The Dr. Gabrielle Lyon Show

Episode: Willpower vs. Systems: Why Your Diet Fails & How to Fix Your Relationship w/ Food
Guest: Sohee Carpenter
Date: January 13, 2026

Episode Overview

This episode of The Dr. Gabrielle Lyon Show features behavioral nutritionist and coach Dr. Sohee Carpenter. The conversation explores why so many people struggle with diet more than exercise, the psychology behind eating behaviors, the limitations of willpower, and the importance of sustainable systems for healthy habits. Dr. Carpenter shares her personal journey through disordered eating, her academic path, and actionable strategies that anyone can use to improve their relationship with food, build better habits, and achieve lasting health changes. The dialogue is practical, evidence-based, and empathetic, making it a must-listen for anyone tangled in the diet willpower trap.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Sohee Carpenter’s Background & Journey

• Academic Path: Degree in Human Biology (Stanford), Master’s in Psychology, PhD in Sports Science ([03:59]).
• Motivation: Own struggles with anorexia, bulimia, and especially binge eating sparked her interest in psychology and behavior change ([04:29]).
• Cultural Impact: Growing up in Korea and internationally exposed her to intense beauty standards and diet culture ([05:39], [06:02]).
• Online Presence: Started blogging in 2011 to fill the gap in psychology-focused fitness content, noting a lack of female voices in the space ([10:33], [15:23]).

The Real Problem with Diets:

• Diets vs. Exercise: Nutrition is an all-day challenge with many triggers and opportunities; exercise is bounded in time ([00:00], [75:17]).
• “Trying too hard” Backfires: Extreme dietary rigidity led her, and often leads others, to binge/restrict cycles ([17:34], [18:48]).
• Personalization: Generic meal formulas (e.g., "body weight x 10–12") often don’t account for individual needs or activity levels ([20:23]).

Willpower vs. Systems

• Willpower is Draining: Willpower works like a depletable battery; relying on it alone is unsustainable ([38:47]).
• Key Quote: “Willpower feels fatiguing... The key to behavior change is not in relying on willpower willy-nilly with brute force. It’s about being more strategic about when you use willpower... to form new habits.” — Sohee Carpenter ([38:49])
• Forming Habits: The most successful change occurs when willpower is used to build habits, after which those actions become cognitively effortless ([39:02], [39:46]).

Rethinking Restriction:

• All-or-Nothing is Harmful: Dichotomous (“good vs. bad”) thinking correlates strongly with binge eating ([64:33]).
• Reframing Dieting: “It’s about removing as many pain barriers as you can and mitigating how much extra effort you have to exert to see the results you want to see.” — Sohee Carpenter ([33:08]).
• Gentle Nutrition & 'Add, Don’t Restrict': Instead of removing foods, focus on adding nutritious elements (protein, fiber, veggies) to meals ([36:09], [37:24]).

Binge Eating and Emotional Triggers

• Roots of Binging: It's rarely just about food — often triggered by emotion/stress and poor coping mechanisms ([04:29], [56:42]).
• Quote: “When you have poor emotion regulation skills... every time you’re stressed, you’re bored, you’re something, you turn to food as a self-soothing behavior.” — Sohee Carpenter ([04:29], [56:42])
• Breaking the Cycle: Work on diversifying coping tools beyond food (e.g., calling a friend, going for a walk) ([58:18]).

Building Sustainable Habits

• Design for Laziness: Arrange your environment to make the desired behavior the default, and undesired behaviors inconvenient ([48:03]).
  • E.g. Put healthy foods at eye-level; place supplements by the coffee maker.
  • “What can you do to make the default behavior the thing you actually want to do?” ([47:50]-[48:03])
  • Habits stack: Pair new behaviors with existing routines ([49:55]).
• Audit & Start Small: Begin with an audit of current habits, then choose minor modifications that don’t feel overwhelming ([40:04], [40:23], [43:27]).
• Individualization: Honor autonomy and preference when creating new routines ([40:23], [77:51]).

Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Motivation

• More Than Motivation: Systems, identity, and deeper ‘whys’ are critical for sustaining change ([66:36], [70:05]).
• Five Whys Exercise: Keep probing why a goal matters to uncover deeper motivation ([71:16]).
• Identity Shift: Behave as if you are already the person you want to become (“I’m a runner”), making choices in alignment with that identity ([72:27]).

Intuitive Eating & Food Noise

• Intuitive Eating as a Learned Skill: True intuitive eating isn’t for weight loss, but for freedom from obsession. “It’s a skill. There is actually a growing body of research in support of intuitive eating... But not for weight loss.” — Sohee Carpenter ([35:17]).
• Quieting ‘Food Noise’: Reaching a point where eating is satisfying, not obsessive, is liberating ([34:14]), especially contrasted to the mental burden of restriction.

