The Hunger Crushing Combo and Why the Internet Kills Your Trust in the Process (feat. Abbey Sharp)

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[00:00:32] Jenn Trepeck: Welcome to Salad with a Side of Fries. I'm your host Jenn Trepeck talking wellness and weight loss for real life. We're here to clear up the myths, misinformation, fad signs and marketing to teach you how to eat and how to cheat. Are you ready? I'm having salad with a side of fries. Hey, friend. Welcome back to Salad with a Side of Fries.

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[00:01:14] So we're gonna touch on some of that today. And then finally, I think I always love when, you know, our guests are aligned, and let's be real, like, I'm not having somebody here who I'm not aligned with, but today's guest really reinforces everything that we always talk about here, and yet you get to hear it from another person in another way at another time.

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[00:01:57] She's become a credible and respected voice in the [00:02:00] nutrition, health, and wellness space. In late 2024, she launched her podcast, Bite Back, designed to have a healthy conversation about the wellness industry, debunking myths, calling out pseudoscience, and exposing the charlatans. Our Canadian listeners may recognize her from the Marilyn Denis Show, The Good Stuff with Mary Berg, and Breakfast Television.

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[00:02:44] So without further ado, I give you Abbey Sharp.

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[00:03:03] Jenn Trepeck: salad dressing before we clicked record.

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[00:03:30] So invite everybody to go back and check out all that. One more piece of housekeeping before we start with your story, Abbey. Members of the Happy, Healthy Hub, what are you getting this week? By the way, in the Happy, Healthy Hub, you get a recipe each week delivered to your inbox, curated articles, additional discounts from me and our partners, interview episodes like this one in full video, including some behind-the-scenes content, access to our community board where we can interact, ask and answer questions, and so much more.

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[00:04:25] From there, you click subscribe now, follow the prompts to enter your payment info, create your login to access the hub and all of your benefits. Remember, you're going to asaladwithasideoffries.com/membership. This really supports your health and this show so we can continue to do this together every week.

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[00:04:51] Abbey Sharp: Yeah, it's a really great question. So basically, you know, if we kind of rewind back to the 2000s, which is when I was [00:05:00] kind of coming of age as an adolescent, you know, I guess you could say, like, basically since I was born, I've always been like type A perfectionist, first-born daughter, you know, people-pleasing, all the things.

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[00:05:33] I had to cut out all sugars from my diet. It was poisoning my gut. It was poisoning my mind. And being this perfectionist type A, you know, people-pleasing rule follower, I did just that. I followed the rules to a T. Right, we had to get it right. Yes. Totally. 100% right And, you know, at first this was a very innocent endeavor where I wasn't in this to, to lose weight.

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[00:06:11] And I'm like, "Oh, I'm just eating more healthy, you know, like not eating sugar." And as a Type A perfectionist, that validation was so addictive to me that I was thinking in my head, "Ooh, if cutting out sugar gets me this kind of like, you know, rah, rah, what would cutting out more, quote, unquote, 'bad things' get me?"

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[00:06:56] It was essentially what we now know of as orthorexia [00:07:00] clean eating taken to an unhealthy extreme. And that was kind of peppered in with, you know, some binge eating tendencies and some kind of anorexia tendencies. And it took me years to unlearn that. And part of that, of course, was working with a registered dietician, which was where kind of my first introduction to the profession came.

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[00:07:48] And so part of my recovery was just telling myself, "I'm gonna eat a bowl of cereal every single day," and I did. And the first thing I learned was that nothing catastrophic happened, unlike what I was, had [00:08:00] previously convinced myself of. And the second thing after a while was that the sugary cereal kind of lost its allure.

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[00:08:26] And so that was kind of where the hunger-crushing combo method was born because I knew that saying, "Okay, well, I'm never gonna have s- sugary cereal again," that was gonna land me right back to square one, so I wasn't going to do that. But I also knew that having sugary cereal by itself was not feeling very good to my body.

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[00:09:03] So we're anchoring those fear foods or what I call the naked carbs in my new book, The Hunger-Crushing Combo Method, with the hunger-crushing compounds fiber, protein, and healthy fats. So I was getting the satiety factor and essentially making, like ensuring that my body was feeling fueled and I was feeling well, but I was also getting the satisfaction factor of having that kind of fun, sweet crunch in my breakfast without letting myself get into that scarcity mentality.

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[00:09:39] Jenn Trepeck: Yeah, exactly. And so first of all, I appreciate your story because I think so many of us relate to that, where- Mm-hmm ... we notice something We start to explore a solution and it sort of snowballs to this place where it's in our effort to have control, it snowballs to a place where it is now in control rather than [00:10:00] us.

