Introduction:

Anti-diet personal stylist Dacy Gillespie joins us to discuss diet and wellness culture, her bad experience with functional medicine (and what attracted her to it in the first place), how she’s dealing with her chronic symptoms now, and why she doesn’t think clothes should be “flattering.” Behind the paywall, we get into how to shop for clothes after your body changes, how to start discovering your authentic personal style beyond diet culture’s ideals, the advice that revolutionized Christy’s approach to fashion, the parallels between intuitive eating and fashion, and more. This episode is cross-posted from our other podcast, Rethinking Wellness.

As a weight-inclusive, anti-diet personal stylist, Dacy Gillespie helps her clients reject fashion rules and ideal standards of beauty imposed by the patriarchy, white supremacism, and capitalism so that they can uncover their authentic style. Through their work building a functional wardrobe, Dacy’s clients make a mindset shift from thinking they need to wear what’s flattering to unapologetically taking up space in the world.

After a lifetime of jobs in high-stress careers that didn’t suit her highly sensitive, introverted personality, Dacy started mindful closet in 2013 in an attempt to create a more emotionally sustainable lifestyle. Her work has been featured in Forbes, Real Simple, New York Magazine’s The Strategist, and Lifehacker, and she is a frequent podcast guest. Dacy lives with her husband and two children in St. Louis, Missouri. Learn more about her work at mindfulcloset.com.

Resources Mentioned

Contains affiliate links to Amazon and Bookshop.org, where I earn a small commission for any purchases made.

• Dacy’s website

• Dacy’s Substack

• Subscribe to the Food Psych Weekly newsletter

• My other podcast and newsletter, Rethinking Wellness

• My online course, Intuitive Eating Fundamentals

• My first book, Anti-Diet: Reclaim Your Time, Money, Well-Being, and Happiness Through Intuitive Eating

• My second book, The Wellness Trap: Break Free from Diet Culture, Disinformation, and Dubious Diagnoses and Find Your True Well-Being

• My third book, The Emotional Eating, Chronic Dieting, Binge Eating & Body Image Workbook

• The Making Peace with Food Card Deck

• Subscribe to the podcast here