Tiny Buddha

Tag: diet

  • How to Enjoy Food and Feel Good in Your Skin

    How to Enjoy Food and Feel Good in Your Skin

    Have you ever felt like fat and food were your enemies? Like everything would be better if you could just lose weight—and eat whatever you want without consequence?

    I felt that way for much of my childhood and teens, when unresolved trauma and low self-esteem led to a long battle with food and my body.

    I struggled with bulimia for over a decade, starting at twelve. And though I technically “recovered” in my early twenties, I spent years after trapped in rigid food rules and a lingering fear of eating the “wrong” thing.

    It wasn’t until my thirties that I finally felt free with food and truly comfortable in my own skin.

    So many of us struggle with food in ways that profoundly affect our lives.

    We eat to numb, then restrict to “make up” for it. We obsess over every bite, or we check out entirely. We feel ashamed of our habits, uncomfortable in our bodies, and unsure how to break the cycle.

    And the worst part? It can completely consume our lives.

    When food feels like a source of stress, it’s hard to be fully present. It’s hard to feel confident. It’s hard to enjoy much of anything.

    But when you change your relationship with food—when eating feels enjoyable, your body feels like home, and you’re not constantly judging yourself—everything gets better. Your energy, your self-esteem, your day-to-day happiness.

    Since I’ve lived both sides of this struggle, I’m passionate about sharing tools and teachers who help people find that same freedom. And it’s why I’m excited to introduce (or reintroduce) you to Jules Clancy, one of Tiny Buddha’s earliest contributors (from 2011) and this month’s sponsor.

    Jules is a former food scientist turned health coach who’s dealt with binge eating herself, so she understands both the biology and the emotional side of food struggles. She’s offering a free 31-minute training called:

    The Secret to Eating What You Want AND Feeling Good in Your Clothes

    In this short but powerful workshop, Jules shares:

    • The 3 essential skills for a naturally healthy relationship with food
    • 6 sneaky reasons past efforts haven’t worked (so you can do things differently now)
    • The 3 phases of healthy eating (so you know what you’re working toward)
    • A surprisingly simple, non-restrictive approach to nutrition
    • And a small, doable first step to help you eat with more ease and enjoyment

    Jules’ approach is warm, down-to-earth, and backed by both science and experience. And while she offers a paid program as well, the free training alone is incredibly insightful and actionable.

    If food has been a source of guilt or stress and you’re ready to feel calm and confident instead, I highly recommend checking out the free webinar.

    You can sign up for instant access here.

    I hope it’s helpful to you!

  • How I Learned to Love the (Aging) Girl in the Mirror

    How I Learned to Love the (Aging) Girl in the Mirror

    The most profound personal growth happens when we stop running from our pain and start listening to what it’s trying to teach us.

    For years, I didn’t recognize the woman staring back at me in the mirror.

    Her body felt foreign—betraying her with weight she couldn’t lose, hot flashes that set her skin on fire, and exhaustion so deep, it felt like her soul was crumbling. Her mind, once sharp and confident, was now clouded with doubt, anxiety, and brain fog so thick she could barely think.

    But the hardest part?

    She didn’t just feel different. She felt invisible.

    I was that woman.

    A pharmacist. A mother. A wife. A woman who had spent decades helping others navigate their health, only to find myself drowning in my own. I was in my forties, staring down the barrel of perimenopause, but I didn’t know that at the time. All I knew was that my body was breaking down, my emotions were unraveling, and no one—not even my doctors—could tell me why.

    So, like any overwhelmed, desperate woman, I did what I thought I was supposed to do.

    I went to my doctor.

    And, like so many women before me, I left with a handful of prescriptions that did nothing but mask my symptoms and a vague, dismissive diagnosis:

    “You’re just getting older. It’s normal. You’ll be fine.”

    But I wasn’t fine. And I knew, deep down, that this wasn’t just “aging.”

    That was the moment I realized: If I wanted answers, I was going to have to find them myself.

    Breaking Up with the Lies I Believed About Myself

    It took years for me to unlearn what I had been taught about women’s health.

    I was a pharmacist, after all. I had spent my entire career dispensing medications, trusting the guidelines, believing that if something was truly wrong, there would be a pill to fix it.

    But what I never learned in pharmacy school was how to truly heal.

    That healing doesn’t come in a prescription bottle. That it isn’t about “powering through” or “sucking it up.”

    It’s about listening to your body instead of fighting against it.

    And that meant I had to start seeing my body, not as something that was failing me, but as something that was trying to speak to me.

    The weight gain? That was my body saying, “Something isn’t right. Pay attention.”

    The hot flashes? “Your hormones are shifting. Don’t ignore me.”

    The anxiety and depression? “Your body is in survival mode. Let’s figure out why.”

    For the first time in my life, I stopped fighting myself.

    I started learning about functional medicine, hormone balance, and the intricate ways our bodies change as we age. I discovered that perimenopause wasn’t just “the beginning of the end” but a crucial transition that—if supported properly—could actually lead to my healthiest, most vibrant years.

    I realized that hormones rule everything, and when they’re out of balance, nothing works the way it should.

    But more than that, I started to see how deeply my self-worth was tied to my physical body.

    I thought if I gained weight, I was less valuable.

    I thought if I struggled, I was weak.

    I thought if I couldn’t figure it out, I was failing.

    I had to break up with those beliefs.

    The Hardest (and Most Important) Lesson

    The hardest part of my healing journey wasn’t changing my diet, adjusting my lifestyle, or even balancing my hormones.

    It was learning to love the girl in the mirror again.

    Not just when she looked “good.”

    Not just when she felt confident.

    Not just when she fit into her favorite jeans.

    But when she was struggling.

    When she was exhausted.

    When she was bloated, broken out, and sobbing on the bathroom floor because she felt like she was losing herself.

    Because the truth is, healing doesn’t start with a diet plan or a hormone protocol. Healing starts when you decide you are worthy of feeling better. And that means learning to love yourself—even when you don’t feel lovable.

    Even when your body is changing.

    Even when your energy is gone.

    Even when your reflection doesn’t match the way you feel inside.

    Because you are not broken.

    And menopause? Perimenopause? The hormonal rollercoaster that makes you feel like you’re losing your mind?

    It’s not the end of you.

    It’s the beginning of a new version of you. A wiser, bolder, stronger you. A version that doesn’t shrink herself for others. A version that doesn’t put herself last. A version that knows she is still powerful, radiant, and worthy—at any age.

    And when you finally see her—really see her—you’ll never let her go again.

    If You’re Struggling Right Now, Read This

    If you are sitting in your car after a doctor’s appointment where they dismissed your symptoms…

    If you are staring at your reflection, feeling like a stranger in your own skin…

    If you are exhausted, overwhelmed, and wondering if you will ever feel like yourself again…

    Please hear me when I say:

    There is hope. You are not crazy. You are not imagining things. Your body is speaking to you, and it’s time to start listening.

    Do the research.

    Ask the hard questions.

    Get the right testing.

    Eat the foods that fuel you.

    Move your body in ways that bring you joy.

    But most of all, love yourself through it.

    Because this is not the end.

    It’s just the beginning.

    And you, dear, are just getting started.

    And that is how I started learning to love the girl in the mirror.

  • A New Understanding of True Health: 6 Practical Tips

    A New Understanding of True Health: 6 Practical Tips

    “Your body is precious. It is your vehicle for awakening. Treat it with care.” ~Buddha

    For years, I thought I was healthy. I was eating what I thought was a “balanced” diet, working out regularly (mostly cardio and HIIT), and I felt like I was ticking all the boxes for self-care. On the surface, everything seemed fine. I thought I had health all figured out.

    But the truth is, I wasn’t actually healthy. I was caught up in a cycle of restriction and over-exercise, trying to make my body fit a version of health that wasn’t serving me. I was punishing my body, not nourishing it. And it wasn’t until I hit a breaking point that I finally started to question everything I thought I knew about health and well-being.

    The Illusion of “Being Healthy”

    Growing up, like most, I was surrounded by diet culture. Thinness was celebrated, and I was constantly told that my worth was tied to how I looked. I learned to equate “health” with being skinny, and any deviation from that ideal felt like failure.

    This mindset became a driving force in my life. I believed I had to earn my self-worth through extreme exercise and rigid food control. It wasn’t just about being healthy—it was about fitting into a certain mold. My body became a project, something to be molded, shaped, and controlled rather than something to be nurtured and cared for.

    I spent a lot of time believing I was healthy because I was always doing the “right things”—working out and eating “clean.” But I wasn’t really paying attention to how I felt. Cardio and random gym sessions were my go-to, and I never took any days off. The goal was always to burn calories, not to feel strong or energized. I thought that the more I exercised and the fewer calories I ate, the healthier I would become.

    And when it came to food, I was equally obsessed with control. I counted every calorie, avoided anything “bad,” and felt guilty every time I ate something that wasn’t on my list of approved foods. I never went out to eat, as it gave me too much anxiety. I wasn’t eating to nourish my body; I was eating to control it.

    Despite all these so-called “healthy” habits, I was exhausted. I was drained all the time, despite my best efforts to fuel myself with “good” food and work out regularly. My body was telling me something was off, but I wasn’t listening.

    The Wake-Up Call: Realizing I Wasn’t Truly Healthy

    The turning point came once I realized I was still unhappy with my body, even after pushing it to its limits. I had finally found myself in a healthy relationship, yet I was still trying to make myself as small as possible.

    That’s when it hit me: I wasn’t truly taking care of my body. I was pushing it too hard with exercise and restricting the food I ate, trying to mold it into some version of myself I thought was “healthy.”

    It was clear: Health isn’t about being obsessed with calories burned or how little I can eat. It’s about taking care of yourself holistically, nourishing your body, and respecting its signals.

    Strength Training: The Empowerment I Was Looking For

    Once I realized something had to change, I decided to shake up my routine. I swapped my hours of cardio for strength training with a plan. I was always under the impression that weightlifting would make me bulky, but I realized it was exactly what I had been missing. I wasn’t just exercising to burn calories or eating to punish myself—I was exercising and eating to become stronger, to take up space.

    Strength training taught me something profound: It’s not about punishing your body to fit into some ideal. It’s about building your body’s power and resilience, which translates to feeling stronger, more confident, and energized. I was working to feel strong and capable rather than just lean or toned. It wasn’t about what I looked like but how I felt in my own skin.

    As I started lifting weights, I noticed a huge shift. I felt more empowered. I was proud of my progress. Every time I got stronger, I felt more in tune with my body. I realized that true health comes from building resilience, not burning out.

    Nourishing My Body, Not Punishing It

    The next major shift for me was with food. I had spent so long treating food like the enemy—avoiding it, restricting it, and feeling guilty when I ate something “bad.” But I soon realized that nourishing my body was not about deprivation. It was about fueling it with the right nutrients to support my strength and energy.

    I started to focus on eating foods that made me feel good: healthy fats, lean proteins, complex carbs, and plenty of veggies. I stopped counting calories and started listening to my body. I ate when I was hungry and stopped when I was full, without guilt or shame.

    For the first time, food became a tool for nourishment, not something to control or punish myself with. I stopped labeling foods as “good” or “bad” and instead focused on what fueled my workouts, gave me energy, and helped me feel my best. Nourishing my body became a form of self-love.

    A New Understanding of True Health

    Looking back, I understand that true health isn’t about fitting into a particular mold or following strict rules. It’s not about punishing your body with excessive cardio or restricting what you eat. True health is about building a sustainable, balanced lifestyle that allows your body to thrive—physically, mentally, and emotionally.

    I thought I was healthy when I was obsessing over calories and pushing myself to exhaustion with cardio, but I was missing the bigger picture. Real health comes from nourishing your body, moving in ways that empower you, and caring for yourself with kindness and respect.

    Practical Tips for Shifting Toward True Health

    If you find yourself in a similar cycle of over-exercising, restricting food, and feeling drained, here are some tips to help you shift toward a more balanced approach.

    1. Focus on strength, not just cardio.

    If you’ve been stuck in a cardio-only routine, try adding two thirty-minute sessions of strength training per week. It doesn’t have to be intimidating. Start with bodyweight exercises or dumbbells and gradually increase the challenge as you build strength.

    2. Nourish your body.

    Shift your focus from restriction to nourishment. Eat foods that make you feel energized and strong—whole foods that support your body’s needs, like lean proteins, healthy fats, and lots of vegetables.

    3. Move with purpose.

    Instead of overdoing cardio, choose movements that make you feel good. Strength training, yoga, walking, swimming, or even dancing are great ways to stay active without overstressing your body.

    4. Let go of perfection.

    Health isn’t about being perfect; it’s about balance. Don’t stress about eating the “right” foods all the time or burning as many calories as you can. Focus on what makes you feel good and sustainable in the long run.

    5. Listen to your body.

    Your body is your guide. Pay attention to its signals. Eat when you’re hungry, move with purpose, and rest when you need to. Trust that your body knows what it needs to be healthy.

    6. Allow yourself to rest.

    Rest is just as important as movement. Don’t skip it! Your body needs time to recover and rebuild strength. Allow yourself to rest and recover without guilt.

  • 8 Compelling Reasons to Adopt a Whole Food Diet

    8 Compelling Reasons to Adopt a Whole Food Diet

    “The food you eat can be either the safest and most powerful form of medicine or the slowest form of poison.” ~Ann Wigmore

    Why aren’t we taught optimal nutrition in school as adolescents?

    I remember briefly learning about the food pyramid, which doesn’t even include water, by the way.

    Do you want to know what I vividly remember? Growing up during the peak of diet culture, when models and actresses who were unrealistically skinny were the only ones who were considered pretty or good enough.

    My dad died from a heart attack at age forty, and my single mother was always on the newest diet pill and didn’t cook much. I was under the impression that the only way to be valued in this world was to eat as little as possible to be as skinny as possible.

    In seventh grade, I started to obsess over cardio and barely ate 1,000 calories, yet no one flagged this as a potential disorder. This continued throughout high school and got so intense that I couldn’t walk because my stress fractures and the shin splints in my legs were so severe.

    Looking back, I’m almost certain that this lack of proper nutrition played a role in my extreme anxiety and depression. But of course, the root cause was never addressed; I was just put on a different medication.

    I remember sitting in one of UW-Madison’s largest lecture halls during my freshman year with obsessive thoughts over how much I hated my body. Focus wasn’t one of my strong suits.

    Yet, I was still operating on less than 1,000 calories a day—eating a serving of vegetables per day and the occasional granola bar. Of course, I was consuming most of my calories in vodka sodas. Poison.

    I tell you all of this to paint the picture of how improper nourishment can spiral out of control for years and can lead to physical and mental ailments. If only our education system valued teaching our children how critical nutrition is for the body and mind.

    It wasn’t until I started making my nutrition and health truly a priority back in 2021 that my life started to flourish.

    So how can we be better for our partner, our future kids, nieces and nephews, and grandchildren? It starts with being intentional about the foods and drinks we are putting into our bodies. It starts with nourishing the one body in this lifetime that we get.

    It starts with educating ourselves so that we can create sustainable nutrition transformations for ourselves and our families. It starts with supporting local farmers and cooking seasonally when given the chance. It starts with including our children in the kitchen to show them the importance of whole foods since their schools won’t.

    I’m not here to tell you what diet you should be abiding by or what foods you should be eating. But I am here to tell you the facts about how focusing on whole foods can nourish your body and mind from the inside out, leading to desirable physical and mental outcomes.

    What are whole foods anyway? Whole foods consist of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes.

    Here are eight benefits of changing to a whole food diet.

    1. Whole foods are rich in fiber and phytonutrients.

    Fiber can decrease your risk of cardiovascular disease, help you manage diabetes, and keep you fuller for longer. Fiber has also been shown to lower cholesterol levels. Phytonutrients contain vitamins and minerals that contain antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties and can help the body fight off free radicals.