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[00:10:19] Protein and fiber- Love it ... in every meal, right? So it's what we talk about all the time. I'd love to hear how you explain the why and the how of this combination working.

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[00:10:44] Basically, they all work or they are purported to work because you're cutting out something, right? You're cutting out something that you enjoy usually. So carbs, sugar, fats, gluten, like, whatever it might be, right? You're removing something. And [00:11:00] unfortunately, our bodies don't like to be deprived, not of specific things that we like, but also not of excess calories, right?

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[00:11:32] And eventually we just throw in the towel and say, "Oh my gosh, okay, diet starts again next week. I'm just gonna eat all the ice cream and the cookies in the pantry," right? And so basically I try to tell people, I know diet culture loves to paint your, like, failures of a diet as your fault. You didn't try hard enough.

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[00:12:11] That is the mindset shift that is so important here because when we are adding these hunger-crushing compounds, fiber, protein, healthy fats, our blood sugar levels stabilize, we are satiated longer, that food noise and those food cravings quiet, and that helps us better reach our healthiest, happiest weight without dipping into that scarcity mentality that is going to trigger a binge.

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[00:13:06] Great. But let's talk about protein because protein is obviously having a moment. And then some. I mean, like, it's never not had... Like, it's never been out of style. Like, I've never- Totally ... I don't think we've ever seen a time in diet culture where we've wanted, like, a low protein diet that I'm aware of But it's having a real big moment right now, and for good reason when it comes to weight management and satiety.

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[00:13:53] And then interestingly, this is what kind of makes protein stand out in some ways, it also has something called the highest [00:14:00] thermic effect of food, meaning it burns more calories just to digest it compared to any other food component or macronutrient. So it's actually about 20% to 30% of the calories consumed in protein is just utilized trying to digest and absorb that.

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[00:14:50] So very, very important for weight loss management. And so when we look at the data, and this is where this kind of idea of adding and not [00:15:00] taking away comes into play, when we go from 10% to 15% of our total calories from protein, which is a standard North American diet, to 20% to 30% of our total calories from protein, so again, we're just increasing the protein in our diet, we see that people spontaneously, without thinking, "I'm on a diet," or, "I'm restricting," or, "I need to do this," they spontaneously slash 400 calories from their diet.

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[00:15:48] And unfortunately, 95% of North Americans are not getting enough fiber. And it's, we, like let's give fiber its like full moment. So

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[00:16:04] So we can get to that too, but go ahead, sorry, fiber. 100%.

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[00:16:30] So meaning you get to eat a huge volume of food for very little calories. And there's really interesting research that shows that basically the volume of food we consume in a day actually stays relatively consistent. So what I mean by that is that if you are used to feeling full off eating on a dinner size plate, you're gonna have a really hard time trying to dupe yourself into feeling full on a salad size plate, even if the calories are the same.

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[00:17:20] at all. But I'm just gonna, just to illustrate that that volume piece is very important. And then also fiber nourishes the gut microbiome, which actually also plays an important role in weight management and blood sugar management. So just like the fiber piece, there's research that showed when people added, again added 14 grams of fiber per day to their usual diet, they slashed their calorie intake by 10% without trying.

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[00:18:16] And so the way I define kind of quote unquote "healthy fats" that we want to focus our energy on getting more of in our diet are those that I consider dual citizens with either protein or fiber. So for example, these are whole foods that are rich in... Like avocado, for example, has fiber and has healthy fats.

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[00:19:08] So that is why we need to have those healthy fats in play because this is not just about, you know, physical satiety, it's also about that emotional satisfaction piece, and these things work together.

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[00:19:31] I want something else. I want something crunchy. I want that carby thing." Mm-hmm. It's usually The undereating of the protein and the undereating of the quality fat that's creating that lingering desire for something else that they can't quite put their finger on, but they think it's bread that's gonna solve

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[00:19:49] 100%. 100%. And, and that's why that balance is so important because, you know, often when something is off balance, when we, we aren't eating [00:20:00] a variety of these mac- macronutrients in our diet, even if we are eating enough kind of calories, like total calories, we are going to be kind of going on what I call like a satisfaction hunt for something else that we're missing.

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[00:20:36] So we have some concrete examples of what this looks like. And the other thing that you're sharing that I wanna make sure everybody hears are the benefits. We're going to feel satisfied longer. Our blood sugar's going to be stable. We are naturally going to be in a better mood is also what comes from all of this.

