episode 222: when “must have” isn’t a must have for you
Ever try something an influencer swore was life-changing — the jeans, the makeup, the hair tutorial — and it just didn’t work for you? And instead of thinking “maybe this just isn’t for me,” you spiral into “what’s wrong with me?”
Yeah. Same.
Today’s episode is a follow-up to last week’s conversation about influence vs. inspiration — and how easy it is to internalize failure when something “everyone loves” doesn’t work for you. Whether it’s high-rise jeans, a viral yogurt bowl, or a protein target that feels impossible to hit — the message is the same:
You’re not the problem.
Here’s what we get into:
Why “must-have” might not mean “must-have for you”
How body proportions, preferences, and personality all matter (and why they should)
What it looks like to trust yourself instead of doubting your decisions
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222
[00:00:00] Hey everyone. Welcome back, episode 222 of The Diet Diaries Today, I think is gonna be a super short one. This is the part two from last week, and it may be a little bit re a little bit repetitive, but that's not necessarily a bad thing because I record these podcasts about all different topics. They're 15, 20, 25, 30 minutes and we listen to them once and while.
Yes, there's so much value in that, is that really enough to like sink in and help you make long-term change? I mean, debatable. Um, we need to hear things and practice things more than once and for a long time, uh, a long time sometime that's a subjective term to really internalize and get lasting change.
So the fact that this might be a little bit repetitive, I actually think is a good thing. Um, so last week I talked all about like. [00:01:00] The, the, the shop bot sale and all the links that were being posted and how you need to have this and really understanding like how, what's the, the difference between influence and inspiration and how am I gonna feel when I have this and why do I feel this compulsion and this need to buy all this stuff?
To have all these things? And what is that link? How is that connected back to food? Right? And how are you figuring out what works for you? Are you just taking all these things at face value and just doing them? And trying to make it fit your life and then things are not working or are you really kind of thinking critically and looking at how these recommendations, these ideas, whether it's clothes or food or anything else really fits with your needs, your preferences, your goals, your lifestyle, your budget.
Um, so what I wanted to talk about, kind of building on that was there was another sort of specific thing on social media. This was probably a couple of weeks ago. And so when I follow her name's Brittany Sansone, I've talked about her many times before. She's [00:02:00] the one I did the podcast about, um, who had the tummy tuck.
And I've said I love her style. I've gotten a lot of ideas from her. Um, there's stuff that she posts that makes me feel uncomfortable, but there's a lot that doesn't. And so I'm learning how to filter that out for myself Anyway, so she posted a hair tutorial and I happen to love the way she wears her hair.
And she's like, I'm not a hair person, but you guys are asking me for this. And it was like funny, the camera fell over. It's kind of like a funny video. She was very like honest about the fact that filming a hair tutorial is like not her area of expertise, but she's showing us how she does it and I'm watching her do it and I'm like, if I did what she was doing, my hair would be flat like two hours later just because we have different hair texture, right?
Nothing wrong with what she's doing, I just know it's not gonna work for me. Based on how I know my hair is and how it holds and doesn't hold curl, and my hair is very, very thick and all this stuff, whatever. And so this again connects back to last week, but I think I wanna make this even more of a [00:03:00] point, is that we watch people do things.
We watch them do their hair, we watch them do their makeup. We watch someone say, this is the best foundation, this is the best moisturizer, these are the best jeans. And I have said that too, right? I'm not pretending that I haven't said that sometimes. And then we try that thing and it doesn't work for us.
But what happens is we don't think that the product is the problem. We don't acknowledge that maybe those genes just don't work with our body type, or that that moisture moisturizer or foundation doesn't work well with our skin texture or our skin tone or the oiliness of our skin. We make it about us and we feel like.
Something is wrong with us. Every influencer out there is telling me that these $500 jeans are the jeans, they are the must have jeans, and then I put them on and they're so fucking uncomfortable. Well, there must be something wrong with me. That's the crux of this is [00:04:00] noticing your brain's reaction to when the thing that the must have thing that everyone has doesn't work for you, or maybe you just don't like it.
The reaction is that there's something wrong with me. There's either something wrong with my body or I must not know what I actually like. I must not have good taste if I don't like this thing that everyone else likes and that neither of those things are true. I've talked a lot recently about highrise genes and how highrise genes came on the scene, I mean, quite some time ago at this point, and everyone was airing them and we had all lived through low-rise jeans in like the late nineties and early to mid two thousands, and I wore those.
Because you think that you have to wear what is considered stylish. Not to mention that it's the majority of what's available. Right. So there's that part of it too. I mean, low-rise jeans never looked good on me. They were never comfortable. I would sit down and my ass crack would hang out. I would have, you know, a large part of my stomach being really exposed.