    2. Whole foods are energy-dense.

    Energy-dense foods meet the energy needs of our bodies, without causing discomfort. This supports athletes looking to build fat-free mass. Additionally, energy-dense foods contribute to more energy.

    3. Whole foods provide nutrient synergy in the body.

    Nutrients from whole foods are more readily absorbed by the body, as many foods contain nutrients that complement one another. For example, vitamin C works to absorb iron from plant-based foods, such as spinach. The next time you eat spinach, try adding in some lemon for optimal absorption!

    4. Whole foods regulate blood sugar levels.

    Because whole foods do not contain added sugars and have fiber, the body digests the food slower, which enables a more gradual rise in blood sugar levels after a meal. Goodbye, sugar crash!

    5. Whole foods aren’t created in a lab.

    As if you needed another reason to want to consume more whole foods, to state the obvious, processed foods are NOT GOOD FOR US! Foods created in a lab are made with many artificial ingredients and additives including salt, sugar, and unhealthy fats, which can contribute to inflammation in the body and chronic illness.

    6. Whole foods can add years to your life.

    When you eat a diet consisting of predominately whole foods, your chances of chronic illness are lower. Did you know that six in ten adults have one chronic illness, and four in ten adults have two or more chronic illnesses?

    7. Whole foods can fit into any budget.

    Frozen and canned whole foods are a great, low-cost option that has been proven to be as nutritious as fresh fruits and vegetables, as their nutrient content is preserved when frozen.

    8. Whole foods can improve your mental health.

    Nutritional deficiencies have been linked to symptoms of depression, anxiety, dementia, etc. The brain consumes 20% of your daily caloric intake and relies predominately on carbohydrates, which are converted to glucose, which is the brain’s primary source of energy.

    Have you ever heard someone say, “I don’t like vegetables” or “Vegetables taste bad?” This is because of their comparison to processed foods, which cause similar levels of dopamine in the brain as addictive substances such as alcohol.

    But when we start eating a diet rich in whole foods, our dopamine levels become more stable and regulated, so we feel better without needing a processed food ‘fix.’

    Let’s start savoring each bite of the whole foods on our plate, knowing that the nutrient composition is working in our bodies to protect and serve us medicinally. I urge you to see if there are any community-supported agriculture (CSA) shares available near you, to support local farmers, and to eat more nutritious foods. Or look for a farmer’s market near you!

    Even if you still include processed foods in your diet, swapping some for whole food options can be life-changing, physically and mentally.

    Let’s stop poisoning ourselves and start healing ourselves.

  • How I Ditched Alcohol (Again) and Lost 30 Pounds

    How I Ditched Alcohol (Again) and Lost 30 Pounds

    “Setbacks are simply reminders.” ~Alison Schuh Hawsey

    The nightly wine was back. This time with a vengeance.

    It began in late October, when I was happily organizing the bathroom of my new home. The phone rang, and everything changed. My beloved friend/soulmate/ex-boyfriend/twin flame was in the hospital. Three days later, he passed over the veil.

    This was also the day I began completely giving up on any continuation of clean eating, drinking, and living. That evening, I downed three dirty martinis on an empty stomach after a long spell of not drinking. Throwing up in my driveway was a new low. Soon after, my dear friend Kristen helped me to bed.

    For the next several months, a ritual evolved. I would pop into the grocery store around 5 p.m. to buy one—just one—bottle of wine. I had no interest in the 10% savings on a case because I clung to the hope that tomorrow would be different. Tomorrow, I would be strong enough to manage the emotional pain without wine.

    Alcohol for me was a choice. I wasn’t an alcoholic, but I was someone who abused it when my emotions were too much, or to celebrate, or to alleviate my social anxiety, or simply when I was bored.

    More than a year went by.

    About fifteen months later, my father, days before passing over the veil himself, commented, “You need to cut your hair… and you drink too much.”

    Humbling, to say the least.

    Looking back, I was lost, depressed, and the heaviest I had ever been. I no longer fit into the “regular”-sized clothing and had to venture into the plus department. I hopped on the scale at my parents’ house, and the number was so shocking I couldn’t even cry. So I laughed.

    That was a turning point for me. I let go of the guilt and embarrassment when people did a double take after not seeing me for a while. I let go of the shame that erupted when friends and loved ones had heart-to-hearts with me about how worried they were.

    I knew the forty pounds, inflammation, achy joints, low energy, lack of productivity, anxiety, and depression were completely blocking my intuition, connection, and contentment.

    The most ironic part was that only three years earlier, I had created my own program to help other people drink less.

    Who was I? How had I lost track of myself? When would this cycle end?

    Then, of course, like any synchronicity, she popped in unexpectedly.

    By “she,” I am referring to Elegant Evelyn.

    My muse was born several years earlier, as I sat at my kitchen table with a notebook writing down the names of people I admired. As I listed their favorite qualities, I began to cry. Many of these people had passed over, yet I could feel them right there with me.

    I now understand that this deeply emotional and personal moment was the gift of a lifetime. The qualities in my notebook were also hibernating within me, ready to burst forth like the first flowers of spring. Just as rain births the first vibrant daffodils and fragrant hyacinths, my tears bring forth my muse.

    Just like magic, the name “Elegant Evelyn” sang through my ears and heart.

    The name came from my grandmother’s best friend, who was also my mother’s godmother. While I didn’t know her well, I admired her from afar.

    Evelyn was the closest thing to Coco Chanel in my small hometown. As she served scrumptious appetizers on silver platters at her parties, I would admire her chic way of dressing, the way she held herself, how she spoke, how she ate, how she made others feel comfortable, and, of course, her fabulous way of decorating.

    Years later, when she was ill, I had a vivid dream. Evelyn in capri pants, ballet slippers, striped boatneck top, floppy hat, and her signature red lipstick. Riding a bike with a baguette and bouquet of flowers in the basket. As she rode in front of me, she smiled, waved, and cheerfully said, “I’ll see you soon!”

    The next morning, I woke and shared the dream with my mom. She replied, “Meg, she passed over last night.”

    That dream and the inspiration she evoked within me stayed tucked away for years, just like a valuable and delicate gift waiting to be opened at the perfect time.

    When my life, body, work, home, intuition, and sense of spiritual connection were at their lowest, Elegant Evelyn came knocking, and thank goodness I answered.

    Channeling her, I was able to slowly turn the ship of my life in the right direction. It’s a never-ending journey, but the ship is no longer sinking.

    I owe everything to her, or, in essence, I owe everything to myself.

    There are parts within you that are begging to be unwrapped in your life. Perhaps you feel a sense of embarrassment thinking about being the person you daydream about being.

    Please believe me when I share that playing dress up as your muse is not pretending to be someone else. It is, in fact, coming home to yourself.

    How Does One Craft Their Muse?

    Imagination. Tap into your creative self and daydream like you did as a child. What would make your heart sing, and, most importantly, who must you become to allow the space for your heart to sing the song?

    How Does One Learn from Their Muse?

    Channeling. Once you have an image of your muse and a name, ask them to work through you. You can do this by asking them questions and journaling the answers, or by simply standing in your closet and connecting with them on what to wear. Walk into your kitchen and ask them what feels good to eat! Soon, you will begin to see that what feels restrictive is a “no” and what feels expansive is a “YES!”

    How Does One Become Their Muse? 

    Embodiment. This is basically looking at your vision board, Pinterest boards, or list of goals and then pulling the energy from them, absorbing it into your being, and becoming that person, that energy, that feeling right here, right now.

    For example, would Elegant Evelyn spend the day in sweatpants even if she is working from home? Absolutely not! Would she eat standing up at the counter? How absurd!! 🙂 Would she use profanity? How dare you even ask!

    Yet in my funk, I absolutely did all of these things!

    Let’s take a pause and let this sink in.

    The art of embodiment is a deeply personal experience. There’s no one else like you in this world. There never has been, and there never will be. So perhaps working from home in sweatpants is when you do your best work.

    Profanity? I have a friend who swears like a sailor and is one of the most successful leaders I know.

    The beauty is, when you embrace the parts and qualities within that feel expansive for you, life becomes an adventure. Not everyone resonates with Elegant Evelyn, and that’s a good thing! The results I’ve had embodying her, however, may inspire you to craft your own muse and make your vision board a reality.

    Transformation arrives when we choose what works for us. You are the guru of yourself. It’s really that simple.

    1. First, take stock of your mindset.

    How are you speaking to yourself? How are you speaking to the tender little child within? What would it take for you to radically shift this, and, most importantly, how would that feel?

    I realized I had abandoned my little girl. In response, she was begging to be healed and got my attention by taking over my life! Overdrinking, overeating, overreacting, and shaming and guilting me.

    It wasn’t until I embodied Elegant Evelyn as this little girl’s mother that things changed. In this role, I practiced loving discipline like, “Darling, let’s have some kombucha for dinner instead of wine. Sweetheart, it’s time for bed. Love, it’s time to wake up and get outside to play. Yes, you have to go to school!”

    2. Next, focus on your environment.

    I had Evelyn get to work on cleaning up the clutter of laundry and this and that around my apartment. The real Evelyn would never allow laundry to pile high like that, and she certainly would go through her mail in a timelier manner.

    Surroundings hold energy and play a huge part in raising your vibration. Cleaning, organizing, and maintaining your living space can be a sacred ritual that creates a foundation of love as you work through emotions and change. When in doubt, always opt for fresh sheets and fresh flowers!

    3. Lastly, get clear on the big changes you want to make.

    This was the tough part. Intuitively, I knew I needed to cleanse my body of processed foods and alcohol by replacing them with clean water and home-cooked meals of plant-based protein, veggies, and fruits.

    It’s difficult, however, when your body is on a rollercoaster of sugar highs and lows. The cravings were unbelievable. So I reached out for support from a friend and decided to do a parasite cleanse! I won’t get into the details, but I will tell you what kept me on track was the thought, “I will not let those little buggers win!”

    The cleanse required herbal supplements along with a way of eating I always dreamed of and, of course, no alcohol. The first three days were difficult, but after that, I was on a roll.

    Feeling back in sync with clean living can literally change your world for the better in so many ways.

    So now I ask you: Who do you want to be in this world? What gifts do you possess that your friends need? What is stopping you from becoming that person? What will it take to emerge from the shadows and into the light?

    If you struggle with igniting inspiration from the questions above, that is great! Because you have your divine team waiting with bated breath to assist you!

    Ask your muse, your guides, your higher self, spirit, God, or the Divine to work for you and through you. Allow yourself to quiet the noise of addictive patterns in your mind and body, and you may be surprised by the answers you receive. 

  • The Simple Lifestyle Changes That Healed My Mind and Body

    The Simple Lifestyle Changes That Healed My Mind and Body

    “If you don’t give your mind and body a break, you’ll break. Stop pushing yourself through pain and exhaustion and take care of your needs.” ~Lori Deschene 

    When I collapsed that evening while fishing, I was fortunate not to land head-first into the water.

    It was April 2018, a few weeks before my fiftieth birthday, and after work, I decided to walk to the local pond and spend the remaining hours of light fishing.

    After a short time, though, I started to feel hot, a little lightheaded, and dizzy, and then the lights went out. I only blacked out for a second, but it was long enough to fall to the ground, and it scared the living you-know-what out of me.

    The next several months involved working with doctors who ran a number of tests to see what might have caused the event. With no one issue found that would explain the collapse, my primary doctor started asking about my lifestyle habits.

    She asked me to describe a typical week.

    I told her I got up early Monday through Friday, got to work by 8 a.m., and got home around 7 p.m. Except on nights when I went to visit my mom at the nursing home; then I got home around 9 p.m. unless she was in the hospital again, and then it was later. I’m her healthcare power of attorney, so when she goes to the hospital, I’m always there, too.

    On Saturdays, I’d wake up early, do the weekly chores, and run as many errands as possible by dinner time. Then, I’d eat, watch a few hours of TV, and go to bed.

    On Sundays, I’d get up early to finish any chores and errands, then spend the afternoon visiting my mom at the nursing home again, have dinner with her, and I would usually get back around 7 p.m., followed by a few hours of TV while doing some last-minute laundry, and then go to bed.

    She asked me how often I took vacations.

    My answer surprised me because I had never considered it before, but over the past five (or so) years, I have taken no vacations. All of my vacation and personal time accrued at work was either used up for doctor and hospital visits with my mom or because I was sick myself.

    She asked me about my hobbies and what I do for fun.

    I said I liked to go fishing for an hour or so when time permitted, but other than that, I really didn’t have anything else in my life. To be honest, this was a pretty humbling and embarrassing admission.

    She asked about my eating and exercise habits.

    My answer again surprised me: I did literally zero exercise, and I mainly ate based on cravings and convenience, which generally included high amounts of sugar and fat. Not to mention, I drink coffee all day at work and at home.

    She was polite in her delivery, but her message was stern as she explained the problem and resolution.

    Her assessment of the collapse I experienced had less to do with that one incident and more to do with a lifestyle that was more than my current mental and physical capacities could handle.

    Through years of neglect, she continued, my overall mental and physical health had declined. Those faculties needed to be built back up, which would require willpower on my part and time so nature could run its course to heal what was broken.

    She started listing all my problems, which included being overweight, having high blood pressure and terrible blood work, and feeling stressed out and tired all the time.

    I needed to start a daily regimen that included eating nutritiously and doing daily exercise. That did not surprise me.

    What surprised me was when she said I needed to fit more personal time for hobbies and activities into my week and more quiet time and rest into my days because both help our minds and bodies heal in different but essential ways.

    I nodded in agreement, and for the first few days, I did precisely that, but then the train flew off the tracks.

    Life happened, as it has a tendency to do, and I regressed back to my prior unhealthy ways. Instead of following my doctor’s advice, my routine started to center again around work, my mom, and doing chores.

    I felt tired, drained, and unhealthy all the time, but I stubbornly pushed myself through each day, somehow thinking (or maybe just wishing) that tomorrow would be better.

    Fast-forward about a year and a half, and COVID hit, and like everyone else, it added stress to my already overstressed life.

    My mind and body didn’t respond well.

    That’s when I started to have anxiety issues, and the associated panic attacks were so severe they landed me in the hospital several times over the next few months. These attacks became so repetitive that I started to have trouble leaving my home to go to work. Eventually, I even had difficulties going to the grocery store.

    I couldn’t believe I was so scared of the attacks that I couldn’t even leave home to get groceries.

    This was a low point for me. In fact, the lowest.

    During this time, my doctor told me point-blank that I needed to either get a handle on my lifestyle or start taking some medications for all this.

    As a related backstory, she knew I didn’t want to take medication. I’ve had depression most of my adult life (which, of course, added to all this) and, at one point, took medication to get it under control. I worked for a few years on managing that and was so happy when I was able to stop taking medication for it that I vowed I’d never take meds again (or at least it was going to be as a last resort).

    She stressed to me again how this was probably all fixable with some time and drastic lifestyle changes. I needed to stop doing so much each day, get more downtime, learn to be mindful of what my mind and body needed, and then be sure to provide those things so I could start to recover and get my health back.

    So I started to prioritize my health and wellness.

    First, I slowed down and started working fewer hours while focusing on maintaining productivity. I mostly accomplished this by not micromanaging people as much as I used to and spending less time on distractions like socializing by the water cooler.

    I started to prioritize my health by eating clean foods and exercising daily.

    I became a student of mindfulness, listening to what my body and mind needed and providing it daily. I tried my best to become a positive thinker, focusing on my own path, and stopped paying attention to others.

    My life became more about me, and I was stingy with my time.

    I pursued what made me happy, cutting out what didn’t. I reduced the time I spent using social media, reading, and watching the news and instead used that space for quiet time. I learned to use breathing exercises and simple stretching techniques to nurture a positive mindset.

