This is Why Positive Body Talk Isn’t Working for You..... try this instead

Body shame is so painful. And most people are experiencing it. It can feel like a heavy blanket that’s just hard to take off. You feel it when you see a picture of yourself from your recent weekend away. When you catch a glimpse of yourself in a reflection in a window. When you’re getting dressed in the morning. When you see a picture of a younger version of yourself. Or you notice a friend or co-worker that has a smaller body. 

It’s nearly impossible to escape when you hate your body and wish it were smaller, leaner and fitter. 

Of course you want to think positively about yourself. You wish you could say something like: I love my body just as it is. But saying that doesn’t feel true to you. Your whole being likely objects and your mind starts to negotiate with that statement. You may think, I’ll love my body when I lose x pounds. I’ll love my body when I can fit into those jeans. 

This is one of the reasons positive body talk doesn’t work for you. You don’t believe it. 

You may think, well, if I say enough positive things about my body, will I eventually believe that my body is worth loving? 

I’ll let you answer that. If you’ve tried it, has it improved your body image? Or, is it really hard to talk to yourself that way? 

In my experience, the most effective approach to working with negative self talk is to be a gentle witness to your thoughts. 

The reason this is effective: 

• It takes much less effort and energy and therefore it’s easier to practice. 

• You’re not creating an internal battle within yourself. 

• Where your focus goes, energy grows. When you become a gentle witness to these thoughts, you’re no longer fueling the painful thoughts. You can allow them to be just as they are. 

As if you're standing on a sidewalk and watching a car drive by, you notice these thoughts without any judgment of them. 

As you become a gentle witness, these thoughts no longer become personal. Saying “my body is disgusting.” can feel like a personal attack. But when you simply notice that thought, with the knowledge that every thought is not true, you can just let that thought be. It can feel the same as saying to yourself, “my shoe is untied” or “my hands are cold”. Thoughts can be neutral. And when they are neutral, they have no painful power over you.  

Thoughts only have power when we give them meaning. When you’re a gentle witness of your negative body talk, these thoughts can come to the surface, you can notice them, and then they pass. 

As you practice this over time, you’ll find that being a gentle witness takes less energy and time. 

The result: 

How you think and feel about your body changes, without your body changing at all. 

One Reason You Keep Dieting. Even When You Know Dieting Doesn’t Work.

This may be hard to hear. 

When I interviewed Virginia Sole-Smith on my Hungry: Trust Your Body. Free Your Mind podcast, she confessed something that I’ve heard before and I could personally relate to. 

She knew that diets didn’t work. But that didn’t stop her from trying to lose weight. She told herself that she'd be the exception. She would be the 5% (it’s well documented and researched that 95% of diets only lead to weight gain after 3 years). She wanted to be her own “after” picture. 

Virginia and I both talked about our determination. Our discipline. Our strong work ethic. 

We both concluded, without telling a soul, that we had what it took to lose weight and keep it off. 

Although it’s painful to admit, we considered ourselves not only to be the exception, but BETTER people than the vast majority of diet failures. 

And it’s not surprising that we held this belief.  Considering what we commonly hear from folks that just lost weight on a diet.  

If I can do this, you can too. 

It was hard for me at first, but it’s so worth it. 

My life has changed now that I’ve lost all of this weight. 

Diet culture tells us to be strong, hopeful and never to give up. 

Even when we understand science. Our body is designed to protect and defend its set point. Significant weight loss isn’t possible because our body will override any conscious decision-making and ensure that we eat by increasing our drive to eat and slowing our metabolism. 

We live in a world where we are told our body isn’t good enough. After all, a “perfect” body is reserved for a very small margin of folks. Six pack abs are rarely achievable without genetics, significant time and an army of resources. 

If you live in a body that’s not perfect, you’ve already been told you’re a failure. And who wants to be a failure? 

No one. Our one way of digging ourselves out of feeling like a failure is to be exceptional. 

We need to prove we aren’t a failure. We need to prove that diet, restriction and weight loss are something we can accomplish. 

Consider the popular, yet controversial reality TV show The Biggest Loser. An interesting play on words. Taken one way, each contestant is called a big loser. Or a fat failure.  Taken another way, the winner is the contest that lost the most weight. 

Do we need any other proof than that to summarize exactly how you may be feeling about your body weight? 

