What This Therapist Wants You to Know About Making Midlife MeaningFULL with Alli Spotts-De Lazzer

There is nothing simple about the human body. We are beautifully complex. And yet when we are unsatisfied with what we see, change feels necessary and results can’t come quickly enough. Yet one of the biggest lies a globally $702 billion dollar weight loss industry has fed us is that your beautifully complex body can be “fixed” with 5 steps or a formula. We’ve been set up to fail.

The results we crave come from a commitment to getting curious about what freedom, purpose, and wholeness mean to each of us. Finding the courage to begin and continue asking these questions is no easy task. But when those who are years ahead share their story about how they were able to redefine their relationship with food and their body, something incredible happens. We begin to see ourselves in someone else’s story and we‘re inspired to live out our own. 

In this episode, I’ve invited therapist Alli Spotts-De Lazzer, LMFT, LPCC, and CEDS-S to join me on the show. She is the author of MeaningFULL, 23 Life-Changing Stories of Conquering Dieting, Weight, & Body Image Issues. Here she has thoughtfully curated stories of women who chose to trade the empty promises of happiness through dieting for an alternative, unique path they learned to call their own. 

In this episode you’ll learn: 

•  Embrace the gray or not: how Alli and I have decided to approach this topic
•  Why there’s a unique gift in sharing our stories
•  Why you’re only in control of your investment, not the outcome when it comes to your health
•  Fighting vs. Thriving: What’s the difference? 
•  Why midlife is enjoyed best with grace, wisdom, and not giving two f’s 

Episode Links: 

To learn more about Alli Spotts-De Lazzer and her work, visit her website at
www.TherapyHelps.Us and follow her on Instagram  @TherapistAlli, on Twitter @TherapistAlli, or on Facebook @ https://www.facebook.com/Alliwww.TherapyHelps.Us

Grab the book: MeaningFULL, 23 Life-Changing Stories of Conquering Dieting, Weight, & Body Image Issues

TRANSCRIPT 

Jenn Huber  00:02

Hi and welcome to the midlife feast the podcast for women who are hungry for more in this season of life. I'm your host, Dr. Jenn Selena Huber. Come to my table. Listen and learn from me. Trusted guests, experts in women's health and interviews with women just like you. Each episode brings to the table juicy conversations designed to help you feast on midlife. Hi there, welcome to this week's episode of the midlife feast. I'm really excited to introduce you to ally spots to Lazar. Ali is one of my favorite people on social media. And as we'll share in the beginning of this episode, that's how we connected. And we've developed a really kind of nice friendship through it. But she's a family therapist, she's a counselor, she's, you know, works with eating disorders and intuitive eating. But more relevant to this conversation is she is a curator of stories, and she's written a book. And the book is called meaningful.

And it's a collection of stories of people who've recovered, not just women, not just people in midlife, although as we talk about a large number of them actually are, but just a collection of stories of how people move through the process of redefining the relationship with food and their body. And we share a little bit about our collective experience of working with women in midlife as they go through this but also being women in midlife who are going through this. So it's a fun conversation. I always laugh when I'm talking to Ali, and I know that you will, too. Okay, so welcome ally to the midlife feast.

Alli Spotts-De Lazzer  01:42

Thank you for having me. Actually, today with me. I know we took a while to get to actually connecting. So I'm really, really just happy to be here with you.

Jenn Huber  01:50

Can I tell the story about how we first met? Of course, okay, so this, I think it was 2020 I think it was like, knee deep into the pandemic. And you reached out to me and said, I've written a book, I would love for you to read it, and I'm gonna send it to you. And I said, Great, just know that I'm in Europe, and it's probably gonna cost you a lot of money. And you said, Oh, no, no, it'll just be fine. It'll be through Amazon. And despite the ridiculous cost to send me this book, much more than the cost of the actual book, you still sent it. And it was such a lovely gesture that I still, every time I look at that book, I smile, because I think it was such a nice thing for someone to do. And I loved it. I loved reading the stories. I'm sure we'll talk about your book shortly. But, but I love that story of how we met.