    Instead of rushing around multitasking and trying to see how much I could get done, I focused on what needed to be done, ignored the rest, and only did one thing at a time.

    I now took breaks in between tasks.

    Most importantly, I started with small, realistic lifestyle changes and made only one or two new changes each day moving forward. This approach helped me maintain consistency while also improving and progressing in the following days, weeks, months, and years.

    In October 2020, I was more than seventy pounds overweight, I had high blood pressure and poor blood work, and I had trouble leaving my home to get groceries for fear of anxiety-induced panic attacks.

    In February 2022, I had lost seventy-five pounds, my blood work was perfect, my blood pressure and anxiety were gone, and leaving home was no longer a problem.

    I healed (and then some).

    At that time, I sold everything that didn’t fit into my (really nice) backpack. Now, I am slowly traveling Asia full-time as a digital nomad, starting a new career as a freelance writer.

    I share this journey with you for three reasons.

    First, as the quote at the beginning of the article suggests, if you don’t take care of your mind and body, the collective ‘you’ will eventually break. We are all wonderfully different, so how that plays out will vary, but minor issues left unchecked now can turn into more significant problems that are more difficult to fix later on.

    Second, if that does happen, don’t freak out. Just visit your doctor to get the professional help you need. Chances are, you just need to make lifestyle changes to turn things around. Our mind and body have amazing healing capabilities; we just need to get in tune with what they need and provide that daily.

    Third, there was a surprising life lesson in all this for me: When you learn to be mindful of providing your mind and body with what they need, you nurture an amazingly rewarding lifestyle.

    That’s because the process involves prioritizing what you need and what is important to you and choosing not to be concerned with everything else because they are distractions. This provides ample room for rest, quiet time, and everything else that replenishes and nourishes essential elements in your life instead of depleting and depriving you of them.

    What remains is a life filled with only the things you value and need, which, I must say, is pretty awesome.

    So don’t wait until things build up and hit you like a ton of bricks at once.

    Be mindful and pay attention to the signs that you are not feeling well along your way, mentally or physically, and then slow down to address those issues before moving on.

  • How My Wellness Passion Was Actually Destroying My Health

    How My Wellness Passion Was Actually Destroying My Health

    “Your body holds deep wisdom. Trust in it. Learn from it. Nourish it. Watch your life transform and be healthy.” ~Bella Bleue

    It didn’t fit. I zipped, tugged, and shimmied, but the zipper wouldn’t budge. I was twenty-three, it was my college graduation, and the dress I had bought a month ago would not zip.

    As I stood there crying in the mirror, riddled with exhaustion, anxiety, vulnerability, and sheer overwhelm, I wondered what was happening to my body. In just one month I had gained thirty pounds. I was having one to three panic attacks a day. Everything I ate made me sick, and no matter how much I worked out, I only felt worse.

    I was graduating with a degree in clinical nutrition, yet my health was the worst it had been in my entire life. The world was supposed to be my oyster, yet I couldn’t leave the house.

    I used to tell people all the time that my “passion” was health. I started my first fitness program when I was nine. Tried my first diet at the age of thirteen.

    Since that day on, health and wellness were all-consuming thoughts—to the point that I got a degree in clinical nutrition and became a certified personal trainer and Pilates instructor.

    But maybe the problem was that my passion for health was actually an obsession.

    In an effort to be fit, happy, and well, I became a victim of marketing and manipulation of “wellness and diet culture.”

    Everywhere you turn, there is marketing for wellness and finding your “best health.” Whether it is using fasting to regulate blood sugar, drinking adrenal cocktails to reduce stress, or only eating organic and non-processed foods.

    And even if you end up doing it “right,” the next day you are wrong because there is some new trend or hack that is being pushed. This can leave your head spinning and, in the end, it only disrupts your relationship with yourself, with nutrition, and with fitness.

    It was on that day that I vowed to chase true health. Here are three lessons that I have learned along the way.

    There is no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to nutrition and fitness.

    You are unique. You have a unique medical history, genetic makeup, environment, and lifestyle that all influence how you and your body respond to nutrition and exercise.

    This is known as bio-individuality.

    So there is no one RIGHT way to do things. You might respond well to eating lower carb due to a history of insulin sensitivity.

    You might respond better to heavier weight training due to your muscle fiber makeup.

    You cannot put yourself in a box and try to copy and paste success. You have to honor what your body needs and nourish it accordingly.

    I find that my body does best when I eat carb meals and lift heavier weights. I also feel my best when I eat every three hours.

    I find that my body shows increased signs of stress when I do high-intensity workouts. And it rejected any attempt I made at intermittent fasting or eating lower carbs.

    Finding what works for your body is how you unlock your best self.

    But whatever you choose, you must enjoy doing it. Because if you do not enjoy the process, if it does not make you feel good, if it does not add to your life and promote your best self….

    … it will be impossible to stick to it long term.

    It’s about what you can ADD to your life, not restrict.

    Nutrition is the science of providing nourishment to your body to sustain life. Food is the fuel that your body uses to keep you alive and thriving.

    Movement is medicine that gives you the strength to take on anything that comes your way.

    It is not about restricting, cutting out, or depriving yourself. When you approach it from this mindset, it promotes negativity, it fosters the development of a negative self-image, and it cultivates a culture of guilt.

    And no one—absolutely no one—feels good in this type of environment. Instead, think of what you can add to your life and body to enrich it.

    I love to eat nachos; I enjoy them every week. Instead of restricting them, I add protein to ensure they are a balanced meal.

    You might love to enjoy dessert every evening. A great way to enhance this is to add a delicious fruit with your dessert. Or you can take a walk after your meal to help regulate your blood sugar.

    This approach stems from a place of love, support, and encouragement, which makes it much easier to sustain for life.

    You can be all-in without being all-or-nothing.

    I used to feel so much guilt when my life responsibilities disrupted my workout routine. I would obsess over the missed workout, thinking it would end my progress, and then I would try to find ways to “make it up” later.

    There is so much pressure on remaining consistent, which is critical to success.

    But do not confuse consistency with perfection.

    Perfection is trying to take this structure or “formula for success” and cramming it into your life without any flexibility. Like saying you “have to work out five times a week” or you “can’t eat out.”

    Consistency is learning how to shift your goals and your intention to match what is happening in your life at any given time.

    Life always has seasons of highs and lows. That is the beauty of it.

    There will be times where you have the energy and intention to be consistent and even chase insane growth for your health goals.

    Then there will be times where life is calling you elsewhere, so while you are still prioritizing your health, you need to shift how you show up.

    Learning how to adapt your health goals and intentions across these phases is how you get long-term success.

    Consistency is showing up in the stress. Even if this means doing less than you hoped, you still did it.

    Perfection is showing up for ten days in a row then quitting when you miss a day.

    An all-in mindset is much better than an all-or-nothing mindset.

    If twenty-three-year-old me could see me now, she would be in awe. Her jaw would drop because even though I’m not doing everything “right,” I’m doing everything right for me.

    Your health does not have to be as complicated as it sometimes feels. You don’t need a fancy supplement, the latest trend, or another unrealistic habit.

    It really comes from creating a lifestyle around what makes you feel your best and happy.

    Because you can have the perfect health for yourself without losing yourself in it.

  • How I Am Learning to Trust My Body More and Control It Less

    How I Am Learning to Trust My Body More and Control It Less

    “I’m a beautiful mess of contradiction, a chaotic display of imperfection.” ~Sai Marie Johnson

    I don’t identify as having an eating disorder. I don’t struggle with anorexia, bulimia, or binge eating.  Yet I exercise precise control of my weight, down to the pound. If I gain a mere two pounds, I can feel it. First in my stomach. Then in my face.

    That’s when the self-loathing kicks in.

    I beat myself up for gaining those two pounds.

    I wear a shirt to sleep at night, instead of being naked like I am when I am two pounds lighter.

    I leave the towel wrapped around me when I get out of the shower, to avoid having to look at my naked body in the mirror.

    I eat only a smoothie for breakfast.

    I go to bed hungry.

    I don’t want to have sex because I don’t feel good in my body.

    I restrict myself from food and pleasure until I lose those two pounds.

    What’s worse is that I desire to lose even more weight.

    Sometimes I google “BMI calculator” and enter my height and weight in the tool. The tool tells me I am a normal weight. I enter a weight several pounds below my actual weight to see what weight I would need to be to be underweight. That weight is 133 pounds.

    I secretly crave to be underweight. Which is why I was so happy when I got food poisoning a few weeks ago and weighed 133 pounds for four days.

    I am disgusted with myself for being happy about this. I was throwing up for two days, was only eating toast, and was extremely weak. Yet I felt happy because I was smaller.

    I didn’t want to return to my normal weight. I wanted to remain small.

    I did slowly regain that weight. I hopped on the scale at the gym yesterday and I weigh 136.8 pounds. “Shit,” I thought. I want to be down to 135 before my wedding in three weeks. I quickly started calculating and felt relieved, knowing it would be easy to lose less than two pounds in three weeks. No problem.

    I’m also disgusted with myself about the amount of time I spend thinking about food and my weight. What did I eat today? Did I have too many pretzels? What will I eat for dinner? Today was my rest day, so I have to eat less. 

    I am slowly becoming aware of how much brain space food and weight take up. I wonder what creativity I could unleash if I devoted less time to thinking about food and more time to brainstorming, dreaming, and problem-solving.

    In addition to all this thinking, I also snack incessantly. Yesterday I counted and I went to the kitchen twelve times to get a tiny snack. A couple of pretzels, a mandarin, a handful of granola, a bite of chocolate, a few blueberries.

    I’m not sure if my constant snacking is due to actual hunger or if it’s connected to a more general anxiety and inability to relax.

    I think it’s both. When I eat a bigger breakfast, I have less desire to snack throughout the day. But I also think there’s an element of anxiety, because I find a moment of calm through the action of putting a bite of something in my mouth. For me this doesn’t show up as over-eating when I’m stressed, it’s more of a daily anxious habit. Perhaps some sort of desire for oral fixation.

    I could go even deeper to say that perhaps I feel like I am missing something in my life and, therefore, try to fill that void with snacks. I’m not sure if that’s the case, because mostly I am pretty happy and content. Yet my snacking behavior could suggest otherwise. Perhaps both things can be true. I can be happy in some ways and still yearn for more.

    I am also assessing my other eating habits. I don’t severely restrict myself from treats. I eat cake when I want to. I eat McDonald’s at the end of a long backpacking trip. I treat myself to an occasional burger. But I don’t enjoy these less healthy foods guilt-free. If I have cake one night, I’ll work out extra hard the next morning. It’s almost like I punish myself for indulging in a treat.

    I’m not sure what’s under my desire to be small. I know some of it comes from messages from society that thin is beautiful, and the insidious design of our culture to distract women with matters of physical appearance, so we have less brain capacity to think about things that really matter. I think it also comes from the positive feedback I receive about how fit I am. As if I’m a better person because I’m thin. I’m not.

    To this last point, I’m making an effort to give more non-appearance compliments to other people. My favorite one to give (and to receive) is: “I love your energy.” Let’s attune more to people’s energy than the size of their waist or definition of their brows or shape of their butt.

    I also know I have perpetuated these unfair beauty standards. I do it under the guise of: “I want people to be healthy.” But I know that thin does not necessarily mean healthy. I know that bigger does not necessarily mean unhealthy. Also, who decided that being healthy is something to strive for?

    Sure, we have a survival instinct, and being strong, mobile, and able to endure will help us survive. But I’m not sure that being healthy is some kind of moral standard. I strive for it for myself, but just like anything else, it’s an individual person’s decision if they want to be healthy, and what healthy means to them.

    Yes, I’m seeing the contradiction here, because I say I strive to be healthy, yet my desire to be underweight doesn’t seem mentally (or physically) healthy. The amount of time I spend thinking about food doesn’t seem healthy either. Which means I am going along with the lie that has been shoved down my throat my entire life: the lie that thin and small is beautiful.

    Of course I know that is not true. Of course I know that a person’s soul is what makes them beautiful. Of course I know that being weak and underweight is not healthy. Yet in some areas of my life, I act as if I don’t know these things.

    I would like to get to a place of trusting and listening to my body. Trusting it when it wants to eat a big burger after a long hike. Trusting it when it wants a piece of cake on a random night. Trusting it when it craves fruits and vegetables. Trusting it when my stomach feels jittery and empty and wants more fuel.

    I would also like to get to a place of not beating myself up if I gain two, three, four, or more pounds. I want to actually believe that I am still beautiful and worthy, no matter what my weight is.

    Wow. It’s weird to write this. Normally I write about my challenges once I’m on the other side of them. After I have unpacked them. But this time I am writing about a challenge right as I am becoming aware of it. Which means I don’t yet have much wisdom for you. But here’s what I do know:

    1. Exercise should be something we do because we love our bodies, not because we want to control them and keep them small.

    Sometimes I do have this relationship with exercise.

    I love being alive, and I do strength and cardio training because I want to be strong and mobile when I’m old. I want to be on this journey of life as long as possible. I do lunges because I want to be able to climb up a mountain and be stopped in my tracks at the beauty of our planet. I run because those endorphins make me feel good.

    Other times, I crank up the incline on the treadmill to punish myself for eating too much popcorn at the movies the night before. Or I try to do all the squats and deadlifts to make my butt rounder. My goal is to release those latter motivations, because those are grounded in control and inadequacy, not love.

    2. Your worth is not connected to your weight.  

    Read that one again. You are talented, strong, and beautiful no matter what your weight is. You can desire to lose weight or gain muscle or strengthen your heart, but doing so gets to be an act of love.

    3. We should stop thinking of indulging as a bad thing.

    To indulge is to allow oneself to enjoy the pleasures of life—eating a sweet fig in June, eating a chocolate croissant just because it tastes good, hugging your partner after being apart for a few days, driving through your neighborhood listening to your favorite song, sitting outside in the sun on a summer day, and sipping your coffee in the morning.

    Life should be pleasurable, and I want us all to indulge more, without guilt.

    4. Get to know your body.

    What I mean by that is not just getting to know how your body looks, but how your body functions.

    One of the most empowering and transformative things for me in the last few years has been learning about my menstrual cycle. Through reading, coaching, talking to my doctor, and being aware of my own body, I know what is happening hormonally each day of my cycle. I am able to pinpoint the day, how I will feel, and what my body will need. And then I (try to) honor what she needs.

    For example, on day seventeen of my cycle I am usually cranky, tired, and hungry. I clear my schedule, sleep more, and eat what I want.

    5. Your relationship with your body might not be black and white.  

    In some ways, I have a healthy relationship with my body. In other ways (as described above), I do not. Both things can be true. I think the goal is to shift toward a place of love and acceptance, and to spend less time thinking about what you look like and more time being aware of how you feel, how you live in alignment with your values, and how you show up for others.

    6. People’s struggles with confidence and self-esteem manifest in many different ways.

    Some people close to me might be surprised to hear about my inner dialogue and complex relationship with food because I look healthy. (And mostly, I think I am healthy.) But it doesn’t mean I don’t fall prey to the social pressures to look a certain way. We all do in some way or another.

    So let’s have grace, empathy, and understanding for each other, and know that we’re all going through stuff, whether it’s visible or not.

  • Hungry and Panicked? The Link Between Food and Anxiety

    Hungry and Panicked? The Link Between Food and Anxiety

    “Take care of your mind, your body will thank you. Take care of your body, your mind will thank you.” ~Debbie Hampton

    4:00 p.m. I am suddenly aware of my heartbeat. It feels more insistent than normal. Is it faster? Is it jagged? Am I out of breath?

    I try to reason with myself: I’ve just done a brisk walk pushing the stroller over some hills.

