Ep. 17: Cooking for One - Guest Rebecca Clyde

Rebecca is a dietician joining us from Salt Lake, Utah. She is a podcast host, and also curates a blog all about Cooking for One!

She shares about the chance conversation she had with a convenience store clerk that put her on to the field of dietetics, and a bit about the journey she’s taken to get to where she is now.

Her thesis was on body image, and I loved her thoughts on how our preoccupation with body image and appearance can take over our head space and zap our energy and confidence. Even when you get to a point of personally loving your body, there are so many messages from society that bombard you with other messaging - sadly, our modern lives are not always that conducive to maintaining self-love and body confidence!

Sometimes even the medical system creates insecurities and doubts about your own body. Our perceptions of ourselves, our weight, and our health can be so difficult to sort through, and one-size-fits-all answers (which Western medicine tends to prefer) don’t always fit us very well. As someone with PCOS, I definitely resonate with this!

Also: ideal body weight? That’s based off a terrible measurement system that doesn’t really take your actually body into account either. The problem seems to be systemic, and the system needs to change!

(The book I recommended was Physical Disobedience, and you can find it here: https://amzn.to/31m1E2Z.The dietician Rebecca mentioned is Julie Duffy Dillon - you can find a really neat interview she recently did with my friend Caitlin here.)

Rebecca’s podcast is called Cooking for One, and she shares that cooking for yourself is something small, but profound, that you can provide self-care and nurturing for yourself. My favorite tip? Make it fun!

She talks about how you can make cooking for yourself an experience - play your favorite music, find a new podcast, enjoy some wine, experiment with new flavors or textures, light candles - make it something you look forward to. I realized that one of my favorite years in my “food life” was the year I lived alone in my own apartment. I was able to eat so intuitively - everything from what I ate, when I ate, and how often I ate was based on my own needs and desires. It was kind of amazing!

You can find Rebecca blogging at the Nourish Nutrition Blog , or on IG @nnc_tableforone.