Alli Spotts-De Lazzer  02:37

Thank you so much. And then through it, we've grown to such a lovely collegial relationship. And I love having you to lean on, especially with your expertise. So it's really just, I had never done Instagram, on Instagram. Oh my gosh, I think I gave it away my age right there. But I wasn't brand new to Instagram. And I didn't know any of the rules, nothing. But I've really discovered that it's hooked me into some really lovely souls and clinicians and practitioners. So thank you.

Jenn Huber  03:09

So people who listen to this episode, or my podcast regularly will probably laugh when I say this, but I am saying it again that almost all of my guests are people that I've met through Instagram, because in the last couple of years, like there have just it has been a really nice space to connect with people. And I think that it has really united many of us who are kind of part of this movement to make menopause better and midlife better. Which kind of leads into actually what we want to talk about today, which is this whole thing about aging, and the expectations around aging and the fears. And it's really interesting, because you come from an eating disorders background. And, you know, kind of that's your area of expertise. And I think that there's a really interesting intersection there.

Alli Spotts-De Lazzer  04:05

I didn't do and in fact, there was, I believe it was yesterday or last week, just a few days ago, an article came out about middle age and new onset eating disorders. And so I think that that's an interesting piece of today too. But referring to what you just said yes, as an eating disorders clinician there brings in some extra pieces because for me, I'm no different than when I'm in the office than when I'm out in the store than when I first started as a clinician, I had the privilege of studying under Carolyn Causton. And I used to be this like really, you know, straight custard using all the right words therapist, the multi generational transmission.

And Carolyn pulled me aside one day and she just said, you know, you've got to be a real person, especially with this population because they sniff anything fake. And why I'm saying that is because as we're talking about age gang. I'm about eight months into not having my period. And it is glorious. Oh my gosh, I love it. But there is an extra, I believe not, it's never a burden. But there's an extra accountability factor. Because for me, I, if I'm going to preach something, I'm going to live it, I'm going to do it. If it doesn't make sense, like I'm not saying anything that my clients do. But if it is something that's in my own life experience wheelhouse, I can't be preaching something that I've not tried, lived or done. And so that's why the aging piece brings almost an extra thing in when someone's recovered from an eating disorder. And they've really fully worked on body acceptance, Soul acceptance, the wholeness like I never split off the body in the way that I conceptualize a human being. Because if you hate it, and then you love it, it's still in it. You aren't. Oh, it's just what zips in your messy innards, and your beautiful soul that also has mess.

Jenn Huber  06:07

That is beautiful.

Alli Spotts-De Lazzer  06:08

Thank you. So that's where I'm kind of going with that is there's an extra piece of it when you really get through the, you know, media literacy and get to another point of recovery because I do identify as a recovered clinician, I had my own decades of dieting, eating disorders, the whole schpeel. And so I see aging in such a different way. And when people are dying their graves because of embarrassment and shame, different different spot if you like dying your grace. But if you're doing it out of fear, I have to like kind of even go back and be like, oh, gosh, I worked through so much of this to get to this space of lipstick only no makeup welcoming grace, my oh my gosh, this is such a fun story. So I think it's fun. You may not I don't know. I was at my hairdressers, my hairstylist, and she stops and she points and she goes, Oh, you've got a little patch of Gray's and I go oh my gosh, really that is amazing where and she stepped back three steps. And she goes for my entire career had someone respond that way.

Jenn Huber  07:24

It's amazing. That isn't easy.

