Tag Archives: life coaching

Self Sabotage: Why we do it and what we can do about it

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Not again! How many times have you self-sabotaged your way out of something you thought you wanted? Here’s why you do that and how to get out of it.

If you’re human, you’ve probably, at times, sabotaged your own success in an area of your life. Some of us do this once in awhile and learn to stop doing it, and then there are some of us who do it over and over, preventing ourselves from ever achieving what we think we want.

Learning to manage our self-sabotaging ways is crucial to creating a life that we love.

Not sure if you’re prone to self-sabotage? Do any of these scenarios sound or feel familiar?

  • You’ve blown up a perfectly good relationship for no good reason
  • You’ve bombed a job interview by purposely avoiding preparing for it
  • You decide to “get healthy” finally this year and after a few good weeks of consistent exercise, you skip a few days and now you can’t seem to get going again
  • You find yourself eating when you’re not hungry and even though you know the reasons you’re doing that, you consciously choose to reach for food instead of the tools that you know would help
  • You say no to opportunities that you want (out of fear)
  • You tell yourself that you need more time to analyze the situation before making a decision and end up forced into the only choice left because time ran out. Not deciding becomes your decision.
  • You regularly do things that you say you don’t want to do but you do them anyway

I believe self sabotage is a form of rebellion. We do it to make ourselves feel free. On some level we don’t feel we have the right to have, the ability to get or access to something. We have told ourselves the thing we want is “not for us”. Or someone else told us that we couldn’t do something or have something and we believed them.

We limit ourselves and feel trapped by those limitations.

If there are places in our life where we’ve been held back (by ourselves or by someone else), restricted, stifled, or overburdened we’ll act out with self-sabotage. It might be with food, or maybe it’s by making decisions that feel irresponsible or dangerous. The reason we do it with things we seemingly don’t want is because it’s the only way we give that freedom back to ourselves.

We overeat, eat foods that make us feel rotten, and stop moving our bodies. We hurt the feelings of people we care about. We destroy progress at work, at home and in our relationships.

It feels like a release of sorts to “act out” like this. The thinking is “if I can’t have what I want, then I can at least do this thing that feels like a choice of my own doing.”

It doesn’t even matter that we are blowing up things that we actually want. If we’re someone who doesn’t believe we have a lot of potential or choices in life, we’re after that delicious moment of freedom, even if it causes us pain and regret afterwards.

Where in your life do you not feel free?

Where in your life have you been held back, restricted or stifled?

Maybe you had a strict upbringing or were told to be a certain way all your life, so you stuffed down a part of yourself that is only being expressed now through your self-sabotaging actions.

One of the ways we stop self sabotage is to figure out where we don’t feel free and begin taking actions that do make us feel free.  Is there a dream that you’ve always want that you won’t let yourself have? Have you gone after what you wanted? Have you taken risks towards something you desire in your life?

What dreams did you once have that you didn’t allow yourself to chase? Or were told you couldn’t have?

Give yourself total permission to go after what you want. The actual getting probably isn’t as important as your belief that you deserve to try to go for it. Allow yourself to feel free to choose in your life. When it comes to taking action towards this thing that you want, start small if you have to. The most important thing it to give yourself permission to have it and to believe it. Believe that you have the ability, right and can access whatever it is that you want.

You can do anything. You can be anything. You can have anything. This is all true.

Feed Your Emotional Hunger with Purpose, Not Food

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Food is never going to fill you up. What will then? That’s for you to figure out. family? travel? volunteering ? cooking? playing music?

The different feelings we have in our body aren’t arbitrary and don’t come from nowhere, and that includes all of the kinds of hunger we experience.

No hunger, whether it be emotional hunger or true physical hunger, comes along without a valid reason. You’re not physically hungry because you’re lazy, or don’t have enough willpower. You’re hungry because it’s time to eat!

You’re not emotionally hungry because you’re pathetic. You’re emotionally hungry because something is missing or not being tended to.

We need to feed both kinds of hunger, but to satisfy each type, we need to know exactly what to feed ourselves with.

Physical hunger is easy (despite how determined our society is to make it complicated). When we eat food in an appropriate quantity for our body, physical hunger goes away. When we eat enough, we are comfortable for a few hours at a time, sometimes many hours. Physical hunger comes back when we’ve digested our last meal and our body begins to let us know with tummy grumbles and other signals that it is time to eat food again.

One way to know if you’re experiencing physical hunger is that many different types of food will be appealing to you. You would be willing to eat a burger, but you’d also be willing to eat pizza, a stir fry or a salad if that is what was available. This doesn’t mean that some things aren’t more appealing than others, but if you only had one food option (barring any health conditions that require avoidance of a specific food) and were physically hungry, you would shut up and chew!

Emotional hunger is different. If we try to feed emotional hunger with food (and often many of us do), we will still ache, we still feel “hungry” (despite possibly being physically full). Hungry. Restless. Bored. Irritated. Confused. Angry. Apathetic. We will feel something that we can’t quite put our finger on. We will keep feeling a gnawing desire for something. We might go to the pantry or look in the fridge a dozen times, only to sit back down because we don’t know what we want or we only want one thing in particular.

One clue that you are experiencing emotional hunger is that you would actually choose to forgo eating if you can’t get your hands on whatever you’ve decided you wanted. Emotional hunger is sometimes picky. We may not know exactly what we want but we know we don’t want x, y and z.

Just like pain is our body’s way of alerting us that something is physically wrong, emotional hunger is a sign from our brains and hearts that what we are doing isn’t working. It’s one of our many alert systems and it won’t stop unless we address it.

There is no amount of physical food in the world that we can consume that will take care of an emotional need. With emotional hunger, you have to look inside a bit to discover what it might be satisfied by.

 

If you want to satisfy Emotional Hunger properly, here’s what you need to do:

Ask yourself:

  • Where might you not be listening to your own needs?
  • What message could your body be trying to convey that you are not hearing?
  • Where are you not being honest with yourself?
  • What’s missing from your life right now?
  • What are you craving more than anything?
  • Do you have outlets for creativity? Spirituality? Physical activity? Love/affection?
  • Do you regularly experience meaning, purpose or value in your life? If not, what experiences give you (personally) those things? How can your get more of them?

To soothe emotional hunger, we have to:

  1. Figure out what it is we are missing or craving (love, companionship, creativity, spirituality, meaning, etc).
  2. Be willing to feel the discomfort once we’ve identified it (just let it be there). Recognize that you’ll survive – feeling it won’t kill us and running away from the feeling isn’t going to “fix” it.
  3. Construct a plan to get that need met.  Feed yourself emotionally in a way that will actually satisfy that hunger.

Figuring out what it is exactly we’re missing is sometimes the hardest part. If that’s you, be willing to try lots of different things. For some that part is easy, it’s just that they have a difficult time taking action on it. If that’s you, it sometimes helps to tell someone what it is you want to change and ask them to hold you accountable to taking action on it. Sometimes having someone check in with you is enough of a “fire” to motivate you to move forward.

 

A note about feeding Emotional Hunger with food

If you are dealing with emotional hunger, and you feed yourself physical food instead of emotional “food”, you’ll never feel satisfied. You’ll never feel full enough, you’ll always feel deprived and you’ll continue to reach for food when you feel the things you don’t want to feel – because those feelings come back afterwards (often stronger).

Emotional eaters frequently eat to distract ourselves from feeling a certain way, believing that the feelings we are feeling are too awful to confront. To avoid feeling crappy, we overeat to make ourselves feel good or comforted, but the irony is that by doing this we end up feeling far WORSE than those bad feelings made us feel to begin with.

Read that again. The exact thing you are using for comfort is causing you more pain than whatever you are running from.

I did this for so long. Up and down cycles of eating and avoiding, eating too much food and avoiding my real feelings, feeding my true hungers. I conflated my discomfort with not knowing what it was that I wanted (emotional hunger) with physical hunger.

I royally screwed up my digestive system, felt physically ill much of the time from overeating,  kept people at an arm’s distance and I stayed in situations that were stifling me emotionally and creatively. Why?? Because eating was so much easier than dealing with any of it. Eating felt like a solution, even if it was just for a short amount of time. It required less effort on my part, less confronting myself and my fears, less risk taking, less responsibility, less vulnerability. I could hide in my kitchen and build up a wall around me with a bag of chips.

Well anyone who has ever tried to build any type of fortress with food knows full well that it’s not lasting armor. It needs constant replenishment. Any “strength” garnered from the activity of eating is gone as soon as you swallow that last bite (sometimes before!!!).

Battling life this way makes it a war you can’t win, because in a war with yourself, the loser is always going to be you.

If you are tired of going through the motions, and ready to confront something that clearly isn’t working for you, you can change it. I’m not going to lie – it is work and it takes a sincere willingness to call yourself out on your own bullshit story (repeatedly!). It means not putting our heads in the sand, not running away from uncomfortable feelings. It means looking at and addressing the things in your life that aren’t providing the value, meaning and purpose you are after (and that is scary stuff, isn’t it?).

