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Connect with Colleen

📲 Instagram: @no.food.rules

📲 TikTok: @no.food.rules

🖥 Youtube: @ColleenChristensen

🖥 Website: https://colleenchristensennutrition.com/

🖥 [QUIZ] Are you really just “being healthy” or do you actually have food rules? https://nofoodrules.lpages.co/food-rules-quiz/

Episode Transcript

Ryann

Hello, everybody. Welcome back. I am so incredibly excited. Today I have Colleen with us and she is going to be sharing her full deep dive story with you guys. I’m sure you’re like me where I’ve heard snippets here and there, but I am so excited for like a long form, like let me just hear everything from how she not only fell into disordered eating, but also how she pulled herself out and how she got to where she is today. 

So Colleen, thank you so much for taking the time to be here with us today. I so appreciate you. 

Colleen

I’m excited. This is gonna be a fun chat. 

Ryann

Yay! Well, let’s just go ahead and dive right in. Why don’t you start with what was growing up in your home like with food and body and when did things start to shift for you?

Colleen

So I would say I grew up in a very like typical nineties house. They weren’t like super diety.

 Looking back, I can see it, but like my mom was never someone who went to weight watchers or I know a lot of people say like they went to weight watchers with their parents and we didn’t necessarily have like structured diets in the house that we followed. But there was a lot of just like a typical stuff that you hear. 

And also, I always want to say like, anytime I talk about like my childhood or anything, or even when I do like skits on Instagram of like almond bombs and whatnot, I never place blame on any of this. Because I just like to clarify that a little bit because everyone’s a victim of diet culture, right? So just a little caveat. 

But like I said, I grew up in a very typical 90s house. There’s certain things that just sometimes I look back on now of like, I remember one time we got Wonder Bread, white Wonder Bread, and then we had to return it to the store because heck no, that wasn’t healthy enough. 

I remember always wanting Gushers, but we could never have those. Little Debbie’s I always wanted. So like looking back, I remember my friends always had those kind of like fun foods, but we never did in the house. We had like Fig Newtons and like that kind of stuff. But I didn’t realize it at the time how it was restrictive. And I honestly didn’t feel like anything was out of the normal. 

As I kind of grew up and saw, you know, other friends’ houses, I did realize like there was a difference in the way that we ate. And I really didn’t feel like I struggled with food until I went to college. I remember myself doing some diety things. I can specifically remember the first time I measured my special case cereal, I was in high school. You know, a lot of us 90s babies can probably remember that. 

So like different stuff here and there, but never anything that like followed a structured plan. And then I went to college and that’s kind of really where everything kind of changed and I was kind of like on my own. 

At this time, I was studying to become a dietitian. I went into college knowing that that was going to be what my major was going to be. And honestly, there was no reason for me choosing that besides I was not very good at school. I did not want to do something with like math or that was just the thing that stuck out to me. Like I don’t want to do math. I don’t want to do science, which if you know anything about dietetics, you know, that’s a big joke because there’s a ton of science in it. 

But I just thought, cool, like I did enjoy food. I liked baking. I liked cooking. I was athletic growing up. So I was like, cool, like honestly food is something I’m gonna need to do for the rest of my life, so why not make it my career if nothing else sounds fun? So I just think everything when I started to truly develop disordered eating, it was like this perfect storm of things. 

Of all these kind of like background things that I had heard, you know, as a kid and kind of picked up on with 90s diet culture. Going back to, I remember doing like the Denise Austin workout videos, just like so classic 90s. Then I started to learn more about nutrition. 

Then my anxiety started to kind of rear its ugly head and I felt my type 3 Enneagram personality. I’m very competitive. I felt very lost in college and food and my body became a coping mechanism for me. It felt like something I could control. And this is where my competitiveness came out. 

Once I noticed that I felt like I was good at this, I felt like I was good at controlling my food. I was good at losing weight. It’s what I turned to when everything else felt out of control. And it was fueled by people, you know, saying, Oh, you look great or you’re so disciplined. 