Alli Spotts-De Lazzer  07:26

I love it. I've got this copper and dirty blonde and like almost green, brown blonde. And then now I've got these cool like silver streaks coming through. And I'm like, This is amazing. You're gonna do

Jenn Huber  07:43

and, you know, I love the conversations around grace. So I admittedly, you know, dye my hair but it's not a fear or shame. I've always I have anybody who like has known me for a long time knows that. Like, I really first started dyeing my hair in like high school, and they probably even Junior High. Because I like being able to change the color. To me, my hair is an accessory. And so you know, I have like variations on a theme depending on the season. And I've said so many times, like now I'm actually getting annoyed at the upkeep. But I'm not ready to commit to one color for the next, hopefully 50 years, you know. So it's an interesting one for me, because I do kind of like wrestle with it a little bit. But at the same time, I know it's not because I'm like, I have no problem going out with roots like that doesn't that doesn't matter to me. You know, it's not shame or anything there. But so that's

Alli Spotts-De Lazzer  08:35

you just nailed the key is that you're not forced by standards or driven by oh my gosh, I can't age like. And again, if you have questioned it, and you choose very, very different. And I'm not judging either way. I'm just inviting everyone to kind of question what why we're doing some of the things that we're doing because some stuff we just swallow and accept that. This is the way we need to be. This is the hair color we need to have at this age. You can't blah, blah, blah. Like you just said, your hair keeps changing. Well for me, I was Marcia Brady straight hair my whole life and then hairy menopause gave me two thirds of it curly with 1/3 of it still bone straight. And now the tires changing. It's so fun. For me. It's really fun to see what nature is going to do. Yeah,

Jenn Huber  09:31

yeah. So I, I have a question. And you can you can tell me you can say no if you don't want to kind of answer that. But one of the things that I think of when I think of you is that you're a storyteller. The way that you wrote the book. I think the way that you you relate on social media is your you're a storyteller. Thank you and I'm storyteller. I love listening to stories. I love hearing other people's stories. I love retelling them and I think that there's so much value in the sharing of stuff. or is it something that as human beings, it is how we have passed down wisdom, not just facts, but wisdom from one generation to another. And as I'm kind of in this transition, so I'm 15 days away from my one year, Ally, I have pom

Alli Spotts-De Lazzer  10:19

poms in my closet, I would be totally waving them. That is, oh, I'm excited for you. I'm four months away from it.

Jenn Huber  10:26

So by the time this podcast airs, I will hopefully be crossed that threshold. But it's interesting, though, because I really have felt a shift into that. I don't like the word crone for some reason. But just like that, that idea of like the, the wise, matriarchal grandmother figure, I don't identify with that, obviously, fully, but I definitely feel that like transition into the experience of my life, you know, and, you know, kind of starting to think about, like, what actually matters in terms of what we pass on to the next generation. And when I see, you know, things happening, especially as it relates to body autonomy, and how it relates to how we talk about bodies, and yeah, you know, freedoms and rights, I really feel like, it's such an important, it's an important thing for me to still care about. Right? And that I'm getting to a question, it's coming, don't worry, you and lovingness keep going.

But I guess I would love to know your story. So you're a recovered clinician. And you've mentioned already that you've had your own personal experience with disordered eating and eating disorders? How did you get to this place of being the storyteller of telling people stories from recovering from dieting in your book, because really, that's what I loved about the book, it was these 23 stories of all these different journeys of not just dieting, but body image, and not just women, but really kind of the stories of like, this is what it was like to live through this. This is where I'm at now. And you know, that's social learning is what it is, right? It's, you know, sharing stories in the hopes of being able that someone else will see themselves in that story and see what it's like to be on the other side. So, tell, are you comfortable telling us part of your story?

Alli Spotts-De Lazzer  12:18

Oh, my gosh, absolutely. And nobody can see it. But I was just making that hand sign of a heart because you said social learning. And, you know, stop me if this gets too long of an answer regarding the book. When I was in my deepest struggles, the concepts in the book, I really, that book has been missing for so many years. And the reason I believe it's missing has been missing is a it was really hard to figure