    My anxiety responds: Those hills were awhile back… you wouldn’t be out of breath from that.

    Anxiety sufferers have a heightened sense of, well, a lot of things. For me, I am acutely aware of shifts in sensation in my body.

    Having practiced and taught yoga for most of my life contributes to this, and in many ways, it’s a great skill. I instinctively check in with my shoulders—are they up around my ears? Then my jaw—are my top teeth away from my bottom teeth? And perhaps the most important of all—am I holding my breath? I can’t help but observe when people walk with an imbalanced gait or sit with their spines slouched.

    But the heightened awareness is also pathological. A slight tingling in my hand instantly makes me think heart attack. Dizziness, which I ended up learning was caused by my vision changing, made me run to get screened for a brain tumor.

    4:30 p.m. I’m at the library with my two-year-old daughter. I still feel weird—“off.” I periodically place my hand on my chest—is my heart beating more intensely than normal? It seems normal. But what if it’s not normal?

    I press my hand into myself harder, searching for something to panic about. I find comfort in the two librarians a few feet away. I think, “If I have a heart attack, they’ll keep my daughter safe. They’ll call 911.” 

    I check in with my breath. It feels reassuring that I can take deep, unencumbered breaths.

    5:00 p.m. My eight-year-old son offers to look after his little sister. I feel like I need to lie down, to calm the strange rhythm of my heart. Something reminds me that I have leftovers from last night’s dinner.

    I made a really delicious Thai larb gai. It is a “safe” meal of ground turkey, vegetables, and rice. I hope my family didn’t notice that I avoided eating the rice last night.

    I reheat the leftovers, including a spoonful of rice. I am careful to avoid eating any rice—starch is bad, my disordered thinking will never let me forget. I take my first bite and burst into tears.

    —

    A few months ago, this pattern of crying started when I would finally eat after going too many hours without food. It would catch me by surprise because I hadn’t intentionally been avoiding food. I hadn’t intentionally been punishing myself. It would just happen.

    I’d miss breakfast because mornings are busy. A coffee would usually follow, masking my body’s ability to communicate its hunger—my hunger.

    I typically only have three hours to myself without any kids, three hours to do way more than is possible during that timeframe. I can’t possibly waste that time eating. And then once I reunite with my kids, my own needs all but get completely forgotten.

    On these types of days, when I would finally take a bite of something, almost always around 5:00 p.m., the tears would rush up and out.

    Why was I crying over a bite of chicken breast?

    —

    Eating my leftover larb gai, I wonder, when did I last eat? 9:00 a.m. with a friend. It is 5:00 p.m. now. An eight-hour window.

    “But I ate my daughter’s leftover applesauce!” I hear myself say. I instantly recognize this rationalization. The voice of the disorder.

    I realize I am once again inside the well-worn grooves of avoiding eating. I cry because my body is relieved it is getting sustenance. I cry because I am angry that I am still beholden.

    I try to work out what happened. It has been a busy day. But when is it not a busy day? This is not an excuse.

    At breakfast, I noticed that the person next to me was eating avocado toast, but she had scraped the avocado off the bread. Because bread is bad, my disordered thinking affirmed.

    I scanned the menu and noticed that the calories were listed next to each item. I don’t normally count calories. I try to focus on the description of each menu item and decide that Papa’s Breakfast Bowl sounds great: roasted potatoes, bourbon bacon jam, a sunny-side-up egg, and sliced avocado served with chipotle aioli. I would ask for no jam or aioli, obviously, but otherwise, this is a meal I would easily make myself.

    And then I saw the calories: 1100. 1100?! I panic.

    My friend arrived and asked what I was going to have. I casually said, “I’ll probably just have an omelet.”

    This friend is one of those women who pops out babies and bounces back. I don’t know how she does it—maybe it’s just genetic—but her body holds no visible remnants of having made babies. She was wearing skinny jeans and a fitted sweater; there are no rolls, her arms are firm and slender.

    I held my arms across my stubbornly squishy stomach. I calculated that her baby is younger than mine, but she is in much better shape. I didn’t know that I was doing it, but I chastised myself for being bigger than I used to be, than I should be. I deserved some sort of punishment for this failing, my evident gluttony and certain laziness. 

    I didn’t register when she told me, “You look amazing. What workouts are you doing these days?” My disordered, dysmorphic brain told me, “She’s just saying that to be nice because she feels sorry for how horrible you actually look.”

    —

    Another friend has unwittingly become my eating disorder sponsor. I send her a confessional text: “Dang it. I ate at 9 a.m. And then I didn’t eat for eight hours. I didn’t even realize how long it had been until I took my first bite and teared up.”

    We’ve talked about what the crying signifies. We both know it’s meaningful, pointing to some lesson.

    It is in talking to her that I put it all together. The 1100 calories. The scraped avocado toast. My slender friend.

    I also realize I had been triggered by another friend who had recently stayed with us. She does intermittent fasting, and she is an example that it works because she is an enviable (to me) size 0. My ED brain is so eager to jump on any restrictive, rule-based eating regimen. “See? She avoids eating and look at the result! Don’t you want to be a size 0 again?”

    But I also have an inner voice of wisdom. This is the voice that reminded me that nourishing myself so I could breastfeed was more important than losing the baby weight quickly. This is also the voice that instantaneously gets silenced when my eating disorder asserts itself.

    My visiting friend touted the benefits of intermittent fasting, “Our bodies aren’t meant to eat constantly. When we were cavemen, we didn’t have refrigerators and pantries.” She claimed, “My organs function better when they are free from having to digest food.” (Sounds ideal, but how does she know this is true?) She reasoned, “And when I do eat, I eat anything! Of course I always eat healthy foods, but I don’t avoid bread, as long as it’s good, artisanal bread, and I’ll have a pudding if I feel like it.”

    My eating disorder: You need to do this too.

    My inner wisdom: Any controlled eating is a slippery slope to starvation for you. Focus on three meals of day, that’s it. That’s your work. 

    —

    After I connect the dots of all these triggers and finish my leftovers, I promptly pass out on the couch, still sitting upright. I am relieved I (probably) am not having a heart attack and I need a minute to absorb it all.

    They say that you never recover from an eating disorder. You are in recovery. It is an active state that requires your conscious awareness and participation.

    In that sense, it seems no different to being an alcoholic. An alcoholic can’t just have one drink. They may struggle if they’re around people who are drinking. It may feel like an invisible force is pulling them to that ice cold beer or elegant glass of wine.

    I feel this invisible force, too. Except for me, it is pulling me toward starvation, deprivation, urging me to shrink into nothingness, to zero.

    But the cost is simply too high. I do not want to forgo my mental steadiness and inner ease for a smaller number on the scale or on my clothes. I’ve been there before, and it was not worth it.

    And for me, there is a clear correlation between starving myself and anxiety. I’ve learned that anxiety is actually the voice of wisdom, my inner child, piping up to grab my attention, reminding me to take care of myself.

    No, it’s not a heart attack, it’s not even a panic attack, it’s just—you’re hungry! You forgot about you. You’ve been criticizing yourself for being too big, for looking different to how you looked pre-motherhood or when you were eighteen. You’re not eighteen! And what a gift that is, to be given this opportunity to live, to age. To have children. 

    And they, my children, really are a huge motivation for me. I see how they take everything in, especially from us, their parents. I know how much I unconsciously absorbed from my mother. Babies are not born hating their thighs; you learn to hate your thighs.

    I know I cannot control everything in my children’s lives and psyches but my actions, my behavior, the way I talk about myself—these things I can control.

    I want my children to experience joy and gratefulness in the food we are all lucky enough to eat. I want them to get to know flavors, to have fun cooking, and to revel in shared meals with loved ones. I love when I make something that they love that they know their mommy made for them. Even if it’s just mac and cheese out of a box; I’ll take it when my son exclaims that nobody makes better mac and cheese than his mom does. (I do sometimes add toppings!)

    I do not want to be at the whim of my weight. I do not want to fear food. I most certainly do not want to pass any of this on to my children.

    So I will keep fighting for freedom. Freedom to eat—and enjoy!—three meals a day. Freedom to eat the damn bread (I ate the rice that was with my leftovers, by the way). Freedom, even, to make mistakes because these habits are deeply embedded, and the freedom to then celebrate the remembering, realizing, and resetting.

    I don’t know if this is the case for other people with anxiety, but I would invite you to take a look at any possible connections between your eating habits and symptoms of anxiety, particularly if you are prone to dieting.

    If you restrict your eating by skipping meals or by enforcing a tight eating window and you happen to find yourself experiencing symptoms of anxiety or depletion, zoom out and consider the bigger picture. Are you truly taking care of yourself?

    We are complex, layered beings and all the different facets of who we are intermingle and influence each other. It’s not just segregated compartments of well-being. Physical health and mental health are inextricably linked.

    Anxiety makes me feel untethered, shaky, uncertain, and afraid. Having that on empty exacerbates it all. I have no body or brain fuel to process it.

    Those tears that erupt with that first bite of food after denying myself—they ground me in relief, offer release, and ultimately, are a practice of compassion for myself. I wish good health and food freedom for us all. Because we are worth being fed, nourished, and sustained.

  • How Toast Changed My Life and Helped Me Stop Bingeing

    How Toast Changed My Life and Helped Me Stop Bingeing

    One day, toast changed my life.

    It was many years ago, when I was working as a personal trainer and nutrition and wellness coach.

    I spent my days helping people “get fit” and “eat healthy,” so of course I was always preaching about lifestyle changes, “healthy” eating, and “whole, clean, nutritious” food, while demonizing “processed” foods, as most others in those worlds do.

    Toast, at the time, was a big no-no. Especially toast made with white bread.

    That’s basically blasphemy in the “healthy eating” world, with two strikes against it. First, bread has carbs, which I learned, from Atkins in the nineties, were trying to kill me and making me gain weight. Second, it’s processed, and I learned from the “clean eating” world that processed food was also trying to kill me and making me gain weight.

    So I wasn’t allowed to eat toast for breakfast. Toast was bad. Especially if I paired it with butter and didn’t at least have protein with it.

    And there I was on this particular morning, standing at the counter buttering two pieces of *gasp, shock, horror* white bread toast for breakfast. With no protein.

    Because despite vowing to “get back on track” that day, a mere hour earlier when I woke up, I had already decided I’d start the next day instead because I didn’t want to eat what was on “the plan.” I wanted to have toast instead.

    You see, like many in the fitness and nutrition world, while I was preaching about clean, healthy, balanced meals to my clients, and trying so hard to stick to those rules myself, I was also a raging bulimic/binge eater.

    In fact, within four days of my first attempt at “clean eating,” I was a full-on bulimic.

    It got so bad that I was once hospitalized for a week and often went to bed feeling like I might die in my sleep because I’d eaten so much.

    I lived in what I call “on track” vs “off track” mode for many years. Many, many years.

    When I was “on track,” I ate meticulously “clean” and healthy.

    When I was “off track” I was bingeing and completely out of control around food.

    I could easily have concluded that I’d fallen “off track” that morning with the toast.

    But at that point, I had started working on understanding how my thoughts were contributing to my suffering, so I was in the very beginning stages of awareness.

    And there I was, standing at the counter, buttering toast and listening to my thoughts as I did so.

    They were horribly abusive, judgmental, and berating.

    “What kind of loser eats bread for breakfast? And white bread, even. It’s so bad. You’re such a screw-up. What’s the matter with you? You’re gonna be so bloated and gross. This isn’t going to build any muscle. You trained hard yesterday; you should be eating protein. God, you’re an idiot. You just promised you were going to be good today, and you’re screwing up again already. All you ever do is screw up.”

    Then the voice started planning a trip to the grocery store for all the things we would buy to binge on the rest of the day—yanno, because “I’m such a stupid screw up already; may as well just eat everything today because I won’t be able to have any of it when I get back on track tomorrow.”

    The voice had our entire day of bingeing planned out, and then it started getting all judgy again.

    “You’re supposed to be having oats, eggs, and six blueberries. That’s a good breakfast. You’re never going to be able to stick to anything. Loser. Why are you broken? You’re going to get fat. What’s everyone going to think of you then?”

    (Yes, I used to actually have meal plans from my own coach with six blueberries in a meal—this is me rolling my eyes into oblivion.)

    Then, like magic, something switched in my brain, and another voice came charging in like a knight on a white horse and said, in a lighter, more compassionate tone, “Uhhm, dude. It’s just toast.”

    The first voice stopped in its tracks and was like… “Wait, what did you just say?”

    White knight voice: “I mean, it’s just f*cking toast. You don’t want oats and eggs this morning. You just want a couple of pieces of toast. Normal people eat toast for breakfast sometimes. Why have you decided you’re a horrible human just because you feel like a couple of pieces of toast for breakfast? That’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard.”

    It was like someone in my head threw me a life raft of sanity.

    The first voice was a little taken aback for a second and needed to sit with that information before replying, ”Holy sh*t, you’re right!!”

    Instantly, all abusive thoughts were gone. And all thoughts about bingeing during the rest of the day were gone.

    I ate and enjoyed my two pieces of toast and went about my day in peace.

    A few hours later it was lunchtime. I realized I was starting to get hungry, which made me realize that not only had I not thought about food since breakfast, but I had forgotten that before breakfast I had been planning to go to buy binge foods.

    I forgot to binge.

    What?! How did I do that!?!

    It felt like a miracle. Normally, I was consumed with thoughts of food non-stop, and nothing in the world could stop a binge.

    So I wondered, hmm… can I use this new skill of just having what I want for lunch too? *Gasp.* Dare I?

    I asked myself what I wanted and felt like a sandwich.

    *Gasp again.* But that would be bread… twice …in one day. *The horror.*

    The white knight rolled in with the reminder: It’s okay to eat what you feel like eating.

    So I had and enjoyed a sandwich.

    A few hours later, the same thing—I noticed I was getting hungry and, again, I hadn’t thought about food since lunchtime.

    I don’t remember what I had for supper that night, but I just ate something normal, went to bed feeling fine, and contemplated the fact that I hadn’t wanted to binge after all.

    What was almost another day of bingeing on things that made me feel like garbage turned into a normal day of eating in peace and enjoying food.

    Because I took my power back.

    I shut down the voice in my head that had been programmed by our insane diet and healthy eating cultures. I reconnected with myself, trusted myself to decide what I wanted to eat, and allowed myself to eat whatever it was without shame or fear.

    That was the beginning of freedom, peace, and getting my sanity back.

    It was the beginning of healing not only my relationships with food and my body, but also with myself.

    It was the beginning of healing and creating truly healthy eating habits—habits that are rooted in love and trust rather than fear and restrictions.

    Before I’d be scared to buy bread because I didn’t trust myself with it.

    “Don’t keep the bad food in your house,” right?

    Back then, if I did have bread in the house, I’d eat the entire loaf in a day.

    Now, I can’t remember the last time I bought a loaf of bread, not because I’m scared of it, but because I simply don’t care about eating it anymore. The last couple of times I bought bread, I threw it away because it got moldy before I could eat it all.

    Obviously, complete recovery required more work than the one day with the toast, but it was definitely a pivotal moment.

    Because from that moment on, I stopped fearing and trying to control my food intake.

    Instead, I practiced connecting with myself, recognizing what I wanted to eat and, more importantly, understanding why I wanted it.

    If I was about to make a choice that I knew wasn’t in my best interest, I’d ask myself, why? Why was I making the self-destructive choices I was making?

    One of the biggest reasons I was stuck in those patterns with food was because I kept trying to “be good.”

    The fear and restrictions I’d learned were required to “eat healthy” were, in large part, causing the bingeing and feeling out of control around food.

    That’s why after I simply allowed myself to eat and enjoy the toast for breakfast, I didn’t binge and wasn’t consumed with thoughts of food the rest of the day.