And that made me just want to do it more. Because like I said, I’m super duper competitive. So I was like, well, now I’ve made this name for myself. And I kind of felt like I had to kind of like, keep it up. It became my identity. And it felt comforting to me because it felt like something I had control over until it started to control me, which I feel like is always what happens. So that’s how I kind of got into disordered eating. 

Ryann

And when you started doing things like, let’s say, measuring your special K or like these different things, did you follow anything specific or did you just create your own rules? I’m always curious because I was like my own rule creator and I always be like, where did I even come up with that?

Colleen

Yes. And it was never following a specific thing. I mean, obviously I got like measuring special K from the special K diet, but it was just like my own boundaries that I literally made up out of nowhere. 

I remember in college, one of the first times when I was in the cafeteria and I was going to go for the second donut. And that was like my first time that I was like, no, I shouldn’t do that. And I started to place these, like you can have this, but not this. If you have this earlier, you can’t have this later. It really was just my own making up, even down to like the calories that I would log in my fitness pal. 

Like that was my own, like, I mean, we get numbers from somewhere, but I altered them for rhyme or reason, absolutely no idea. And that’s really where the competitiveness in me came out because I was just like, okay, well, if that’s my limit, I want to beat that. I want to do less.

 And I was like, okay, maybe I can do less the next time. And it was almost like this high I got from like beating a goal. And I think that’s too, the one thing I always talk about is there’s multiple reasons why we develop these tendencies. It’s not always just for like the way that our bodies may or may not look as a result. 

But for me, it was like a game, something unpacking my history. I always, throughout my whole life, I’ve just wanted someone to be proud of me. I’ve just wanted someone to say, I’m proud of you. You are doing great. And when I started to get kind of the comments about the way that I looked or how much self-control I had, it was kind of fueling that like, well, he was kind of scratching that itch of someone telling me they’re proud of me, even though it wasn’t the same at all, but it kind of hit that mark a little bit.

Ryann

Oh, totally. And especially when you hear from other people congratulating or making compliments to other people, it’s like, okay, well, if I do X, Y, Z, then maybe I’m going to get that as well.

Colleen

Absolutely.

Ryann

So when you were growing up and mom and your house didn’t have all of these things, it sounds like it came from a very innocent, like, we’re just being healthy kind of thing. So when you would go to your friend’s house, would you want to have all the things or were you so young, it was kind of like, this is great, but not really so got to get it all in, yeah.

Colleen

I wasn’t like bingy when I would go to my friends’ houses. I was so envious. I remember, I had this one friend and we had white Wonder Bread, butter, peanut butter, and sugar on a sandwich. And my mind was just blown, like absolutely blown. 

And I remember eating it and again, I didn’t feel like bingy or out of control, but like if I were to put like sugar and butter on a sandwich. That was just like mind-blowing, like what? And I remember kind of like coming home and asking for those things or saying like that’s what we ate and kind of just like what? That’s fine if that’s what they do there, but we don’t do that here.

Ryann

Yeah. And I also really appreciate that kind of disclaimer of mom was just doing what she was taught because I think it’s so easy to feel that anger, obviously, when you are healing, but understanding, okay, she got that from somewhere too. Okay, so you went into dietetics, things started to go downwards, your disordered eating started to be fueled, then what? 

Colleen

Okay, so at this point, I had been very restrictive. I was diagnosed with anorexia, and this had been going on for a couple years. And I mean, it sucked. It absolutely sucked. But sucked, but where my story took the worst turn was when I tried to recover, when I tried to stop having all of the food rules. I tried like most people to just, okay, I’m going to let myself eat. 

I’m going to allow myself to eat the cake and I have what I call my chocolate cake incident. And I specifically remember I was a junior in college at this point and I told myself, I’m going to eat a piece of chocolate cake and it’s going to be fine. I was in my sorority house. No one else was there. I had some chocolate cake and I ended up eating the whole thing. I felt so out of control. 

I felt like it proved to me like, okay, well, like you need your food rules because you can’t do this. I just kept trying that. I was like, okay, just let yourself eat. Just let yourself have the things. And it just kept happening to where I would eat. I would feel so horrendous. It was a binge. It was a full on binge.

