What If Weight Loss Was the Answer?

Let's pretend for a moment. 

What if losing weight was the answer to

• Reversing, preventing, or maintaining a medical condition? 

• Making you feel 'better' (a.k.a. sexier, more attractive, more worthy or 'enough', etc.)

While it may be true that weight loss may help with medical conditions the problem is and always will be that intentional weight loss is not a permanent solution. 

So while many 'health' gurus argue that diets do work (often called 'lifestyle plans', etc.) because there is often weight loss when there is calorie restriction or extreme exercising, for most, these solutions aren't sustainable long-term.

For all of you who are saying something like...

I just think I look better and feel sexier when I'm thinner.

Feeling sexier or more 'attractive' is completely subjective. Feeling sexy or attractive is based on our thoughts about our bodies not on our feelings. Thoughts create feelings, not the other way around. So, if you can change your thoughts, your feelings will eventually catch up. 

Lastly, hingeing our size, weight, age, bank account, etc. to validate our worth is a losing battle because we'll always be trying to hit a moving target. Our self-worth is unconditional. 

I know that many of you may understand this logically but still struggle to reconcile this in your hearts. 

If this is you, I see you and want you to know that it's natural to feel this way because our culture values physical appearance more than most things. This is especially true for women. 

In the end, the answer is body acceptance, cultivating a radical self-compassion practice, and making more frequent deposits in our self-worth banks to name a few things. 

Ready to fast-track your body image recovery? Tap the Let’s Connect button below to schedule your free 20-minute connection call.

You don't have to do this alone.

Four Tips to Ease into Swimsuit Season

Do you dread wearing a swimsuit? ⁣
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If you're in the Northern Hemisphere, you know that swimsuit season is only a few months away.⁣
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Showing more skin can be hard enough, but wearing a swimsuit can cause significant discomfort for folks who struggle with body image no matter what size they are. 

Many will even avoid wearing a swimsuit so they can avoid the emotional upheaval that often follows. 

I understand because I've been there too. Back in the day, I used to wear a coverup no matter how hot it was! I wouldn't want to go back to that time in my life for anything. 

If you're dreading the swimsuit season because you don't feel confident in your body, I believe with some preparation you can write a different story this summer! 
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Here are some tips to help you get started:
👙 Be prepared Consider trying on your swimsuits now to be sure they fit comfortably. I've had clients put on their suits while on vacation only to realize they didn't fit the same or at all. This can be a serious bummer! 

🩱 Don't wait  If your swimsuits don't fit comfortably or if you don't have any swimsuits, start looking/ordering suits now so you'll have time to return them if needed.⁣

🏊‍♂️ Neutralize To help neutralize what you see when you gaze in the mirror, wear your swimsuit around the house so you get used to seeing yourself. Avoiding this will make it even harder because it may be shocking. 

🥽 Interrupt Practice interrupting any negative, shameful body thoughts with loving, compassionate thought(s). Over time this will begin to create a new neural pathway. 

Ready to fast-track your body image recovery? Tap the Let’s Connect button below to schedule your free 20-minute connection call.

You don't have to do this alone.

One Simple Way to Create a Loving Relationship with Your Body

I was deeply affected by an Instagram post created by The Body Relationship™ Coach Ivy Felicia that said,

"We are constantly taught and programmed to focus our body size, beauty, and abilities but we often forget that our bodies are working every moment of every day to keep us alive and nourished. At any size, shape, or ability level our body is still doing its best."

I don't know about you, but it made me stop to ponder for a bit.

When was the last time you considered that your body is doing its best?

I agree with Ivy Felicia that most are so caught up in the day-to-day grind of body dissatisfaction and comparisonitis because of the exhausting societal pressures we're all under, it's sometimes easy to forget that our bodies are working hard for us every single day. This is harder for those who suffer from physical, emotional, or mental illnesses.

The truth is that it can be hard to recognize that our bodies are doing their very best when we are focusing solely on how they don't 'measure up' to societal expectations.

When we hyperfocus on our outsides, there will always be dissatisfaction because that's the way we've been conditioned. Sadly, this dissatisfaction often leads to shame, guilt, and often frustration. Can you relate?

What if we shifted our focus to appreciate that our bodies are doing their very best even when we don't always care for them the way we probably could?

I don't know about you, but when I think about my body in these terms, I feel a deep sense of appreciation and gratitude toward it.

We certainly cannot expect our perspective to change overnight, but by consciously choosing to shift our focus from criticism and comparison to appreciation and gratitude we can begin to connect with our bodies in more compassionate and loving ways.

If we come back to this concept over and over, it's likely that subtle shifts will begin to happen over time. That's how this work is...slow and steady.