    Here’s the thing: I’m not here to argue about what’s the healthiest or the best way for you or anyone else to eat (anymore).

    Because I know very well what a sh*tshow the world of nutrition science is, and I also know that our beautiful bodies are natural healers and communicators. They know what they need to feel their best, and they know how to communicate those needs to us.

    We just get so disconnected from them that we cannot hear (or trust) them anymore.

    And it doesn’t matter how perfectly healthy and “clean” you think you’re eating part of the time if the rest of the time is a complete train wreck—because you’ve been trying so hard to “be good” that you end up falling “off track” and start eating everything you can’t have when you start “being good” again.

    And carrying fear, shame, self-judgment, and criticism over the way you eat is a lot less healthy than just having a cookie or two when you feel like it.

    It’s incredibly harmful and unhealthy, in fact.

    Especially because when you start allowing yourself the cookies while working on uncovering why you want them in the first place, you eventually naturally stop caring about the cookies so much, in the same way I have with bread.

    The healthiest way for you to eat is whatever way best nurtures and supports not only your unique body, but also your mental and emotional health and your relationships with yourself, your body, and food. Nobody knows what that looks like for you better than you and your own body.

    And you can be trusted to decide.

    There is no binary, one-size fits all answer to “healthy” eating, and it’s not rooted in rules and restrictions.

    It’s rooted in love. Trust. And wholehearted being—being fully grounded in the knowledge of our own worthiness exactly as we are, while also being present, connected, curious, and intentional about our choices.

  • Thinner is Not Better – Healthy, Connected, and Happy Is

    Thinner is Not Better – Healthy, Connected, and Happy Is

    “Standards of beauty are arbitrary. Body shame exists only to the extent that our physiques don’t match our own beliefs about how we should look.” ~Martha Beck

    I have so many women around me right now—friends, mothers, clients that are on a diet—constantly talking about their weight and how their bodies look, struggling with body image.

    I am profoundly sad about the frequency and theme of those discussions.

    At the same time, I deeply get it; it is hard to detach from our conditioning.

    I too struggled with body image at one point in my life, and for a very long time. I suffered from anorexia in my late teens and early twenties. I was skinny as a rail and thought I was not thin enough. I hated the way I looked. I was never perfect enough.

    I controlled my food intake as a way to regain control over my life, as a way to maybe one day be perfect enough that I might feel loved. I almost ended up in the hospital, as my weight impacted my health, physically and mentally. I had no period, no healthy bowel movement. I was so unhappy and depressed. I had no energy.

    The messed-up thing is that the skinnier I looked, the more compliments I received from a lot of people, from family to friends: “You are so slim and gorgeous.” To me, this just validated the way I treated my body—and myself—with control, self-criticism, and harshness.

    Then there were the magazines, showing skinny models, getting so much positive attention. I was obsessed. The more my body looked like those magazine pictures, the better; though I could never quite get to a point where I looked at myself in the mirror and liked what I saw. It was an endless circle of judgment, control, and unhappiness. 

    It took me many years to change the way I saw my body and debunk the standards created by “society” for women.

    For many years I bit my tongue each time I would hear other women around me comparing and judging their body size and shape, repeating the same narrative of needing to lose weight. These conversations felt like an unbearable ringing in my ears, a knot in my stomach, the story in my head of “I am not good enough.”

    I was in the process of creating a new set of standards for myself, of what it was to be a woman in this world, but the old stories were hard to escape and easier to follow because they were the gold standard. I did not have any role models of women out there, younger or older, loving their body just the way it was.

    There was a point, though, when it was just too draining. I noticed that it was not the striving to get to a perfect body that brought me love. What brought me love was being vulnerable, authentic, sharing my inner life, supporting others, having deep talks, being kind with myself and others, and doing the things I loved.

    From then on, I started to soften and release all those standards that had been gifted to me. I allowed myself to be okay with how my body looked, to enjoy food, to enjoy movement, to enjoy my body. I learned to truly love my body, and with that came a different type of respect: I learned to rest when my body was tired. I learned to eat really nourishing food. I learned to move every day in a way that was respectful to my body and that I enjoyed.

    Thinner is not better. Healthy, connected, and happy is.

    Practicing yoga helped me so much in embodying this new belief, and studying neuro-linguistic programming as well.

    The truth is we are “society”—all of us, women and men—which means we are the agents of change. So let’s pause, reflect, and choose new standards. Is this constant need to lose weight healthy or serving anyone?

    There are a few different things to separate and highlight here.

    If your weight negatively impacts your health or your life, if you feel heavy in an unhealthy way and can’t do the activities you’d like to do, that is a different story; and yes, please, take care of your body, through what you think will work best for you: exercise, nutrition, mindset, support.

    Your body is your vessel to experience life, so finding your way to a healthy body is a worthwhile investment. And daily movement and good nutrition will have such a positive impact on your vitality and health, physical and mental, so yes, go for it, with love, softness and kindness—no control, judgment, or harshness.

    But if you feel that your body is strong and healthy, but you don’t like the way it looks… I feel you. I was there. I felt the shame, the discomfort, the sadness, the feeling of not being good enough. Allow yourself to feel this pain. It is okay, and human nature, to feel concerned about your appearance. We all want to be part of the tribe, to be loved and admired.

    But then, ask yourself, is it me that does not like the way my body looks, or is it because of society’s beauty standards? Is it because of all the noise from my friends, constantly talking about weight and looks? Do I want to transmit those standards to the next generation? To my sons? To my daughters? Is it really the most important thing for us women, to look thin and good? Is this story serving us all? Is it love?

    No, it is not love, and it serves no one. Not the women suffering in silence because they believe their body is not slim enough. Not the partners of those women who can’t appreciate their true beauty and fullness. Not the daughters that will believe the same messages and suffer as well. Not the sons that will not know how to recognize beauty in its diverse shapes and forms. Not society as a whole, which will be robbed of having a happy, compassionate, loving, self-confident population.

    So let’s choose differently. Let’s celebrate our different body shapes and weights and strength. Let’s feel good and enjoy life, movement, and food without counting and restricting and denying love to our bodies and selves.

    Let’s stop talking about our weight constantly and find other ways to connect.

    Some might say that I am too slim to really speak about this subject, that I have it easy. This is not quite true. My body has changed so much throughout the years. I went from an ultra-skinny teenager and twenty-year-old with anorexia, to a healthy weight in my thirties, to ups and downs with weight throughout my two pregnancies and breastfeeding journeys. I have seen my body change quite a lot and have been judged for how I looked oh so many times. I have been judged for being skinny, or envied for being slim, and I have been judged for gaining weight.

    Today I am forty-three. My body is not as slim as it used to be. I have a bit of fat around my belly, and my breasts are not as round and firm as they once were, but I feel strong and healthy. And I am SO grateful for my body for enabling me to experience life so far, and for creating life and feeding life, that I don’t want to ever criticize or shame my body again.

    I have learned to love every scar, my stretch marks, my extra skin, because they are the witness of my life, my loves, my years.

    So thank you, body, for everything you allow me to experience.

    The alternative to loving my body—the constant internal criticism and self-doubt—is too draining.

    We, as humans, are society, so let’s change this conditioning. Let’s never transmit this idea of what a woman’s body should look like to our daughters, to our sons. Let’s invent a world where it does not matter what you weigh as long as you feel healthy and good within. Let’s change the chattering from what diet we are on to how our heart is feeling.

    Let’s celebrate bodies, in their diverse beauty and forms.

  • How Restrictive Diets Mess with Our Brains and Lead to Bingeing

    How Restrictive Diets Mess with Our Brains and Lead to Bingeing

    “Your body is precious. It is your vehicle for awakening. Treat it with care.” ~Buddha

    When I went on my first diet in my teens (low-carb, it was back in the Atkins days), I wasn’t even overweight. I weighed less than 120 pounds, but my jeans had started to get a little tight, so I thought I needed to lose five pounds or so. At the time, I didn’t have a bad relationship with food; I just ate like a typical teenager—not the best choices.

    About two hours in, I remember starting to obsess over the things I couldn’t eat and being desperate to be skinny ASAP so I could eat them again.

    By mid day, I “failed.”

    I caved and ate…. *gasp, shock, horror*… carbs.

    And something weird happened. Instantly, I felt like I was bad.

    It’s not just that I thought I had made a bad choice.

    I thought, “You idiot, you can’t do anything right. Look at you, one meal in and you screwed up already. You may as well just eat whatever you want the rest of the day and start again tomorrow.”

    I think I gained about five pounds from that attempt.

    And I continued slowly gaining more and more weight every year after that—and feeling guiltier and guiltier every time I ate something “bad.”

    Atkins low-carb miracle cure had failed me horribly and began a decades-long battle with food and my weight.

    See, it wasn’t that I thought my choice was bad and then I just made a better choice next time; it was that I felt like I, as a person, was bad.

    And what happens when we’re bad?

    We get punished.

    I didn’t realize until many years later, but those degrading thoughts and overeating the rest of the day were, in part, my way of punishing myself for being bad and eating the bad things.

    The harder I tried to control what was going in, the worse it got and the more out of control I felt.

    In my thirties I hit bottom, as they say, as a result of trying to follow a “clean eating meal plan.”

    Four days into my first attempt to “eat clean” and strictly adhere to what someone else told me I should eat, I had my first-ever binge.

    Prior to that, I had some minor food issues. I ate kind of crummy, had slowly been gaining weight, and felt guilty when I ate carbs (thanks, Atkins).

    But a few days into “clean eating,” I was in the middle of a full-blown eating disorder.

    The clean eating miracle craze may have made me look and feel amazing, but emotionally, it failed me horribly and began my years-long battle to recover from bulimia and binge eating.

    But I thought it was just me. I was such a screw up, why couldn’t I just eat like a normal person?

    I saw how much better I looked and felt when I was managing to “be good” and “eat clean,” but within a few days or weeks of “being good,” no matter how great I felt from eating that way, I always caved and ended up bingeing again.

    And every time, I thought it was me. I told myself I was broken and weak and pathetic.

    Even later, when I started training other people, my message was “If it’s not on your plan, it doesn’t go in your mouth” and “You can’t expect to get the body you want by eating the things that gave you the body you have.”

    I wanted clients to feel amazing and get the best results possible, so I gave them what I knew would accomplish those two things.

    But, at the time, I didn’t know that it was actually those messages and rules that had created all my own issues with food, and I most definitely didn’t know they would have that affect on anyone else.

    I thought everyone else was “normal.” I was just broken and weak and stupid—that’s why I struggled so hard to just “be good” and “stop screwing up.”  Normal people would see how much better they felt when they ate that way, and they’d automatically change and live happily ever after.

    Ha. No.

    The more people I trained, the more I became acutely aware that food is the thing most people struggle with the most, and I started recognizing the exact same thoughts and behaviors I’d experienced, in the majority of my clients.

    And almost every single one of them also had a looong history of failed diets.

    Hmmm. Maybe it wasn’t just me.

    Not everyone goes to the extreme of bulimia, but the more I spoke with other people about their struggles with food and shared my own with them, the more I realized how shockingly pervasive disordered eating and eating disorders have become.

    Binge eating is an eating disorder—one that more people struggle with than I ever imagined. Though, most people are horrified to admit it, and many may not even be willing to admit to themselves that they do.

    I get that because it’s associated with lack of self-control and gluttony, and there’s a great deal of shame related to both of those things. But it actually has little to do with either, and you can’t change anything until you admit you’re struggling.

    And disordered eating in general is even more pervasive.

    Feeling guilt after eating is not normal. That’s disordered eating.

    Restricting entire food groups is not normal. That’s disordered eating.

    Severely restricting food in general in not normal. That’s disordered eating.

    Beating yourself up for eating something “bad” is not normal. That’s disordered eating.

    Starting and stopping a new diet every few weeks or months is not normal. That’s disordered eating.

    Diet culture has us so screwed up that we spend most of our lives doing these things without ever realizing they’re not normal. And they’re negatively affecting our whole lives.

    As I was working on my own recovery, I dove into hundreds of hours of research into dieting, habits, motivation, and disordered eating—anything I could get my hands on to help not only myself but my clients better stick to their plans.

    It’s so easy, I used to think; there must be some trick to make us just eat what we’re supposed to eat!

    But I learned the exact opposite.

    I learned that trying to “stick to the plan” was actually the problem.

    The solution wasn’t in finding some magic trick to help people follow their meal plans; the solution lay in not telling people what to eat in the first place.

    There are many reasons behind why we eat what we eat, when we eat, and even the quantities we choose to eat; it just doesn’t work to tell someone to stop everything they know and just eat this much of this at this time of day, because at some later date it’ll make them skinny and happy.

    Our brains don’t work that way.

    Our brains actually work exactly the opposite.

    As soon as we place restrictions on what we’re allowed or not allowed to eat, our brains start creating compulsions and obsessive thoughts that drive us to “cave.”

    Have you ever noticed that as soon as you “can’t” have something, you automatically want it even more?

    That’s a survival instinct that’s literally been hard-wired into our brains since the beginning of time.

    In November 1944, post-WW II, physiologist Ancel Keys, PhD and psychologist Josef Brozek PhD began a nearly yearlong experiment on the psychological and physiological effects of starvation on thirty-six mentally and physically healthy young men.

    The men were expected to lose one-quarter of their body weight. They spent the first three months eating a normal diet of 3,200 calories a day followed by six months of semi-starvation at approximately 1,600 calories a day (though 1,600 calories isn’t even all that low). The semi-starvation period was followed by three months of rehabilitation (2,000-3,200 calories a day) and finally an eight-week period of unrestricted rehabilitation, during which time there was no limitations on caloric intake.

    Researchers closely monitored the physiological and psychological changes brought on by calorie restriction.

    During the most restricted phase the changes were dramatic. Physically, the men became gaunt in appearance, and there were significant decreases in their strength, stamina, body temperature, heart rate, and even sex drive.

    Psychologically, the effects were even more dramatic and mirror those almost anyone with any history of dieting can relate to.

    They became obsessed with food. Any chance they had to get access to more food resulted in the men binge eating thousands of calories in a sitting.

    Before the restriction period, the men were a lively bunch, discussing politics, current events, and more. During the restriction period, this quickly changed. They dreamt, read, fantasized, and talked about food all the time.

    They became withdrawn, irritable, fatigued, and apathic. Depression, anxiety, and obsessive thinking (especially about food) were also observed.

    For some men, the study proved too difficult—they were excluded as a result of breaking the diet or not meeting their weight loss goals.

    We don’t struggle to follow diets and food rules because we lack willpower. It’s literally the way our brains are wired.

    Why? Because from an evolutionary standpoint, we’re not designed to restrict food. Coded into our DNA is the overwhelming urge to survive, so when food (either over-all calories or food groups) is restricted, our brains begin to create urgency, compulsions, and strong desires that force us to fill its needs—and often, even more than its needs (binges).

    We cave because our brains are hardwired to. Then the act of caving actually gets wired into our brains as a habit that we continue to repeat on autopilot every time we restrict food or food groups.

    And it triggers the punish mode that I spoke of earlier, which only compounds the problem and slowly degrades our self-worth.

    So every year millions of people are spending tens of billions of dollars on diets that are making the majority of us heavier, depressed, anxious, food-obsessed binge eaters, and destroying our self-worth.

    Now I know all that sounds pretty bleak, but there is a way out. I know because I’ve found it.

    It sounds like the opposite of what we should do, but it saved my life.

    I gave myself permission to eat whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, and stopped trying to restrict. The scarier that sounds, the more you need to do it.

    As soon as nothing is off limits, we can begin to slowly move away from the scarcity mindset and break the habits and obsessions created by dieting.

    When we give ourselves unconditional permission to eat whatever we want, without guilt or judgment, we give ourselves the space to get mindful about our choices.