It was like, okay, that happened. I’ll do better next time. The same thing happened. I just felt like I was ping-ponging back and forth, and to be completely honest with you, at that point, I was like, if this is what it takes, I want to go back to restricting because that felt better in the moment. 

Like, that felt better. I don’t want this. I had seen a dietitian on campus because I was broke at this time. I was working four jobs trying to get myself through. I was doing everything that I possibly could. I was working with a dietician and she guided me a little bit but it wasn’t what I needed. 

And I also think that just kind of showed me what I know now is that if you are working on this, it’s probably going to take a little bit of time for you to find the right fit. Like just because you try, you know, working with one person and it doesn’t feel like the right fit to you, listen to your gut. You’ll find someone that you click with or some sort of resource or some sort of framework that works for you. 

Because I almost quit. I almost just went back to saying, screw it, I’d rather live restricting than have to go through what I’m going through right now. 

Long story short, the just kind of letting myself eat, I went from anorexia to developing bulimia was, oh my gosh, the darkest time in my life. I remember lying on the bathroom floor, just crying my eyes out. I felt so out of control. Mind you, I was working four jobs. I had $7 in my bank account. I would literally go to CVS and buy food to binge on. This was not what I felt like was a choice. It was like, I describe it as like an itch that I had to scratch. I just felt like I couldn’t not do it. 

So that’s where I was like, the restricting felt better. And I was just like, there’s got to be a way to find this middle ground where I don’t have to feel this out of control. So that’s where I kind of was like, okay, let me just hold up and think about this a little bit. What if I worked in more baby steps? What if I actually thought about this process in smaller steps. 

And so essentially that’s exactly what I did. I paused on breaking my food rules and I just worked on first allowing myself, not even necessarily change, and this is exactly what I teach today, just not necessarily changing any of the foods that I’m eating, but allowing myself to kind of eat more. I focused first on getting my hunger and fullness cues back, not necessarily doing any of the scary stuff like eating the chocolate cake at the time.

 And then once I felt like, okay, I feel like I’m starting to get actually enough energy in my body, I’m starting to incorporate, you know, more of just kind of like the basic things. Rather than saying I have to eat the chocolate cake for a carbohydrate or the delicious fluffy baguette, maybe it’s a sweet potato and we don’t have to go all the way to the scary foods. 

And so I worked much more slowly, I worked much more strategically, so that when it came around to the time where I was like, okay, I think I’m ready to, you know, have the chocolate cake again, I understood my hunger and fullness cues. My body wasn’t having this biological drive to eat all of the things. And then I was able to actually learn how to eat chocolate cake without just it being a flat out binge. 

When I started to think that through from more of a like, okay, how is my body actually functioning? What does my body actually need right now to recover from the dieting and get that done first, then move on to the more psychological side of things. The way I always explain it is we learned a lot of times Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. That’s what I think we need to be focusing on with overcoming dieting.

Ryann

And why we’re not taught that more in just general education.

Colleen

Right. And so when I thought about it that way, it was an absolute game changer. I started doing that and it really started to work. Fast forwarding, I had got to this place where I was like, okay, I’m feeling good now. I’m feeling like I’m actually being able to live my life. And I never, ever thought this was going to be my career. I would have sworn it off being like, heck no. I’m so glad I figured it out. Like, I’m super glad. 

But I thought it would be too triggering, too close to home for me to ever do this line of work. But the more that I thought about it, I’m like, if I could save myself from entering that phase of binge eating. I kid you not, like when I say it was the darkest time of my life, and I also don’t want this to come across to anyone of like, if you’re restricted, you’re going to develop as bad of bulimia as Colleen did. 

I feel like I am a very, very extreme case of what can happen, but I kind of thought about it and I was like, I would not wish that on my worst enemy for them to go through that. I mean, it was so much shame. I had to say, I would say the binging and the bulimia was definitely worse for me than restricting. There was so much shame. 

