How to Make Healthy Eating Fun with Dr. Michelle Segar, PhD, MPH, MS

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Episode 67. Simplify. Play. Choose Joy. How does THAT sound to you, friends?

In today’s episode, I got to sit down with Dr. Michelle Segar, someone whose work I deeply admire, and this only was amplified after our conversation. It was a reminder to me that even people who have tons of research publications and two books have self-doubt, but that people doing the courageous work of questioning the status quo are essential to improving the way we do things, and help people.

What to Expect in this Interview

In this interview, we cover:

What prompted Dr. Segar to get into doing this work (she takes us back to a story from a pivotal moment among a group of women in 1994)
When and why she first started applying Self-Determination Theory to understanding eating and exercise habits
What made her write her bestselling book No Sweat AND her brand new book out this week called The Joy Choice
What we need to understand about the existing research on habit change and why it might not always apply to eating behavior
What is a “habiter” versus an “unhabiter”, and how to know which one you are
How to use her science-based decision support strategy – simplify, play, and choose joy – to help us quiet the mental noise and clear the decks for effective decision making through joy, ease, and flexibility.”
What it means to make the “perfect, imperfect choice” and how it can help you (make sure you check out the example about how this applies to Kara’s habit of skipping lunch)

Who is Dr. Michelle Segar?

Michelle Segar, PhD, MPH, MS bestselling author of No Sweat and sustainable behavior change scientist, directs the University of Michigan’s Sport, Health, and Activity Research and Policy Center. She has spent the last 25 years conducting health coaching and research and translating it into sustainable behavior change messages and programming for professionals and organizations seeking to accelerate and sustain positive change. Her comprehensive, research-based approach to creating sustainable behavior change has made her a sought-after speaker, sustainable-behavior-change trainer, and consultant. Michelle is passionate about helping professionals and organizations learn how to integrate the latest scientific findings into clinic-based counseling and tele-coaching protocols and digital health products and practices.

“How can we be failing at something when we’ve been set up to fail?”
-Michelle Segar, PhD, MPH, MS

Want To Support Local Bookstores Near You?

Buy The Joy Choice and other great books from Bookshop! Support local bookstores near you and this blog and podcast and help prevent Amazon from completely squashing the local book market.

Do you ever worry that you are wasting your life?

I definitely did. In fact, I wrote that in my journal many years ago when I was in the middle of the diet-binge roller coaster ride.

I woke up every day thinking about food, my body, and what I would eat that day to “be healthy”
The notebooks I had filled with calories and points could fill up a spare bedroom
Social events and vacations immediately prompted the thought “they will notice I gained weight” or “I need to lose weight by then”
Deep down I knew I wasn’t living life the way I wanted to, but I didn’t know how to pull myself out of it.

If this is you, I want you to imagine what it would feel like to feel empowered in your body and proud of your choices on a consistent basis. I promise you, it isn’t too late.

Dieting steals our motivation. It makes us ineffective. It keeps us spinning our wheels in a system that was never built to work.

If you are ready take the first step to motivating yourself with what matters to you, download my free Cultivate Powerful Motivation guide (which is quite beautifully designed if I do say so myself), and walk through the 3 simple steps to cultivate motivation that works for YOU in 15 minutes or less. You will get a simple formula to write ONE SENTENCE you can use to motivate yourself on a daily basis.

You can write it on your bathroom mirror, put on the background of your phone, or just read it and repeat it in your mind.

Look, I know how much it hurts to live a life worrying you are missing out, not stepping into the person you were truly meant to be, vibrant, passionate, curious, vulnerable, and brave.

You can listen to the podcast all day, but taking that first step, putting pen the paper (or typing on your phone) is required for true change. It’s time to start living my friend.

It’s 100% free, so what are you waiting for? Grab your free copy of the guide today at DrHondorp.com/Motivate

Main Takeaways from this Episode

We need to start reframing what “counts” as exercise. There isn’t a set amount of time or intensity required for something to be considered exercise. Movement is movement, and you’ll never regret choosing to move your body.
Habit formation isn’t the holy grail and frankly doesn’t work for many of us. Michelle believes that cognitively thinking about our decisions can be more powerful than automatized habits.
All-or-nothing thinking is the one thing that can totally throw us off track when it comes to our health goals.
Simplify, play, and choose joy. If you planned on doing a long run, but life got in the way, and you only have the energy for a 15-min ab workout, that’s perfectly fine, and you shouldn’t be ashamed.
Michelle wants us to reframe our ideas about health and search for the “perfect, imperfect choice” when life’s challenges get in our way.

Support Independent Bookstores Near You!

Did you know that that if nothing slows their momentum, Amazon will have almost 80% of the book market by the end of 2025?

Look, I love the convenience of Amazon, but I’ve got a super cool way that you can support local bookstores and my blog and podcast simply by buying books like you already do! You can choose any bookstore on the list in the US and Canada (they plan to expand to other counties in the future) OR you can just let the donation get split between all stores. As of this recording, they have raised 15 million dollars for local bookstores. On my bookshop, you will see my absolute favorite books related to health and wellness, courage and vulnerability, and even my favorite fiction and kids books!

My recent favorite related to improving the quality of our lives was Digital Minimalism. Our family actually has decided to do an optional screen free August to re-evaluate the role of screen time in our lives.

So if you believe in supporting local businesses, please consider buying your books through Bookshop from now on!

The Psychology of Wellness Bookshop Link.

Disclaimer: This blog and podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not a substitute for individual professional advice or treatment, including medical or mental health advice. It does not constitute a provider patient relationship.

Disclosure: Using the Bookshop.org links in this post means that I would get an affiliate fee if you purchase from the online bookshop (this supports my business, and local bookstores too!).

Credit: This blog post was written by Dr. Shawn Hondorp and edited by Julia Ledbetter.