That time LittleThings.com asked me about what it means to be body positive in Los Angeles...6/30/2016 I love helping women to feel better in their bodies. To love the skin they're in. But what does loving your body really mean? Does it mean you really have to love every bit unconditionally? Does it mean never having a negative thought about your body when you look in the mirror? No. Not really. I mean maybe one day. But loving your body is a daily practice. And it starts with acceptance. It also starts by talking about it with other women. Sharing our stories, our pain, our hurt, our shame, so that we can realize that every woman no matter what her size struggles to love her body. Yes every woman. Even that one you're thinking of right now. The one who you look at and think "If I could JUST look like her then I'll be beautiful". Well for the last year I've been hosting an in person coaching and connection group in my home called Body Love LA, and a website called littlethings.com asked my friend Ian Midgley, a documentary filmmaker, to do a piece about me and the group work I'm doing here in LA to help women accept and love their bodies in a city that makes it extra hard. You can read about and watch the piece here! And if you're interested in joining in the conversation and having opportunities to talk about and feel more empowered in your relationship with your body, your food, and your self, I invite you to join my new community - The Rebellious Eater - on Facebook where I'll be doing live streams and hosting online group discussions, as well as posting about local LA opportunities to be a part of the conversation.
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Three of my clients this month asked me about going on cleanses. All of them within a week of each other. Coincidence? I think not. In the typical health coach realm, this could be an exciting prospect, probably viewed as a win. “Yay! My clients are ready to eat better!” That’s good right? In this case, not really. Because eating better - or having a well-nourished body - isn’t what it this was really about. Not for my clients anyway. And probably not for a lot of people on cleanses in the months of May and June. These cleanses had nothing to do with eating better, but they had everything to do with summer being right around the corner and the fears coming up that their bodies aren’t perfect yet. … or about the messaging getting louder in the media that made them feel like their bodies were flawed and disgusting. … or because their butts didn’t look like the photoshopped bikini butts in sponsored posts on their newsfeed which even though they know are fake still manage to push the buttons installed so deeply by diet culture that they just can’t shake the thoughts of compare and despair. These cleanses were about going back to the default re-set button so they could feel some relief because the feelings of self-loathing, shame, and fear of food were so loud they just wanted to shut them up. And fast. I get it. I’ve been there. I repeated that pattern at least a hundred times from age 15 to age 30. And every. single. time. The same thing happened. I starved. I binged. I hated myself. My clients all struggle with loving their bodies. They have yo yo dieted or struggled with overeating for most of their teen through adult lives. They came to me to learn how to love themselves into sustainable weight loss and health. For these clients, crash cleanses were not in alignment with this goal. They were not about eating healthier or detoxing or resetting their palette. They were about dropping pounds and fast. Cleansing in this case was about crash-dieting. And crash dieting is not a sustainable or a self-loving strategy that will work in the long run. So what can they - and you - do instead? Here are a few things to start with...
If you are looking for a little extra help feeling body confident before the summer kicks into full gear, join me this Sunday the 12th in Eagle Rock for my monthly Body Love LA meetup (this month's topic...Beaches and Bikinis and Diets, oh my!) or on June 22nd as part of the Free the Nipple Yoga Workshop series.... And if you want to get deeper and transform your relationship with food, your body, and yourself, you can schedule a discovery call and discover the possibilities of what can happen when we work one-on-one! |
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