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[00:20:59] Abbey Sharp: [00:21:00] So I think that, you know, in general, nutrition has become so complicated for folks. You know, it just seems like there's, every single day there's another thing that people think that they need to obsess over and consider.

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[00:21:58] And you know, like especially when [00:22:00] it comes to that, that fiber piece, very important for gut health. And the health of the gut impacts the health of every other bodily system, right? Our mental health, our immune system, our blood sugar management, our heart health, our weight. So we really can't discount the importance of nourishing the gut microbiome and, you know, focusing more on those kind of plant-based foods, which often do dual citizens again with like plant-based protein, for example, we got protein and we got fiber.

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[00:22:43] Jenn Trepeck: combo method is all about. Absolutely. And that brings us to, going back to something else that you talked about, is this mindset shift of all the things, focusing on what we're adding in versus that restriction that then- Mm-hmm

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[00:23:25] So we'll do that after we highlight our sponsor for this episode, BetterHelp. So it's funny, this feels really fitting for what we're talking about because skinny talk, that all or nothing thinking at its most extreme, the eat this, not that, look this way or you're failing- And that kind of pressure affects more than what we put on our plate because it really gets into our heads.

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[00:24:10] You take a quick quiz, get matched with a licensed therapist, and communicate however works for you. You can do phone, video, text. They make it simple and to fit right into your life. You can also switch therapists at any time at no extra cost if the person assigned to you isn't the best fit. With over six million people having gone through therapy with BetterHelp, they have 4.8 out of five stars in the App Store, so you can feel comfortable exploring therapy.

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[00:24:58] So I think this is a [00:25:00] piece where, and I started to say this before, like we can have our plan, the hunger-crushing combo, protein, fiber, quality fat, and then there are all of these voices that get very, very loud. So let's talk about some of those and how we can kind of debunk that, give everybody the antidote to each of these things Right, so- Totally

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[00:25:28] Abbey Sharp: I have lots of thoughts. Yeah, so for folks who are like, "What is skinny talk?" I mean, you are so lucky to not know. But essentially, skinny talk is, like, a subculture on social media that glorifies thinness at any or all cost.

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[00:26:04] And so ultimately, what makes it particularly concerning is just how it is normalizing disordered eating behaviors under this guise of kind of wellness or discipline, or what I'm seeing even more now, which is, like, hotness. Like, now it's kind of like it's essentially seen as, like, a marker of class. I've seen some hooks being like, you know, skinny is, skinny is the look.

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[00:26:51] Because, you know, for decades we know that thinness has been a marker of moral superiority. It is how folks have [00:27:00] differentiated themselves from others because they have this discipline or this willpower that they have used, um, as a marker of their kind of moral superiority, their, their identity capital.

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[00:27:48] And these are all concepts that are, like, heavily grounded in this kind of immorality, essentially. And, you know, obviously I'm scared when I see skinny talk videos [00:28:00] popping off because these are appealing to young girls who are now seeing their favorite celebrities shrinking at a rapid clip and their favorite influencers now promoting these, you know, 1,000-calorie diets.

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[00:28:46] But it's very hard for young people to be able to notice that this is potentially very harmful rhetoric to be, be kinda latching onto.

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[00:29:06] Mm-hmm. And one of the things that she was seeing is that kids as young as six are getting these messages. Like, the stuff that we used to not see until even, like, nine, 10, and that felt young, it's now starting at six. And I think the other thing that people don't realize is that the way the algorithm works, because the aesthetic is eye-catching, because you're curious about the next thing they're gonna say, you spend longer on that piece of content, which means the platform is going to continue to feed you- Mm-hmm

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[00:29:51] Abbey Sharp: infiltration of our thoughts. Especially because essentially then it becomes an echo chamber- Right ... and you believe that [00:30:00] everyone looks like this, everyone thinks like this, everyone's eating like this.

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[00:30:24] that is really- ... coming up next week, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And honestly, that is what is really, has really driven the work that I do. Yeah.

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[00:30:47] Abbey Sharp: Yeah. So I think really it's important to know that there are real risks of signing up for this kind of way of living when it comes to your diet. And I'm not just talking about [00:31:00] psychological risks, which are obvious in the sense that this is very disordered way of eating and a s- very quick slippery slope into a full-blown eating disorder, which is a deadly condition, right?

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[00:31:42] So, you know, I am terrified that we are going to be seeing a whole generation- Oh, 100% we are ... of people who are going to be getting osteoporosis, falling, and dying significantly earlier than generations before [00:32:00] that because they have been so chronically underfueling their body at such a critical time in their life.