Learning how to differentiate and respond to both physical and emotional hunger appropriately is a game changer! It’s so very worth it. If you decide to start paying attention to your hungers, you will grow and you’ll change in ways that some won’t recognize you afterwards – but that’s okay, because in a way you’ve been hiding who you were this whole time!

As scary as it can be to try to understand and tackle the source of your emotional hunger, you’ll find that once you start getting underway with it that you have less anxiety, less irritation, less anger and less confusion. You’ll feel more secure and confident. And you’ll have less of the physical discomfort that comes from eating when we don’t really want food!

Don’t ignore the signs from your body (brain and heart) that something isn’t right. If you have a “hunger” that you can’t satisfy no matter what you eat (and something isn’t physically wrong health-wise), it’s not physical hunger and it’s time to explore where that emotional hunger is stemming from. And if you want help looking at that, let’s talk!

Hey I know it’s tough to change your relationship to food on your own. That’s why I created “You Have What it Takes“, a guide full of questions to help you improve your relationship to food using different qualities you already have. Download your copy at the link here.

How to Have a Good Body Day, Every Day

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To wear makeup or not wear makeup? Unrealistic and confusing beauty and body messages can make us feel like crap about our bodies. Here are some great ways to have a good body day every day!

One of the things people get completely obsessed with in our culture is the idea of having a “good” body, a “perfect” body or just meeting generic body “goals” criteria. A “good” body for women seems to be defined as one with lower body fat, at least lower body fat everywhere except for our breasts and butt (those need to be plump and round), moderate muscle (but not too much, if you have too much, you’re too “manly”), no stretch marks, stray hairs, dimples or any other imperfections. You can’t have any belly fat and certainly no skin rolls when you sit down.

A “good” body should possess tank top arms, daisy duke worthy thighs, and is synonymous with a “bikini body”. Other physical traits of a person with a “good” body should include a pretty face (but not so pretty that you look like you had work done – that’s too much!), no wrinkles, perfect skin (ew, who do you think you are with those visible pores?!) and they have to be a natural beauty (if it’s obvious that you’re wearing makeup you’re trying too hard and you’re deceiving people). Being ghostly pale is no good but you better not be too tan either. You should look like the girl next door, but also be mysterious and exotic. You need to be all of these things at the same time and you should look as good when you get up in the morning as you do when you go out to the clubs . . .but you better not have to put any effort in to look that way or you are fake AF!

I’m kidding if you can’t tell.

This is the kind of ridiculous stuff that is flung at us day by day.

The way we talk about women’s bodies and beauty ideals is completely unobtainable and trying to achieve it would drive even the most sane person to total insanity. There’s no fucking way any real human can meet all of these criteria (and anyone who can, can’t do so for more than a moment in their whole life). There’s no way you can be subjected to this stuff and not feel completely horrible about your body.

The result of living in a culture that sends out these kind of messages and values this kind of impossible beauty more than almost anything else is that women all over and of all ages wake up every morning and go to bed each night worrying about if they ate too much, if they ate the right things, if they’re working their bodies hard enough, if they should think about starting botox and fillers, if they are using the right skin care products, if they need to think about getting a breast lift or butt implants, if they really do need a nose job and when they’re going to finally achieve that thigh gap. They fear aging more than anything else, because aging takes away what little physical beauty nature gave them in the first place. That shit is cruel.

You need to know that you already have a GOOD body. In fact you have a GREAT body, an incredible, amazing body. We don’t have to go around feeling like our bodies are less than but we need to take a more active role and a different approach to feel this way.

How to Have a Good Body Day, Every Day

If you’re tired of feeling like crap about your body, read on. Here are a few ways that you can actively work to have a good body day every day

 

Clean Up Media Sources that Suck (both social and otherwise)

Check your media sources and scrub them of people and ideologies that aren’t helping. Unfollow people on social media that make you feel like terrible about yourself. This can be people you know who are negative or over sharing details about their diets that you don’t need forced in your face all the time or nonstop unattainable #bodygoals #bodyinspo type of posts – bloggers, recipe mavens, people doing fitness competitions or those promoting detox teas and stuff – if it’s making you feel terrible about your body, you don’t need it in your life.

On the reverse, start adding people who make you feel amazing and who share a message that aligns with the things you believe and the things you WANT to believe about yourself. Add people on social media of all shapes and sizes and backgrounds who live lives you want to emulate and who you also respect.

Toss out and cancel magazine subscriptions to women’s and health magazines that write nonstop articles about how you can drop two dress sizes in 14 days or who only share “skinny recipes”. If you finish reading a magazine and feel like there is something wrong with your body because of the content inside, it’s not helping. Same with TV shows, news stations, podcasts, radio, the websites you’ve been visiting for a decade – try looking at them with new eyes and ask yourself if they are filling your brain with messages that hurt or help you?

The media we consume daily has a huge effect on us and most of us don’t realize it until we start changing the way we interact with it. This will change how you feel about your body in a big way!

 

Dress Your Current Body to Feel Fabulous

The delicious meat of life doesn’t come from how we look or how the people we spend time with look. Even though that’s true, there is no denying that when you feel like you look fabulous, you act and think differently. And when we act and think well of ourselves we take more actions that affect a positive outcome on our lives. That’s why I advocate for dressing yourself and styling yourself in a way that makes you feel amazing, in your current body. Not your future body, not a past body. The body your spirit is inside of right now, at this very moment.

Have at least a few outfits in your closet that you feel fantastic in – and don’t necessarily stick to one size. A lot of women’s bodies fluctuate between a size or two or three and what happens when we get dressed and our clothes don’t fit? We feel like crap and you don’t have to feel that way. I know I tend to be a good 5-10 pounds heavier at the end of winter than I am at the end of summer so my closet (finally!!) reflects that reality and I’m a lot happier now.

High quality clothing can be expensive and we’re all tight on money, that’s for sure, but that’s no excuse to not making this happen. Chic pieces can be found at consignment stores everywhere on the cheap and if you have zero funds to spend, there is always the option of throwing a closet cleaning party with friends (like this Naked Lady Party). The real struggle with dressing the way you want to in the body you are currently in is less about money and more about the time and effort it takes to find stuff that flatters your particular shape and style. That’s where the media cleanse above can come in helpful (add fashion bloggers who have your body shape and style for inspiration) and online shopping can be a godsend of a time saver (compare your current body measurements to each retailer’s size charts ahead of time and order the size that you know will fit your now body, not just because it’s a size you usually wear. And return it if it doesn’t fit or you don’t love it.

And don’t you dare buy clothes for your future body. That body may never be a reality and those clothes will just make you feel terrible each time you check to see if they fit. Buy clothes for your now body and make them good ones!

 

Choose to Talk About Something Else

When we get together with our girlfriends, we talk about everything under the sun, but one subject that always seems to come up is what’s wrong with our bodies or what new thing we’re going to try to change our body this time. Diet talk is huge and even if you’re not on a diet, women want to talk to you about why you’re not on one or how you’re so “lucky” to be able to eat “that way”. It’s so normal we don’t even notice how much of our conversations are around this stuff! I can’t tell you how many women I “bonded” with over the years (before I was in coaching) based on weight loss tips, lighter recipes and fitness challenges and it feels kind of scary to stop talking about that stuff, because suddenly you feel like you don’t fit in. As scary and uncomfortable as it can be to not participate in this kind of talk, it’s absolutely worth doing.

You don’t have to be aggressive and confrontational. You don’t have to make a big deal about it or even say anything if you don’t want to. But if you make the effort to change the conversation or at least not participate, you will have an impact, not just on yourself, but on others too. Eventually people notice that you aren’t talking about your own diet or body unhappiness and they’ll specifically ask your thoughts and you can share your feelings then. If you feel more comfortable talking about this stuff, it’s helpful and usually goes over ok to just say “Hey, do you guys mind if we talk about something else? Diet talk is so boring, isn’t it?” or “Negative body talk just makes me feel worse, how about you? Let’s talk about what we do like about our bodies.”

It is hard to change the conversation but so worth doing.

Remind Yourself of All the Reasons You Have a Good Body Every day

I can list at least a dozen reasons why I have a good body. My body isn’t better than yours or more special than yours, but I take the time to recognize and acknowledge all the ways it does me right on a regular basis. Doing this makes me feel appreciation, love and generosity towards it. It makes me see less of what I don’t like and more of what I do. I have a good body because: I have legs that carry me everywhere I want to go. I have eyes that allow me to read juicy fiction and study old genealogical records. I have lungs that take in breaths while I sleep peacefully and also when I’m running outside. I have a good body that recovers from colds pretty quickly (also one that rarely gets sick). My good body takes the food I eat and digests it so that I have energy to do lots of fun things. My good body is equipped with strong muscles that make me feel like wonder woman every time I bring home groceries and have to lug them up the basement stairs. My body is a good body because it’s mine and it does so much for me.

