Rethinking Wellness

Latest Episodes:

Leaky Gut Syndrome: Real Condition or Dubious Diagnosis? May 04, 2026

Show notes

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rethinkingwellness.substack.com

Christy shares the story of a woman who came to believe a “leaky gut” was behind all her health issues, and discusses the nuanced facts about this supposed diagnosis. (Adapted from The Wellness Trap.)

This episode is for paid subscribers. Listen to a free preview here, and sign up for a paid subscription to hear the full episode!

Get full show notes and references here.

Christy's second book, The Wellness Trap, is available wherever books are sold! Order it online or ask for it in your favorite local bookstore.

If you're looking to make peace with food and break free from diet and wellness culture, come check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course.

Why (Wellness) Marketers Use the Same Tactics as Cults with Dr. Mara Einstein Apr 27, 2026

Show notes

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rethinkingwellness.substack.com

Dr. Mara Einstein joins us to discuss how cult-like marketing tactics have taken over the wellness and diet industries.

She explains how Weight Watchers and other diet programs operate on cult-like principles, why food noise might be a kind of internalized cult leader, the many problematic aspects of how GLP-1s are marketed, and why conspirituality is so problematic.

Behind the paywall, Christy and Mara discuss the cult marketing spectrum, influencers as “cult-like” figures and conspiracy theorists, the anxiety economy that profits from doomscrolling, MLMs, affiliates, and how to get out of brand cults.

Paid subscribers can hear the full interview, and the first half is available to all listeners. To read the full post and upgrade to paid, go to rethinkingwellness.substack.com.

More from Christy:

Christy's second book, The Wellness Trap, is available wherever books are sold! Order it here, or ask for it in your favorite local bookstore.

If you're looking to make peace with food and break free from diet and wellness culture, check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course.

Subscribe on Substack for full interviews and more! Support the podcast by becoming a paid subscriber, and unlock great perks like extended interviews, subscriber-only Q&As, full access to our archives, commenting privileges, and a place to connect with other listeners.

Is Magnesium a Miracle Mineral, or Just Another Wellness Fad? (Best Of) Apr 20, 2026

Show notes

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rethinkingwellness.substack.com

Christy answers an audience question about whether magnesium is really the panacea it’s made out to be—or whether it’s just another example of wellness-culture hype.

The full version of this episode is for paid subscribers. Listen to the first question here, and sign up for a paid subscription to hear the rest!

Get full show notes and references here.

Ask a question of your own for a chance to have it answered in a future episode!

Christy's second book, The Wellness Trap, is available wherever books are sold. Order it here, or ask for it in your favorite local bookstore.

If you're looking to make peace with food and break free from diet and wellness culture, check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course.

Challenging the Hype About Gut Health and Ultra-Processed Foods with Laura Thomas (Best Of) Apr 13, 2026

Show notes

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rethinkingwellness.substack.com

Registered nutritionist, author, and friend of the pod Laura Thomas joins us to unpack the problematic notion that you need to eat a ridiculously large number of plants per week for gut health, and what we actually know about how plant foods affect the gut microbiome. We also get into how to distinguish good science from hype, how ultra-processed foods have become so demonized despite a lack of strong evidence, how anti-fat bias is baked into the discourse about both gut health and ultra-processed foods, and lots more.

Paid subscribers can hear the full interview, and the first part is available to all listeners. To upgrade to paid, go to rethinkingwellness.substack.com.

Laura is a Registered Nutritionist who helps people feel less afraid of the food they eat and more comfortable in their bodies. Through her work with individuals and families, as well as in her writing, she challenges dominant ideals about ‘good’ and ‘bad’ foods and ‘good’ and ‘bad’ bodies. She holds a PhD in Nutritional Sciences from Texas A&M University, and worked as a post-doctoral research associate at Cornell University before starting her private practice. More recently she received a diploma in Clinical Nutrition and Eating Disorders from UCL. She has published two books: Just Eat It and How To Just Eat It, both of which focus on healing our relationship with food and our body through Intuitive Eating. Her clinical work is focussed on supporting families to end the intergenerational transmission of body shame and disordered eating. She writes the newsletter Can I Have Another Snack?

If you like this conversation, subscribe to hear lots more like it!

Support the podcast by becoming a paid subscriber, and unlock great perks like extended interviews, subscriber-only Q&As, full access to our archives, commenting privileges and subscriber threads where you can connect with other listeners, and more. Learn more and sign up at rethinkingwellness.substack.com.

Christy's second book, The Wellness Trap, is available wherever books are sold! Order it here, or ask for it in your favorite local bookstore.

If you're looking to make peace with food and break free from diet and wellness culture, come check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course.

Doctor-Recommended Supplements: What You Need to Know Apr 06, 2026

Show notes

Christy answers an audience question about what to do if you’re wary of buying supplements but want to listen to your doctor’s recommendations.

The full version of this episode is now UNLOCKED for all subscribers. Sign up for a paid subscription to get lots more like this!