There was so much guilt. It was so taboo. Like no one knew how to like even talk to me about finding help. I think that the restriction side of things is much more glamorized and it’s much more talked about than the binge eating side of things. And it was something that everyone around me wanted me to get help, but they also wanted it to be very hush hush. 

And I’m just like, if I could go back to Colleen, who was restricting and just tell her like, okay, this is the process that I want you to follow to prevent you from developing this, like, oh my gosh, I could have saved myself so, so many years because that time it also did put such a strain on my relationships. Trying to figure this out at the time when I was in college, I was dating my now husband. And to be honest, sometimes I think back and I’m like, how did you stick with me through that? Like I-

Ryann

Oh. He saw everything.

Colleen

He saw everything. I’ve actually known him since sixth grade. We didn’t start dating until college. So like when I developed my restriction, sometimes I put myself in the situation of the people who were around me. And I just like, I’m like, I don’t know how you stuck with me through all of that. But I also think it’s such like a beautiful thing. I’m a so thankful for him. 

But like the fact that he’s seen me in so many different areas of life, it also just makes today so much sweeter of like how amazing life is to wear. I mean, in the same day, I think I made like grilled peach salad, lots of fresh flavors, lots of really nourishing foods. And then we went out to ice cream after on a whim and I’m like, this is what it’s about, like living, being able to enjoy all of those things, being able to feed the dogs, it’s a very Midwest thing, blue moon ice cream. 

Just being there with them, being like blue ice cream all over your dog’s face and not being stressed out about it and doing it in a way where it feels good both mentally and physically, like it’s just so good. I know that was a big rant and ramble, but I could literally just like ramble on about this forever.

Ryann

I’m the same way, but I, okay, so I am so curious. Besides seeing that one dietician at school, did you do it all on your own?

Colleen

Pretty much, yeah. It sucked. And it took way longer than it needed to. So I saw the dietitian a couple times in college. And then, again, I was broker than a joke at the time. I soaked up any free resource that I possibly could. I devoured every book. I went to free like group sessions. And I still never found something that truly fit with me. I feel like I gained pieces of knowledge from every place that I hopped around, you guys. 

Like I said, I was a sponge. I was like, just help me in some way. But I never found like one specific source that I was like, this is the place that helped me. And that’s where I was kind of like, I feel like it’s my duty to take what I’ve learned, my scotch-taped journey that literally took me five years, and to help someone do that way faster. 

Because as you know, when we get to this side of things, it’s like, oh my gosh, life just feels so good. And the fact that it was so unnecessary and it caused so much distress and frustration to literally hodgepodge that together, honestly, sometimes I think back and I’m like, like I said, I literally was a sponge and soaked up every single like amount of free resources that I could. So I get it. 

It’s tough and I think that also goes to access of these things. As important as it is that I can say like it’s important to find the person that clicks with you, that’s not always accessible to every single person. It definitely wasn’t to me. Like in a perfect world, I’d be able to, you know, go on Google and be able to look for all of these things and pick and choose. 

But like, A, there’s finances, there’s insurance, there’s like all of this stuff that just like doesn’t make it feasible. That’s another thing. Doing the work that I do today, I’m always like thinking back to what did I need in that moment? I needed something that gave me structure. I needed something that was going to tell me more than just like, okay, just let yourself eat. 

I’d also want to make clear that’s not that like what a lot of people call the all-in approach is wrong. I don’t think that’s bad or wrong. That can work for some people. It definitely did not work for me. I am someone who needs a lot more structure than that. And it was just the all or nothing mindset. And it didn’t have the science from the like again structured sense, okay let’s focus first on our biological, then our psychological side of things. 

That’s just what works for me and just being able to offer a place that has that for people at an affordable price. Because even sometimes today I will look at, you know, therapy or anything like that and like we are encouraging everyone to get help but it’s so out of reach for so many people. 

And that’s great if people can afford it, but I know that’s not the case for everyone. So I do everything in a membership style where it’s, you know, an affordable price. And that’s also something great with social media, right? With literally this podcast that you have, that you’re sharing these stories and allowing people to get these resources to help them feel like less alone. I think that is just an amazing thing. Soak this up, you guys. 