You may feel really trapped. You may NEED to prove your worth and without a diet and weight loss plan, you feel defeated because you’ll be stuck in a body that’s just wrong. 

Moving out of this trap takes a few steps. 

Understand the role diet culture has played in your belief that your body is wrong and that you need to fix it. 

Be open to the real science of setpoint. I wrote more about it here. Your body is brilliant at keeping itself in balance. 

It’s okay that you wanted to be the exception. You are exceptional. But you don’t need to lose weight to prove that to yourself or anyone else. 

Allow your body to take the lead. Start to be curious about its signals. With practice, you’ll eventually trust it to guide you and your health and well-being. 

You’ve Tried Everything To Stop Overeating

Except for this one thing that made a huge difference for me

I had a sugar hangover on most Monday mornings. Still filled from eating too much the night before. Still empty and hungry for something I couldn’t name.

My mind would be busy trying to figure out how to stop myself from overeating and losing control around food ever again. I’d tell myself, “If I could just fix this, everything else in my life would be better.”

Yet, a week would pass. A month. And many more. Despite all of my efforts and prayers, I couldn’t stop myself from doing what I kept doing week after week. And I tried everything. More diets. Calorie tracking. Nutritionists. Therapists. Mantras. Journaling.

There came a point when I knew that I had to try something new. I felt somewhat insane doing the same thing and expecting a different result. Here is what I did.

What’s happening now.

Chances are, you’re frustrated when you eat too much because you’re afraid of weight gain. You want to change your body and get healthier. Yet, overeating is painful because it’s getting in your way.

Overeating becomes an obstacle on your path, preventing you from getting to where you want to go.

The obstacle gets bigger and bigger because we create a lot of stories around overeating and what it means to have this problem. The first time you overate, it may have been a pebble. Now, after months or years of this pattern, it’s turned into a massive boulder.

A problem becomes a problem when we make it mean something.

Eating 10 Oreos has become a big deal. It’s personal. It means something about you, your value, and your character.

Consider an “I do this… because I’m…..” statement. For example, “I can’t stop overeating because I’m broken, and there is something wrong with me.” This may be a typical conversation you have in your mind.

Overeating is no longer about having a filled belly; it means something more. It can mean you’re broken, wrong, damaged, and have no willpower.

Overeating becomes a personal attack.

Explore how you’re making overeating a problem in your mind. Consider questions like these:

When you just ate that second bowl of ice cream, what did you say to yourself about yourself?

What does it mean about yourself that you ate more than what your body needs?

What does overeating say about you, your character, your health, and your body?

Stepping around the obstacle.

Overeating isn’t the problem. The problem is how you’re thinking about overeating. Feeling broken is the real problem.

This is why you may feel stuck. Your focus and attention have stayed on the same internal conversation.

You’ve been pouring your energy into trying to fix the problem the same way over and over.

Without the narrative around what it means to overeat, you can look at your patterns with food with fresh eyes. Overeating will no longer be an obstacle that’s in your way.

Examining why you feel damaged and believing weight loss will fix that is the real work. But let’s put that aside for now.

A new approach.

When I stopped focusing on stopping myself from overeating and started focusing on tuning into my body, my binging quietly and unceremoniously slowed down and eventually stopped.

Give yourself permission to let go of the stories and beliefs that have made overeating significant to you.

When these patterns are no longer personal, you’ll change your focus and attention to make the changes you desire in your relationship with food.

How To Let Go of Perfectionism With Food

There was a time in my life when every morning, my first thought was, “I want to have a perfect day with food.” It was part mantra, part prayer.

I was trying to use sheer will to eat the right foods and avoid the wrong ones. I hoped that if I asked God, the universe, or anyone or anything that was listening to my wish, they would help me.

Are you trying to have a perfect day with food?

You don’t need to be on an official diet to be trying to eat perfectly. If you’re trying to lose weight and get healthy, you have a pretty good idea of what foods you should be eating and which ones you shouldn’t.

It’s common to adopt an internal diet voice, which is that little voice that is constantly monitoring what you’re eating and telling you that you’re being good or you’re being bad.

When you’re trying to be perfect, it means that you’re trying to be 100% compliant when following food rules and never break a single one of them.

Yet, let’s look at what happens when you’re trying to be perfect.

The day starts perfectly.

It always does. And then, as the day goes on, life happens. You get an unexpected call from the kid’s school. You have one of those uncomfortable conversations with a family member. You receive an unexpected bill and worry about money.