Can you come up a with a few reasons why your body is a good body right now? It might be hard at first (especially if you’re not used to thinking nice stuff about your body) but with practice it gets much easier.

 

Move Your Body only in Ways That Feel Good

Physical fitness is really important to me. I LOVE feeling strong and capable and regular physical activity helps me do that. I like not getting too tuckered out from regular daily stuff that I have to do. I don’t want to feel winded doing basic tasks. That motivates me to do things that challenge me physically, but it doesn’t mean that I ignore what my body needs and wants. If I hate an activity, I’m not going to be able to do it for long. If an activity causes me regular pain or is total torture to get through, it’s not sustainable. If I dread an exercise, I’m not going to keep doing it. Dread, hate, pain and torture are fast tracks to both permanently avoiding exercise but also feeling bad about your body.

There is an infinite amount of ways we can move our bodies and get the activity we need. Bodies crave movement (even the most sedentary person sometimes gets a feeling of restlessness in their body) and there’s no reason why we have to put our attention on activity that isn’t enjoyable. If you don’t like going to the gym, don’t go to the gym! If you don’t like running, don’t run. If you don’t like zumba, don’t zumba! Try something else! What did you like doing as a child? I spend hours biking around town, rollerskating in my driveway and exploring the swamp in my back yard. As an adult, some of the activities I do include wheels (biking) and being out in nature (hiking, running). I can find some of the “fun” I used to find in movement as a child in the activities I choose as an adult. Don’t settle for what you are doing if you don’t dig it.

A body that enjoys moving is a body that you will appreciate and enjoy more. A body that gets it’s fill of fun activity feels good. Find activities that make you feel good about your body that you will want to continue to do and you’ll find more “good” in your body daily.

So there you go – 5 easy ways to have a good body day every day! This isn’t to make light of the challenges of feeling good in your skin. I know that stuff can be all consuming, but if we don’t feel like we have any power in changing it, where does that leave us? Miserable in the only body we have. My goal is to give you tools and ideas you can use in your own life to feel good about your body and the way you engage with food. Does this help do that? Let me know!

Have you ever wondered if you have what it takes to repair your relationship with food? Download “You Have What it Takes“, my coaching and journaling guide for beginners who want to change their relationship with food. Just click below and enter you email!

 

Dieting Shouldn’t be Our Normal State

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Diet culture teaches us to tell ourselves that this plate is too much food before we even take a bite.

Everyone is on a diet, always, or thinking about their next diet, or thinking about going back to the diet that they lost 30 lbs on ten years ago. The amount of brain energy we use to think about better ways we can restrict food is absolutely insane.

Dieting shouldn’t be our “normal” state in life yet for most adult women, it’s something they are frequently thinking about.  It’s rare to meet a woman who has never been on a diet or who doesn’t desire to be smaller. It’s disarming to be in a room with a woman who seems to eat freely, without concern for calories, carbs or how other people will perceive her for eating whatever she desires. Try going to the average exercise class full of women and I will bet you $100 that the instructor will say something about working harder so you can wear a bikini in a few months (the assumption being your current body isn’t fit to wear a bikini). Try watching TV for an hour and not see a commercial that promotes either a device that will help melt off fat, a procedure that will make you slimmer or an exercise program or medication that will help you finally lose weight.

Women grow up knowing what dieting is, long before their bodies are done growing. We understand the need to manage and manipulate our bodies in order to receive approval. At a young age we don’t understand why dieting is so important but we learn that it’s just part of being a woman and we really want to be adult women.

We hear our Moms and their friends, or other women in our family talk about how they need to stop eating carbs, or how they just can’t control themselves around sweets or bread. They pinch their stomachs and say “Look at this! Can you believe how fat I’ve gotten?” and laugh. They order diet cokes and salads with fat free dressing when the family goes out to eat. They comment on other people’s bodies too. They say things like “She’s too big to wear that” or “She’s totally let herself go.” We also hear “Have you lost weight? You look so beautiful!” or “Wow, that’s a very slimming dress on her.”

We take it all in. Just as we learn everything else. Big = bad. Fat = bad. Pretty = good. Thin = good.

We grow up watching the women around us push food around their plates instead of putting it in their mouths. We watch the women we love hold onto clothing hanging in their closets that are 3 sizes too small but they keep because of a dream body that still lives in their seams. We learn that dieting is just what women do and because we are desperate to be a grown woman long before our bodies and minds are ready, we too start to regulate our food intake.

We tell our own girlfriends that we’re no longer eating cookies or that we’re watching the carbs. We tell them how we’re going to start exercising so we can lose a few pounds. We aren’t even sure what a pound is or how many of them is enough, but we know that we should have less of them.

We say all of this so proudly and we wait for their eyes to light up with envy, with awe, with approval and love. We know how grown up “dieting” makes us appear and that idea makes an electric tingle go through our bodies starting from the glittery headbands on our heads down to the suede ballet flats on our feet. We feel more bonded to our friends and other women in our lives when they share their diet plans or secrets. We bond over vilifying fat and celebrate our accomplishments when we can squeeze into a dress that was too small a few weeks ago. Food becomes an enemy to never relax around and being willing and able to go hungry for long periods of time becomes a badge of honor.

Little girls learning that they have to be small, pretty and perfect to be loved is not ok.

It’s not ok because they grow up to be women who accidentally teach the same ideas to the next generation.

It’s not ok because all of these women limit their potential because they’re so bogged down by the issues attached to weight, size and controlling their bodies.

It’s all so crazy and sad. And we have to start changing it.

We should be outraged that this has become the normal. That it’s completely accepted that we should all be vying to be as small as possible and that anything else is wrong.

I just want to say for a second that there’s no one to blame here. I’m not blaming mom’s for their daughter’s learning this stuff and you’re not a bad person if you say, think and do the things I’m talking about here. You learned this stuff somewhere too. My own mother constantly told me that I was capable of anything and also that I’d look beautiful even in a burlap sack. But her own words about her own body was a different story and I absorbed all of it as just something women did.

This is a bigger cultural issue (diet culture) we have that goes so deep and is supported by every single one of us taking part in it. I still find myself occasionally thinking or saying things (especially as a joke about myself) that support diet culture even though it goes against everything I believe and teach today. Some things are so ingrained, it’s hard to realized how far, except when they seem to appear out of nowhere. I’m still working on my own deep beliefs about my body and food. It’s a process and one that will take years to undo the damage our diet culture does to all of us.

Diet culture teaches us that we can’t trust our own bodies to tell us how much to eat. It teaches us that we are wrong and sneaky. It teaches us that we need calorie counts, points or portion sizes spelled out for us in order to know how much to eat. Diet culture teaches us to silence the signals that are already available to us in our own bodies, until they’re so faint we can’t hear them anymore.

I can’t stress enough that we don’t need diets or meal plans to tell us how much and what to eat. Unless you have a medical condition that requires careful policing of certain nutrients or food categories (diabetes, celiac, kidney disease etc), you probably don’t need some other authority to tell you what and how much to eat. And if you feel so far removed from trusting your own hunger cues, I can help you get back in touch with them. The best authority to check in with to determine how much food your body needs is you. Your body. Your knowledge of yourself. If you feel good and you’re healthy, if you have ample energy to do all the things you want to do, then odds are you are eating the right amount of food that you need. You don’t need to follow a diet.

This might mean that your body is meant to be a little or a lot larger than you want it to be. This also doesn’t mean you have to be unhealthy. You can eat well, exercise, get good sleep, manage stress and do all sorts of other things in the name of health. You don’t have to necessarily manipulate your size or weight to be healthy. Being slender does not equate health and being heavier does not equal being unhealthy.

Constant dieting is like being at war with yourself and you can’t make peace with food if you are at war.

You may not be ready to give up dieting or know how to stop taking part in diet culture the first time you are introduced to it (whether through a blog post like mine or somewhere else) but what you can do is try to become more aware of your thoughts and beliefs and ask yourself where that came from. Here are a few questions to ask yourself or use for journaling to bring up your beliefs about your body and food:

  • What do you believe about your body? Is it too big, too small, just right? Why? Why is it one of those things? How do you know?
  • Think back to your childhood and teen years. What types of things did the people around you say about their bodies, your body or other’s bodies? How do you think their viewpoints affected you?
  • What do you believe if the right way to eat? What foods do you eat regularly and which do you never eat? Why? Why do you think you choose the ones you do or don’t?
  • What thoughts and feelings do you have about other women’s bodies? Are there certain attributes you are aspiring to? Are there attributes or features that you are trying to change? Why?
  • When do you feel your physical best? Why do you think that is?
  • Do you have judgemental thoughts about food? Do you believe some foods are good or bad? Or that you are good or bad for eating them? Why do you think this is?
  • What do you admire and appreciate about your body as it is right now?
  • When was the last time you ate a meal and received pleasure from eating it (without judgements)? Can you try to receive pleasure from food more often?

