Marc David is Leaving a Luscious Legacy

Women in our culture are infected with a deep sense of: I'm not good enough, pretty enough, skinny enough, lovable enough. These toxic beliefs are way worse than any junk food we put into our bodies. ~Marc David

Marc David is the founder, director, and primary instructor at the Institute for the Psychology of Eating. A visionary leader in the fields of health and nutrition, Marc is a Nutritional Psychologist and the author of two classic and acclaimed bestselling books. His humorous, engaging, and informative speaking style has made him a popular and well loved presenter to a wide audience of eaters who are looking for positive, inspiring, and innovative messages about food.

For me, studying with Marc, at the Institute, was both awe-inspiring and life-altering. It wasn’t until I looked at my own, sometimes over-the-top-healthy habits around food, that I really came to understand what Marc means when he says, “Nourishment supersedes nutrition.” The seeds of this project were planted in that work. Join me on Tuesday evening, September 6th when I interview Marc live on what it means to leave a luscious legacy.

Great call tonight! If you missed it, you can access the replay here:

Dial – (218) 862-1099
Enter Access Code – 170442#
Reference #1

Be sure to post your comments and questions below AND, if you are interested in Marc’s professional training program(s) and you mention the luscious legacy call, he is offering a special incentive to my community. Feel free to contact me if you have questions about that.

Written Interview (different from the call)

We all have a story. Can you tell us a little bit about your food history? Where did your food story begin?

My food story began when I was a newborn. Remarkably, my earliest memory is being rushed to a hospital when I was 5 days old. I was having an asthma attack. I almost died. From there, I was on a 12-year journey with intense asthma and allergies that no doctor could help. I was so determined to be able to breathe normally and to play and run like other kids, that I decided to take matters into my own hands. So I changed my diet at age 5—I asked my mom to buy apples and canned vegetables because I thought that would make me healthy. Oddly enough, or maybe just a coincidence, but my health improved, and thus began my lifelong fascination with the healing power of food.

What was your “food life” like after the birth of your son?

Once my son was born, I decided that he would become my personal science experiment. And why not? I was much bigger and smarter and extremely inspired to give him the kind of healthy diet I was never raised with. I was fed every junk food and fast food and synthetic food imaginable. After becoming a parent, my food life became more meaningful, more specific than ever, and I could now pass along the knowledge I had accumulated and give my son a better start than I had. And it worked. He’s 18 years old now, has a great relationship with food, and has been blessed with amazing health. So my food life was less about me, and more about my child.

What was your biggest struggle around food once you became a dad?

My biggest struggle, which wasn’t very big at all, was that I didn’t have as much time for my own culinary experience. Mealtimes were cut in half, preparation time was less, and I felt more like I was fueling myself than nourishing myself. This was all in the service of being a dad who was involved daily and often in my son’s life.

What did you do when your son didn’t like what you prepared?

I generally gave my son two options at every meal: take it or leave it. I was very careful to not set up a dynamic where he knew he could send the food back to the kitchen and get another meal, as if I was the waiter and life was a restaurant. Yes, there were times he simply didn’t like what I made. So I learned from that, tweaked things, and did my best to accommodate his desires and my game plan for meals. I’d let him go hungry if he didn’t finish something, and feed him again sometime later on. The bottom line was this—I did my best to not give his refusal a lot of drama or power.

What are some of your favorite go-to meals and how do you organize your meal planning now that your son is grown?

I’m a firm practitioner of what I would call “fast food/health food/easy food.” As a parent, I like to make meals that take little time but still have a sense of quality, naturalness, and taste. So as a single parent, I’d do Mexican dishes, home made pizzas, pasta with veggies and fish – all with organic veggies, organic ingredients, prepared in less than 20 minutes or so. Smoothies were also my go-to healthy and fast breakfast for my son.

You have worked with so many women in your role as both a nutritional psychologist and as the founder and primary instructor at the Institute for the Psychology of Eating. In your opinion, what is the biggest struggle women face in nourishing both themselves and their families?

One of the biggest struggles women face with nourishing themselves is that they’ve generally been taught and conditioned to disapprove of their looks and their essence in the first place. From there, everything is an uphill battle that can never be won. Women in our culture are infected with a deep sense of “I’m not good enough, pretty enough, skinny enough, loveable enough.” Ouch. These are toxic beliefs that are way worse than any junk food we put into our bodies. When it comes to nourishing their families, women don’t have a tradition behind them anymore. The tradition used to be that women were the caregivers at home, and in the kitchen. The culture supported that, and the zeitgeist supported it. These days, women are told they need to be mothers, bread-winners, killers in the business world, and a hot chick for their husband, with no complaining please. This is surely an impossible task.