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[00:32:23] Abbey Sharp: Mm-hmm.

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[00:32:25] Abbey Sharp: And long-term body composition. Yes. I mean, for the young folks who are worried about the way that they look, it is not a good look to have muscle wasting.

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[00:32:42] Jenn Trepeck: And that actually, the muscle wasting and kind of that aesthetic, to me ties into something that you've talked about of infantilized femininity.

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[00:32:52] Jenn Trepeck: that?

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[00:32:55] Uh, okay. So yeah, I'm very interested in this actually. I think, [00:33:00] you know, what we're seeing is this kinda like rebranding of pretty old ideas that have just been kind of made more aesthetic and socially acceptable. So infantilized femininity is this like subtle push for women to be kept small and delicate and agreeable and almost childlike.

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[00:33:39] Like, if we're not there to feed a man or to eat in the company of a man, then we don't actually need to fuel our bodies fully. We don't need a balanced meal. We don't need a full meal. So you know, again, I think that it's often framed as being kinda cute and quirky instead of restrictive, [00:34:00] as if this is like, "I only need like a few bites to feel satisfied," as like a whole personality trait.

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[00:34:32] And again, like we gender foods all the time. And we also see it in these kind of like hyper aesthetic morning routines where, you know, the woman has her matcha and her journaling and her single piece of avocado toast. And, you know, everything is curated to look effortless, restraint. Like it's, again, this is, this also kinda ties back into that skinny talk piece 'cause it's not just about food, it is about performing a version of [00:35:00] femininity that is very palatable and non-threatening.

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[00:35:35] voice their needs, right? And so this all maps onto broader, broader kind of systems of power and, you know, misogyny and patriarchy obviously. And when women are preoccupied with just like shrinking themselves at any or all cost, again, kind of lo- like going back to that skinny talk kinda concept, so where we're like counting calories or weighing our food or managing hunger, worrying about how we're [00:36:00] perceived, we just kinda have less time and energy and cognitive power because we're under-fueled for anything else.

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[00:36:32] 'Cause it's certainly not me. Who benefits? And does, is that something I want to be contributing to?"

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[00:36:54] You and I both loathe what I eat in a day videos. Yes, I do, for so many [00:37:00] reasons. Have at it

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[00:37:20] She was a frug- well, she's still around actually, a frugivore, which is a fruitarian. Basically they just eat raw food and mostly fruit. And I was getting all these messages from young, like 10, 11-year-old girls being like, "Oh, I'm following this, like this YouTuber's all-fruit diet, but I'm breaking out, I'm gaining weight, I feel like crap, I'm bloated, blah, blah, blah.

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[00:38:02] And so, you know, ultimately these videos like for folks can be entertaining obviously, but they're, they're very prescriptive and often, especially because social media is just a highlight reel, and unfortunately a lot of folks on the internet, especially those who have grown up like on the internet, unlike, you know, myself as a millennial, they don't realize how heavily curated everything that they see is.

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[00:38:56] And that is very problematic because, A, a lot of these [00:39:00] recommendations or diets are under-fueling or not balanced or promoting restrictive, you know, misinformation around food, and B, bodies are different. Like- Exactly ... we all have different needs. And back to that kind of Freelee the Banana Girl situation, I have no idea if Freelee actually eats like that.

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[00:39:41] And if you don't feel like you can do that, this is... You gotta curate your feed. You've gotta train your algorithm out of watching these What In A Days. When they come up, swipe. Do not engage with them.

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[00:40:02] Right. 100%. I agree with you. You know, for everybody, like you can reset your feed entirely, yes, in your everyday behavior and what you're scrolling past versus what you're sitting on, but also you can Google. Mm-hmm. There's instructions for every single app for how to reset your feed, reset your algorithm.

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[00:40:59] [00:41:00] in their own lives questioning everything because of what some people are saying and the fear that they're inducing in their language in these videos. Oh, yeah. Thousand percent. What do you say, or how can we help people continue to stand in what they know works for them- When we see this stuff pop up

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[00:41:26] Jenn Trepeck: Cause I think, I don't know about you, if, I'm curious if you agree, like to me, these are the things that pull us away from the plan that we know works, the hunger-crushing combo, that also requires some consistency.

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[00:42:08] If the answer is no, and you've got to be honest with yourself, it is a bad diet. It is not advice that you should be following at all. And so, you know, generally that's kind of what I recommend people ask themselves before they really go down the rabbit hole in any of these kinds of things. And like you kind of spoke to earlier, like what is this person who is promoting this more kind of extreme way of eating, what are they trying to get out of it?