For many, this is a whole new way of thinking and requires consistent practice, but imagine how our lives could change if we remembered to keep working toward this instead of focusing our energies on the perceived ways our bodies aren't measuring up.

I'm not naïve. I acknowledge that there are many things that will get in the way of this. To name a few, weight stigma, fatphobia, ageism, toxic beliefs, our inner critics, etc. but I still believe it's possible. If I didn't, I wouldn't be so committed to this work and my clients wouldn't experience the shifts that they do.

So, the next time you are comparing and dispairing about your body, I invite you to consider that your body is doing its very best to serve your needs.

Remember, it's okay if you can't do this on your own. I'm here to support you along the way if you need it.

3 Questions to Ask When Struggling to Accept Your Body

Body acceptance doesn't come easy, especially for midlife women! ⁣After all, midlife women are often faced with divorce, an empty nest, peri/menopause, retirement, caring for aging parents, losing friends and family members, etc. Can you relate? 
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Listening to podcasts, calling a trusted friend, journaling, and connecting online in body-positive spaces can all be helpful strategies but they aren't always available or appealing to us in moments of discomfort. 

When negative thoughts surface about our bodies we need to be intentional about how we respond to them. One way to do this is with self-inquiry.

Self-inquiry helps to create a pause so we can begin exploring what may be going on beneath the "I feel ___________ (fat, old, lazy, washed up, etc.)." language. Self-inquiry also helps us to understand our experiences in new ways, develop new behaviors, and possibly recognize our blind spots. ⁣

Inquiry is a tool I often use during coaching sessions to help my clients gently excavate unhelpful beliefs that are keeping them from moving forward. In fact, some of the biggest "a-ha" moments my clients experience happen when I ask thought-provoking questions like some of the ones I'm sharing with you.

The great news about self-inquiry is that it's available to us all the time. 

The next time you are struggling with body acceptance, consider asking yourself one or a few of these questions and see what happens. I have a lot more questions (and some come to me at the moment) that I use but these will give you some idea of what I'm talking about so you can get started. Of course, it's best when these questions are asked in a compassionate, curious manner instead of with a judgy or condemning voice. 

What criteria are you evaluating yourself against?
What meaning are you attaching to your size/weight/age?
Since you cannot control your body, what else can you control that is within your reach? 

I use self-inquiry often and it works wonders for me! If you are already using self-inquiry but you are still bogged down with frequent negative thoughts about your body, aging, movement for mobility, etc. schedule time with me. This journey wasn't meant to be done alone. Support may be the missing piece you need to get over the hump.  

12 Things You Can Control Instead of Trying to Control Your Weight

If you're in the US, the recent news around gun violence in our schools and communities, reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ rights (especially trans rights), etc. may be weighing heavily on your mind. If this is you, know that you're not alone because I've lost hours of sleep in the last few weeks. Like many of you, I have a myriad of emotions but mostly I feel grief, overwhelm, and powerless because I have little control over what is happening. Do you feel this way sometimes too? 

I've had plenty of clients say that they feel this same sense of overwhelm and powerlessness when they've just started their intuitive eating journey, are struggling with peri/menopause, have been diagnosed with pre-diabetes or diabetes, an autoimmune illness, or their labs indicate elevated cholesterol, etc. 

The natural response when things feel out of control is to try to regain control somehow. While is a logical response, it often doesn't come easy. This is because many of the things we tend to try and control only give us the illusion that they can be controlled.

Below is a short but not exhaustive list of things we do when we are trying to regain control:

• Weight, body size, and shape

• Our food by practicing restrictive behaviors/dieting (a.k.a. undereating)

• Other people

• What other people think of us

How did trying to control those things work out for you?

Now for the good news. Below is a list of a few tangible things that are within your control:

• Our attitudes, actions, and reactions

• How much time we spend on social media and who we follow 

• Boundaries we set with others, around our time, etc. 

• Spending time with people that nourish us emotionally 

• How we speak to ourselves

• Our spending/budgets

• How often we're checking in with our bodies

• Harmful habits and/or patterns 

• Our self-care practices (sleep, movement, time management, etc.)

• How we dress ourselves 

• Nourishing our bodies with foods that put their needs first 

• Organization/cleanliness of our environments

The illusion of control in a society so hyper-focused on physical appearance is powerful so if this is hard to accept, it's understandable. Even so, I encourage you to keep focusing on the long list of things within your control and see the freedom and peace they can offer you. 

If you're feeling that you could benefit from getting 1:1 support because you're still trying to control the uncontrollable, let's connect to see how coaching can help you move past this.