Jenn Huber  12:47

out. But

Alli Spotts-De Lazzer  12:51

I want it I am a teacher at heart, I love that you see me as a storyteller. But when I started thinking about this book, I thought of, I'm going to bury education in stories. Because when someone's being taught or preached at, there can be such a resistance as if they're being accused of being wrong or not in the know, if they're voluntarily reading something that feels inspiring, because for me, also, I think the mental health field gets it wrong a lot with focusing on the negative for so long, all the struggles that this that that, and then they finally turn the corner. But by then they've it's so uncomfortable to listen to them almost relive energetically all the pain with that many details that I weighed. In fact, I weeded out the pain details, so much so that at one time, one of my beta readers was like, What is this book about? Like, I can't cheer on any of the recovery because there's no pain. So I was like, dang, I gotta go back. Actually, you know, me, I swear a lot. And I was like, yeah. So I had to go back and put in just enough pain, so that people could cheer for the trial of what where that person got in their life. I also as a clinician know that we cannot manualized how people find freedom, how people find where they want to be in life, what their idea of health is.

And so I thought, if I get lots of people's stories that people can read. It's not that one book that's shaking the finger going do step one, two, and three, and I guarantee you're gonna get better and then the person feels like they failed after because it didn't work for them. This book is so many options of wow, that didn't resonate. That's dumb. I don't want to try that. Or, you know, I'm open to that. Let me go look at the research she pointed me to because after each of the stories I follow up with hopefully free research that you can google and find because I just accessible Liddy was so important in this book. And then at the end of it, when I looked at my The reason I stopped at 23 stories was because I saw that people were represented. And I hadn't even had an intentionality, I really was pursuing a variety of struggles and triumphs. And then I saw actual human beings were actually represented in the stories, backgrounds that were completely different from each other stories that were so very different from each other, spanning from non clinical to clinical, introducing different bias that we may not know we have, and I'm not going to shame anyone for having it, we all have bias. But what a safe way to look at it while you're reading about someone's struggles, who's just a human being like us struggling, who had to go through all this stuff to try to find a spot in life where they felt empowered and not ashamed of themselves, not struggling with self acceptance.

And interestingly, a lot of the stories ended up being middle aged, I actually it was so weird, because most people go oh, well, anything with eating issues, we're gonna think adolescents and young, white blabbity, blah. That wasn't the case in my book, no doubt. And that was not like it was almost like, just energetically the I don't even know how to explain it, except that it just came to be human beings, their experiences, everybody did it for free. Some knew it may not even ever get published. But I had, I've had such a diverse background that I could remember these little like, planted seeds. And I would call people out of the blue and be like, well, we met a few years ago, and something you said, came to mind. And I'm doing this project. And I'm wondering, blah, blah, blah. And at the end, some of them even said, you know, I've never talked about this. And thank you for helping me kind of work through it, talk through it and find more closure. Yeah.

Jenn Huber  17:02

Oh, I can only imagine, I can only imagine that just being able to tell their story. how powerful that is. I want to come back to something that you said that we can't manualized you know, our health. Yeah. And that is, I already know that that's going to be the sound clip for this episode. Because one of the things that I say all the time when I'm working with people in any capacity, is that regardless of what you do, you have to commit to the process and not the outcome, because you're not in control of the outcome. You're only in control of the choices that you make along the way. And they may or may not lead to what you want, right. And I kind of use the example sometimes of like investments, right? You can set up this beautifully laid plan for you know, investing, starting when you're 18, making all the safe decisions, the right decisions, you know, and yet, there are events that will happen before you retire, that will really throw that plan, you know, into chaos, you know, likely in some ways. And so, and what I see happening all the time, which I'm sure you do, too, but especially when it comes to health, and especially women in midlife is people who are selling these, like, follow my 10 step plan and just do these things. And then people do it. And then they feel like it, there's something wrong with them when it doesn't work. And that is

Alli Spotts-De Lazzer  18:29

why every story has multiple things to choose from. Now, interestingly, I've gotten negative feedback, people are mad that I didn't give them an easy to follow step by step. Really, sometimes

Jenn Huber  18:45

I could see it, I can see it.

