know those things are on their eyes and happening too. And so the goal with intuitive eating and diaculture like you're saying is that we get a lot of these different messages that honestly promote those behaviors and promote those different things. And so starting to call that out which I feel like a lot of people are starting to do more and kind of like you know be like this is this ad is like glorifying you know restriction or this app is like telling us to avoid eating for this amount of time or like these different things and kind of calling those out but the goal with intuitive eating is to kind of normalize eating and that eating should be normal. And by that I mean you know not so stressful or fits more with your day versus like your whole day revolving around this thing that we have to do whether we want to or not like your body needs food. So I think that there is definitely more awareness around the aspects of diaculture and you can tell me like maybe some specific ones that like you notice a lot on campus or kind of like come to mind but I do think there's more awareness about it but there's also like more of a need to kind of like keep on calling it out and trying to like push against it. Yeah I can't nothing like immediately is coming to mind I guess around diaculture but maybe if I think you know about certain like sorority and fraternity scenes there's definitely the stereotype about like maybe a sorority girl and how some sororities are just filled with a bunch of like really tiny girls and I mean it kind of goes back like eating disorders and the interesting thing is something that I've come to to realize is that food is the eating disorder isn't necessarily about like the food itself I think it's more about having and we're meeting to have that sense of control and then there's like the underlying issue behind that and oftentimes maybe like anorexia for example there's like comorbidities with other types of like mental health issues as well. So it's interesting because I have a close friend of mine has suffered with an eating disorder and I've spoken a lot about it with her and something that she's kind of brought to my attention is that it's in her eating disorder experience it was never really necessarily about like the food but it was more about anxiety that is comorbid with the eating disorder and needing to have that sense of control and I just was really I did not expect that because in my mind I thought oh people who have behaviors of disorder eating or maybe developing eating disorder just like want to be thin that's the goal but I think maybe that's something that kind of arises from the eating disorder not necessarily like the root cause of it but I also like I'm not an expert needing disorder so I don't really know but this is kind of what I've heard through friends and family and just through conversation. Yeah I think that's a really good point that there are often a lot of the times it's kind of like these because it's a mental health diagnosis right so it's not necessarily it's like kind of something that's manifesting in food like we all end up having these different coping mechanisms right around just different stressors in our life or different things that come up and you know there's a genetic component to eating disorders that it can you know some people are more predisposed to them than others and that kind of a situation but I think that's a really good point to to bring up to that like it's these other pieces and that's why it's also really helpful like most of the clients who I see like for like private coaching are seeing a therapist too and it's kind of really helpful to be able to work in that team because you know I can address like the food part and the body image part and you know how it's kind of manifesting in our beliefs and behaviors around food and our body and then the therapist can work on like those underlying pieces that are kind of going on to and it's like makes for a really good you know there might be other people in the team too but that is why it's really helpful to have that that team approach too and yeah and I think something else that can happen is it's really common to not feel like you are um you know this I want to like it's definitely in the case for eight new disorders but I also want to make it broad enough that you know even if you don't have a diagnosis you can feel this way too is my point especially with like we know how common disordered eating is um but it can be really common to not feel like sick enough or like deserving of help or care kind of like all of my friends are doing this too like that feels just feels like what it is or it just feels kind of normal um and so I think that can like prevent us from wanting to you know seek some support out or talk about it or kind of like zoom out and look at those those pieces too which is where that like normalization can be so tricky yeah and earlier you had mentioned those those statistics about um eating disorders increasing and being on the rise would you say that's attributed to the prevalence of diet culture and like how diet culture is really related to how social media portrays eating in body image so yeah I'm just wondering like is there a connection there as well that relates to the increasing you know eating disorder prevalence and also just disordered eating behavior yeah I don't know specifically if there's like if I can say that's like the main reason but I would definitely say that that contributes right like that we have a lot of research especially about um like teenagers feeling like they want to change their body or lose weight from like really young ages like nine or ten or like we have you know from the UK there was a study at that said like nine of 10 teenage girls are unhappy with their bodies and that people are you know looking and comparison comparing themselves to different like fits about that they see on social media and how that influences our like idea