Or, you drive by your favorite bakery. You go to a networking event that’s serving cookies or muffins and you think, just one won’t hurt.

Life happens. Everyday life with stressors, discomfort, surprises, ups, and downs. And, food, which is just a part of life, happens to be around and available.

The moment you take one bite, your perfect day just disappears. In the blink of an eye, or one small bite.

One bite makes the day wrong.

You’ve already blown it. Like a switch that got flipped, you can’t have a perfect day with food. Who cares? You mine as well eat what you want. So you’ll eat the bad and forbidden foods that you’re not allowing yourself to eat on a perfect day.

After all, tomorrow will be different. Tomorrow, you’ll start again.

But there is something else. You don’t get to just eat what you want without paying a price. You’ll go off the rails, but you won’t do it without feeling guilty and ashamed about what you’re eating.

When you’re not doing it perfectly, you’re feeling bad about yourself.

The embarrassment and shame of eating so badly feels so dark and uncomfortable. You wish you could hide and maybe even disappear. But you can’t.

You may even wonder if something is wrong with you. “Why do I eat like this?” “Why can’t I stop myself from this madness?”

You can only try to hide the disappointment in yourself. And the best way to do that is with redemption.

The only way to feel better is to promise yourself that tomorrow will be different.

A contract is made. You know you can’t do anything about how you ate today, but you can eat perfectly tomorrow. You’ll pay the price, you know you will. The promise of tomorrow is like a glimmer of light that pulls you through.

It even gives you a little lift of optimism. When the sun rises, you’ll get a fresh start. You go to bed with a clear plan on how to be perfect with food and a glimmer of hope in your heart.

The next day starts perfectly. Because it always does.

And the pattern repeats like Groundhog Day.

The destructive cycle of trying to be perfect with food only gives you shame and self-doubt. And, the ironic part is that you’re likely overeating foods that don’t feel great in your body.

Trying to be perfect around food is a lose-lose. You’re working so hard to attain the unattainable.

There is no such thing as perfect eating when you’re trying to eat to someone else’s perfect standards. It’s impossible.

And, because human bodies won’t tolerate food restriction (mentally or physically), it will retaliate and override your desires for perfection. Overeating and binge eating is inevitable.

But more importantly, feeling so much shame and embarrassment is not healthy. You deserve to feel good in your body and have confidence in your food choices.

Perfectionism is getting in the way of true health and vitality.

Start to notice how the destructive cycle of your attempts at perfect eating is impacting your mental and emotional health. Your well-being isn’t worth sacrificing.

Create a new, kinder standard for yourself around food. Nourishing yourself in alignment with your values around your health and how you want to live your life.

When you start to feel that shame and embarrassment, instead of reacting by restricting more, ease up. Be compassionate as you practice forgiveness.

Gently start to give yourself permission to replace perfectionism (and the need to follow external rules) with listening to your body and your inner guidance.

It’s okay to let go of needing to be perfect around food.

It may be scary as you start to let go of perfectionism around food. You may be believing that rigidity is required to keep you in control. I get that.

As you explore this pattern for yourself, and start listening to the signals your body is sharing with you, you’ll discover that you can trust yourself around food. That’s a pattern worth repeating over and over again.

Your Business Needs a Morning Routine That Works for You

It’s never about doing what you’re supposed to do

Your morning routine is more than just starting your day right — it’s about aligning yourself with your business.

We all know that successful people have a morning routine. Oprah. Brene Brown. Michelle Obama. They meditate. They walk in nature.

This may inspire you to follow suit. I know that thinking. “If I do what they do, maybe I’ll get more of what they have.”

Hal Elrod’s Morning Miracle introduced me to start my day with an intentional daily practice. Before then, I was doing some of the right things. You know those things — meditate, yoga, workout.

I was fairly consistent, sitting on my meditation cushion for the minimal amount of time I thought was acceptable. I got to a yoga class a few times a week. I’d squeeze in a workout. I’d keep a journal on my bedside table, and would connect the pen to paper before I’d fall asleep at night if I wasn’t too exhausted.

These felt like a chore. It took a lot of effort for me to do these things. I felt bad when I conveniently forgot to meditate. Or skipped a workout.

I Started Letting Go…

And then something happened. I gave myself permission to stop doing what I thought I was supposed to do.