Alli Spotts-De Lazzer  18:47

Yeah, no, I want you to find yours. I'm so passionate about that. I'm you know, even as a therapist, I'm not the like, I want to ask enough questions where you know that you've become an expert of you eventually. But I'm not the one I get humbled so often by thinking I know what's best for someone in my head and being like, Oh, I'm not gonna say it because I'm not you know, even allowed to vote. And then I think and then later on, I'm like, Thank God, I didn't say anything. They Oh, yeah, no, in the end, what is the fit for their life? And sometimes you make choices. Listen, we all do. We'll make choices and try plans along the way, hoping. And it isn't the right thing for our lives. But how then do we get to ever theory sometimes even with dating, that a lot of people start by learning what they don't want, that eventually leads them to feel what they do want because they now recognize so much of these feelings and kind of energy of oh, this is not cool.

Jenn Huber  19:51

I love that analogy. I think that's such a perfect technology actually for at least the people that I work with that end up you know, people who start dieting like I did In my teens, and really were on that dieting bandwagon until, you know, my mid 30s. What I really started to identify with was what wasn't working anymore. You know, and I, and I'll tell people that, you know, it's not that that feeling that you have on Monday morning, when you go to open your app, and you, you know, you say to yourself, This is going to be the week that I do it perfectly. And it feels so wrong. You know, it doesn't feel good. That, you know, that's that intuition. It's that experience of saying, like, Okay, I need to do something different, because this doesn't feel good. And by

Alli Spotts-De Lazzer  20:39

the way, I want I want not feeling good. And dread does not mean you're weak or lack willpower. It actually might be your body screaming at you because your mind is overriding your body.

Jenn Huber  20:54

Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly it. That's exactly it. And we have to learn to listen, right? So Intuitive Eating is all about learning to listen, and change the response. So, you know, and I think that it midlife is such an interesting time for intuition. Because I know for me, my kids, like, I still have kids at home, I have, you know, three teenagers, well, two, that'll be teenagers in six weeks, but tweens and a teen for sure. So life is still busy. Don't get me wrong, you know, but there is more interest in listening to the intuitive part of me. I don't know if it's ability or if it's interest or what it is. But there definitely is more. I guess, just maybe the environment, I don't know. But I often will, people will say that to me, they'll say, you know, I feel like now that I'm in my 40s or now that I'm in my 50s I'm actually like, I want to listen again. You know, whereas before I just wanted it to cooperate, I wanted it to I wanted my body to listen, I wanted to do what I wanted to do. And but now it's like, okay, we you know, we're in this together, we've got to do this together. It is

Alli Spotts-De Lazzer  22:11

a lot it when you were saying that I kept thinking of menopause, for me is a lot like adolescence, adolescence all over again. But with a lot more grace, wisdom and not giving two F's,

Jenn Huber  22:22

that is the best part, and it down, hands down, hands down. Let's circle back to ageing for a minute, because one of the things that comes up a lot in the conversations that I have is people saying, you know, I've spent 20 3040 years trying to figure this out. And I feel like I'm at this like fork in the road, that if I don't figure it out, and I crossed that threshold into midlife or old age, it's just all going to be downhill, right, there's still this attachment, that they have to have a certain body to age well, or they have to have a certain look to age well.

And there's been some criticism of some fairly high profile people in the media, who, you know, I'm certainly not going to body shame them for any reason, you know, small or larger bodies. But you know, that kind of representing again, another ideal, another ideal, this one's strong, it's not necessarily just then but just kind of representing that there's one way to have a body in midlife, right? Or that there's a better way, or the best way or the one we should still all be striving for the part

Alli Spotts-De Lazzer  23:30

that gets me on this is when I think about that. What I think might be happening for people is underneath, if something is very, very popular, if something is very, very accepted, if something is very, very praised. There's a little bit of an idea or fantasy that there will be a sense of calm and safety if we can attain it. Yes, I think that might be like with the it also feels like pressure. But when I look at any age of body image stuff and eating disorders, like you know, some people used to think that eating disorders were about vanity, they're, they're a disorder. It's a psychological with a biological, you know, its physical consequences.