It [00:05:00] didn't feel good. I was always self-conscious, but I wore them 'cause that's what everyone wore. Same thing with high-rise jeans. Until one day I have a couple pairs of high-rise jeans that literally come up to like a couple inches underneath my boobs, and sometimes I wear them and I feel like I'm suffocating, and I'm like, why the fuck am I doing this?
Because this is the style, because this is what I see influencers wearing. Well, guess what? If you have a longer torso and shorter legs. Highrise might work really well for you, but I have a shorter torso and longer legs. So high super highrise doesn't work great. It, I literally feel like my pants are up underneath my neck and I'm sick of it, and I don't how it, I don't like how it looks when shirts are tucked in, so A, sometimes it's not comfortable, and B, I don't like how it looks.
Well, guess what? That's not something wrong with my body or my opinion. It simply means that that style of genes doesn't appeal to my preferences and may not work for the proportions of my body. I. And just because some other influencer out there is saying, these are the must have jeans. Well, they [00:06:00] not, might not be must have for you.
They might be must have because they're coming, they're trickling down from the, the, the shows at Fashion Week in Paris and they're posting affiliate links and wanna get paid. Right. Like we need to be discerning. We need to pay attention to what's being told to us and stop just taking it at face value.
Because there's not something wrong with us if those jeans don't work. There's not something wrong with us if that makeup look doesn't work. There's not something wrong with us if you simply don't like that thing. I wrote an email about this month ago about barn jackets. A barn jackets became like the really popular jacket, this look, and I just didn't like it, and I wrote about this idea.
I was like, well, do I not know what I like? Do I not? Can I not trust my own opinion? There's a lot of that happening where we just can't trust ourselves and this spills over into food, right? Where it's like we follow a diet or a meal plan, or what I eat in a day, or we do what our friend is doing or. We eat, you know, [00:07:00] 150 grams of protein.
'cause that's what someone's telling us to do. But we're not paying attention at all to how that's making us feel. And how is it working for me? And is eating 150 grams of protein a day, something that I can even do sustainably for most people? Probably not. And this is not me saying don't eat protein, right?
But this is me saying that sometimes extremes. Not, sometimes extremes are never good, but just because that's a, there's a number that you hear being tossed around out there doesn't mean that's what you have to do. Or that the method to get there is the only way to get there, right? Like I have a client right now who has significantly increased her protein, who thought she was eating well over a hundred grams of protein a day.
When we looked at her, when she did some food journaling and we talked about it, she's probably closer to 50 to 60. So she's increased at breakfast and lunch. It's been easy for her. Her dinner, she's kept the same, so she's dramatically increased her protein intake without changing anything at dinner, and it's working really well for her because it's doable, because she's enjoys it, because it meets [00:08:00] her lifestyle needs.
Some for someone else, it might be the opposite. It might be that they need more protein at night or it's easier for them to get it at night. And so you have to look at, there's nothing wrong with you. If the thing that someone is talking about that works for them doesn't work for you, there's nothing wrong with you.
It means you have to take that suggestion if you want to and figure out how to adapt it in a way that works for you or trust that what you feel in your own body. Excuse me, matters way more than what someone else's opinion is of this thing. And they can say it's the must have or the best protein source, or the best smoothie, or the best yogurt bowl, or the best jeans, or the best hairstyling tool, or the best foundation, or the best, or whatever it is.
But if you put it on and either A, you don't like it, B, it doesn't make you feel good, it doesn't work for you. It doesn't get you the outcome that you want. Then it doesn't work for you and there's nothing wrong with you [00:09:00] because of that. It just means that we're all unique individuals and we need different things.
And just because someone is telling us this is the must have, this is you need this. This is the best. Doesn't mean it's true. So that's what I wanna talk about. Notice your reaction when those things don't work for you. And notice the inherent go-to is to blame yourself and to distrust yourself or mistrust yourself.
Yeah. And then pause and think about why is that happening. I get it. It makes sense that we do that because the pressure and the volume of the must have and the must do, and the best this and the best. That is everywhere that we start to lose our own internal navigation, our own internal compass, and ability to evaluate things for ourselves, not what someone else is telling us.
So that's it, that's what I got for you today. Um, happy. Is this the last day of March? Is it Monday, March 31st. Holy crap. It is. [00:10:00] Um, thanks for listening. Thanks for being here. Please share the podcast with anyone, this episode or the entire show. Um, if there's someone you know that you think could benefit from it and, uh, I'll be back next week.