I stopped practicing yoga. Which is funny to admit since I’m a yoga teacher. I couldn’t force myself to unroll my mat and do one more Downward-Facing Dog pose.

I stopped working out to just get a sweat in. I’ve run marathons, loved intense, dripping sweat workouts. But my body was achy and tired. Forcing it to move fast and hard wasn’t fun. So I slowed down.

I did keep meditating. But only for 5 minutes. Long gone were the days when I sat for 20, 30, or even 40 minutes (this was a brief period, by the way). 5 minutes was all I could take. So I did do that.

And I did it as guilt-free as I possibly could.

And Realigned With My Business and Me

I was letting myself discover who I was as a human being if I wasn’t an accountant or a yoga teacher.

It’s not surprising that these behind-the-scenes shifts were happening in parallel with the transition of my businesses. I was letting go of my accounting business so I could spend 100% of my time and energy in my intuitive eating and transformational coaching business.

I wasn’t just letting my yoga practice and my accounting business go, I was letting myself discover who I was as a human being if I wasn’t an accountant or a yoga teacher.

When I stopped ‘shoulding’ myself, I was embarking on a process of discovering something new. All of this felt uncomfortable and uncertain. And necessary.

Like a new friend, I was getting to know myself. Something new was emerging inside of me.

I started to align with my business and discovered a morning practice that worked for me.

Here Are Some Ways To Try This Out for Yourself

This process took some time. As a business owner, I invite you to consider a few things I did.

1. I got clear around how I wanted to feel every day. I want to feel energized and connected to my creativity. I want to feel light and present.

2. I understood why feeling this way was so important to me. When I feel grounded, I’m available to my clients in the best way I can be. When I’m energized, I write my best content and create programs that I’m excited about offering.

3. I noticed how each practice made my body feel before, during, and after I did it. I feel so calm after my new yoga routine. I love walking and so does my body.

4. I dedicated myself to my morning routine. I schedule the time in my calendar so that it doesn’t get tossed aside in the busyness of my day.

5. I’m open to changing my routine when it no longer works for me. I know that my needs change over time and I expect my morning routine to change too.

The more personal our business is to us, the more our business needs our presence and energy.

It doesn’t take discipline to follow through with a routine that feels warm and welcoming.

Closing Notes

Create a daily morning practice that includes stillness, reflection, movement, and fresh air, and notice how the more you’re connected with yourself, the more you will thrive in your business.

I encourage you to dive in and enjoy this magical process of letting go and self-discovery!

How To Be More Compassionate With Yourself Around Food

Because the conversations you’re having with yourself matter. A lot.

We have conversations in our minds all of the time, often without noticing them. More often than not, the conversations we have with ourselves today are the same ones we had yesterday.

And the day before.

And the day before that.

When it comes to your relationship with food, these conversations play a critical role. You’re already having a conversation in your mind around food. They may sound like this:
“Today will be different. I’ll eat the right things and not overeat.”
“I’ve got this, today I won’t eat too many carbs.”
“I’m going to the gym today to burn off those calories from yesterday.”

These conversations may sound beneficial on the surface, but if you consider the words more carefully, you’ll notice these words may not be helpful at all.

You’re trying to stay in control. You’re trying to be disciplined. You’re not trusting yourself around certain foods. These conversations are really weapons as you continue to fight yourself around food.

Stop Fighting With Yourself Around Food

Fighting with yourself around food takes a lot of energy. Our desire for weight loss often means we’re restricting and dieting, which creates a cycle of deprivation. Our bodies aren’t designed to tolerate deprivation, which is why you likely overeat and binge. You’re not doing anything wrong, it’s the mechanism of dieting that’s making your body react the way it is.

Conversations that encourage more restriction and compliance aren’t kind and certainly don’t fuel a healthy relationship with food.

What’s the Best Way To Avoid This Endless Fight?

Start with noticing these conversations.

Which may be challenging. The dialogue has been there for so long and shows up on the daily, you’re likely not even distinguishing it as something harmful.

The conversations in my mind had me waking dutifully at 5:30 and into my running shoes. I needed to burn the calories from the day before. Today needed to be different.

While pounding the pavement, I’d often rethink and beat myself up for what I ate the day before.
“Why did I eat that bagel? I shouldn’t have eaten that ice cream last night. I’d finish my run with a plan. More salad. More discipline.” I told myself, “I’ve got this. Today would indeed be different.”