So yeah, I think that accessibility to all this stuff is just also such a huge thing to talk about. Oh, 100%. And what you were saying when you were like, I was going to the free groups, and even in your membership, I know that there’s a huge group element in that. I think that that is so important, too, to just not feel so alone. 

Ryann

I know for me, like, I was going to so many different, I don’t know if you have EDA where you were, but that was kind of like the free other option of over here anonymous that’s like again not perfect, but it was something where I could just go and like talk to other people that got it and it was free and I was like every single day just having something and what I love so much about the personality stuff that you shared is I feel like so many of us are the same. 

I’m also enneagram three and like very type A, very much like I don’t understand why it feels like I can do everything right except for food. And that being so frustrating and then connecting with other people that are like, no, I’m the same. I gotcha. I’m right here with you.

Colleen

Yeah, side note to that, the type 3 Enneagram. Guys, listening, I can’t express enough. Like if you have not taken an Enneagram test, like do it. I am scrolling all the time on just Enneagram feeds on Instagram, but like, take three, that’s me, that’s me, that’s me.

Ryann

It’s really helpful to know. Okay, so you went into dietetics, and then how did Know Food Rules start?

Colleen

Oh my gosh, so I had been in the social media space since I was in college. My senior year of college, I actually spoke at our Michigan conference about blogging. I had been like posting recipes on a blog. One of my like mentors at the time said like, oh, you know, blogging is going to be big one day, so you should get started. So like, okay, sure. I liked making recipes. And like looking back, they were all very like healthy, like low sugar, like I mean, my disordered recipes at the time. 

So I had been doing that for a long time. It was kind of like on and off and then it was, I want to say like 2017-ish, 2018, and I was like, okay, it’s either time that we get serious about this or we just kind of leave it because it was like I had one foot in, one foot out, and I was like, okay, let’s do it. 

And it kind of took off from there. It has been through multiple iterations of like the type of stuff that I talk about. Kind of something that I started to also realize that the more authentic stuff that I shared about myself was the stuff that people really related to. 

And I was like, okay, that’s where I truly felt like I was stepping into being the person that I didn’t have when I was going through it. It sounds so freaking cheesy, but I truly did feel like this is my calling. This is what I need to step into. So I was doing both things. 

My first career, my first life as a dietitian was actually, I’m not going to lie, guys, it was a really cool career that I left. It was inborn errors in metabolism, so very rare genetic disorders that needed very highly specialized diets. It was quite literally like a life or death situation if you had like one gram of protein too much. So it was very just like fascinating. And I did that for four years. 

And then when No Food Rules, which actually, fun fact, started off as Mitten Dietitian because I live in Michigan, the Mitten State.

Ryann

Yeah. Oh my God.

Colleen

So we have a little story brand there. But once, like when I changed to No Food Rules, it really started taking off. off, then I left that and we’ve just kind of been doing things here ever since.

Ryann

So cool. I love watching all of your stuff and not only from a business perspective, but also just being like, same thing. If I had this kind of stuff, I mean hindsight always 20-20, but I always wonder like, would I have come out of denial sooner? Would I have recognized things sooner? I don’t know, but it just feels nice now to be like, even if this helps one person, then it’s worth it. 

Colleen

Yeah. When you said, like, what if I would have had all of this, it kind of like brought up like this feeling of like excitement right now for like everyone who’s listening to this and who is potentially like working on this because I mean, you can probably relate to this, like no one was talking about this stuff when I was going through it. 

I know we hear all the time now that diets don’t work, go on any like food freedom related hashtag, you’ll see that. But like that was not a thing that was talked about. Like that’s common knowledge now, which is great. But like, I don’t know. 

And so that just makes me like, I feel like there’s so much more support nowadays. I think we obviously still have a long way to go, but I think it’s super exciting to see the stuff being talked about more. And then it’s honestly becoming kind of mainstream to learn how to do what we were trying so hard to do. 