Nutrition, Exercise, and Evidence-Based Myth-Busting

Nutrition:

• Add, Not Subtract: Rather than cutting foods, add nutrient-dense options (“Have what you want, add what you need” — [37:24]).
• No Need for Perfection: “A 20 minute workout that you can do a few times a week is going to be so much better than the hour-long workout... that never gets done.” — Sohee Carpenter ([93:33])
• Quality of Life Counts: Health is about more than food and exercise; social connections, mental health, and joy matter too ([94:33]).

Exercise:

• Women & Strength Training: There is no single “right way” for women to lift. Circuit training and traditional lifting produce similar results if both push close to muscle failure ([81:11], [85:43], [86:03]).
• Myth-Busting: Do women have to lift heavy?
  • “Heavy is relative... As long as you are pushing close to technical [muscular] failure, you can see muscle and strength gains with a variety of different rep ranges.” — Sohee Carpenter ([81:39]-[82:30])
• Exercise During Pregnancy: When medically cleared, continuing exercise (even training for a marathon!) is possible and can be empowering ([91:08]-[92:10]).
• Training Fasted: No conclusive evidence that fasted training is harmful for women compared to men; practicality matters more ([90:12]-[92:41]).

Strategies for Turning Intentions Into Reality

• Reduce Barriers: Make healthy choices frictionless and indulgent behaviors less convenient ([47:50], [48:03]).
• Accountability & Social Support: Know your preferences — whether you need social exercise, a coach, or group classes ([78:04]).
• Celebrate Small Steps: Slight adjustments and consistency matter more than extremity ([93:49]).
• Flexibility Over Rigidity: Sit in “the gray area,” letting go of all-or-nothing mindsets ([64:33], [64:49]).

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Diet Culture Trap:
  “For me, it was about the control of the food to then look a certain way, to then be accepted in a certain way and perceived a certain way.”
  — Sohee Carpenter ([00:00], [29:18]), reflecting on the psychological drive behind her early eating behaviors.

• Willpower vs. Habits:
  “The key feature of habits is that they are cognitively not fatiguing, they're automatic.”
  — Sohee Carpenter ([01:01], [39:46])

• On 'Food Noise' & Liberation:
  “I cannot tell you how freeing it is to be able to eat a meal, feel actually satisfied, and move on with your day without having to think about food.”
  — Sohee Carpenter ([34:14])

• Systems over Discipline:
  “Motivation isn’t the secret, but systems are.”
  — Dr. Gabrielle Lyon ([66:36])

• Reframing Mistakes:
  “My very first thought... was, how can I incorporate the popcorn into your plan? And my next thought was, why can’t that be part of your plan?”
  — Sohee Carpenter ([53:07])

• On Small but Impactful Changes:
  “Any incremental change you can make to your diet... all of that does add up and makes a difference over time.”
  — Sohee Carpenter ([93:49])

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:00-01:15 — The challenge with nutrition vs. exercise, early experiences
• 04:29-06:02 — Cultural pressures in Korea, early disordered eating
• 10:15-15:55 — The psychology gap in fitness, starting a blog, journey from pre-med to fitness
• 17:34-19:26 — Restriction/binge cycles, calorie targets, and epiphany about trying ‘too hard’
• 26:51-28:23 — Cognitive dissonance in binging, honesty about dieting and binging
• 33:08-34:14 — Rethinking willpower, pain barriers, ease and sustainability
• 36:09-37:54 — Gentle nutrition, the “add, don’t restrict” method
• 39:02-39:46 — Using willpower to build habits (not maintain behavior forever)
• 47:50-48:03 — 'Design for laziness' and environmental habit hacking
• 56:42-58:18 — Binge eating and stress coping mechanisms
• 64:33-65:42 — Dichotomous thinking and binge eating
• 70:05-71:16 — Intrinsic motivation and the ‘five whys’
• 72:27-73:21 — Identity-based behavior change
• 81:11-85:43 — Evidence-based approaches for women’s strength training, debunking “must lift heavy”
• 86:03-89:38 — Circuit training vs. traditional strength: both work if intensity is high
• 90:12-92:41 — Training fasted: myth vs. reality for women
• 93:33-94:33 — Sohee’s three takeaways for listeners

Actionable Takeaways

1. Ditch all-or-nothing thinking: Opt for flexibility and gentle self-correction over restriction and guilt.
2. Use your environment: Make healthy choices easy and indulgences less default.
3. Audit and tweak: Small, sustainable changes based on your preferences and current behaviors go further than drastic overhauls.
4. Build habits, not just willpower: Use initial motivation to set up systems and cues that make the behavior automatic.
5. Know your 'why': Dig for intrinsic reasons to change—these are more enduring than external pressures or fleeting motivation.
6. Add, don’t just subtract: Focus on what you can include on your plate or in your day, not just what you’re removing.

Conclusion

Dr. Lyon and Dr. Carpenter deliver a profoundly relatable and evidence-based conversation, reframing the typical 'try harder' narrative of diet and wellness. By shifting the focus from willpower to smart systems, gentle self-improvement, and self-understanding, they provide a realistic, compassionate path forward for anyone seeking a healthier relationship with food and their body.