As I engage with women, both colleagues and clients, I can’t help but wonder what legacy we’re leaving our children with regard to food and health. Do you have any suggestions for us on how we teach our children healthy eating principles without coming from a place of fear and deprivation?

This is a billion dollar question! Children model after their parents, first and foremost. The best thing we can do is model for them who we wish them to be. Children have fantastically powerful observation skills. They see what we do. If we say one thing, and do another, they catch on real quick. I think we, as parents, need to do our own inner work. Don’t waste any time in getting the old junk out of your mind, heart, and soul. As parents, we need to love and honor our own bodies. We need to self-nourish. We need to value health, value good food, value communication and connection. Children don’t so much listen to the facts we tell them. They listen to the inner place from whence those facts are being delivered. If you love food, your child can to. If you value nature, naturalness, quality, and a sense of nourishment, your child will absorb that without even knowing it.

I work with a lot of women who want very much to nourish their families but they confess that they are actually feeling pretty lonely in the kitchen. What suggestions do you have for the ‘beleaguered’ cook?

Mothers need the support of other mothers, or any women who understand them and want to reach out in the spirit of sisterhood. We are so isolated as a culture, as families, as parents, as mothers—and isolation generally leads us into unhappiness and stagnation. Connection is everything. Who are the mothers or friends with cooking knowledge? Who is jazzed about health meals? Who can we call upon for support? Is it each other? Can we pool our resources and hire a cooking consultant to help a group of us? Have we tapped the resource of our families? Our community? When we get stagnant in the kitchen, I find that the only way to “freshen up” is with some outside inspiration and help.

The psychology of eating is your passion and your life’s work. How do you reconcile the messages we face in the media with regard to body image and weight, and what advice do you have for all the mothers out there who do not want to see their daughter’s struggle with the same food and body image issues they have endured?

We can write lots of good books on this question. First, we need to get real and honest and bold when it comes to the media. We are being programmed with the most toxic thoughts and beliefs when it comes to body and weight and self image. We are being spoonfed poison. How often do you allow your children to consume the mass media? How much television do they watch? What do you allow them to do on the internet? Who are their friends? Have they been raised consciously? Where does your child go to school? What is the best educational environment for them?  The girls of our culture need to be protected as much as possible, for as long as possible. They need to be taught the difference between healthy sexuality, and the unhealthy kind. They need to be told they’re okay, they’re wonderful as they are, and they need to hear it every day, and many times. Fight fire with fire. Fight the constant barrage of negative messages from the media with a constant barrage of positive ones from parents. If you want to change the culture, you can. Just do it in the comfort and within the walls of your own home. That’s the place you can impact the most.

Can you tell us a little bit about the Institute for the Psychology of Eating?

I like to think that the Institute is my child, my creation. But the reality is, I think I’m more like its glorified baby sitter who tries to keep up with it. The Institute is pretty unique and revolutionary in its’ educational approach. It’s the only professional school of its’ kind that teaches students how to effectively work with the most common eating challenges of our times—weight loss, body image, overeating, binge-eating, and a host of nutrition-linked health concerns that have a psycho-emotional component to them: digestion, fatigue, mood, immunity and others. Our graduates come away empowered around their own relationship with food and body, skilled in facilitating others, and confident to bring this knowledge out into the world.

We have an intensive in-person training that meets in Boulder, Colorado, and a teleclass training with an international student body. Both are amazing, and substantial, and life changing for so many of our students. Check out our website to get a better sense of us—The Institute for the Psychology of Eating

Do you have a favorite food or recipe that I can include in the Conscious Bites Newsletter and the Chocolate for Breakfast website?

Marc’s Guacamole

2 avocados
small piece fresh lemon
Ume’ plum vinegar
Red onion
1 clove fresh garlic
3 Tbsp water

Mash avocados in a bowl along with the water, and the juice from a slice of lemon. Finely crush one garlic clove in a garlic press, add in a quarter of a finely chopped red onion, mix well, and finish it off by adding about a tablespoon of ume’ vinegar. This last ingredient is the secret one that gives the guacamole’ an uplifting, expansive and salty finish. Let go and deal with the fact that you’ll have some garlic and onion on your breath. You’ll live longer for it.