I have so much to say on this but I don’t want to bog you down with yet another 2500 word blog post (haha) so keep an eye out for my next blog post which will be on how health coaches are contributing to diet culture and how I’m trying to do things differently!

Have you gotten my newest free guide You Have What it Takes? If you’re an emotional eater, overeater or longtime dieter who wonders if she has what it takes to change her relationship with food, then this for you. And it’s free. Click on the image below, then enter your name and email and it’s yours!

 

What Does Being “Fit” Mean to You?

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What does being fit mean to you? Try to remember that fit doesn’t always look like what we think it should look like. Try focusing on function and the joy you get from activity.

If you were an alien visiting this planet for the first time and taking in all the different sources of information we have available to us (TV, internet, magazines/newspapers, books etc) to learn about your new planet and it’s people, you’d quickly form opinions and ideas about our society.

Some of these would be absolutely and hysterically incorrect but others would be very accurate.

For example, an alien might come to believe that “Twitter” is a God who doles out important edicts in 140 characters or less, all day long.

They may determine that our primary food source is french fries and burgers from McDonald’s (and don’t forget the Coke!).

They may wonder why some people on this planet are starving and yet other parts of the world have grocery stores that are so overflowing with food that some of it gets tossed in the trash every day. They may come to believe that every American swallows a small white circle called a “pill” that has a funny name that gives them a dog, a spacious back yard with luscious green grass and a smiling husband and kids but also has to watch out for side effects like diarrhea, skin rashes, leukemia and even death.

This would look like a really strange place to someone who’s never seen any of it before.

Let’s say this alien’s job was to understand what being “fit” meant to humans, in particular, people in America.

I know you know where I’m going here, but just for a minute try to view this stuff through the lens of totally fresh eyes.

What would you see?

What would you learn?

Using the same sources of readily available information, much of it coming from heavily available advertisements and articles, this alien would soon create an idea in their head that being FIT equals:

  • being tan skinned
  • having no visible body fat other than in female breasts and booties (which may or may not be enhanced by implants or injectables)
  • being tall
  • usually being caucasian
  • having well developed and very visible muscles
  • wearing very little clothing but whatever clothing fit people do have is tight fitting
  • spending hours upon hours in an enclosed space called a “gym”
  • eating lots of fruits and vegetables, low fat foods and also powdery substances called “protein shakes”
  • working so hard that your body cries visible tears (sweat)
  • demonstrating amazing feats of strength and endurance by completing competitions like marathons, powerlifting, triathlons etc.
  • moving fast

I’m sure you can think of a few other things that would seem to be typical of a “fit person” in America if viewed through the eyes of an alien. That list is a little tongue in cheek but how much of it do you agree with?

What is being fit? What does it mean to you?

In our real “human” lives we take this same information and internalize it, some of it consciously, and some not so consciously and we kind of develop a similar impression of what it means to be fit.

I have spent many years being frustrated that my body physically didn’t look the way it was “supposed to” despite all the things I did to be “fit”.

I wasn’t the right size, body type or height. My body has and had plenty of visible body fat.

To someone just looking at my outside at most points in my life, and possibly even today, I may not appear fit . . .to them. I know I’m fit regardless of what I may look like to someone else.

Fitness and “being fit” is not a one size fits all definition and it certainly doesn’t have one single look or body type. Being fit doesn’t always look like what we think it looks like.

Here is what being fit means to me.

It is feeling and being strong and capable. Having the energy to do all the things I need to do and not be completely spent afterwards. Or being spent afterwards (sometimes that’s the goal!) but recovering quickly enough to be excited to do it again.

Being fit is being able to carry my snow tires on their rims from my basement to the back of my car without needing to ask anyone for help.

Being fit to me is being able to bike 30 miles on one day and still have the energy to meet up with friends afterwards.

Being fit to me is being able to help a friend move without being totally sore the next day or being sore but not having it destroy me.

Being fit to me is being able to climb several flights of stairs and not be out of breath for very long.

For me, being fit is so much about function than aesthetics.

It’s about feeling powerful, experiencing joy, having good health (something else with more than one definition), pushing oneself and pulling back as needed, and being able to adjust to a change in course.

I’m not planning to ever be a marathon runner or a powerlifter (but props to those who are).

I’m not fast. I’m also not that flexible. And I have some foot injuries that pop up occasionally that slow me down a little and even cause me to modify some things.

However, I also have a lot of strength and endurance that doesn’t quit at the end of a long day.

I know when to rest my body, when to give her the time and care she needs. I know when to push myself and when to back off. I know what I’m capable of, what I’m not and when it’s possible that I might entirely be wrong about myself.

My hard workouts are still hard. Even though I’m physically fit, I get out of breath, muscles cramp, and aches and pains sometimes make me stop before I want to. I sweat. I pant. I get rosy cheeks.

But I’m willing to adapt, modify and change my view if it means being able to continue moving forward, making progress and smashing my own goals. Being fit is accepting where you’re at right now, but also being interested in doing at least one of the following: maintaining, growing, challenging or changing. You decide what, how and how much. You decide what’s enough.

I urge you to question what you believe “being fit” means. If your beliefs about what “fit” looks like don’t match up with what you look like, despite your effort, energy and capabilities, throw it out the window and build your own definition from scratch.

What are you capable of?

What incredible stuff does your body do?

What sort of activity makes you feel incredible? What brings you joy?

What do you wish you were even better at?

Have you gotten my newest free guide You Have What it Takes? If you’re an emotional eater, overeater or longtime dieter who wonders if she has what it takes to change her relationship with food, then this for you. And it’s free. Click on the image below, then enter your name and email and it’s yours!

How Our Beliefs Form and What Causes us to Question Them

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Have you ever started to question what you believe? What was going on in your life at the time?

Have you ever started to question what you believe? What was going on in your life at the time?

It’s just a few days after the inauguration of a new US President, and just a few days after over 3.7 million people gathered for Women’s Marches all over the US, just a few months after the end of an incredibly exhausting election season and something I have noticed is that no matter how loudly or frequently you are sharing your opinion about it all, the only person whose mind you’re having a real impact on is your own. Which, when you think about it is kind of funny – because I think most of us are hoping to convince someone of our way of thinking when we talk about this stuff!

Don’t worry, I’m not going to make this a political post (though I may use a few political examples because it’s topical) – I promise! I want to talk about how beliefs work and what needs to happen in order for us to start questioning them.

We all have beliefs – beliefs about the new President, the outgoing President, beliefs about how the country should be run, what should be legal or illegal etc.

We have beliefs about other things too, lots of things. We have beliefs about whether we believe in God or not (and also what we believe about God).

On the smaller scale, we have beliefs about what kind of day we’re going to have when we wake up. We have beliefs about whether it’s best to have breakfast as soon as we get up or that skipping meals prolongs our lives.

We have beliefs about the people in our lives – you may believe that someone has a good heart, someone else is a meddling gossip, another person is reliable, and another is selfish and manipulative.

We have beliefs about the way the world works, about what we deserve, what we’re entitled to, we have beliefs that ours are the right ones, that other beliefs are wrong.

We have beliefs about the best type of music, the best way to raise our kids, the best food to cure a hangover and the best way to spend a vacation (lazy beach? busy sightseeing?). If you live in New England, you probably have really strong beliefs about who the best football and baseball teams are.

We have beliefs about what clothing style looks best on us, what hair color and length is most flattering. We have beliefs about what’s pretty, what’s a desirable body size or shape.

We have beliefs about how an adult should carry themselves, beliefs about the kind of people we want to surround ourselves with.

We even have beliefs, lots of beliefs, about who we are at our core:  do you believe you are valuable and worthy? Or do you believe that your value and worth is conditional? Do you believe that you are creative and talented? Or do you believe that there is something wrong with you? Do you believe you are deserving and capable of love? Or do you believe that no one could ever love you?

If you really take a minute to think about it, we have beliefs about everything in our lives. I bet you could jot down 20 things you believe deeply, right now.

All beliefs really are, are a thought that we have thought over and over and over again. And the more you think about that thought, the more firm that belief gets. Beliefs are just thoughts that we have chosen to think. That’s it. We can always choose to think something different.

We have the beliefs we do because of frequent exposure, whether that exposure is because of someone else sharing with you, teaching you etc (like parents teaching their children their own beliefs about God) or because of your own focus on that belief (like thinking over and over about what is wrong with your body). When you’re exposed to an idea, regardless of what it is, we either discount it as not important or false (because it doesn’t jive with our already existing beliefs) and it doesn’t become a belief or we go out and collect evidence that reaffirms our belief by giving us more “proof” to support it.

