What’s Really Driving Your Food Struggles… Body Shame

When I was really struggling with food, I knew my struggles weren’t about food. I knew this deep inside of me, but I didn’t have words to describe it. 

And my inner knowing didn’t stop me from making it about food.  I would still try to cut back on sugar, or take gluten out of my diet (with no diagnosed gluten sensitivity), or stop eating certain kinds of foods like nightshades or yogurt or coffee. :(. 

I can see now that diet culture offers us so many solutions that are ALL about food. This is how weight loss companies and coaches make their money. 

But there is something that happens when we try to solve a challenge by just addressing the symptom. 

If you are like me, you know the symptom was feeling out of control around certain foods. Worrying that you’d overeat trigger foods. And even believing you have a food addiction. 

When you consider these symptoms, it’s easier to look at a food with sugar and believe that if you could get rid of sugar then all of your food struggles would go away. 

Trying to take sugar out of my diet only made me fight with sugar more. And therefore fight with myself. Making it about sugar only distracted me from what was really going on. But it also reaffirmed my problem as a real problem. Essentially, it kept the struggle in place. 

If you’ve been struggling with food and making it about food, it’s time for a step back. 

You can’t diet your way through your food struggles. 

You can’t restrict your way to feeling more in control around food. 

The part of me that made it about food was the part of me that wanted to keep my weight down. I was hoping that If I could eat the right foods, I wouldn’t gain weight. 

Which is why getting to the root of the struggle is so important. It’s not about food, it’s about body shame. 

We’ve been driven to dieting to fix our bodies. We’ve been told there is something wrong with our bodies and then we internalized body shame. No one has to tell you that your body is wrong or bad, that belief system lives inside of you. You tell yourself that all of the time. 

If you didn’t need to fix your body, you wouldn’t need to diet. If you didn’t need to diet, you wouldn’t need to struggle with food. 

Body shame is at the root of food struggles. 

I guide my clients to understand how their body image and patterns with food work together. If you’d like to explore more support around this, book a Clarity Call with me here. https://bookme.name/tarawhitney/lite/clarity-call

Is Your Negative Body Image Impacting Your Career?

I never would have linked these two things together; how I felt about my body and how successful I could be in business. After all, we’ve been taught how to succeed in business; work hard, get the right education, connect with a mentor and take well-calculated risks.

But now, as I reflect on the twists and turns in my career, I can see how the shifts I made in my relationship with food and my body went step by step with the changes I made professionally. I started my career in public accounting and thirty years later, I’m a published author who coaches female leaders to stop dieting and gain confidence in their bodies.

Let me share my brief career timeline. But I want you to know that I started dieting and eating emotionally when I was 12. So, even though I'm sharing with you some more recent diet history, I was experiencing disordered eating and body dysmorphia at a young and tender age.

• 2000. Started practicing yoga. Working in corporate accounting.

• 2001. Joined Weight Watchers after the birth of my son.

• 2007. Began training to be a yoga teacher.

• 2008. Left corporate accounting. Later that year, I founded my accounting consulting firm.

• 2009. Started practicing intuitive eating on my own.

• 2011. Opened my yoga studio.

• 2015. Became a Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor. Started coaching part-time.

  * This was the year I was actively running three businesses.

• 2016. Closed yoga studio.

• 2018. Dissolved accounting consulting firm.

• 2019. Transitioned into coaching full-time. Published my first book.

My yoga and intuitive eating practice taught me how to live inside of my body. Before then, I didn’t know that was a thing. I was dieting, doing my best to lose weight, and was disconnected from my body. I couldn’t live inside of my body because I was too busy judging it.

I could have stayed in my accounting career. But as much as I enjoyed the work, I couldn’t help noticing how draining and empty it left me. The more I listened to my body, I couldn’t ignore these signals.

Before these practices, life around food and my body were hard. I was:

• Needing to be perfect to feel good enough.

• Believing that I needed a thin body to be successful.