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[00:43:02] Like, otherwise we've all been on and off diets our entire lives, and people are exhausted by that. And so I think kind of asking yourself, like really diving deep into taking a step back away from the sensationalism and the kind of excitement, 'cause we are kind of addicted to the excitement of a new diet or the excitement of a promise that something would work.

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[00:43:45] Oh, yeah. And so I think that these are all things that we want to kind of interrogate before we jump into anything.

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[00:44:11] For sure. So awesome. All right. I think it's time for our rapid fire off-topic questions. Are you ready? Yeah. All right. What's the best thing you've done for your health this week? What's the naughtiest thing you've done for your health? You know, the salad and fries of your week.

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[00:44:28] Love it. So a little self-care. I'm gonna say that that's the best thing. And the worst thing, I did go out with my girlfriends for a girls' night and I had a lot of cocktails. Wasn't feeling great the next morning, but you need that sometimes. Exactly. I mean, not necessarily all the booze, but, like, I need that fun in my life, so it's also self-care, so it's a bit of both.

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[00:44:53] Abbey Sharp: probably be a, like, a forensic psychologist- I can see that ... or, like, something in forensics. [00:45:00] I really love that. And you know, right now this is kind of an adjacent piece to my dietetics, but obviously related to my work in social media advocacy for social media safety, but I'm very passionate about children's digital literacy, media literacy, AI fluency, and social media protections.

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[00:45:18] Jenn Trepeck: right. Your favorite book on any topic other than your area of expertise, or you could give us a fiction book too.

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[00:45:48] Highly

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[00:45:56] Abbey Sharp: Cancer. Wouldn't we all? I know. I mean- It's a big one ... yeah. It's a big [00:46:00] one, and it's becoming such a bigger one. It's wild because I still feel like I'm young. I'm not even 40 yet, but I, I know a lot of people in my age bracket who have or have had cancer.

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[00:46:21] Jenn Trepeck: you are in the clear as of now, so thank you for sharing. All right. If you were a superhero, what would be your superpower?

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[00:46:51] I love it. Teleport. That's mine. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What's your biggest pet peeve? Lateness or flakiness. I'm always early. [00:47:00] And if I commit to something, I'm in, okay? It doesn't matter. Like, unless I'm dying or I'm in a car crash, I will be there e- And so I don't have a lot of patience, and I, I feel disappointed when friends kind of don't prioritize things like that like I do.

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[00:47:16] Abbey Sharp: it.

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[00:47:21] Abbey Sharp: gonna be dystopian, but here's what I'm afraid of. Because of the way Ozempic and skinny talk and all of these kinds of hyper-restrictive... I don't wanna say hyper-restrictive, but like bodies... We're, we're now seeing bodies shrink at such a rapid clip.

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[00:47:57] Minuscule appetites, very small [00:48:00] portions if we're even eating anything at all. Perhaps just kind of subsisting on supplements, shakes, and things like that. But basically glorifying this idea that you have no emotional attachment to food. It is just minimal amount of fuel that you need to get through the next day, and that scares me because food has always been, obviously, such an important connector.

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[00:48:41] That's what I'm a little concerned about. I'm with

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[00:49:02] Abbey Sharp: Yeah. So you can find my podcast, you know, Apple, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts, Bite Back with Abbey Sharp. I am on TikTok and Instagram at AbbeysKitchen, A-B-B-E-Y-S Kitchen, as well as on YouTube, AbbeysKitchen as well. So we've got lots of long form. And then of course, my bestselling book, The Hunger Crushing Combo Method.

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[00:49:32] Jenn Trepeck: well. Awesome. Well, thank you again for being here. Friends, on Friday in this week's Bite Size bonus episode, we're talking about Sunobi Breathing- So this is a way of breathing that headlines tell us can help you lose weight.

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[00:50:01] Well, as always, everybody, I'm your host, Jenn Trepeck. Connect with me on Instagram or all social media. I'm @jenntrepeck, J-E-N-N-T-R-E-P-E-C-K. Website is asaladwithasideoffries.com. Pick your platform, send a message. I truly love hearing from you. Abby Sharp, thank you, thank you again for being here. Thank you so much for having me.

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[00:50:45] So until next week, remember, social media and headlines can be distracting and often tempting, yet all you really need is the hunger-crushing combo. Well, friends, that's it for today's episode of Salad with a Side of Fries. Congratulations [00:51:00] for making yourself and your health a priority. Thanks so much for joining us.

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