So when we broadcast our political beliefs at family dinners and sharing news articles that agree with them on social media is reaffirming our own beliefs and cementing the beliefs of others who already agree with us, and firming the beliefs of others who already disagree with us. The same goes for when we stare in the mirror, pinch our belly fat and tell ourselves how fat we are. You’re just making sure that you’re going to feel fat that day. The same goes for when we keep telling ourselves over and over that we can’t do something, that we’ll never make money doing what we love or that we’ll never find a romantic partner who appreciates us. Beliefs are strengthened by repetition.

The only way we change our opinions or beliefs is if we feel called to question them.

Questioning your beliefs only happens under very specific circumstances (and no amount of broadcasting our opinions will get someone else to do that if they aren’t already open to it).

People have to be ready to question stuff. They have to be in a place where change is absolutely necessary for them to move forward.

To use myself as an example – me, “broadcasting” my “beliefs” about emotional eating and body image here on my blog and on facebook, week after week – I’m really only going to reach the people who agree with me and are ready to hear that message because they’ve  been questioned their beliefs about food, about their body image, about dieting etc. If you don’t give a crap about those topics or this stuff doesn’t affect you in any significant way, you’re not going to understand why I write about it week after week. Your belief is that it’s not an important issue and that I’m wasting my time, while for me and other women who struggle with it, it’s one of the biggest issues in our day to day life and an important source of information.

Do you see where I’m going here?

Why and when do we question beliefs?

Again, I’ll say that it doesn’t matter what the belief is – we could talk about your political, religious, social beliefs (but I said this wasn’t going to be a political post) or we could be talking about what you believe about yourself, your world, your calling, your occupation etc.

We’re usually only willing to question our beliefs when we find that the belief is preventing us from achieving something, causing major pain (even potential loss of our lives) or reducing our quality of life to a point that is unacceptable to us. When our beliefs act as a roadblock and when we’re are faced with facts that we can’t ignore any more, that is when questioning happens and change can take place. Beliefs and questioning them are a very personal thing.

I’ll use an example of this that my regular readers will understand.

If you have been walking around your entire adult life believing that your weight is preventing you from having the life you want, you will believe that until you have sufficient personal reasons to see otherwise. Everything in your life – your job, your love life, social experiences, and even your inner thoughts will be reflected back at you because of this belief. If you don’t get a job that you were hoping for, you may believe that you would have gotten the job if you were thinner. If you get dumped by a new romantic partner, you’ll tell yourself it’s because you are overweight. If you have a crappy week, you might believe that if you were thin you’d never have a bad week.

In some cases, you may take this belief and use it to encourage yourself to lose weight (in fact, a lot of people start using these thoughts in the hopes that it will do that – I promise you that is not a good long term tactic). Let’s say you finally decide to lose weight so that you can have the life you’ve been dreaming about. You’re successful at it – you lose all the weight you were hoping to.

What happens now? Well if you truly believed that it was your weight that was holding you back from living the life you’ve always wanted, you may find that you’re incredibly disappointed.

All the things that were “wrong” with your life are still “wrong”, other than the weight thing. Job interviews are still rough as hell and the job you want doesn’t materialize out of thin air. Jeffrey Dean Morgan (or any other hottie on your list) doesn’t knock on your door and profess his undying love to you. And you don’t suddenly have nothing but good days. You still wake up feeling grumpy sometimes, in fact, just as often as you used to.

Confronted with reality – with facts about your “new” life, you may finally begin to question that long term belief you’ve always held, that your weight was preventing you from having the life you wanted. With time and with some thoughtful analysis, you may come to recognize that it wasn’t really the weight that was holding you back, it was you using the weight to prevent yourself from taking real risks at work, in love and elsewhere (that’s not a criticism, just an observation love!). You realize that the belief that your weight was the issue, wasn’t really the issue and that if you’re going to have the life you want, you’re going to have to start looking at things differently. Cracks in our beliefs form when we can no longer argue with reality. Shit just got real.

A shorter example, and one that relates to my political themed opening – we have seen politicians who have built long careers being vehemently opposed to gay marriage, abortion or the legalization of marijuana turn around and reveal that they are changing their stance after their son or daughter came out to them as being gay, or after their wife had to undergo an abortion due to a major medical issue or because they have a loved one whose seizure disorder has only been helped by medical marijuana.

In these cases, that person’s beliefs are confronted with something in their personal life that calls the belief into question. To an outsider it may seem that the person is flip flopping for “no reason” but in their life, it’s a big reason, something they had no choice but to rethink their position on. It’s a lot easier to ignore when it doesn’t affect you personally – but when it’s going to affect your world in a huge way, we can’t just keep repeating the stuff we’ve been repeating for decades. We are forced to think about another side of things.

If you want to change your life, if you want to lose weight, repair your relationship with food, if you you want to have a more well rounded social life, you want more free time, more money, better health etc. If there is anything in your life that you want that you don’t have right now, if there is something you think you’ve been working at for a long time but really haven’t made progress with – the first step to changing any of it is to take a look at your current beliefs in those areas and question them.

Let’s say you struggle with money – you feel like you don’t have “enough”, you’re always scrambling to pay your bills and you can’t resist a sale. Is it possible that you have beliefs around money that are holding you back from earning/living the way you’d like to?  Do you believe you don’t deserve it? Do you believe you’re not capable? Examine your thoughts and beliefs around whatever subject/area that you feel you are held back in.

In all honesty, you’re probably reading this because you already have a belief that you are questioning in some way (and I will repeat myself one more time and say it doesn’t matter if it’s a big picture belief or something smaller on scale . . .these things ALL affect how our lives go!). You’re questioning because you’ve been confronted with something you couldn’t ignore anymore. My guess is that if you’re one of my readers, you’re here because you’re struggling with a life or body image / eating issues.  🙂

So where do you go from here?

You keep questioning. You question deeper. You ask yourself why you believe what you do, how you got to where you are and where you want to be. And then you think about the steps you will have to take to get there. And you start taking them. And when you take steps to where you want to be, you’ll find that believing something new about yourself, about your world, about the possibilities out there, becomes easier. You’ll find yourself thinking about where you want to be more often than where you were. Over and over. And that is how your new beliefs will form.

If you’re just beginning to dabble in wanting to change your life – especially your life with food, I encourage you to get out a pen (or pencil) and your favorite notebook and spend some time jotting down the answers to the questions below.

  • What situations in your life are not going the way you’d like? What role are you playing in that situation? Are you being passive or active in changing it? What actions are you taking? What actions could you take that you aren’t taking?
  • What beliefs do you have about the situation?
  • What beliefs do you have about your ability to change it?
  • What beliefs are hurting you or preventing you from achieving what you want?
  • What beliefs do you have that are knowingly holding you back in life? In love? In your social relationships? At work? Creatively? Emotionally?
  • Where do you think these particular beliefs came from?
  • If you could snap your fingers today and feel differently, what would you rather believe?
  • What beliefs do you have that have helped you accomplish or receive positive things in your life?

Now that you’ve spent some time exploring your beliefs in an area that is troubling you, keep an eye out for when your original or long held belief pops up in your life. It’s one of those things, where once you notice it, you’ll notice it everywhere!

For example, people who believe they are a victim in an area of their life usually find once they take a deeper look, they have that kind of thinking in many areas of their life. People who believe that they have a right to keep eating what they want despite health issues, will start to see that they have a belief about wanting to do what they want at work, in their relationships etc. People who believe that there is only one right way to do the dishes, probably have singular beliefs about how to do everything else in life too! Sometimes we aren’t aware of how our beliefs color our whole life. They really do – and that can be a great thing or a really bad thing, it really goes back to how you think about it (and how often you do)!

Lastly, if you are questioning a long held belief, know that is totally ok. It’s expected. It’s part of the human experience and a sign that you are growing, evolving and changing as you learn in life. It can feel awful, scary and confusing, but it won’t always feel that way. Hang in there love!

Have you gotten my newest free guide You Have What it Takes? If you’re an emotional eater, overeater or longtime dieter who wonders if she has what it takes to change her relationship with food, then this for you. And it’s free. Click on the image below, then enter your name and email and it’s yours!

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You are not supposed to be perfect

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You're doing enough. You are enough.

You’re doing enough. You are enough.

You’re not supposed to be perfect.

You’re not supposed to be “doing” or “achieving” all of the time.

You are not a machine.

You’re not a robot.

You’re not going to do everything well, all of the time.

You’re going to miss workouts.

You’re going to eat junky food for 10 days straight sometimes. Maybe 14 or 20 days. Maybe 3 months non-stop.

You’re going to say the wrong thing.

You’re going to stumble and fall down.

You’re going to not have a clue what you are doing and fear that someone will realize that.

You’re going to wish you reacted differently with your kids, your significant other, with your coworkers or friends.

You’re going to want to give up, change course, try something else or quit!

You’re going to think you look stupid, foolish, awkward or rude.

You’ll wish that you made different decisions at times.

You’re going to get wrinkles, find gray hairs and wonder if your knees always looked like that.