    We give ourselves the opportunity to explore why we’re making the choices we’re making and the power to freely make different ones because we begin to value ourselves again.

    When we remove the guilt and judgment, start to value ourselves again, and work on being mindful, we can begin to notice how the foods we’re eating make us feel and make choices from a place of love and kindness rather than fear, guilt, and punishment.

    It sounds too simple to work, but it saved my life.

    Rather than telling people what they should and shouldn’t eat, or trying to listen to someone who’s telling us what we should or shouldn’t eat, we have to build a connection with our bodies.

    We have to learn to listen to them, to learn to distinguish the difference between physical hunger and emotional hunger. To stop eating when we’re not physically hungry, and to start feeling emotions instead of feeding them.

    We have to break the habits that drive autopilot eating. We have to be mindful, trust the wisdom of our own bodies, and make choices based on how they make our bodies feel rather than what some diet tells us is the answer to happiness and being skinny.

    UPDATE: Making the choice to not eat meat for ethical reasons and avoiding certain foods for allergy/medical purposes are not the same as restricting food groups for a diet. If you’re happy and feel great with whatever you’re currently doing, carry on! This is meant for people who are struggling with repeated diet attempts and overeating/bingeing, who feel out of control because they can never seem to “stay on track.”

  • How I Got Healthy & Overcame My Food/Body Issues by Ignoring Conventional Advice

    How I Got Healthy & Overcame My Food/Body Issues by Ignoring Conventional Advice

    I was an award-winning personal trainer and nutrition and wellness coach for over eight years.

    I also spent close to three decades struggling with my own weight and food issues—trying to “stick to” diets and/or healthy eating and lifestyle goals. And many years struggling with binge eating, bulimia, and (what I thought at the time was) an uncontrollable sugar addiction.

    During the years I was working in the fitness and nutrition industry, whenever I’d get new clients, I’d find out what their health and fitness goals were, and I’d give them the perfect plan to help them get there.

    And I made sure to remind them, it’s not a diet, it’s a lifestyle.

    I did that because it’s what I learned to do. It’s what everyone does.

    Because that’s what we’re taught—that eating, living, or being healthy requires us to make choices that others have told us are healthy and not do the things they’ve told us are unhealthy.

    You know… the perfect healthy lifestyle that constantly reminds you to:

    • Eat this, not that… or you’ll get sick, disease-ridden, and die early.
    • Weigh this amount and not more…. or you’ll get sick, disease-ridden, and die early.
    • Move this amount each day, in these ways… or you’ll get sick, disease-ridden, and die early.
    • And… you’re not dieting. You’re just eating healthy. You’re creating a healthy lifestyle.

    The perfect healthy eating and living plans constantly remind you that you must always be fighting, resisting, ignoring, and controlling yourself, your body, your hunger, and your cravings.

    And always doing more, working harder, being disciplined, having motivation, building willpower, etc.

    There’s a predictable formula for this supposedly “healthy” eating and living culture.

    The formula insists that we conform to a socially acceptable, mythical, perfect body size and shape.

    The formula treats our health as though it’s a future goal or accomplishment that we can only achieve later if we’re “good” now.

    The formula must be followed with no excuses. When it’s not, the problem is you and your obedience, willpower, discipline, motivation, and commitment.

    The formula is primarily concerned with optics rather than actual health. As long as we portray the “picture of health” and the behaviors we’re engaging in appear healthy, it doesn’t matter if the pressure, fear, and shame created by trying to stick to them are actually destroying us behind the scenes.

    The formula requires us to trust the rules and advice of others over our own bodies.

    It’s a mass-marketed, templated, “easy” model that allows no room for our own inner knowing, logic, self-trust, or personal power.

    It’s easy to sell because it preys on fear and always sounds so shiny and tempting.

    And this is what we’re taught it takes to eat and live healthy lives.

    Multi-billion-dollar-a-year industries have taught us how to “get healthy.”

    “Lose weight, feel great. Gain confidence. Get fit. Be healthy and happy. Live your best life.” But the unspoken truth is that it’s only “…as long as you follow our rules.”

    But you’re not going to be able to stick to this plan, and when you can’t, you’re going to waste your entire life at war with yourself, promising to “get back on track.”

    “On track,” of course, meaning doing all the things they say you’re supposed to.

    It’s a paradigm that promotes constant fear and oppressive attempts to control ourselves and our bodies in order to follow one-size-fits-all, arbitrary prescriptions.

    Nothing proves this more than how we’ve become so completely conned into believing the lie that healthy eating is hard work that requires willpower, discipline, commitment, and constant vigilance.

    That’s horrible and not a healthy way to live at all!

    We’ve been sold this message because it’s highly profitable for us to believe that we cannot trust ourselves and our own bodies and we must rely on others to tell us what to do.

    And we’ve bought it—hook, line, and sinker.

    But it forces us to go through life literally fighting with ourselves and our bodies, trying to follow their rules.

    It forces us to live disembodied, detached, disconnected from, distrusting, and fully ignoring the wisdom of our own bodies and our own inner knowing.

    Living in all that fear, disconnection, and distrust is so harmful.

    For me, it resulted in bulimia, binge eating, anxiety disorder, panic attacks, chronic clinical depression, self-loathing, crippling shame, and what I was fully convinced was a sugar/food addiction so severe that I often went to bed at night afraid I would die in my sleep because I’d eaten so much.

    I lived in a constant state of being completely consumed by not only the number on my scale but also fear and shame every time I “screwed up” and ate something “bad.” For decades of my life.

    Eventually, my mental, emotional, and physical health deteriorated so badly that I recognized my only choice was to learn how to heal because I couldn’t keep living that way—it was killing me.

    I finally recognized that my suffering was in large part the result of everything I was taught to do to maintain this supposedly healthy eating and lifestyle plan.

    And all I really wanted was peace.

    So I turned my back on it all.

    I stopped exercising every day and started a little light, mindful walking and mobility work instead— whatever helped my body heal.

    I released the need for my body to look a certain way or be a certain size and worked on healing my relationship with it instead of fighting to shrink, change, or control it.

    I stopped trying to make myself “eat healthy” and allowed myself to not only eat whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, but I even allowed myself to binge. I know that sounds crazy, but it’s truly the first step that helped me stop binge eating.

    I shut out every single message I’d ever gotten in my life about what it takes to eat or live “healthy,” and I started reconnecting with myself so I could figure out what actually helped me best support my overall well-being, right now, in this moment.

    I even eventually quit being a trainer and (traditional) nutrition and wellness coach.

    I tuned out everything I knew about what “healthy” eating and living looks like, and instead I turned inward and started connecting with myself. I started getting to know myself, understanding the patterns that were driving all those unhealthy choices in the first place and learning to change those.

    I started asking, how do I feel right now? How do I want to feel? What do I need (mentally, emotionally, or physically) in order to bridge the gap between the two, if there is one?

    It’s changed everything in the most glorious ways.

    I haven’t binged in many years. That’s a pattern that simply no longer exists in me.

    I’m not scared of and don’t feel addicted to or out of control around sugar (or any food) anymore.

    Food no longer controls me… not even sugar.

    I crave things that help me feel my best, including water, which I never used to drink before.

    I treat (and speak to) myself and my body with love and kindness.

    All of the “unhealthy” choices we make, all the unhealthy things we do to ourselves—even binge eating and supposed “sugar addictions”—it’s all merely the result of our conditioning. The stuff going on inside us.

    My external world, my lifestyle, my unhealthy choices, they were all symptoms of what was going on inside me—all the self-abuse I heaped on myself, ironically, because I couldn’t “stick to” a healthy living plan.

    When I changed that, when I stopped focusing on what I was doing and started changing my inner world, who I was being, my outer world (and the choices I was making for myself and my body) naturally changed.

    Healthy eating and living should never be the goal; they’re the result of how we’re being.

    Because here’s the thing: your body doesn’t care about the “health” goals you hope to meet in the future.

    It only knows what it needs right now, in this moment, and whether you’re making choices that help support that or not.

    If you’re trying to make yourself be consistent with some plan that’s supposed to help you reach some goal at a later date, you are, by definition, disconnected from your body and what it’s trying to tell you it actually needs right now.

    That’s a recipe for not making healthy choices and ignoring your body’s cues and messages.

    Supporting our health requires supporting our overall well-being, and we can only do that when we’re deeply connected to ourselves through what I call wholehearted being: being present, connected, curious, and intentional about our unique moment-to-moment needs and loving ourselves and our bodies enough to want to honor them.

    When you do that, making choices that best support yourself and your body right now becomes the natural result.

    Not some arbitrary goal that you can’t ever stay consistent enough to reach.

    If you’re reading this and can relate to any parts of my struggles with weight, overeating, binge eating, and sugar addiction, I want you to know that you, at your core, instinctively know what you and your body need to feel and live your best.

    You’ve just been conditioned out of that inner knowing after a lifetime of learning from everyone else that the only way to be healthy is to control yourself and your body and follow their advice instead of trusting your own inner knowing.

    With wholehearted being, I’ve gone from binge eating, bulimia, obsessive and compulsive thoughts and patterns around food and exercise, self and body hate and distrust…

    …to kindness, compassion, self and body love and trust, and learning to genuinely want to eat in ways that best support and nurture me.

    A New Path to Healthy Eating and Living

    Healthy eating and living through wholehearted being helps you build a foundation rooted firmly in your own self-love, trust, and worthiness because how we feel about ourselves impacts every aspect of our lives, including how we treat ourselves and our bodies.

    From there, you learn to make choices for yourself and your body through four main pillars of being:

    Present in this moment and in your body so you can break the conditioning that drives unhealthy behaviors

    Connected to your inner world—your thoughts, feelings, and communication from your body about what you need

    Curious about your inner experiences in this moment, with gentle awareness, self-compassion, and non-judgment

    Intentional with your thoughts, behaviors, and responses—intentionally choosing from kindness, gratitude, and love

    This process is incredibly powerful because it does two things that are required for lasting change:

    1.It helps you learn to love, trust, and value yourself enough to care how you treat your body.

    2. It allows you to put space between your triggers and the conditioned, autopilot behaviors that drive unhealthy choices in the first place. This allows you to get to know yourself, your patterns, and your needs and learn new tools and practices that better support your overall well-being. Tools and practices that also help you learn to better understand and nurture, not only your physical needs, but your mental and emotional needs as well. And that’s vital because our thoughts and emotions are major components of our overall well-being. They drive the choices we make.

    It’s a powerful and simple process but not an easy one. It takes courage to relearn to trust yourself with food, to learn new ways of being, and it takes a lot of practice, repetition, and support, but it’s so very worth it.

    After eight years in the fitness, nutrition, and wellness industry (and almost thirty years of dieting), I finally got healthy and broke my sugar addiction by choosing to start focusing on my life instead of my weight or food choices.

    By learning to tune out the external messages trying to tell me what I “should” eat or do and turn inward to start making choices for myself that best nurture my whole being, moment to moment—choices that are grounded in love, self and body trust, connection, and kindness.

    And it’s changed everything.

  • The One Thought That Killed My Crippling Fear of Other People’s Opinions

    The One Thought That Killed My Crippling Fear of Other People’s Opinions

    “Don’t worry if someone does not like you. Most people are struggling to like themselves.” ~Unknown

    For as long as I can remember, I have been deathly afraid of what other people thought of me.

    I remember looking at all the other girls in third grade and wondering why I didn’t have a flat stomach like them. I was ashamed of my body and didn’t want other people to look at me. This is not a thought that a ten-year-old girl should have, but unfortunately, it’s all too common.

    Every single woman I know has voiced this same struggle. That other people’s opinions have too much weight in their lives and are something to be feared. For most of us women, there is nothing worse than someone else judging our appearance.

    After that fear first came to me in third grade, I carried it with me every day throughout high school, college, and into my twenties. This led me to trying every diet imaginable and going through cycles of restricting and binging. I just wanted to lose those pesky fifteen pounds so I could finally feel better about myself and not be scared of attention.

    There was no better feeling than getting a new diet book in the mail and vowing that I would start the next day. Following every rule perfectly and never straying from the list of acceptable foods. I stopped going to restaurants and having meals with friends because I wouldn’t know the exact calorie count.

    All this chasing new diets and strict workouts was because of one simple thought that I carried for years. I just assumed everyone was judging my body and would like me more if I lost weight. I was constantly comparing my body to every other woman around me.

    This fear of what other people thought also led me to have a complicated relationship with alcohol in my late teens and early twenties. At my core I am naturally sensitive, observant, even-keeled, and sometimes quiet. But I didn’t like this about me; I wanted to be the outgoing party girl that was the center of attention.

    The first time I got drunk in high school I realized that this could be my one-way ticket to achieve my desired personality. With alcohol I was carefree, funny, and spontaneous, and I loved that I could get endless attention. I was finally the life of the party, and no one could take it away from me.

    I wanted everyone to think that party-girl me was the real me, not the sensitive and loving person that I was desperately trying to hide. Classmates were actually quite shocked if they saw me at a party because I was so different than how I appeared in school. It was exciting to unveil this persona to every new person I met.

    But the thing with diets and alcohol was that this feeling of freedom was only temporary. When the alcohol wore off or the new-diet excitement faded, I was back to the same feelings. In fact, I found that I was even more concerned about what people thought of me if the diet didn’t work or the alcohol wasn’t as strong. I feared that they would discover the real me.

    The irony was that whenever I drank, I felt worse about myself after the alcohol left my system. I felt physically and emotionally ill from the poison I was putting into my body. I would often be embarrassed about not remembering the night before or fearing that I said something I shouldn’t have. It was a nightmare of a rollercoaster that I no longer wanted to be a part of.

    I decided in my mid-twenties that alcohol would no longer have power over me. That I wouldn’t rely on it to feel confident and instead work on loving the real me. I decided to break up with alcohol and put it on the back burner. I was moving to a new city where I didn’t know anyone, so I figured this would be a good time to start fresh.

    Once I moved and started my new life, those same familiar fears and pangs of shame started to show up again. If I wasn’t the loud party girl, who would I be? What would people think of me if I wanted to stay in and read instead of partying? I wasn’t confident in my authentic self yet, and I was desperately looking for a new personality to adopt. That’s when I turned back to a familiar friend for help: dieting.

    In the span of five years, I tried every major diet out there: paleo, keto, vegetarian, vegan, counting macros and calories, you name it. I dedicated all my free time to absorbing all the information I could so I could perfect my diet even more. At one point I was eating chicken, broccoli, and sweet potatoes for every single meal. My body was screaming at me for nutrients, but I continued to ignore it.

    Then one day I hit that illustrious number on the scale and finally felt happy. Well, I assumed I would feel happy, but I was far from it. I felt like absolute crap. My hair was falling out, I had trouble sleeping for the first time in my life, my digestion was ruined, and I had crippling fatigue. I finally lost the fifteen pounds, but my health was the worst it had ever been.

    I felt betrayed. The scale was where I wanted it, but I wasn’t happy. I was more self-conscious of my body than ever before. I didn’t want people to look at me and notice my weight loss. That little girl that cared about what people thought was still ruling my life. I had to make a change, and I had to start loving the girl in the mirror no matter what I looked like. My life depended on it.

    It was during one of those nights where I felt so confused and lost that I stumbled into the world of self-development. I bought my very first journal and the first sentence I wrote was: “Self-love, what does it mean and how do I find it?” I vowed to myself that I would turn inward and get to know the real me for the first time in my life. 

    This new journey felt uncomfortable and scary and pushed me completely outside my comfort zone. I couldn’t just hide behind external sources anymore like I did with alcohol and strict diets. I had to get to know authentic Annie and show the world who she was.

