This episode is for every woman who has ever woken up and let a number, a mirror, a pair of jeans, or a passing thought decide what kind of day she was allowed to have.
In this episode of How to Blow Up Your Life, I’m joined by Kristi Koeter — writer, award-winning editor, and the voice behind Almost Sated, where she chronicles what it actually looks like to detox from diet culture and rebuild a relationship with food and your body that isn’t rooted in shame.
If you grew up like I did—especially if you were raised in the 80s—this conversation is going to land. Because so many of us were trained, implicitly and explicitly, to believe that thinness was the price of admission. That worth was something you earned through restraint. That you could “fix” your life by controlling your body.
Kristi and I talk about what diet culture really is: not just dieting, but a full-blown societal obsession with thinness—wrapped in “health,” reinforced by fear, and fueled by fatphobia. We talk about how diets have been rebranded as wellness, how moral judgment gets attached to food, and how so many of us live with hidden rules we don’t even realize are running the show.
And then Kristi shares the turning point that changed everything.
She’s a mother of three, and two of her children have lived through anorexia and treatment. Through that experience, Kristi began learning what so many of us were never taught: that food isn’t “good” or “bad.” That labelling food becomes a way of labelling ourselves. That hunger isn’t an emergency—it’s a signal. And that our bodies were never meant to be controlled like a project.
One of the most powerful moments in this conversation is the story of her daughter—how, in the middle of a snack battle, she pushes a protein bar toward Kristi and says, “You eat it.” And then the words that cracked something open:
“It helps me when you eat with me.”
Suddenly, the truth was unavoidable: if Kristi was going to help her child heal, she had to look honestly at her own relationship with food, control, and worthiness. She calls it hitting “diet rock bottom”—that place where the old way is exhausting, and the new way is terrifying… but the switch flips anyway.
In this episode, we explore:
What diet culture actually is—and how it hides in “health” and “wellness” language
How food rules quietly shape our sense of worth and control
What intuitive eating is (and what it isn’t)
Why hunger is not a failure or an emergency, but a signal
How moralizing food becomes moralizing ourselves
The realities of weight gain, thin privilege, and fat bias
What it feels like to be freed from constant food noise
Why body neutrality can be more accessible—and more healing—than body positivity
We talk honestly about the fact that this journey isn’t always neat. Kristi shares how gaining weight forced her to confront thin privilege and the very real discrimination people in larger bodies face—from clothing to travel to healthcare. And she also shares how profoundly liberating it was to step out of the mental obsession so many of us mistake for “discipline,” when it’s often just hunger, fear, and deprivation in disguise.
What I loved most about this episode is that we don’t pretend the goal is waking up tomorrow and loving your body every second of every day. Kristi says something many of us need to hear: body positivity isn’t always realistic. But body neutrality—more peace, less obsession, less self-attack—is possible.
And we talk about how this work is generational.
The way we speak about bodies becomes the way our kids learn to speak about theirs.
The way we treat ourselves becomes the blueprint.
About Kristi
Kristi Koeter is a writer, former award-winning editor, and the creator of Almost Sated, where she writes about diet culture, intuitive eating, and the long, honest process of rebuilding trust with food and the body. Her work is grounded, compassionate, and deeply informed by lived experience—both her own and her family’s.
✨ Find Kristi here:
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Coming Next
🎧 New episodes drop every Wednesday.
Next week, we’re continuing this thread with a solo episode on Embodiment—what it means to return to your body, listen to its signals, and stop living your life from the neck up.
Between Episodes
📬 Weekly essays continue every Tuesday on Substack.
If this conversation resonated, stay close. This work unfolds gently, over time.
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If you’re ready for guidance and support as you heal your relationship with your body—and with yourself—you can learn more and apply here:
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If you’re in the middle of healing your relationship with your body, I want you to hear this:
You are not failing because the thoughts still show up.
You’re healing because you’re learning to meet them differently—with honesty, presence, and compassion.
💬 If you want to reflect together:
What belief about your body are you beginning to question—or loosen—right now?
You were never meant to earn your worth through shrinking.
LYLAS,
Sara