You’re going to eat more than you “should” have.

You’re going to fail at some things, sometimes a lot of things.

You’re going to feel like everyone has it all figured out but you.

You’ll probably also have some regrets and gaffes.

None of this means something has gone wrong in your life.

You’re human. Your job is to live the life of a human. These mistakes, awkward parts and frustrations are part of the job description. Yes, there will also be amazing periods of time where everything feels great and everything is working out well – but life is all of these parts together, not just the ones we would choose for ourselves.

Things are not always going to go the way we want them to and we’re not always going to be able to perform the way we think we should. That doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with us.

In our idealized world we’d always eat right, take great care of ourselves, speak eloquently, do things right the first time, always know the answer and never waver in our convictions or our purpose. But there’s no such thing as perfect. There will never be such a thing as “having done enough”, feeling like you’ve accomplished all you’ve been here to do.

Expecting ourselves to always perform better, to always produce more and to do so with a smile on our face is to constantly feel disappointed in ourselves or feel like we are lacking something.

The stumbles, the falls, the mistakes, the good decisions, the bad, the love, the laughter, the tears, the high points and the low. All of it makes you the person you are going to become.

All of it is a part of your journey, even if there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason for it right now.

You’re enough as you are.

You are doing ok.

You are doing the best you can.

Cut yourself some slack.

Wherever you are right now, doing awesome things or hanging on by a thread, it’s the right place, for right now, for you and you alone.

Hang in there lady.

Give yourself a hug.

Pat yourself on the back.

Tell yourself it’s going to be ok and that you’re doing the best you can.

Because it’s true.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Have you gotten my newest free guide You Have What it Takes? If you’re an emotional eater, overeater or longtime dieter who wonders if she has what it takes to change her relationship with food, then this for you. And it’s free. Click on the image below, then enter your name and email and it’s yours!

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The September offer I’ve been teasing you about: “Pay What You Can” Coaching

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“Pay What You Can” coaching is a chance for me to give back! One month where I can offer my services to women who could use my support but have so far been unable to afford it.

 

If you get my emails, then you know I’ve been teasing for several weeks that I had an special and limited offer coming to for new clients in September. Well, I’m finally going to share what that offer is:

In the spirit of giving back, I am offering a “Pay What You Can” month where you can purchase a 3 month of private coaching at a price you can afford

(read on below to find out why and how)

You’ve probably noticed I’m doing a lot less “promoting” than I was when I first started coaching. In order to make a coaching practice grow, you really do have to do a ton of promotion and marketing – either in person through workshops and conversations or online (or you have to hope your lovely past clients will send you referrals). When I first finished the Health Coach Training Program at IIN, I was heavily immersed in reading and learning all I could about marketing a budding practice – and so my online content often reflected that.

But it started to feel hollow. Icky. False. You may have noticed I’ve dropped some of the programs I offered in the beginning, like the 12 Day Detox and the 28 Day Spiritual Program. As I developed and evolved as a coach they just weren’t feeling right anymore. They weren’t “me”.  I didn’t feel like they were as helpful to my core clients as I wanted them to be and so for the past year I’ve really focused my coaching practice on one on one coaching alone (specifically, working with emotional eaters, women who eat more than they want to and those who are sick and tired of dieting, want to stop but aren’t sure how).

Marketing is important, even in a business that is more authentically aligned with who I am so you’ll still see me promoting things I’m rather excited about – the things I KNOW can help women who struggle the same way I have, but I’ve had to shut out a lot of the online chatter from the big marketers and reassess how I want to do things.

Since I’ve been coaching, I’ve met with many women who could greatly benefit from coaching on their eating struggles (I see so much of myself in them) but who confided in me that they couldn’t afford coaching right now. They’re building a house. They’re pregnant with their 3rd child. They’re a single parent.  The first couple of times I heard this, I understood, accepted it and moved on. We all have things we have to pay for first and foremost – the mortgage/rent, groceries, car payments etc (that stuff adds up!) and really, there’s only a small subset of the population that can afford to pay for all the “needs” in their life and still have money left over for things like coaching, which many view as frivolous want. Every marketing guru out there teaches entrepreneurs that the “right” clients for us WILL have the money to spend on our services. On some level, I do believe this too. But on the other hand, it sometimes hurts my heart to feel like someone wants my help and I believe I can be of help to them and to have to go our separate ways because of money.

Yes, I deserve to get paid for what I do. I have to make a living too. We all do. I can’t work with people who can’t afford to pay me.

Or can I??

A while back I saw that author and speaker Danielle LaPorte offers an annual “Pay What You Can Day” on her books and programs – generously allowing people who feel drawn to her work to benefit from it and pay what they are able, and she too has benefited greatly from it. Then I saw this post from Charles Eisenstein in a similar vein, about offering “Scholarships” at multiple levels for people to pay what they can afford for his work. Two of the things that these folks have in common is a desire to give back and remembering what they were going through when they were struggling too.

I’m nowhere near at the success level of these big wigs but I have things pretty good right now (and I’m so thankful for that). I’m in a position where I can give back. So while it’s a bit non-conformist and could possibly attract the wrong people, in the spirit of giving back, I am offering a “Pay What You Can” month where you can purchase a 3 month long coaching program with me at a price point that you can afford.

Some details you may want to know about:

  • I’m opening this up to 5 people only.
  • You must be a new client (we can’t have worked together before, so sorry) and you can’t be a relative of mine (too much history there kids!).
  • There are 6 different price points you can choose from. All are significantly less than what I normally charge for a 3 month program.
  • You pay in full for the full 3 months (if you need to pay monthly, just shoot me a note and we can totally work that out together).
  • You get 3 months of coaching with me on any of these concerns:  Emotional eating, overeating, a desire to stop the diet and binge cycle or improving body image. This includes 6 coaching sessions (via phone or through skype video calls) over three months, recommendations/assignments to do in between our sessions and email support from me in between our sessions (ask questions, get support and encouragement).
  • You have to be ready and motivated to get to work. I can’t do any of this for you. Coaching is a supportive process that will help you get the space and clarity you need to take action but it is useless if you don’t really want to make changes or are unwilling to do the things we decide are right for you.

How to take part of this offer:

  1. Schedule a 30 minute discovery session with me between now and October 10, 2016. It’s free and painless. If you don’t see a time that works for you in my scheduler, please message me. I will work with you to get this call on the calendar!
  2. After our discovery session, if you get off the call saying “yes, yes. I want this!! I know this can help me.” then you can purchase your 3 month program at your chosen price (anywhere from $75-$450 for 3 months).
  3. You can purchase your program anytime between when you complete your discovery session with me and October 22, 2016.

You should schedule your discovery session immediately if (any or all of these are true):

  • You’ve been reading my blog posts, emails or following me on social media and relating to everything I say.
  • We’ve done a discovery session in the past and you wanted to work together but were unable to commit financially at the time.
  • You’ve been interested in coaching but afraid to pull the trigger.
  • You are sick of overeating and then trying to compensate for it by dieting and restricting.
  • You are tired of doing this to yourself and want to stop but you know you need some support to do it.
  • You are ready to put yourself first, highly motivated to make real changes and willing to be honest with yourself (and with me).

Please do not take part in this if you are:

  • a former client or relative (so sorry, love you, but newbies only this time)
  • hoping for a miracle diet that will fix you (I don’t give out meal plans or tell you exactly what you should be eating)
  • looking for coaching help that doesn’t have anything to do with one of these concerns: Emotional eating, overeating, a desire to stop the diet and binge cycle or improving body image. These are my “babies” and I want to give back to other women who need help with these things.
  • just hoping to get something for cheap or free. Sometimes we don’t value or put as much effort into things we don’t pay much for. How many times have you purchased a groupon or a item of clothing just because it was a great deal and then never used it?? Please value this offer as if you were paying full price (your time and my time is worth it).

I am super excited about doing this and hope you take part! I wish I had encountered a coach with a similar offer when I was in the peak of my eating struggles – I feel like my path would have been a little less bumpy! I’ve been so fortunate to have made the progress I have in my own relationship with food and been along for the journey with so many other women on theirs. I feel blessed and grateful that this is the work I get to do and this is a small way I can give back.

If you’ve been following me for awhile and thought about scheduling a session, now is the time to do it! Schedule your discovery session now. There’s no obligation to go forward with a program!

You can learn more about me and what my coaching is about here.

Find additional info about this offer here.

Two Tips to Building Body Confidence

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Body confidence doesn't come from what you look like. It's how we use our bodies and what we do with our thoughts that make the biggest difference.

Body confidence doesn’t come from what you look like. It’s how we use our bodies and what we do with our thoughts that make the biggest difference.

There was a time when I thought my lack of body confidence came from being overweight. I remember thinking (on every diet) that things were going to be so much better when I was thin. I thought I’d suddenly have the confidence to do things I’d never tried before, I thought I wouldn’t self-conscious or awkward anymore. Every piece of clothing I’d put on would look amazing and I’d never have a zit again.