But there's also I look at underneath it, what is it serving? And so often I find that people are so resourceful. It may not be, you know, it may harm them, but the drive underneath it might be often I believe it's for safety. When people say oh, it's all about control. Why do you need control? Why do you want to look like that person? Why, why why? peace, calm, safety. These are kind of my new theories, because I've been watching this for so many years, and listening deeply, deeply listening to people's story. worries.

And what's going to make someone feel good in the world and safe in the world can be so different MATLAB loops back to the manual lysing of bodies of health of, you know, health is presented as these isolated labs and isolated. Wait. And yet like I know if I'm not laughing, my health is starting to plummet. Because I love laughing I love joking. I love like through pain, there's always a way to get through it through laughter It's ridiculous. Life is ridiculous. Today, you know, I had a power outage, got dressed in the dirt came and did my hair in my office. Like, it's just funny. Last week when my office flooded because of the California rains. And I was digging out water between like, clients, it was funny. I mean, I was talking to the water. I was like you muddy water? Yes, right now. What are you gonna do?

Jenn Huber  26:01

Oh, my goodness, I think you have more grace than I do. I'm not sure that I could be laughing in a moment like that. Oh, I

Alli Spotts-De Lazzer  26:06

didn't. I mean, at one point, I did, like have an F bomb tantrum and crash. I went back to talking to the muddy water because what are you gonna do?

Jenn Huber  26:14

What are you gonna do? Yeah, so my point I think

Alli Spotts-De Lazzer  26:17

my point is, is we're all doing our best. And when we find those examples that are upheld in, in the media, of course, we want that peace, that notoriety that safety, that idol? What is it when somebody idolizes you like, and I don't mean it in a narcissistic way.

Jenn Huber  26:39

Yeah, but it's an acceptance, right. And if we go back to like, you know, the, the lizard part of our brain, acceptance meant survival, right, it meant that, you know, you weren't going to be left to die. when push came to shove,

Alli Spotts-De Lazzer  26:53

I think you just hit a key that I you couldn't say it better. acceptance means survival. And so when we continue to fight aging, when we continue to fight our bodies, how we're naturally shaped how our metabolisms are, when we keep fighting, aren't we kind of fighting our own survival? I know we're fighting our thriving.

Jenn Huber  27:21

Oh, that's really powerful. That's great. But no, I think that that connection is important, because it really does affect every part of our ability to, like you said, not just thrive, but actually really, you know, survive in a way that is our own, and not based on someone else's way of surviving, right, and not dreading

Alli Spotts-De Lazzer  27:45

waking up. Because you have to do all these things that are not not meaningfully fulfilling.

Jenn Huber  27:56

Yes. Because that's what we're here to do. Right? We're here to live.

Alli Spotts-De Lazzer  28:02

And I don't mean, happy happy is outside the bell curve. So that means you're going to drop below the bell curve if you're shooting for a happy life every day. But I do think meaningful and contented are okay. And that would be the title of the book. And I really didn't mean to put on that one. I really honestly didn't. But that has, like, you know, even for, like, you know, holidays and stuff. I've always said meaningful Thanksgiving to you meaningful, you know, New Years, because some people have painful holidays, but you can always find meaning.

Jenn Huber  28:33

Yes. Oh, my goodness, I love that. I love that. So when it comes to aging, and especially for anybody who is aging, while also either actively in recovery, or you know, even if you're 20 years recovered from an eating disorder, you know, I often tell people, I don't know if you share this as well. And I tell them that, you know, I don't ever make the goal for the desire for weight loss to go away. It's for you to recognize when it shows up, to recognize what pushes it through the door and to give you the tools to be able to change how you respond. Right. And so I think that when it comes to aging, what I'm trying to do is to kind of go through that door with grace, obviously.

But also just with the understanding that like there are going to be some things that change, they're not my fault. They're, you know, it's nothing that I did or nothing that I caused. And then if I can respond without if I can see those situations without shame if I can see those situations as not a moral failing on my part or not because I didn't have that extra spinach salad or you know, it's much it's much easier to kind of settle into that new normal. Yeah, so what kind of, you know, what parting advice would you have, you know, with your kind of different hats on for for someone who might be Are you feeling like they can't cross that threshold? And with welcoming arms?