    It was in this journey that I found my love of writing and inspiring people. I decided to follow my dreams and get certified as a life coach and finally make my writing public. But when I went to hit publish on my first post, that same fear reared its ugly head.

    This time I was deathly afraid of what my coworkers and friends would think. They would see the real me, the sensitive soul that had deep feelings and wanted to inspire other people. This fear caused me to deny who I was for far too long, again.

    I hesitated for years to share my writing because this fear stopped me. But this time I wasn’t going to let it have control over me anymore. One day this thought popped into my head and stopped me dead in my tracks. It was an enormous epiphany and one I couldn’t ignore. The thought was:

    When I am eighty years old and looking back on my life, what do I want to remember? That I followed the same path as everyone else or I followed my heart?

    As soon as that thought came to me it was like I was hit over the head. For the first time in my life, I understood it. I realized that if I kept living my life in fear of other people’s opinions, I wasn’t really living my own life.

    Every human is here to be unique and serve out their own purpose, not to just follow the crowds blindly. I couldn’t live out my purpose if I wanted to hide away.

    Self-acceptance and self-love come from knowing and respecting all parts of myself. It comes from acknowledging my shadow sides and still putting myself out there regardless of opinions. It comes from going after big and scary goals and having fun along the way. Because the absolute truth is this: other people’s opinions are not going to matter in one year. They won’t even matter five minutes from now.

    So now I want you to ask yourself the same question: What do you want to remember most about your life when you are at the end of it?

  • How to Protect Our Kids from a Lifetime of Food, Weight, and Body Image Issues

    How to Protect Our Kids from a Lifetime of Food, Weight, and Body Image Issues

    I went on my first diet when I was around fourteen or so because, as they often do in growing teens, my jeans started getting tight.

    And because I grew up in the same anti-fat culture we all have, I hated myself for it.

    Around the same time, an adult in my life who was always obsessed with “eating healthy” gave me a copy of the new book she was reading outlining the healthiest way to eat.

    It was a book on the Atkins/low-carb diet.

    The author spent the bulk of the book demonizing carbs, explaining in convincing-sounding detail all the science he supposedly had about not only how harmful carbs were but how they were the cause of weight gain.

    Three things happened from reading that book.

    1. I became scared of eating carbs and started trying to eliminate them because, while of course I wanted to be healthy, I was terrified of gaining weight.

    2. Instead of losing the five pounds or so that I wanted to lose, I gained about five pounds and a slow progression of weight gain continued for years. Because the harder I tried to eliminate the carbs, the more I craved and obsessed over them; always eventually caving, eating them, and then hating myself for it and promising to start “being good tomorrow.

    Eventually the caving led to overeating them because “as long as I was being bad anyway, I may as well eat them all and get them out of the house so I won’t be tempted when I start being good again.”

    3. An almost three-decades-long war with my weight, my body, myself, and food began. A war that resulted in a hospitalization in my early thirties, after my first foray into the world of “it’s not a diet; it’s clean, healthy eating,” for bulimia so severe I often felt like I was going to eat myself to death.

    And the whole time, I blamed myself for it. I believed I was stupid, weak, pathetic, a pig who needed to try harder to control myself.

    So I kept trying. For more than half my life I tried, and it almost killed me.

    I’ve been working with women around the whole weight and food thing in one form or another for over fifteen years now. I started sharing my story because after listening to other women describe their histories with food and weight, I realized that my story is not unique.

    Varying degrees of my story are the norm, and they all start in basically the same seemingly innocent ways.

    We want to lose weight or “eat healthier,” so we do what we’re taught we’re supposed to.

    We start a diet or “healthy eating plan” of some sort that tells us what we “should” and “shouldn’t be” eating. This leads to a lifetime of trying to control our intake and our bodies, which results in disordered eating patterns, weight cycling, and self-loathing.

    I regularly hear from women in their seventies or eighties who have spent their entire lives fighting this losing battle with themselves to “eat right” and lose weight.

    In one survey of US women a few years ago, 75% reported disordered eating behaviors or symptoms consistent with eating disorders.

    My recovery didn’t start until I realized a few basic truths.

    First, if I had any hope of healing, I had to figure out what was causing my eating issues. Ultimately, it came down to my conditioning: patterns of thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors that had developed over the course of my life as a result of many different things, not the least of which being:

    1. The stories I had learned to believe about bodies and the people in them: Big ones are bad, unhealthy, undisciplined, and lazy. Small ones are good, healthy, and disciplined, and they work hard.

    These misguided beliefs taught me not only to live in fear of weight gain and the harsh judgment of others if I gained weight, but also to judge myself and my body harshly when I did so. This contributed to not only the decades of weight gain and disordered eating but ultimately the eating disorder.

    2. The stories I’d learned about food: These are the good foods, the healthy foods, the foods you should be eating, and those are the bad foods, the unhealthy ones, the ones that cause all manner of disease, poor health, and weight gain. Those are the foods you have to give up forever, or only allow in moderation.

    These misguided beliefs taught me to live in fear of food and my body becoming unhealthy or fat if I dared to eat the “wrong” thing. This created the never-ending pattern of promising myself I was going to “be good” only to end up craving, caving, hating myself, and starting over that I felt trapped in for so many years.

    3. Disconnection with myself, my body, and my own needs: As long as I was trying to make myself eat or do the things I thought I “should” do in order to control my body and my food intake, I was stuck in my head. Stuck in fear. Disconnected from myself, my body, and even the decision-making part of my brain. Ruminating, promising, obsessing, hating.

    In that state, I had no ability to understand the messages my body was constantly sending me about what it needed, nor did I have any concept that my body was something that could be trusted to tell me that. I saw it as an enemy to be ruled over, controlled, and beaten into submission… rather than the ally, healer, and communicator that it is.

    4. Self-loathing: I didn’t like, love, trust, or value myself, so my entire self-worth and relationship with myself relied on what my body looked like and my need to control how others saw me.

    The second truth I had to realize: if I had any hope of recovering and making peace with myself, my body, and food, I had to change the things that were causing the war.

    That meant giving up the obsession with my weight and eating or looking perfect.

    I had to recognize those things for what they were—distractions that kept me from dealing with the issues that were causing the problems in the first place and were making matters worse.

    So I put all my energy into changing the causes.

    It didn’t happen overnight, but one day I realized I couldn’t remember the last time I’d engaged in compensatory behaviors. The binges were getting fewer and farther between.

    And then I couldn’t remember the last time I binged or even overate, and I couldn’t even imagine ever doing it again.

    It’s been many years since those things were my daily reality, and I’m thrilled to say they simply don’t exist in me anymore because I changed the conditioning that was causing them. I learned to reconnect with and trust my body when it tells me what it needs or wants, and I learned to value myself enough that I cannot imagine treating myself or my body poorly anymore.

    Recovery and peace are blessings that I don’t take for granted for a second and I’m still grateful for every minute of the day.

    But disordered eating and eating disorder recovery are unbelievably difficult, prone to multiple relapses, and many aren’t so lucky.

    This brings me to my main points because the simplest solution to disordered eating or eating disorder recovery is to prevent those things from ever starting in the first place.

    That’s my dream, to save future generations from growing up with the disordered eating patterns/eating disorders and horrible body/self-images that ours has grown up with.

    It starts with us, as parents.

    What I Wish Parents Understood

    Living with disordered eating patterns or an eating disorder is a special kind of hell that I wouldn’t wish on anyone.

    It’s like living with the meanest, most self-destructive monster in your head one can imagine.

    You know the things you’re thinking and the choices you’re making are harming you, you know they’re making you miserable, you’re desperate to stop, and yet… no matter how hard you try, you can’t.

    You feel powerless. Hopeless. Helpless. Trapped.

    Recovery was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life—and I’ve not had an easy life, so that says a lot.

    Given this, it’s my view that in addition to helping those struggling recover, prevention at an early age needs to be a top priority.

    And parents, I’m not trying to place blame, but after fifteen years of hearing women talk about their struggles, I’ve come to realize that we are often a big part of the cause, although not purposely of course.

    We all have our kids’ best interests in mind.

    We want our kids to be the healthiest, most confident versions of themselves, and we’re all doing the best we can to help them get there.

    We want them to maintain healthy bodies and eat nutritious foods. Nobody doubts that we all want the best for our children and are doing our best.

    But the way we’re approaching it is almost guaranteeing that our kids are going to struggle with the same food issues, eating disorders, or a lifetime of disordered eating and failed diet attempts that so many in our generation have.

    They’re learning to fight the same wars we have in the same ways we learned to fight them.

    All the things we typically do to try to help encourage health (restricting “bad” foods, teaching them that some are “good” and some are “bad,” encouraging them to lose weight or even acknowledging their weight) are among the worst things we can do for the health of our children.

    It’s difficult to overstate the damage that weight and food shame does to adults, and that damage is worse in children.

    We also have to remember that they learn from us. If your kids watch you struggle with food and your weight, if they see you tie your mood and your self-worth to your scale, they are going to be at a significantly higher risk for developing an eating disorder or living with those same struggles themselves.

    So this is what I want parents everywhere to know: encouraging weight loss, labeling or restricting their food intake (good vs bad, allowed vs not allowed), discussing weight, restricting foods, and dieting yourself—all of those things that millions of us are doing every single day that diet and healthy eating cultures have taught us is expected or accepted—they’re putting our children at risk.

    Research has shown that the younger girls are when they go on their first diet, the more likely they are to engage in extreme weight control behaviors like vomiting and laxatives (that’s an eating disorder), abusing drugs and alcohol, and becoming overweight by the time they reach their thirties.

    One out of four dieters will develop some type of eating disorder. That’s a number that’s doubled in the last twenty years. And the majority of the rest develop very disordered eating patterns.

    Eating disorders are widely recognized to have the highest mortality rate of all mental illness, while also being among the most underdiagnosed and under/poorly treated.

    Not even to mention the levels of anxiety, depression, and self-loathing that typically come from years of living with disordered eating and battling with our weight.

    There is a better way.

    Encouraging Healthy Choices Without the Risk

    DON’Ts

    Don’t discuss weight, size, or bodies—not yours, not theirs, not anyone else’s.

    Don’t let other people discuss their weight in front of them—not their doctor, not relatives, no one.

    Don’t label foods—no good, no bad, no healthy, no unhealthy… no food labels. At all. Binary food labels can cause shame, create self-punishing behaviors, destroy our relationship with food, and contribute to overeat/binge/restrict cycles that can take years to heal.

    Don’t tell them they are what they eat—our food choices don’t determine our worth.

    Don’t restrict foods—let them eat what they want. Restriction leads to guilt, shame, overeating, or bingeing and fuels disconnection.

    Don’t force exercise or “burning off calories”—encouraging exercise as a means of weight loss is setting them up for trouble.

    DOs

    Do encourage them to consider how their food choices make their body feel. How does that big mac and fries make their body feel when they’re done eating? What about the candy for breakfast? Do they feel good when they’re done eating? Or do they feel sick? Would they rather feel good, or sick? How does skipping a meal make their body feel? Do they want to feel that way? Do they really want to ignore their body’s most basic human needs with restriction? Why?

    Do encourage them to consider why they’re eating. Are they physically hungry? No? Are they emotionally hungry? Teach them the difference and help them learn to accept, honor, and express the emotions they’re trying to feed or soothe rather than ignore or numb them.

    Do teach them the value of understanding the why behind the choices they’re making and how their choices are often a result of their relationship with themselves.

    Do teach them that the relationships they have with themselves, food, and their bodies are the most important relationships they’ll ever have in their lives and to protect and nurture them.

    Do lift them up, teach them to value themselves exactly as they are, for who they are, not what they look like, weigh, or how they eat. Teach them to value and respect others, no matter what size they are.

    Do teach them about self-acceptance, kindness, authenticity, self-compassion, and the power of mindful living.

    Do teach them to appreciate the wonder and magic of their bodies, no matter what size they are. Teach them how to stay present in the moment and in their bodies, so they learn to listen to and trust their own bodies.

    Do teach them humans come in all shapes and sizes—and that no one shape or size is any better than another.

    Teach them that they are enough, exactly as they are, and that neither their bodies nor their food choices define their worth.

    And that will all be way easier if you learn it for yourself first.

  • How Weight and Food Obsessions Disconnect Us and Why This Is So Harmful

    How Weight and Food Obsessions Disconnect Us and Why This Is So Harmful

    “We are hard-wired to connect with others, it’s what gives purpose and meaning to our lives, and without it, there is suffering.” ~Brené Brown

    I was inducted into diet culture in my early teens and then into the health and fitness industry in my early thirties, when my “fitness journey” had finally really taken off, and I ultimately became a personal trainer and nutrition and wellness coach.

    Once we’ve given enough years of our life to diet culture, many of us begin to recognize the ways that it’s harming us and all the things it’s stealing from us.

    Peace of mind. Self-worth and self-trust. Mental, emotional, and physical health and well-being.

    My grandmother’s cookies.

    The ability to just eat and enjoy food without fear.

    Self-respect.

    Body trust.

    But we don’t notice all the ways “health and fitness” are promoted in our culture and how they do the same thing. And there are so many other things it steals from us that we often don’t think about or notice.

    One of the biggest examples of this for me, and the women I work with, was connection.

    Connection with myself and connection with others.

    I didn’t start losing my ability to connect because of my induction into diet culture. That started earlier as a result of growing up with an abusive, alcoholic father.

    But those industries preyed on it, fueled it, flamed it, and then ran away with it for decades.

    Feeling connected is a core human need. According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, love and belonging are right up there after things like food, water, and safety.

    We are hardwired to connect.

    Recent research has suggested that the brain processes the pain of feeling disconnected or rejected the same way it processes physical pain. Nearly every aspect of our health and well-being relies on connection.

    And while it may seem like we’re constantly connected, especially now through things like social media or video calls, it’s not actually the case.

    Loneliness has been on the rise, worldwide.

    Chatting about what food we should or shouldn’t eat; commiserating over how much we hate our bodies, how much weight we gained, the latest diet attempt we just failed; bragging about how we did in the gym, how much weight we lost, how many steps we took, or how “clean” we’re eating—this isn’t connection. It’s not connecting with others, and it’s definitely not connecting with ourselves.

    In fact, those things keep us from being able to connect with ourselves because we’re so focused on controlling external “shoulds.”

    We may form friendships around those things, but they aren’t based on genuine connections.

    Curating the picture-perfect Instagram feed, gathering around mutually hated or demonized “others,” and sharing memes or videos of the latest TikTok trend are also not the same as real, genuine human connections.

    It’s all just filling space with mindless, external distractions.

    It’s not truly allowing ourselves to be raw, real, and vulnerable. To be seen, heard, and valued for who we uniquely are as individuals—not just the perfectly curated image we present to the world but the messy, raw, and real parts we try so hard to hide.

    The parts we fear make us most undeserving of love and belonging.

    I certainly hid behind many of those things. I used them as a cover, as a tool to hide behind. A mask. A role I played, behind which I could feel (somewhat) safely tucked away and protected.

    My “passion for health and fitness” allowed me to play the badass.

    (In reality, I was scared all the time.)

    It allowed me to play the inspirational “success” story.

    (In reality, I was terrified of putting an ounce of weight back on because I desperately craved the praise and validation I was receiving. And it was destroying my mental, emotional, and physical health and well-being).

    The strong, fearless, confident “fitness freak” that could do anything she put her mind to.

    (Which, in reality, hid the fact that I was so scared and emotionally fragile and felt so broken that I needed the physical strength I could build through exercise just to get through the day.)

    I was good at these roles. I loved these roles, at least in the early years.

    Just be what people expected. Be what I’d seen get celebrated in others. Easy, right? Sure, until it isn’t.

    The longer I wore the mask, the more it started to hurt.

    The harder I worked to keep up those appearances, to maintain that external image of perfection through my body and what I was eating, the more damage it was doing.

