Life Can Change In A Moment

This week’s guest is Kim Wyman, a friend of mine, registered dietitian (RD) with a Masters in Public Health (MPH), who specializes in eating disorders.  Whose house burned down in the Woolsey Fires of LA in Nov 2018.  She’s been living in a van since, and hasn’t been happier.  This episode was soooooo good and inspiring.  Great stuff on healthy nutrition and getting deeper with eating disorders, and about loss and rebirth in the spiritual life.

In it, we cover the following:

-What Really Matters About Nutrition: Dietitian Cocktail Party Conversations

-How We Use Food to Feel Better

-Does Your Healthy Diet and Exercise Make Your Miserable?  How to Connect to Movement to Be Happier.

-“Kim, why don’t you live in a van?”

-Spiritually How to Experience A Life Changing Moment

-How Kim Grieved When Her House Burned Down in the Fires

#Doctor #Host

#Moments #Podcast #Show

#VanLife #Fires #NaturalDisasters 

#Dietitian #MPH #Nutrition

#Spiritual #Connection 

#EatingDisorders #Anorexia #Wellness #Happiness #Healthy

Show Notes
● [1:07] We have a great guest for you today, Kim Wyman, a dietitian and has a Master's
in Public Health.
● When Kim was finishing college, she was interested in preventive medicine. Someone
told her that it is not the way to go to the MD route and told her to explore public health.
She showed up for graduate school on the doctor's course towards public health, and
she picks nutrition as her major.
● [3:22] When you are in public health, you can do women's and children's health.
Nutrition is a specialty, so she chose it. When Kim tells people that she is a dietitian,
they tend to ask about their diets. They asked about Keto and intermittent fasting. She
honestly said to us that it is a boring conversation for her because what matters is we
know about nutrition or Keto diet. Still, it is the applied action and relationship to how we
meet our needs that matters.
● [5:00] If you have a breakdown and how your ability to meet your needs, like you say
you don't deserve, then you're going to have a hard time in grading care. How you feed
yourself is the direct basic need and immediate action of care. Disorders around food
are usually disorder of self.
● [7:00] In the late '90s, most of her clients were gays with HIV who had lost partners or
friends. Dealing with loss and trauma, Kim thought that she's going to specialize in HIV.
What happens with eating disorders primarily is that food becomes a way to regulate
disruptions or emotions to make them feel better.
● [9:46] Kim said that the menu could adjust things. If you look at someone with anorexia,
they're usually talented, very functional, or they might be the envy of everybody else in
the room. Still, behind the scenes, they're driving themself almost to death with how they
are strict about the food or walking twelve hours at night. They go to regulate a need,
and it's kind of starting to take over. It could start with someone just going on a diet and if
that temperament is there, it could end badly.
● [11:08]Kim said that sometimes diet conversations could be a little tricky because
sometimes the information could be bad for them. You don't know all the time who that
person is or what they're dealing with that's why it's an emotional peace and you have to
understand them and their needs.
● [14:11] Dr. Larry asks Kim how do we reconcile meeting our needs and enjoying foods
with obesity and all of the medical problems that come with all of this. Kim said that in
our medical culture, they don't have time to explore the life of an obese person. They
look at the labs, weight and tell them to reduce their food. It seems an easy fix on the
surface but if you're looking at the environment, the stress level of that person, there are
so many things that contribute to specifically diabetes and heart disease.

● [16:46] When someone comes to Kim and wants to lose weight, there is a typical
approach that she would take but she has to be really careful of what else is happening
to them. Kim honestly told us that if she works with an actor who needs to get ready for a
role, it's just business. Their body is their business. Kim had worked with one actor that
was suffering from an eating disorder, but there's a string edge, and she couldn't help
because of the pressure that was going on.
● [19:00] There's a way to be in a relationship with having permission to have satisfaction
and to feel a connection to the food you are eating. There is a real basic truth that the
more from the “ground, cared” food is going to be better in our system than something
that is highly processed. The intention is not to care, the intention is mass production
and profiting.
● [21:43] Cooking a meal and having the time to do that and nurturing yourself and having
that relationship fundamentally will experience different in the body than running in your
car, eating a burger on the way to somewhere else. Taking the time and letting your
body be nourished, allowing something to be honored and appreciated, that's a different
reflection towards self. Feeling good is an indicator that you haven't stressed yourself, so
overeating doesn't feel good. You have to disconnect in your natural body state and feel
bad.
● [23:20] Slowing down while eating or preparing the food, you'll stay connected to the
experience. There's so much disconnection from everything in our culture. That
relationship to care is an intimate relationship to self. There is so much disconnection
that we don't internally feel what we're doing, and it translates to movements too. Kim
said that nobody in the blue zones that exercise extremely. Movement is really
necessary and being active is also necessary but how we do it is also important.
● [25:44] If Kim misses yoga, she doesn't feel the natural elasticity of her body, so
movement is necessary to feel good. You can also go to the gym and be on a diet and
look great. It's not a matter if you can't do it and be healthy, but are you happy?
● [27:25] Talking about people who don't exercise, Dr. Larry remembered Bill Barata, a
ninety-eight years old farmer who is a farmer and never exercised before. Kim explains
the Maslow's hierarchy, a pyramid and on the bottom is basic needs. You can't get to the
next level until you meet your basic needs, and on the top is self-actualization.
● [29:03] Self-actualization is when you're in the flow. We can't multitask very well, but
when you're in the flow of something, you almost lose time. Being a farmer like Bill doing
his task and that probably the antidote to stress because you're activating all
connections to self. Stress distracts from our connection to ourselves and distract your
ability to be in the flow.
● [31:45] Kim has many different moments in her life but the most dramatic one was when
her house got burned down by the Woolsey fire. At that moment, she was possession
less and homeless. She got out with her dog and a little go bag because she thought
that she's going back when they have to evacuate.
● [33:00] The wind is something wicked on that day. In California, it's not just a breezy day.
Its gale force 70 mph to 80 mph winds that would be qualified for a firestorm. She knows
a person that works with search and rescue that called to inform her that there was a
fire, but it's 20 to 30 miles away from them. He told Kim to pack a bag just in case they
have to evacuate.
● [35:00] Kim's twin sister called her to know if she's going to be okay. Her sister is more
anxious than she was and told her that she's not going to sleep if she doesn't leave. Kim