of what we should look like or how we should be eating and can definitely decrease like body satisfaction or how you're feeling about yourself um and so I would say that those behaviors and just the ability to get that information so much more it's so much easier to look up like look up a certain way of eating or hear about someone else's experience with with food and you know like transformation photos or all of these different things is so much easier to kind of come by then like maybe 10 years ago when all that was in like 17 magazine or something right now it's like on your phone and you can see it everywhere all the time so I would definitely say that that's a new layer to all of our relationships with food too. Yeah. And about social media, which I think is really interesting, there's so many different accounts on social media, like Instagram accounts, that document on people's diet or the foods of the reading or the exercises they're doing. And it's funny because when I started every day in Dorfins, it was an Instagram like blog when I started growing in high school and I really was just documenting the exercises I was doing at the boat house and like the food I was eating. And I really at that time viewed the food that I was eating as fuel to be a better athlete and to be stronger and faster. And then I got to a point where it was like I don't need to post another salad on my Instagram account, like nobody cares. And also no matter how many salads I eat, it's not going to help me achieve the better body that I want to have or make me really feel any better. And so I kind of realized like there's just too many accounts out there that even though they seem like how they're promoting healthy habits, they're really not. And it kind of also starts making me feel like that about maybe what I was eating if it wasn't whatever was on their feed. So I found kind of like that shift also now present day, there's more Instagram accounts that are more focused on body positivity, which is like a whole other interesting topic we could talk about. But it's been really interesting to see that shift from those maybe like traditional FITSPO food, Instagram accounts to now this whole entire like body positivity trend and movement. So it's been really inspiring also to see that shift. And that's kind of why I also stopped posting like photos of the food I was eating. I mean sometimes it's fun you know to like post something that you made and it's fun to cook but it's been really nice to kind of move away from what I was posting earlier and now also seeing all these different types of accounts on my page as well. More positive accounts. Yeah yeah I think that's like an interesting thing to highlight too. Like I think Instagram especially is like image based right. So it takes all of that like nuance and like gray that we've kind of been talking about out of it because it's basically posting you're just seeing information in this really like hard and fast way of like this is a photo. I'm like hashtagging it healthy and so that's what like a healthy meal is composed of right. And like especially with somebody who has influence sharing that like that's just kind of how we're interpreting that. And so it's really normal to start to compare like what you're eating to that like perfectly plated you know whatever it is. But then the same thing goes with like people when we're posting like seeing a lot of different photos of like people's bodies or seeing really mostly like the same type of body a lot of the times. Which like in our culture of like diaculture is often like rather thin and you know kind of like often like white and young and all of these different things. And so when we see that and like that's I know it's not actually like patch tag healthy but like when we're seeing that kind of promoted in that way that is how we're basically interpreting it as like okay that's something good. Like that's how I like said look and or like if I ate like this person who's also sharing you know these they're what they're eating and how they're moving like it kind of sends this idea because of the way that we're basically socialized around food and body image and all of these things that if we follow these steps that this person is doing then we will end up looking like this person who is sharing that and and so it makes sense if we zoom out and like look at it in that way. And it's like yeah essentially that's kind of a lot of the times what people are either on purpose or kind of under the surface kind of selling a lot of the times too. So I think it's important to remember that like even if we all ate an exercise exactly the same way our bodies would still look different right because because we're not ever all gonna look the same even if you followed like even if you even if you spent every day with your best friend and you ate you know exactly the same way you like worked out together you walked a class together like you're not going to morph into their body and they're not gonna morph into yours and um I think that that's where social media gets really tricky because it takes that new once out of like all of those other pieces it just makes it feel like um and then some people kind of capitalize off of that too because that's like a lot of the times how these different like that's both things are essentially like selling their services or selling those other things. So I just say that to like if you're noticing yourself and it sounds like you kind of did this too of like when you and I definitely have to do this myself all the time too of like when you notice yourself like comparison comparing to someone else's Instagram or like feeling badly about something like what you ate compared to what they ate it's so helpful to just like unfollow or mute or block those accounts and then follow people who look different than you like follow people who live differently than you because then it just like widens your perspective of like