Diet culture is damaging. The stories we’ve been taught about worth, gender norms, race, and so much more influence how we feel about movement, exercise, and our bodies.
Rather than treating exercise as a tool to change your shape, I invite you to notice the many other benefits movement offers—benefits that are limitless and life-enhancing.
Listen to this episode on your preferred podcast app by searching for “Listen To Your Body” or “Harder To Kill Radio.”
Key Takeaways
If you want to embrace the broader benefits of movement and exercise, consider:
- Unlearning the messages that tie movement exclusively to body manipulation.
- Valuing the many advantages of movement that have nothing to do with weight loss.
- Recognizing and reframing the false narratives about worthiness that influence your choices.
- Exploring the beliefs you hold and leaning into the uncertainty of change.
Removing Diet Culture From Movement with Christina Montalvo
Christina Montalvo is a coach, gym owner, and friend who has been deeply affected by diet culture. She founded a women-only strength and conditioning gym that intentionally does not promote fat or weight loss as goals. Christina challenges us to question what we’ve been taught and to think critically about why we move and what we expect from movement.
Embracing the Infinite Benefits of Movement
When people start a movement routine expecting weight loss, they are more likely to feel disappointed and quit. Removing that pressure lets clients focus on other gains—mental health, strength, stress management, better sleep, mobility, and daily function. For coaches and gym owners, moving away from a weight-loss-only focus can increase retention and create a more positive experience for clients.
Unlearning What You’ve Been Taught
If movement is used primarily to change your body, it’s usually fuelled by something deeper—shame, fear, or external expectations. Addressing how you define worthiness, acknowledging privilege, and prioritizing your needs creates a more sustainable and nourishing approach to movement. Unlearning societal messages is difficult, but by interrogating your beliefs and staying open to learning, you can embrace movement holistically and resist diet culture pressures.
Have you found inclusive spaces where movement’s many benefits are prioritized over weight control? Share how you create that space for yourself and how you resist diet culture in the comments.
In This Episode
- The difference between movement for health and movement for body manipulation (8:12)
- Why equating movement with weight control is harmful (11:10)
- The role of social justice in dismantling patriarchy and diet culture (18:24)
- Balancing client autonomy with the potential harms of dieting practices (23:38)
- Signs that someone is searching for deeper change beyond physical transformation (27:02)
Quotes
“I think what’s harder than learning anything new is unlearning everything that we have always thought to be true.” (10:14)
“The benefits of exercise and intentional movement are absolutely infinite, and … the benefits can be and are different for everyone.” (13:33)
“Anytime you are operating solely from fear or shame, that is inherently unhealthy and detrimental to wellbeing.” (18:19)
“A human can autonomously choose weight loss, but there is a much deeper reason why they are choosing it.” (26:01)
“When we engage in intentional weight loss, everything else in life can become grayscale. Our bodies, food choices, calorie burn, appearance, and weight become central, while other important areas are deprioritized.” (28:46)
Follow Christina
Follow Christina on Instagram: @Christina_Montalvo
Why It Is Time To Take Diet Culture Out of Nutrition Coaching w/ Christina Montalvo – FULL TRANSCRIPT
Steph Gaudreau
This is Episode 308 of the Listen To Your Body podcast. Today Christina Montalvo joins me to discuss why diet culture has no place in nutrition coaching and how we can reframe movement away from body manipulation.
The Listen To Your Body podcast explores the intersection of body, mind, and spirit—helping you eat and move more intuitively, tune into your body’s signals, and build trust with yourself. I’m Steph Gaudreau, certified intuitive eating counselor, nutritional therapy practitioner, and strength coach.
In this episode Christina and I talk frankly about our own journeys away from diet-focused coaching and into more inclusive, trauma-aware, and socially conscious approaches. We explore what it looks like to run a gym that refuses to promote fat loss, how to support clients who want change while also digging into the deeper reasons they’re motivated by weight loss, and how acknowledging privilege and social determinants of health changes the conversation around fitness and nutrition.
Christina Montalvo
Christina describes her gym as a women-only, inclusive strength and conditioning space that intentionally does not facilitate discussions about fat loss or body size. She shares that she is closing the gym after many meaningful years and reflects on the identity shifts that accompany that decision.
Key themes from the conversation
- Historical context: From VHS workout tapes to today’s digital culture, movement has long been marketed as a route to weight loss, making it hard to imagine another purpose for exercise.
- Business and retention: When programs stop promising weight loss, clients often stay longer because their goals broaden to include improved mood, energy, sleep, mobility, and confidence.
- Science perspective: Exercise contributes a relatively small percentage to total caloric expenditure—an important reality check for those who believe extreme workouts are the primary path to fat loss.
- Privilege and social determinants: Coaching that ignores economic access, food scarcity, and systemic barriers risks blaming individuals for problems rooted in inequality.
- Autonomy and ethics: Coaches must balance respect for clients’ choices with careful inquiry into why those choices are being made and whether they stem from healthy motivation or shame.
- Psychological drivers: Many people seek body change as a form of control when other parts of life feel uncertain. Intentional weight loss can also function as a socially accepted distraction from deeper issues.
- Purpose and worthiness: True change comes when people reclaim their agency, recognize their worth beyond appearance, and pursue purpose that nourishes them first.
Throughout the episode Christina and I discuss practical ways to create inclusive spaces—how to invite clients to explore motives, how to center lived experience and social context in coaching, and how to cultivate practices that support long-term well-being rather than short-term body change.
Closing Thoughts
Christina’s hope is that more women learn to recognize their own power and worth, and to invest in purpose that feels nourishing rather than punitive. When coaches and clients shift the conversation away from body size and toward health, connection, and meaningful action, movement becomes a sustainable source of resilience.
Thank you for listening. If this episode resonated, consider following Christina on Instagram at @Christina_Montalvo and continuing the conversation in your own communities about how to remove diet culture from movement and nutrition coaching.
Stay tuned for next week’s episode, where we’ll hear another personal story about living more authentically with food and body. Until then, be well.