went to her friend's house to evacuate; at that night they were focused on the news.
When she woke up, she got a call from one of her colleagues at work and found out that
the fire was getting close to her place, and she still thought that the fire wouldn't get to
her house.
● [37:00] When she saw on channel two that her house was on fire, that's when she finally
drops. Five hours after that, her friend snuck back in and called her that their whole
street was gone. Her house was gone and her place of business was also affected so
they were shut down.
● {39:00] Luckily, there are places for her to land, so many people don't have anywhere to
go. When she went on their family trip to Kauai, Kim was thinking of her mortgage and
trying to find rent in L.A. She still needs to pay the mortgage even if her house got
burned down. It was really hard for her because of how much attachment she had on her
space. She's trying to find something that would fit too, but it wasn't coming through.
● [41:00] When Kim was in Kauai, her sister asked if she could live in the van and then
showed her a couple living in a cute van. Kim said that she can live in that van. She
emailed the couple and told her story but it will take a long time to finish the van. Luckily,
the very van that her sister showed was offered to her. She buys the van, quit her job
and hit the road.
● [43:08] Kim got a referral and has clients all over the west coast and Canada all year
and totally changed her life. She travels, climbs mountains and minimizes everything in
her life. She's gone from worrying about a lot of corporate stuff or the renovation of her
house, and now she's not thinking any of it.
● [45:32] Kim thinks when there is a life-changing moment, it is how you choose to
experience it. You can get stuck in the perception of loss and how it happened to you
versus how it happened for you. Kim said that loss is just a massive spiritual game-
changer if you want to be available to know how to receive it.
● [47:00] Kim has an accessibility to do things that she loves like cooking from the road,
finding little places along the way. Places that people still have connection to the food.
She has some crazy experiences, connecting to our culture and also finding the
variances of it and being able to feel more intimate connection to people, places and
food.
● [49:00] It is sad for Kim to lose all those little things that would connect to her family. Kim
said that she probably left exactly how she did because her house was a tinderbox. She
always knew that if the fire came, she needed to run. There were a few things that she
wanted to grab but, in that situation, it is really hard to think about what is important.
● [52:10] Kim didn't choose this path. She realizes that everything happened for us.
Sometimes things feel painful and tragic, but at the same time, it's how we emerge from
that experience. She feels safer, more at peace, and has less worry than she did a year
ago. She spent most of her time on the west coast and in the Canada. She wants to go
more and thinking to ship the van in to Europe doing a European trip.
● [54:50] Dr. Larry asks Kim how she grieves about her loss. Kim said that the fire took
everything. It didn't just take her house, it took her whole world, her whole environment
was like Armageddon. She has lived there for 14 years and being in the area makes her
felt devastating.
● [58:21] Kim told us that part of the grief is moving through grief. You can't stay in it
because it's not productive after a minute. It's productive to move with that energy and to

let that move through your body, but it has to be like a wave that would come in a crash
and dissipates and come in again, and eventually, you let it out.
● [60:40] Kim told us that she donated her eggs. She had a genetic daughter. Three
weeks ago, her genetic daughter had a son, and she was able to go there, she has the
freedom to be with people she loves and to connect in that way too.
● [62:07] Her van is a Mercedes Sprinter, and Alex and Sarah James fully convert it. It is
21 feet long. She has a king-size bed, a shower, a toilet, a stove, and a car all in one. Dr.
Larry asked her if she would return when her house was built. Kim was thinking of
spending half a year in her home and the other half to her van because it is entertaining
for her to be elsewhere.
● [65:31] Kim has a practice site, and you can do video calls or facetime. She thinks that
telemedicine is something that transitions in a lot of therapy fields and medicine. It is
easier for clients too because they didn't have to drive to go in appointments.
● [67:00] Kim talks about the emotional side of food. She does not sound like an (MPH) or
a dietitian. She looks like a physiologist. Kim didn't have a psychology background. Her
dad was a pastor that does counseling. She deals with people, and their emotional
stress tends to slice things pretty easily.
● [69:15] She thinks that there's a difference in being well and healthy versus looking a
certain way. If you want to look a certain way at fifty, you have to be more specific about
things because you're naturally not looking like that. If you're active, enjoying your food,
enjoying your life, still doing all the physically engaging things, your body is going to be
brilliant, but you might don't have a six-pack, but if you want a six-pack, there are things
you have to do.
● [71:17] Some people are having enough self-awareness and enough self-love that they
can play around with doing something more specific, and it's not from a place of fear.
Maybe you don't want to eat carbs because of fear, and it's because that would make
you feel better. Kim said that she couldn't hold judgment about a person's feelings and
relationship to it because being well is simply your version of what makes you feel good,
and it isn't everybody's.
● [73:40] We can find her on Instagram @our.soul.ingredient.