It’s kind of cool that, okay, that’s an actual thing now. I don’t know, it’s just so, so interesting to see the progression.

Ryann

Yeah, I’m curious where things will go in five years, 10 years. And I was asking some of my other dietitian friends, and I’m so curious to hear what you think, because I know there’s not a huge intuitive eating element in the dietetics schooling. 

I know for me, as a psychologist, there was one class on eating, like one class, you know, and I just wonder if that’s gonna shift and if that’s gonna shift for you where it is less about just like, I mean, there’s always gonna be that science element, but if they’re just gonna really incorporate that a little bit more.

Colleen

I remember when I was in school, I was like, I really want to take a class on eating disorders. This was when a mind was like active. So I think it was kind of also like a self-help kind of thing, like, can you please like help me figure out how to help myself? 

It was only offered one semester in the summer. Like I said, I was broke. I couldn’t afford to be on campus during the summer when my, you know, housing, like I would have to pay for that. I literally didn’t have that money. So that was just like kind of another like access thing. I didn’t have the opportunity to learn about that. 

And it wasn’t a necessity. I didn’t need to have that to graduate. Looking back, I’m like, that should be integrated for sure into the curriculum. The fact that that wasn’t required for me to graduate is just bananas. But I do think it’s going to change, hopefully, in the future. 

If we talk about like the healthcare system or even like the collegiate like further education as a whole, because if we think about it, I talk about this whenever someone’s going to like their doctor or something like this. I’m like, okay, let’s say your doctor, like they’re probably not going to have training in intuitive eating. 

They’re probably not going to have weight-neutral training because in order for them to have that knowledge now, they’re going to have to go out and speak it for themselves because they didn’t get that in school. Not that like I’m giving every doctor out there who preaches, you know, diet culture a pass, but like, I understand because this is literally how you were taught in school. 

But then we have to think about like, okay, so if we change that now and we actually start incorporating this by the time like those set of doctors and dietitians and you know, just professionals get up into like the actual ranks where they’re like actually practicing, that’s, you know, a while away. So like, I don’t know, sometimes it can feel daunting to think about it in that way, like how far we have to go. And I hope that doesn’t sound like depressing to anyone.

 But I also think that just shows you that like, if you are listening to this podcast, if you are actively trying to learn about this space, you have to be your own advocate, because we do not have this knowledge, like just widespread throughout the healthcare community. I always, always, always see people posting about like, well, my doctor, you know, said my cholesterol is high, so I need to lose weight. 

And that’s where I’m like, we have to, I think, go into these appointments, whether it’s with a therapist, whether it’s with a dietitian, whether it’s with just your checkup with the doctor going in and saying, I’m going to be working on this from a weight neutral standpoint, can you work with me in this way? And just like kind of like taking that initiative to do that because they’re not going to willingly, likely, yet, willingly offer that up as a solution. 

We kind of like have to do that ourselves. Especially if you’re newer on this journey and you don’t have it all figured out, that can be really scary because it’s like I’m asking this thing that I don’t totally know what I’m doing here, but I would just encourage anyone to take that step and do that.

Ryann

Yeah. And I think that that’s where that support can be so helpful when it’s like, okay, I’m freaking out. What can I do? Or just cheer me on kind of thing. And I’ll update you afterwards.

Colleen

100%.

Ryann

So, Colleen, anyone who is currently struggling and specifically people that are in the same boat that you were that were like I financially cannot commit to a program right now but I am recognizing that I have a problem and I’m looking to change. What words do you have for them? 

Colleen

I would say surround yourself with just as many resources as you can. Soak up the free stuff. I am always, no matter in any part of life. Like, do what you can with what you, you know, have access to and then, you know, if you do come to a situation where you can, you know, either join a membership, you can get one-on-one help, like whatever that looks like, but just be a sponge.

 I mean, I know I have a ton of YouTube, but you can literally watch hours and hours of free YouTube videos that I have on my channel, Reels. You can watch hours and hours of reels. I mean, so many people have just content backlogs. Just spending your time soaking up that information, I just think, can work wonders. 