reminds you that bodies all look different that people all eat different foods and that you know healthy looks different on all different people but also just like people look different and um I think that can be really helpful and kind of like breaking out of those monotonous sort of messages or images that we get around health too. Yeah and I love that point about how um how you said even if we ate the same exact thing and we exercised the same amount we would still look different and how social media really doesn't take that into account and just kind of like mute that it's really interesting because we all have different like genetic compositions and different biology is like physiologically so obviously our bodies are gonna be different and at so kind of like you know it's so obvious but we don't even think about it because it's not ever talked about in social media doesn't allow for that to happen because again with the hashtag healthy or just the same types of bodies or foods that you see on your Instagram or even TikTok which as you mentioned like is a whole other thing and yeah I think it's um it's important to remind yourself that every but every single body is different and you have to really listen to yourself bringing it back also to intuitive eating like really bringing that focus inward and knowing what works for you and what doesn't and being okay with that and really like honoring that so I'm glad we were able to like hit on all these different topics and they all really do relate to each other yeah definitely yeah and I think it's like the more you start to notice those pieces like open your eyes and the more you see them everywhere which can be kind of overwhelming but it's also like ultimately helpful just to like help you navigate those things and see that um you know there's like a much bigger it's just much bigger than it might seem like just this one choice around food or like how you're feeling but it's like okay actually there are all of these different things in place that like make a lot of sense that I'm feeling this way or like we'd want to change this or kind of work on that for myself yeah definitely I know earlier you mentioned that you are starting this group coaching program many my listeners are college students so I'd love for you to talk a little bit more about what this program is and when it's launching yeah so I'm really excited about it so basically I um a lot of like the you know one-on-one clients who I see are not all of them but a lot of them are in college and so um it's just been really one that's like really fun for me but also there are a lot of things that come up that are really similar right so like a lot of pieces are similar about spring campuses and like the pressures around that and so I was just feeling like um that it would be so helpful to have a group component to that because um then you can connect with other students to who are like feeling the same way like in the same you know environment as you and kind of having the same things come up so it's an eight-week um coaching program so basically it's eight weekly call starting October 14 and there'll be every Tuesday and we might have another time that is added to that but basically they'll all be reported too so if somebody can't make that exact time you'll be able to see the recording so you have these eight group coaching calls where will meet in small groups and be able to like discuss the materials and different topics and just like support each other and have this environment where like I'll be there but still will other students and I've found when I've done groups in the past um I started the well-full foundation course this year so we've run that twice and so you will get that same self-paced online course um which has been really awesome and exciting to do and I think just group group calls are so helpful because it's a different it's a different environment than working one-on-one and you get to like talk with other people and just like feed off of each other but also support each other and create this community and it's really cool to see so you'll get that self-paced course you'll have these coaching calls you'll have a private Facebook group and basically it'll just be especially this semester I feel like we were talking about this before we hopped on to it was gonna be so different and I think challenging um and just really unique so I thought it was also a good time during that because there's gonna be components that are coming up that are not even you know things that you've dealt with last semester or two semesters ago so um it'll just be like this really I'm excited for like this community part to also have that like education and resources um but also the community yeah definitely and community is so important especially if you're talking about topics that are a bit more personal or sensitive just knowing that you have a support system and knowing that you might not necessarily be the only one that's going through this experience and being able to share that with others and help them uplift you and support you is so important so I'm really excited for you to launch this coaching program. Yeah, thank you. I'm excited too. Yeah, so registration is open. It's open now and so it'll be open until the sixth. So that's October. But if anybody listens to this and it's still before the 14th defense Sunday, an email or a massive on Instagram and I'll see if we can get you into. Awesome. I'll also be sure to post about it on my Instagram. So people will be able to see it on the everyday in Dorfins Instagram account. But before we also hop off, there's one question that I ask every single person I bring onto the podcast. And it really ties into the name of this podcast about endorphins and happiness. What is one thing that brings you a bit of endorphins every day? I love that. I would say probably either a dog lock is definitely one of my favorites, or like coffee outside, and coffee outside.