Haha.

It wasn’t realistic at all, but if you’ve ever spent a good chunk of your life moderately overweight you may have had similar delusions!

I made it to “thin” around 2006 and let me tell you, all the body image issues I had when I was a size 16 were still there when I was wearing a size 4. In some ways, they felt magnified. I still saw myself as a large person. I’d look in the mirror and see so much more that needed to be worked on. (See the poor quality black & white photos below.) My skin was now “loose” and appeared “flabbier”. My stretch marks, while faded, were almost more visible. It was so hard to appreciate what I had because it looked different than the perfect image I had created in my head. I picked and tore apart my body on a daily basis – always finding something wrong with it.

My weight has gone up and down drastically several times since 2006 and I’ve learned a few things each time but probably the most glaringly obvious thing is that body confidence has nothing to do with your size or shape. It has nothing to do with your weight.

Attempting to take body "progress" pictures back in 2007. I weighed about 139 lbs here but still felt bad about my body.

Attempting to take body “progress” pictures back in 2007. I weighed about 139 lbs here but still felt bad about my body.

You can be heavy and have confidence in your body. You can be thin and have confidence in your body. Your body can still be a work in progress and you can still feel confident in it. You can also accept your body as it is right now and feel confident. It’s not dependent on what the scale says.

There are 2 things I do now that have made the biggest difference in my body confidence – regardless of the current size of my body. One of those things is moving my body in ways that I love and the other is to stop paying attention to negative thoughts about my body. I’ll go into more detail about each of those below. I hope you’ll try these in your own life!

 

Move your body in ways that you love.

I remember spending hours and hours on the elliptical at the gym, bored out of my mind and barely working hard enough to raise my heart rate. It was hard to keep myself going when I didn’t enjoy what I was doing and also I wasn’t really seeing any changes in my body. Exercise is so much easier to do when you find things that you love doing! Take a dance class, try CrossFit, barre classes, start a walking group in your neighborhood, join a hiking group on meetup.com. If you have an internet connection, all it takes is a quick search to find free exercise videos you can try from the comfort of your living room. You don’t have to go to a gym if that doesn’t excite or motivate you. When you find movement, exercise or activity (we can call it whatever you want) that is fun and challenging, you’ll want to do it.

I’ve found that I love barre classes for how graceful they make me feel and because they strengthen my core without having to spend hours on my back doing crunches. I love riding my bike because it’s a little bit like flying and I enjoy the wind on my face (perhaps I was a dog in a past life). I love seeing how far I can travel in a short amount of time and love knowing that it’s all powered by my strong legs. I love strength training with heavy weight because it makes me feel strong, powerful and like I could kick anyone’s ass.

Lately, John and I have been spending some of our free time hiking and while it’s challenging, I’m always amazed how much better my body handles it at 38 years old and 158 lbs than it did when I was 23 and 220 lbs. Yesterday I tackled a hill on a bike ride that used to kill me – even a few years ago I dreaded it every time – so much so that I sometimes thought about doing a different route so I could avoid the hill (hills are not my favorite) but I blew up this hill yesterday like it was nothing!! I couldn’t believe how easy it was for my body now and it felt great.

John and I moving our bodies in ways we love (despite what the look on his face says).

John and I moving our bodies in ways we love (despite what the look on his face says).

I get my body confidence now from what my body can DO. It is no longer dependent on what it looks like. Yes, doing all these activities definitely changes how my body looks (I thank barre for my smoother inner thighs and weight lifting for my shoulder/bicep definition) but it’s not the sole reason I do them. It’s not even the most important reason. I get a major thrill in being able to do things physically that might have previously been out of reach for me.

I can do a chin up from a hanging position. YES! Just a few months ago I was excited that I could do most of one as long as I jumped up the first 1/3 of the way. Now I can do one without that boost! Holy crap, I never thought that would happen. This is MY amazing body and it’s strong.

I can carry a ton of grocery bags from the car through my garage and basement and up the stairs into the house and not be winded and do it again and again.

I’m thankful that my body can do these things (and aware that my health allows the possibility). I get excited to challenge it in new ways. How can I not be confident in this vehicle which allows me to travel everywhere I want to be and do everything I want to do? How can I not feel good in it? Why would allow myself to feel anything other than awe, appreciation and love towards it? When I do physical stuff that I love doing, it makes it far easier to love my body. Seriously, it’s the BEST.

There’s a great side effect that comes from focusing on what my body is capable of and not what it looks like. I couldn’t do the things I do if I wasn’t eating properly. If I don’t eat enough, I won’t be able to complete my strength workout. If I don’t eat a good balance of protein and carbs, I won’t be able to bike 20 or 30 miles. If I eat crappy today, I won’t feel so hot on our hike tomorrow. Focusing on the amazing things my body can do and what I want it to be able to do makes eating well so much easier. And eating well means I have less bloating, less insane cravings and my clothes fit better.

 

Notice how much you think about what your body looks like and then stop doing that.

How many times a day do you mentally criticize it?

How long does it take you to find something to wear each day that doesn’t make you think terrible thoughts about yourself?

How much are negative words directed towards your body a regular part of your routine?

When I say “stop doing that”, I know some of you are rolling your eyes at me. “It’s not that easy Andrea!”. I know it’s not. It’s not easy to stop doing it if you think there is nothing you can do about it. This is just the way you are, right?

I’ve said it 1000 times and I’m going to keep saying it until we all feel empowered with this idea:  We don’t have control over the thoughts that pop into our heads but we DO have control over what we do with those thoughts. If a thought about our thighs, our belly, our stretch marks appears, we can either go look for evidence that the thought is true or we can choose to ignore that thought and move about our day.

Yes, you CAN ignore these negative thoughts about yourself. Think of these thoughts as a heckler in a crowd you are performing in front of (as a comedian, an actor, whatever). You can choose to listen to the heckler and let him affect your performance, you can choose to engage with the heckler and give him the attention he’s after and again distract and affect your performance OR you can ignore the guy and do your thing. You could even ask him to leave! Have him escorted out – it’s your show!

We don’t have to indulge or engage with the heckler. Those negative thoughts you have about your body are hecklers. Don’t give them extra attention. The less you pay attention to those kinds of thoughts, the less loud they will get and soon you’ll find yourself “performing” at your very best. Totally focused, prepared and unable to be flustered by any thought that shows up.

Not engaging with these thoughts does take practice. It’s a matter of noticing when they happen and then paying attention to what you do with the thought. At first you’ll think that you aren’t doing anything with those negative thoughts – the engagement and indulging of them has become an automatic habit and just like any other habit, it takes effort to break. When a thought appears, like “Ug, my stomach looks so disgusting in this shirt!” pretend it’s one of those choose your own adventure books you had as a kid (those were the best!!!). Which path are you going to choose? And where do you think you might end up?

I’ll give you another analogy (since I love them). The obnoxious political posts on social media. You’re scrolling through and read a post from one of your relatives spouting insanely ignorant and divisive rhetoric. It infuriates you. In fact, you feel anger bubbling up in you as soon as you  read it. You can A) Start typing furiously away, blasting their post with counting facts one by one or B) You can continue scrolling by without responding (or even “hide” the person and their posts so you don’t have to see it again).  The first time you choose B and don’t respond, you might feel bad. You might keep thinking about it and wanting to go back and say something. You may even find yourself venting to someone in your real life about the post or the person. But if you ignore this kind of stuff again and again and stop responding to it, you’ll find that it becomes easier to do with time. My facebook is a whole mess of obnoxious posts from people with different beliefs that me and I just don’t engage anymore (because it’s healthier for me). I used to get into lots of arguments with people online – I felt like I couldn’t NOT say something. Now it’s easy to just move on.  You can do the same thing with negative thoughts about your body.

The cool thing that happens when you stop getting down and dirty with those negative thoughts about your body is that you realize you don’t even need to replace the negative thought with positive thoughts. You don’t have to do affirmations if those don’t speak to you. You don’t have to write love letters to your hated parts (though it won’t hurt!). By ignoring the negative stuff, neutral becomes the norm. Your body becomes your body, a vehicle to use to live your life and not something that warrants consideration for how it looks. Aren’t you just glad your car starts in the morning and gets you safely where you need to be? It doesn’t matter if there is a little rust on it or some bug guts squished on the window – it’s purpose in life isn’t to be shiny and pretty and perfect. It’s purpose is to take you from A to B safely.

That’s it for today. Two ways I’ve built up my body confidence that have nothing to do with dieting, losing weight or being thin. What makes you feel confident in your body? What is your favorite thing about what your body can do?

Like this? For more, download your free copy of Healthy Eating Shouldn‘t Be a Workout:  Real Life Strategies to Take the Confusion Out of Healthy Living (includes recipes, snack and meal ideas, ways to save money and more!).