• Validating myself based on what others thought of me and my performance.

• Exhausted and frustrated.

• Feeling unfulfilled.

As my body image changed, I became more willing to create and run businesses that were closer to my heart and allowed me to share myself with more passion and confidence. Here are some concrete things that allowed me to change the trajectory of my career:

• I had more time and energy to focus on my business because I was no longer preoccupied, worried, or obsessing over food.

• I felt more confidence and trust in myself because I was no longer dieting and failing at dieting.

• I saw my body as a source of wisdom and started to care for it deeply. This means I started to slow down instead of being hooked on the busyness that left me feeling exhausted.

• I know what alignment feels like and what out of alignment feels like. I can distinguish between the two because I practice being present and grounded in my body.

I have a vision of female leaders that have reclaimed their time, energy, and inner wisdom to focus on what matters most to them. They’ve taken it back from dieting, emotional eating, and their negative body image.

They’ve done this because they’ve changed their body image. For women to truly thrive and feel fulfilled in their careers, they need to have a connection to their bodies.

This is why I’ve created a quiz, Is your body image holding you back professionally?

This quiz will likely take you less than 5 minutes. You'll find out if your body image is holding you back, weighing you down or if you feel pretty free around your body.

You can take it here.

Feeling Comfortable In Your Own Skin

I’d like to invite you to a free to attend webinar on this topic. See details below. 

There was a time in my life when I believed that I'd feel comfortable in my own skin when my body was thinner. I had this fantasy that when I finally lost weight that my whole life would fall into place. I'd feel more confident at work. I'd feel cuter and more attractive. I’d be relaxed around what I was eating because my body had finally reached my goal weight. 

In my mind, feeling comfortable in my own skin was a goal to achieve, something I needed to earn. And my reward for my hard work was that I’d be happy, attractive and comfortable with my life. 

If that fantasy had become a reality, my story would have stopped there. I would have declared victory and moved on. 

I never reached this goal. Not even close. The harder I worked at thinness, the less confident, attractive and relaxed I felt. 

Clearly, my understanding of what it took to be comfortable in my own skin was faulty. I was focused on the wrong things. Primarily because I had been promised that weight loss would make me happy.  

I can't recall the exact day I started feeling comfortable in my own skin. At first, it came in small moments of peace while I was lying in savasana after a sweaty yoga class. Those moments became more frequent. I noticed them when I felt so satisfied after eating a meal that tasted delicious to me, when I felt confident, passionate and nervous while giving a talk in front of a large group. I noticed ease while getting dressed in clothes that I liked wearing. 

As things started to click, I could tell when I felt comfortable in my own skin and when I didn’t. I could practice living inside of my body or I could live outside of my body. One way felt peaceful and one way filled me with anxiety.  

Feeling uncomfortable in your own skin can look and act like this: 

- Weighing yourself and letting the number determine how you feel that day. 

- Exercising intensely because of what or how much you ate. 

- Comparing your body to those around you. 

- Looking at your reflection in the mirror and only seeing what's wrong. 

- Consuming social media pictures that make you feel like your body isn't enough. 

As an intuitive eating counselor and yoga teacher, I know practicing feeling comfortable in your own skin has a big impact on your confidence, self esteem and your relationship with food. It’s possible to feel at peace in your body and know in your heart that no matter what your size, shape or health that your body is a good body. 

This is why I’m excited to invite you to my upcoming webinar. I’ll be sharing with you:

• What's really going on around why you feel so dissatisfied with your body. 

• Three things you can do right away that will start to change how you feel in your body. 

• Why feeling comfortable in your own skin is a practice and not a destination. 

• Guidance on your own body image journey. 

This one hour webinar, Feeling Comfortable In Your Own Skin,  is free to attend. If you sign up and can’t attend in person, you can purchase the recording for $25. 

Sign up here:

Wednesday, July 27th at 5pm EST, 2pm PST

Thursday, July 28th at 12pm EST, 9am PST