Alli Spotts-De Lazzer  30:07

Well, first of all, don't add on another should have, I shouldn't be mad about this, like, gosh, the, you know, we have these thoughts. Something that helped me a great deal. And I really haven't, I had to get back to the original author. But when I was in my early 20s, my OBGYN had these pictures up on the wall of aging in your 20s of a body, your skin, everything, aging in your 20s aging in your 30s aging in your 40s aging and your 50s aging and your 60s. Now interestingly, I went to do a menopause support group. And I could not find images anywhere. I actually had to get back to the original author from the 90s to see if I could find these pictures that I believe if I couldn't be wrong here, but my gosh, it's about education.

If your body is changing wildly, and it's kinda like when you're a teen and you don't mean to sprout boobs overnight, and you're like, oh my god, what are these girls know? Right now? Okay, I didn't mean to lose my weight waist overnight, but it's gone. I am a geometrical figure. I am a rectangle. I am lines.

I am triangles that once were round. Uh huh. That's right, my boobs. But what has helped me and I cannot believe how often my brain has gone back to those pictures that back in my 20s I looked at and said fu I am never getting there. Ah, I am going to defy that. I am not doing that kinky wiry hair. I am not. I mean, like because you're like my gray hair is like a little wire thing.

Jenn Huber  31:44

There's no wild. It's so funny.

Alli Spotts-De Lazzer  31:46

I looked at that. And I was like, No, I am going to defy you and defeat you. And that's what I mean by you're not surviving. If you are fighting nature. I now am like, Oh, this is nature. Oh my goodness, I have to return that dress from before COVID Because it does not do any part of fitting. I'm going to fire my employee. My dress that I hired with its job to fit me is fired.

Jenn Huber  32:14

Love that. Love that. Ellie this has been lovely. This some I really I love I love your spark, I think is the best way to put it in for life and for midlife and for all things related to finding meaning. So I thank you for this conversation. And as I always ask my guests, what do you think is the missing ingredient in midlife?

Alli Spotts-De Lazzer  32:40

Holy moly, I'm kind of blanking on that because the missing ingredient will be so different for everyone. So I would say to everyone listening, whatever other people say, think about what yours is. And it can change every morning, every day, every hour, but it gives you an intention and a direction for the minute you're thinking of it.

Jenn Huber  33:03

I love it. That is the fantastic answer. So if people want to learn more about you, and find out about the book, I'll have the link in my show notes. But where would you like them to find you?

Alli Spotts-De Lazzer  33:16

Thank you. Well, I am far less interesting than the stuff I want to teach. So I really appreciate that. Um, they can find at therapist alley on Instagram and Twitter. And then the book is meaningful 23 life changing stories of conquering dieting weight and body image issues. I know that super long, but at the time, I was thinking of SEO, you know. And then honestly, if you Google ally spots to Lazar, I'm always doing something trying to create something because, again, the traditional ways that we're educating like, I would love to just teach through storytelling, very often lesson so no one even knows that they're being offered some stuff that they can take or leave, but it's good info.

Jenn Huber  34:03

I love it. And we'll have all those links in the show notes. So, thank you so much for spending some time with us on your slightly chaotic morning. It has been a lovely conversation. Thank you

Alli Spotts-De Lazzer  34:14

for inviting me and connecting our continents.

Jenn Huber  34:16

Yes.

Alli Spotts-De Lazzer  34:18

I didn't mean continents like yeah, you know what I meant our locations.

Jenn Huber  34:24

Goodbye. Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of the midlife teeth. For more non diet health hormone and general midlife support. Click the link in the show notes to learn how you can work and learn from me. And if you enjoyed this episode and found it helpful, please consider leaving a review or subscribing because it helps other women just like you find us and feel supported in midlife.