Realization: I Still Try to Make Others Laugh at My Body

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I've always made my body the joke to protect myself.

I’ve always made my body the joke to protect myself.

Earlier this summer I arrived at a family cookout and one of my relatives said to me “Oh, look at your nice figure”. I was wearing a long fitted henley sun dress. Instead of just saying “Thank you.” I said “oh, it’s because I’m wearing too tight clothes! haha.” I cringed the second it came out of my mouth. The dress isn’t even too tight. It fits me perfectly and I love wearing that dress.

I have a tough time accepting a compliment without making a joke about my body or me. It’s what I do, what I’ve always done.

But it’s kind of a problem since I, you know, work with women who have emotional eating struggles and because I’ve come so far with my own. I’ve changed a ton but from time to time behaviors come to my attention that make me go “whoa! what is this?”

I’ve learned so much about myself the last couple of years. I finally feel like I’ve figured out how I can eat normally, how to not overeat, which foods work for me (and which ones don’t), how to move my body with exercise that I enjoy (instead of just whatever will burn the most calories).

I’ve become hyper aware of all the routines and habits I had created that kept me stuck in the same cycle of overeating and dieting. I no longer try to go as long as I can on as few calories as I can so I can eat a ton at night. I can sit comfortably with uncomfortable feelings without needing to eat to comfort myself. The negative self talk about my body that used to be a never-ending commentary in the background hardly ever shows up at all anymore. It’s quiet now.

I feel more confident in my body.  Enough so that I find myself doing things like taking off a sweat drenched tank top in the middle of a busy NH state park parking lot after a hike, and switching it out for a clean one, without worrying who might see me in my bra or might see my belly. That probably doesn’t sound like a big deal but when you’ve spent most of your life changing in shower stalls or bathrooms so you didn’t have to have your body seen naked in public view it’s a big deal. A really huge accomplishment. I can go to the beach now and wear a bathing suit and not worry about my pale thighs or belly rolls. I’m there to have fun, not to look like a model. I’m sure some of that comfortableness comes with getting older and just not giving a fuck but I know a lot of it comes from the work I’ve done in coaching.

All of this isn’t to say, wow, look at me, I’m doing so well. This is so easy! Everyone can repair their relationship with food on their own! No. All of this stuff is awesome and I feel great but, what I’ve noticed, is that as far as I have come, and as more “real” as this feels as any of my previous attempts at a normal life with food and my body, is that sometimes shit I thought was behind me still comes up from time to time.

Occasionally eating more food than I needed? Not a big deal, especially when it’s an incredible meal at a restaurant that I’ve been dying to check out. Occasionally choosing to eat foods that don’t have any nutritional value? Really not a big deal, especially when I’m choosing to eat it because I really want it (and not because I need to hide from some feelings).

Something I thought I was over, that keeps popping up is saying negative stuff about my own body to other people!

If I see someone I haven’t seen in awhile and they tell me I look great, I tend to wave it off by saying “oh, thanks, but I’ve actually gained a couple of pounds.” If someone tells me I look like I’ve lost more weight, “thanks, but I’ve really been slacking lately!”. I’ll whine about clothing stores having weird sizing and billowy styles and how at Lucky Jeans I have to buy a size Small shirt, even though there’s no way I’m a Small! If someone tells me I’m getting skinny, I say things like “Nah, I weigh about 157 lbs!” (as if it would be impossible for someone at that weight to be slender or fit looking).

In my head, I feel good about my body. I wear clothes that I feel comfortable in. I think I look pretty fit.  And I’m at a sustainable and healthy weight. But outwardly, I find myself projecting the thoughts that I may no longer consciously be having, but were a part of my repertoire for decades. Like tree ring patterns, the ways I navigated through my world have left a record of my history that can’t be washed away so easily.

I’ve always had a self-deprecating humor and made fat or ugly jokes about myself. When I was a kid, people would make jokes about my size in my presence and it stung, a lot. I remember playing the game “Taboo” once with my sisters and some of my cousins. Taboo was a game where you had to use words to get the other players to name a word on the card without using the 4 or 5 other synonym or related words on the card. Sort of like a riff on charades or pictionary but with without acting or drawing.

One of my cousins was trying to get us to say “fat” or “chubby” or something like that. I don’t remember what the actual word was. He was struggling to come up with words to give us hints because things like “obesity”, “overweight”, “large” were off limits. So, what he finally said was “Andrea”. My sister’s and cousin’s looked confused and shouted out things like “blonde?”, “girl?” and then finally someone said “fat!” and my cousin said “ding ding! That’s it!”. I was totally mortified (and pissed! This cousin had a bit of a weight issue at the time himself.). It certainly wasn’t the first time someone in my family had referred to me as fat but it was the first time it became clear to me that that was how most people would see me. That was how they would describe me. It was what I was leading with, even if that’s not who I saw myself as.

I think I started to make the jokes myself with the idea being that if I made sure everyone around me knew that I knew that I was fat, anything they may say or think about my weight couldn’t hurt me. That rational didn’t work out so well, it still hurt, but I adopted the practice as a form of armor. If they’re going to laugh at me, I’m going to be in on the joke dammit! They’re not going to laugh behind my back – they’re going to laugh with me!

Making these jokes about my body, in response to anything and everything was just how I operated. It became a part of my personality in a way. So much so that most of the time I don’t even know I’m doing it. It’s just “me” now.

The summer after my junior year in college I worked for the University’s department of housing. It was a physically demanding job – we worked long hours in sweltering heat painting dorm rooms and carrying heavy furniture up and down many flights of stairs. I remember a few of the other kids always wanting to be my partner in carrying furniture. I was strong and I made carrying steel bedframes feel easy for the other person, because as a “fat” person, I thought it was my duty to take on more of the weight, more of the work. I could handle it. Even the guys would rush to carry with me. And it felt good to be wanted. It felt good to be seen as useful and valuable. For once my fatness was a positive, not a negative. I made jokes about being built like a “brick shithouse” or I’d hold flex my biceps and say “Have you seen these guns?” and everyone would laugh. They thought I was so funny and down to earth and “real” (something that seemed rare on a college campus). I said what everyone else was already thinking. My roommates and I became regular hosts of parties at our apartment that summer for our coworkers. My fatness was valuable at work and the humor I used to detract from myself also made me a riot and people loved to party with me. I could drink almost everyone under the table. It was a joke but also a sense of pride that I took at the time being able to pound 12 beers with the guys on my work crew. I may be fat, but I can party! The fat strong funny girl was a party animal too. The more attention I got, the more the jokes came. I couldn’t stop.

I’m not that girl anymore. My life is really different from my college partying days. I can’t drink anyone under the table anymore (and nor do I want to). I’m still strong but you can bet I’ll let others do their share of the hard work (but I’ll still ask that you admire my biceps). I still make jokes, about my body, but also about really morbid stuff. I have a really dark sense of humor. I’m step over the line a lot. But I don’t want to be that person who makes negative remarks about their body all the time.

She’s still there.

And it’s really annoying because the negative self-talk about my body isn’t there so much anymore. I can walk by the bathroom mirror naked and look at myself and not think much of anything, other than “that’s me”. I don’t recoil in disgust.

In general, I don’t necessarily want to change things that are part of my core personality. I know that a lot of that stuff is what makes me “me”. It’s even part of how some people know me. Who am I without this stuff? Who am I if I don’t make these kind of jokes? Could I be someone who just says “thank you” to a compliment?

I’m not even sure what I’m trying to say with this post.

I guess just that even as far as I’ve come, there are still things that come out sometimes that surprise me. I thought this was behind me. I thought I was healthy enough to not crap on my appearance publicly and regularly. I have clients who get upset sometimes at old behaviors that they still find themselves doing sometimes and to them I say “I know how you feel”. I feel like a failure when this stuff pops up. How can I preach “self-love” and body acceptance when the moment you complement me I have to make a joke about the size or shape of my body? Ug. That’s horrifying.

I have come really far and I don’t see myself ever going back to the unhealthy place I was in in the past but there are still some things I’ll need to keep my eye on.

I have to work at doing this differently. Knowing that I have this behavior isn’t enough to change it. Awareness is a start but I have to keep going and do more. This was something I actually forgot that I did. And now that it’s on my radar, it’s my job to actively work to do better.

If this hits home for you, here are a few questions to explore for yourself. I’d love to hear some of your answers if you want to share them with me:

  • Is there something that you’ve discovered about your personality or behavior that you believe is a result of your history with your weight or eating struggles? How does it impact your life? How does it impact how you view yourself?
  • Why do you think you developed this trait or habit?
  • Would you like to respond differently? If so, what would that look like?

Like this? For more, download your free copy of Healthy Eating Shouldn‘t Be a Workout:  Real Life Strategies to Take the Confusion Out of Healthy Living (includes recipes, snack and meal ideas, ways to save money and more!).