Get full show notes and references here.

Ask a question of your own for a chance to have it answered in a future episode!

Christy's second book, The Wellness Trap, is available wherever books are sold. Order it here, or ask for it in your favorite local bookstore. If you're looking to make peace with food and break free from diet and wellness culture, check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rethinkingwellness.substack.com/subscribe

Parenting for Positive Body Image with Charlotte Markey, PhD Mar 30, 2026

Show notes

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rethinkingwellness.substack.com

Body image scientist and researcher Charlotte Markey, PhD returns to the show to discuss the many factors that impact body image and how parents can help their kids develop a positive sense of self.

Christy and Charlotte both share examples from their own parenting, including how to handle tricky conversations about body size, gender, and more. They also unpack the difference between body positivity and body neutrality—and why the popular definitions of those terms are different from their use in research.

Behind the paywall, Charlotte explains how she thinks about makeup for girls, adaptive vs maladaptive grooming routines, ways to tell if a kid is struggling with body dysmorphia, and a six-step process for helping young people develop media literacy.

Paid subscribers can hear the full interview, and the first half is available to all listeners. To read the full post and upgrade to paid, go to rethinkingwellness.substack.com.

More from Christy:

Christy's second book, The Wellness Trap, is available wherever books are sold! Order it here, or ask for it in your favorite local bookstore.

If you're looking to make peace with food and break free from diet and wellness culture, check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course.

Do You Really Need a Gluten-Free Diet for These Autoimmune Conditions? (Best Of) Mar 23, 2026

Show notes

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rethinkingwellness.substack.com

Christy answers an audience question about going autoimmune diets and celiac disease, and there’s a bonus one for paid subscribers about going gluten-free for an autoimmune thyroid condition.

Become a paid subscriber to hear the whole thing!

Get full show notes and references here.

Ask a question of your own for a chance to have it answered in a future episode.

Christy's second book, The Wellness Trap, is available wherever books are sold. Order it here, or ask for it in your favorite local bookstore.

If you're looking to make peace with food and break free from diet and wellness culture, check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course.

Healing from Dubious Diagnoses, Disordered Eating, and Overwork with Kirsten Powers (Best Of) Mar 16, 2026

Show notes

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rethinkingwellness.substack.com

New York Times bestselling author and former CNN political analyst Kirsten Powers joins us to discuss her history of chronic fatigue and illness, her experience with dubious diagnoses and wild wellness treatments, what she discovered about the true causes of her issues, how disordered eating helped mask and exacerbate her symptoms, how she’s rethought her relationship with work in general and her own past work in particular, her viral post “The way we live in the United States is not normal” and her decision to move to Italy, and more.

Paid subscribers can hear the full interview, and the first half is available to all listeners. To upgrade to paid, go to rethinkingwellness.substack.com.

Kirsten Powers is a New York Times bestselling author and writes the bestselling Substack newsletter Changing the Channel. Kirsten served as a CNN senior political analyst for seven years, providing on-air analysis for major political and cultural events. The Columbia Journalism Review called her "an outspoken liberal journalist" in a sea of opposition at Fox News, where she previously served as a political analyst. She was a columnist for USA Today for more than a decade and, before that, for the Daily Beast and the New York Post.

If you like this conversation, subscribe to hear lots more like it!

Christy's second book, The Wellness Trap, is available wherever books are sold! Order it here, or ask for it in your favorite local bookstore.

If you're looking to make peace with food and break free from diet and wellness culture, come check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course.

All Your Pregnancy Questions Answered: Nausea + Folate + IVF and Stillbirth Mar 09, 2026

Show notes

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rethinkingwellness.substack.com

Christy delves into the science to answer several questions she’s gotten (and asked herself) about pregnancy. We discuss whether the sex of the baby predicts nausea levels, whether methylated folate is better than folic acid (in pregnancy or otherwise), whether dates (the fruit) have really been shown to induce labor, and whether there’s an increased risk of stillbirth after 39 weeks for IVF babies.

The full version of this episode is for paid subscribers. Listen to the first question here, and sign up for a paid subscription to hear the rest!

Get full show notes and references here.

From Pharmacy to Functional Medicine to Healing from Orthorexia Through Intuitive Eating with Sarah-Jane Garcia Mar 02, 2026

Show notes

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rethinkingwellness.substack.com

Pharmacist and Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor Sarah-Jane Garcia joins us to discuss how smart people get caught up in wellness culture.

She shares her path from the realities of being a pharmacist experimenting with elimination diets to how getting certified in integrative medicine exacerbated her orthorexia to why becoming a parent finally opened her eyes to the fear-mongering happening in wellness communities.

Behind the paywall, Christy and Sarah-Jane discuss what it actually took for Sarah-Jane to break free from diet culture, as well as how she returned to conventional medicine through Intuitive Eating.

Paid subscribers can hear the full interview, and the first half is available to all listeners. To read the full post and upgrade to paid, go to rethinkingwellness.substack.com.

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