The Health Advice You’re Not Hearing Kate Tolo’s Honest Journey with Food, Guilt & Growth | 5 Questions

0:00Welcome to a new release on the show. This is the five questions to nourish the mind, body and soul. To get to know the person sat in front of me a little bit more and ask them questions they wouldn't normally have. This has become very quickly one of my favorite parts of the interview. Now we are re-releasing these because we released these months ago for our paid subscribers over on my newsletter, The Compassionate Cure on Substack. If you're not a paid subscriber, you will get these months in advance of being part of our community. However, we are now starting to release them. So enjoy. This is more of a personal connection and a shorter episode.

0:39But it really gets into the heart and not into the mind of the person who is sat in front of me. Okay, we're going to start with our five questions to nourish our mind, body and soul for the compassionate cure, which is my wheelhouse of health. so are you ready i'm ready you've got to answer these from the heart and not from the mind okay i'm gonna put down my cup so i can really like get really really get my heart center myself okay kate i want you to first of all tell us what is the one thing that makes you uniquely you i analyze everything in the moment and then i create a model around it from a psychology lens and then I apply that to everything.

1:21So I've had this fundamental belief that people are way more similar than they are different. And so if I'm feeling and thinking a certain way, I kind of imagine that people around me are also thinking and feeling a similar way. And so I'm constantly trying to create systems and models of understanding how I'm feeling, how other people are feeling, and then mapping that into a world so that I can like adequately navigate it. And I feel like a lot of people don't have that experience. so amazing I love that analytical but also somatic at the same time yeah overcoming resistance so I know that you know it's not that you're 50 years of age or the huge amount behind you but this actually is really important I think for anyone because especially for what you've been going through recently with your change in diet and lifestyle what's been the most persistent area of resistance in your life to date and how did you overcome it I mean I haven't overcome I definitely have not overcome it.

2:13I am right in the thick of it. I think a lot of people think that health is going, that they should be able to just change overnight and that they're going to have success. And like, if they fail, that there's something wrong with them. I, my journey so far, again, my journey has been this. And so I imagine other people are going to experience this. And so if they don't hear it, it makes me really sad because I would hate for people to feel burdened by their inability to have willpower or something, for example. So I think my area of resistance has been I really struggle to focus on myself I really struggle with self-care I really struggle with doing things for just myself if there's other people involved then it's easy for me to do it but if it's myself I just fall apart so that's my biggest thing of resistance I feel like you've met me at a perfect time yeah that's well that's why I wanted to come on because I remember you saying sometimes I can't remember what words you use but you mentioned um this and I was like yeah I relate.

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4:31I mean, you've made a lot of big changes, but what's been the smallest change that you've made that's had the biggest impact? And that's one of the most important questions I actually wanted to ask you. My immediate answer is getting in touch with my own soothing mechanisms. So really understanding like when I have a moment of emotional upset, what like observing what I turn to first and And then witnessing that and then trying to redirect it. So I feel like that's been there because that's ultimately the most fundamental thing like every turn when you're trying to deal with health. It's like health is hard because you turn to self-soothing mechanisms that are kind of bad for you.

5:08It's emotional. Yeah, it's very emotional. So much of health is emotional. Which is what's left out of the conversation. Yeah. But not today. Yes. I really appreciate and admire that you said that, by the way. I think a lot of people will connect very much to our main episode knowing that you have this lens yeah this is a question that I ask most people and it's going to be one that profoundly is your entire life but it's been what's been one health related change that has significantly impacted your well-being but you are somebody who has changed so much yeah in their health so what would you choose I came from a world where I was eating skittles and like really high calorie sugar intakes all the time as my main calorie source.

5:54So I'd say probably that, like cutting out added sugars. Yeah, that's hard as well. It's very hard. It's very hard. But starting with cutting out, yeah, these really clearly toxic things like Skittles and what else? Like sour straps and that kind of stuff. It's been bad. But yeah, so I'd say that. Okay. Ultra processed foods and the sugary things. Yes. So this is the last thing. So it's about peace with the past it's quite a big question so what's been the hardest thing for you to make peace with about yourself or your life in general I think there's integrity is really important to me and there's been times in my past where I've acted out of integrity and I think I beat myself up for that so I'd say that's probably the hardest thing is like coming to terms with like I can't rewrite history and there are just gonna be times where I feel like I make the wrong decision so yeah accepting those times that's going to be I think the biggest transformation for your life to not hold on you see it all clearly you get the journey I'm on yeah I really really get it yeah yeah to not ruminate to only look forward actually I was with a friend last night going home and he said that you know I had quite a tumultuous year last year for a variety of reasons and he said the biggest thing you can always do is just always look forward on where you're going never look in the rear view mirror because if you look in the rear view mirror it just always hold you back so peddling to like what is the future and what is the forward there's always an importance to like have a reflective view of the past yeah to like understand it so you can do things better for yourself but if you're always in that review mirror it just holds you back yeah yeah totally so i mean to find that out your age is gonna propel you forward yeah hopefully yeah it will okay thank you yeah no worries thanks so much for listening to hear the full episode there's a link in the description