But that never happened. It was always Groundhog Day all over again.

This is why I want to offer you a new conversation to have with yourself.

“I Give Myself Permission To…”

One of my favorite phrases opens up a new way to be around food, with more kindness and compassion — “I give myself permission….”

Instead of forcing yourself into being disciplined and compliant, consider how you can give yourself permission to:

• Listen to your body.

• Recognize your hunger and nourish yourself when your body is eager for food.

• Rest.

• Give yourself a break from work.

• Walk instead of run.

New Possibilities

You may be labeling how you eat in one of two ways; good or bad. Yet, when you start having a gentler conversation with yourself, you’ll start caring for yourself differently. You may notice your own willingness to prioritize simple needs, like rest and adequate nourishment.

Go ahead, give yourself permission. After all, you’re the only one who can.

Healing Your Relationship With Food Starts With Accepting Where You Are

You’re exactly where you’re meant to be, even when you don’t like it

“I just need to get through this.”

“If I could just figure this one problem out, my life will get better.”

“I’ll do things differently tomorrow.”

This is the language of wishing and hoping our life will change. And we all want something different, don’t we?

If you’re like my clients and want to change your relationship with food, you may say things like:

• “I just need to stop overeating.“

• “If I could just figure out why I’m so out of control around food, my life will get better.”

• “I’ll eat better tomorrow.”

Let’s consider Donna. Donna’s freakin’ exhausted by her relationship with food. She binged on tortilla chips last night and hated how her body felt when she went to bed.

Donna woke up this morning with fresh resolve. She promised herself that today would be different. Yet by mid-afternoon, she was so hungry that she couldn’t stop herself from overeating.

Familiar painful patterns get the best of us. We stay in them, hoping and wishing for them to change.

If you can relate, I’d like for you to consider one universal truth:

You are exactly where you’re meant to be.

That includes Donna. As frustrated as she may be.

We fight, we argue, we wish and we hope our problems away. Does that ever help us make a change?

We hate our problems

Our problems don’t feel good. They’re painful. Your overstuffed belly hurts. When you don’t like how your clothes fit, the heaviness of shame makes you want to hide safely under the covers.

It’s not just the problem we hate, we judge ourselves for having these problems. You may not even realize you’re doing this. It may happen so naturally.

Start to notice how you talk to yourself about your relationship with food and your body. Words like “I should!”, “Why this?!”, and “If only!” are typical ways we judge ourselves.

When we are so busy judging and criticizing ourselves for our problems, it’s difficult to move ourselves to a place where we can entertain a new solution. All of our energy is so focused on what’s wrong, we don’t have the capacity or headspace to consider how to move in a new direction.

Recognizing that you’re exactly where you’re meant to be means you can stop fighting with yourself around your problem.

Can you feel the relief in that?

We’re afraid that if we accept our problems then our problems won’t change

Many of us are under the misconception that guilt is a motivator. The thinking goes that If we feel ashamed enough by our actions, then we will be driven to change them.

Is the whipping of a stick ever motivating?

Chances are, no. The carrot, in essence, acceptance, is a true motivator.

When you feel the shift of knowing you’re exactly where you’re meant to be, you’ll offer yourself more compassion.

Guilt is part of an old paradigm. It’s time to let it go. Solving your problems can come from a motivation fueled by kindness.

We can accept our problems and still want them to change

Consider you’re going on a long road trip. When you load your destination into your favorite GPS app, the first thing it does is determine your starting point.

Without acknowledging where you’re starting, how do you know how to go where you want to go?

By accepting what your relationship with food is right now, without judgment, you can acknowledge it fully. How have your current patterns with food benefited you? How have they hurt you?

As you consider ‘your problem’ from all angles, it may not be quite the problem you thought it was. As you accept what’s been painful, you may start to see how many unmet needs these patterns have tried to meet.

By definition, you are where you’re meant to be. Simply because you are. Arguing with this truth is arguing with reality. When we know in our heart of hearts that we are exactly where we are meant to be, we can let our patterns, situations, or circumstances just be.

What opens up for you when you’re no longer blaming yourself for your problems? When you don’t need guilt to motivate you? When you can do two things at once, accept your patterns AND choose to change them?

Let this new energy move through you. Let it move you forward.

Because, at this moment, you’re exactly where you need to be.