Because I think, ultimately, is that going to necessarily teach you everything you need to know? Maybe, maybe not. But I think that that can do wonders for your mindset and making you feel less shame around what you are going through and that is going to increase your determination, your motivation to work on getting better in whatever way that makes sense for you. 

And I would also just say that like, it’s possible. Like it is, I know this sounds so cheesy, everyone says it, but like during those darkest moments, like I said, I was literally like crying on the bathroom floor. Like I can’t do this. I didn’t want to live, honestly, because it sounds very sad. I didn’t want to live if that was going to be what my life was going to be like. 

If I could just go back and just be like, it will get better. Like you can come out of this, the darkest times that we have, like you can come back from them. So just a little pep talk there.

Ryann

I love that because it can feel like, how am I ever gonna get out of this? Like, is this always gonna be my life? Am I ever going to just be able to eat food and be okay, or have this in the house and be okay? And in the beginning, it can feel like, no freaking way, because look at how long I’ve been struggling with it. But if you just take it day by day and start soaking things up, I mean, it’s worth it. In honor of the Food Freedom Lab, what does food freedom mean to you?

Colleen

Food freedom just means being able to live. I always say, kind of like my, if you want to get like businessy mission statement, if you will, I don’t even, I don’t do like business lingo, but I always say I like to help people live long, joyful lives. 

So what I mean by that is I want you to take care of your body. So I want you to fuel it in a way that feels good. I want to foster both mental and physical health. Yes, I do care about nutrition. I do care about the way that you’re fueling your body because if we can take care of that, it can allow us to have more of the ice cream runs. 

It can allow us to have more of the backyard barbecues or, you know, enjoying, I don’t know, a delicious date night or anything like that. It’s about being able to marry those two things together and not focusing on those two things in silos. Because I think when we can put those two things in harmony, that’s what food freedom’s about for me. 

It’s not about eating a delicious cupcake. Yes, that’s fabulous. But it’s about the act of being able to marry those two things. And to be able to, like I said, have a long, as long as we are able to, joyful life, in whatever way that looks like for everyone. To me, that’s what it’s about.

Ryann

I love it. Colleen, if people want to connect with you, learn more from you, and they aren’t already on your page, where can they find you?

Colleen

Yeah, so you can find me on Instagram. I am always on Instagram. I was talking the other day, I was like, sometimes I feel like my stories get out of hand. Like I feel like the need to update everyone, like you are my besties, you are my people on Instagram, @no.food.rules. I am also on YouTube @ColleenChristensen, and then on TikTok @no.food.rules.

Ryann

Okay, so I just have to ask, how do you do it all? Like, I feel like you are just, I’m like, does this girl sleep? Like, she truly is like the MVP. Spell it for me, I need to know the answer to that question.

Colleen

 I just genuinely don’t know. I am very much so, like, like I said, type 3, I’m competitive. If I say something, I’m going to get it done. But I think it’s just, I genuinely just love what I do. It is just like the most perfect thing for my personality. 

For me, that’s what really drives it. Sometimes I won’t lie, you guys, I’m not gonna say it’s super easy. I just love what I do. There are a lot of times when I do sacrifice sleep or whatnot, and I will say I’ve gotten much, much better about that in the past year. I started going back to therapy about a little over a year ago, just for my anxiety of wanting to do all of the things and just being able to set boundaries. 

So I’ve gotten a lot better about that. I also have a lot of help, I will say. I have a very, very good team that helps me. I am not a one-woman show. 

Ryann

No, I appreciate hearing that so much because I think too just reminding ourselves that we are able to ask for help. We are able to go back to therapy. It doesn’t have to be like bad juju or we don’t talk about it. 

Like it is a beautiful thing to be able to honor our strengths but also acknowledge where we need help and it’s just been so good chatting with you and learning more about you. Thank you for taking the time with us. I really appreciate it.

Colleen

Yes, I feel like I could sit here and chat with you for like another hour. So it’s my absolute pleasure.