    Externally, I was doing everything “right.”

    In reality? I ended up a binge eater, bulimic, clinically depressed, and living with generalized anxiety disorder and panic attacks. For many reasons, not the least of which because I was completely disconnected—from myself, my body, and from others.

    I was so focused on trying to be something I thought I was supposed to be, so I’d be liked, admired, impressive, that I lost who I was and what I needed.

    I lost what truly mattered to me and in life.

    I lost the ability to trust myself, to trust others, to let them in and truly see me.

    In fact, I was terrified of being really seen.

    Because I didn’t like myself and I didn’t believe anyone else would either if they knew the real me.

    So I hid behind what my body looked like. My external strength. The image I built.

    Holy cow, it got exhausting. And soul-crushing.

    You simply cannot simultaneously spend your life worried about what other people think about you (or your body), trying to micro-manage and control the image you project, and also be truly connected to yourself and others in any meaningful way. 

    Because in order to keep up those appearances, you have to actively work to hide parts of yourself—large parts of yourself that you’re terrified will be seen if you dare take off the mask.

    If you’re actively hiding parts of yourself, you’re not able to truly feel seen, heard, and valued… because you are hidden away. Locked in some dark, dusty corner of your inner world, and in my case, stuffed down with food.

    After a while, I didn’t even remember who I was. My identity became so wrapped up in who I thought I was (a worthless failure who was completely undeserving of love or acceptance) and who I was trying to be (the perfect, badass inspiration) to hide it, that I was lost.

    And completely disconnected. From myself and others.

    What I wanted or needed didn’t matter because my entire existence was being driven by fear and the disconnection that causes.

    Fear of rejection and abandonment if I stopped playing the role.

    Fear of weight gain and not looking “good enough.” Fear of not being good enough. Fear of what the binge eating was doing to my health. Fear of what would happen if I stopped micro-managing every morsel of food I ate and just trusted myself with food.

    Fear of judgment.

    And every time I turned around, there were diet, “health and wellness” cultures swooping in and stoking those fears.

    Eventually, I recognized that I couldn’t keep it up. I couldn’t keep playing the role. I was too tired, and it had completely broken me. I couldn’t keep caring about trying to be impressive or accepted. I had to start caring about being healthy and at peace with myself.

    In order to do that, I needed to find my way back to myself. I needed to shut out the garbage that was keeping me disconnected and learn how to connect.

    First with myself, because how could I ever truly connect with others if I didn’t even know who I was when I wasn’t playing the role?

    And how could I heal all that weight and food stuff if I stayed in the fear and obsession that kept me so disconnected from myself?

    I couldn’t.

    So I started working on being present with myself, not an easy feat when you don’t much like yourself. But required, nonetheless.

    I started getting curious and practiced connecting with my body, my thoughts, my emotions, my needs… my inner world.

    Who was I, really?

    What really mattered to me in life?

    Forget what I thought I should eat or do… what did I need?

    Was I really put here to spend my life hating myself, obsessing over these things that are destroying me, distrusting myself, and fearing real, meaningful connection with others?

    What if I could find a way to unconditionally accept myself and my body? How would that change the way I treated it and showed up in the world?

    What did I want to eat? Forget what I was “supposed to” eat; what did I want? How were the foods I was eating making me feel? How did I want to feel in my body?

    Forget what it was supposed to look like or weigh; how did I want it to feel to live in? How were my thoughts and conditioned patterns with food and exercise impacting that? Were they helping or harming? How could I learn to change them if they weren’t?

    And I started practicing being more intentional with my thoughts, beliefs, and actions. Intentionally making choices that were loving and kind, that helped me feel better, in general and about myself. Anything that wasn’t helping me live or feel better, and more connected with myself, could have no place in my world anymore.

    Once I started feeling deeply connected with myself and my body, I slowly started working on learning to connect with others.

    That’s still something I find difficult and am learning to do, but I’m still practicing. In baby steps.

    Because what I learned when I started reconnecting with myself was how much living with an alcoholic father impacted me as an adult.

    It taught me that not only is the world scary, but people are. They’re scary and unpredictable. It also created abandonment issues, and it’s where the fear of not being good enough, and the feeling that I needed to play a role to be loved or accepted, had actually begun. No wonder I had so much trouble connecting.

    I share this story because I’ve come to realize that most of us have an underlying fear around not being good enough that started in childhood for one reason or another. And those predatory industries sneak into every corner of our world, capitalizing on our fear with broken promises that do nothing but make things worse.

    The weight and food obsessions are a diversion.

    A socially acceptable, surface-level distraction that keeps us so externally focused and consumed that we spend most of our adult lives not even knowing that we’re disconnected—or that we’re living in fear and we’re just trying to “fix it” by making ourselves feel more socially acceptable.

    All while disconnecting us more and more. From ourselves and others.

    Because we’re hiding behind diversions and masks.

    Well, my mask is finally off.

    Under it, I have belly rolls. I have wrinkles. I have gray hair. I dye it because I prefer dark hair, but sometimes I put it off and rock a solid skunk stripe of gray down the middle of my head.

    Like all bodies, mine changes.

    None of that means I let myself go. It means I let myself just be.

    I’ve overcome a lot of things in my life, but still struggle with some others.

    I screw up a lot, even fail sometimes. Often, actually.

    I’m exceptionally good at some things and full-on suck at even more.

    I can’t do everything myself. Sometimes I need help and support. I’m still not very good at asking for it, but I’m working on it.

    All of that simply means that like you, I’m human. And I cannot connect with myself or anyone else if I’m trying so hard to be impressive that I’m not being real.

    So I don’t anymore.

  • Obsessed with Healthy Eating? 9 Things I’ve Learned Since Recovering from Orthorexia

    Obsessed with Healthy Eating? 9 Things I’ve Learned Since Recovering from Orthorexia

    “Sending love to everyone who’s doing their best to heal from things they don’t discuss.” ~Unknown

    I used to obsess over healthy eating, and I mean OB-SESSSSS. I spent virtually every waking moment thinking about food. What should I eat today? Is there too much sugar in that? What will I eat when we go out next week? Should I claim that I’m allergic to gluten?

    Although I didn’t know it at the time, I was suffering from orthorexia (that is, an unhealthy obsession with healthy eating). Yes, I fully agree that eating nutritious food is good for you—there’s few who would deny that—but when you are thinking about food non-stop, something has definitely gone awry.

    It all started innocently enough. My daughter (who’s my youngest) was about a year old, and I was ready to “get back in shape” and reclaim my pre-pregnancy weight. However, since I was against the idea of fad diets, I was looking for something else.

    That “something else” turned out to be wellness culture, and I absorbed it all. I followed several influencers who said we must eat in a certain way for ideal health, which often meant organic, gluten-free, dairy-free, and absolutely no sugar. The influencers also used a lot of pseudoscience to support their ideas, and I totally fell for it.

    With the idea of eating in a certain way for optimum health swirling round my brain, I decided to follow a thirty-day kick-starter healthy eating plan. It was all about focusing on health (and not weight loss). Easy enough, hey?

    There was no counting calories, macros, or weighing food. No points. It was just about eating nutritious, wholesome food and having a protein shake for breakfast. What could be the harm in that?

    Well, it was probably the long list of “not allowed” foods that you cut for thirty days (such as sugar, dairy, gluten, and soy)—essentially an elimination diet. The idea being that after thirty days you reintroduce the foods to help you identify your food intolerances. See? It’s all for health! Or so I thought…

    And, as my “clean eating” regime was underway, I started to get a lot of positive feedback.

    You’re so disciplined! How do you eat so healthy? Wow, you look really well.

    It was alluring.

    This was my slippery slope and the beginning of an unhealthy obsession with food.

    Three years in, my life looked something like this: I claimed a gluten and dairy intolerance and was experimenting with being vegan, all for the sake of my health. Unfortunately, there’s not much food left to eat on this kind of restrictive diet.

    Every few months I would follow an elimination diet (again) and would cut out all sugar, alcohol, caffeine, and soy (alongside the dairy and gluten that I was no longer eating). I started avoiding social events because the list of “safe foods” was getting so complicated; it often seemed easier to stay home.

    All of this in the name of “health.” Except that it wasn’t healthy.

    I was missing social events and avoided spending time with friends, my mental health was suffering, and I was developing an extremely disordered relationship with food.

    While orthorexia isn’t classified as an eating disorder according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, some healthcare professionals believe that it should be. And, personally speaking, my relationship with food was starting to remind me of the time when I’d suffered from an eating disorder back in my twenties.

    I had a series of aha moments that finally woke me up to the fact that my behavior was not at all healthy and my extreme approach to food was doing me more harm than good.

    It was when I started feeling embarrassed going to someone’s house for dinner and sending a long list of foods I couldn’t eat.

    It was when I started to notice bingeing behavior: I’d binge on five sweet potato brownies because they were supposedly “healthy.” I’m sure that if I’d just had access to a chocolate brownie, I might have only eaten one

    It was when I was doing my elimination diet so frequently, I had to make lots of excuses about why I couldn’t join evenings out.

    Eventually I realized that my old eating disorder had morphed into orthorexia.

    Thankfully, I had the resources to make a quick recovery, and my relationship with food has done a full 180 turn… In hindsight I can see clearly how very disordered my thinking, feelings, and behavior were.

    With that in mind, here are nine lessons I learnt from my brush with orthorexia. My hope is that if you question some of your own food behaviors, you seek help before too much damage is done.

    #1 There is no need to restrict food groups from your diet.

    Unless you have a medical reason to do so (like coeliac disease), restricting food groups from your diet is unnecessary. Nope, you don’t need to be carb free; in fact, research shows that in the long term, a low-carb diet is actually bad for you.

    #2 A flexible approach to eating is best.

    You just don’t need overly rigid food rules. My food rules were too rigid, and I tried to eat perfectly all the time. Perfectly to me was organic, gluten-free, dairy-free, and absolutely no processed sugar. Alongside that, I stopped eating fruit because it has sugar in it. So, for a while, the only fruits I would eat were berries. Bananas, red apples, grapes, and tropical fruits were totally out of the question.

    The problem with rigid rules is that all the fun things in life become stressful, like holidays, eating out, and going to a friend’s house, so flexibility is key.

    #3 If you get overly upset when food rules are broken, something’s wrong.

    I felt compelled to stick to my food rules, and I would feel emotional, distraught, and upset if I broke them. Like I had failed. I remember once crying in a French supermarket on holiday because I couldn’t buy the organic and gluten-free versions of food I wanted. It’s kind of missing the point of a holiday, isn’t it?

    #4 Food is NOT just fuel.

    Have you heard the quote “food is fuel”? It’s bandied around everywhere in the wellness and fitness spheres. But food isn’t just fuel. It’s about so much more, and this kind of thinking limits our potential to enjoy food to its fullest potential.

    Food can be comforting; it can be a time to connect with friends and family. It’s nourishing for our bodies, and also nourishing for our souls; it can be nostalgic or related to our culture. A cup of tea and a biscuit can remind you of your granny, while a single meal can take you back to your childhood.

    #5 All foods can fit in a balanced diet.

    Yes, even sweets, chocolate, and pastries. It’s totally unsustainable to cut out “bad” foods for the rest of your life. I’ve also found that you’re more likely to crave these “bad” foods if you tell yourself you can never eat them again. When all foods fit, the ice cream comes off the pedestal and you can keep it in the house without bingeing. It’s a total revelation.

    #6 It’s worse for your health to stress about sugar in food than to actually eat a damn cookie.

    I used to stress about the sugar in food constantly. I would read every food label when shopping; I would calculate grams of sugar in things like raisins; I would only eat a green apple and not a red apple (too much sugar, apparently). Yup, I was one of those mums who cooked gluten-free, dairy-free, and sugar-free cakes for the kids’ birthdays. Yuk! Poor kids.

    I’ve learned the stress of worrying about food is way worse than just eating the food itself. So relax, and enjoy that cookie.

    #7 “Health” is more than just the food we eat.

    Health is not just about what we eat; it’s way more than that. It’s about your genetics and your access to nutritious food and decent healthcare, which means it’s associated with your income level.

    Also, what you consider “healthy” is different to what I consider “healthy.” Maybe my “health” is about being able to run around after my kids without feeling breathless, or improving my flexibility to keep my body feeling supple.

    Your health might be about improving stamina and strength to run a marathon, or about sleeping seven to eight hours a night.

    #8 Social events shouldn’t be awkward.

    Quite the opposite. Social events should be fun, or relaxing and enjoyable. Not fraught and stressful. I had many an awkward conversation with hosts about things that I couldn’t eat.

    I would avoid events when doing my cleanse, or re-arrange things around these months. And if I did venture out, I would endlessly worry about what I’d eat, sometimes calling the restaurant ahead to see what they had on the menu to fit my rigid rules. Or I would claim allergies so I could work out what was gluten-free and dairy-free. #awkward

    And finally, if you are a parent…

    #9 Your kids are watching you.

    You might not say anything to your kids, but they are watching you. They notice what you do, reading those labels, and how you talk about food. They see when you skip the fun meals or cook something separate for yourself. They see when you are down on yourself and your body.

    They are watching. Everything.

    If I’m truly honest, this was the biggest driver for me to heal my relationship with food. The last thing I wanted to do was pass my disordered eating down to my kids.

    Finding food freedom was the best thing that happened to me. I no longer fall to pieces in a restaurant or on holiday. Eating is no longer a stressful experience. I love food for all the things the eating experience gives us—connection, chats, family, and friends. I hope you can too.

  • The Surprising Strategy I Used to Stop Bingeing (and Why It Worked)

    The Surprising Strategy I Used to Stop Bingeing (and Why It Worked)

    “Sometimes the thing you’re most afraid of doing, is the very thing that will set you free.” ~Robert Tew

    I recovered from binge eating and bulimia by giving myself permission to binge. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it?

    My decades-long weight and food war started in my teens, immediately after reading my first diet book, about Atkins, to be exact. I spent the following two decades trying to lose weight (only to keep gaining) and struggling with food.

    By my early thirties, I’d finally managed to lose weight, but it hadn’t end the war, it had just started a new one. The war to try to keep the weight off and transform my body even further.

    Thus began the decade of my “fitness journey.” I became an award-winning personal trainer and nutrition wellness coach and even a nationally qualified, champion figure athlete.

    The weight and food war continued through it all.

    I was introduced to clean eating by a trainer I hired before I became one myself. Four days into my first attempt at clean eating, I was bulimic—bingeing out of control then starving myself and over-exercising to try to compensate. Within eight months, I was officially diagnosed.

    Bingeing to the point of feeling like I may die in my sleep became common, and I realized I had two choices: potentially eat myself to death or heal. I chose the latter.

    I sensed that understanding what was driving those behaviors was the key to learning to change it all, so I decided to get busy learning just that.

    And I recognized that meant I had to stop obsessing over (and hating myself for) my food choices. They were not the problem; they were the symptom of whatever was going on in me that was driving those behaviors.

    So I gave myself full permission to eat whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted.

    I even gave myself permission to binge as much as I wanted.

    And I slowly started bingeing less and less. Now it’s been years since I have—the drive is just completely gone.

    I know permission to binge sounds crazy, but has trying to force yourself not to binge or eat “bad things” been working? Is trying to judge, control, criticize, restrict, and shame your way to “eating right” and/or health and happiness working?

    If so, carry on. But if what you’ve been doing hasn’t been working, stay with me while I explain two reasons why permission is so vital, and the helpful versus unhelpful way to practice it.

    Why Is Permission So Vital?

    Permission to eat whatever we want helps reverse two of the biggest reasons we eat self-destructively: restrictions and self-punishment.

    Food restriction (the rules around what we think we should or shouldn’t be eating) caused my cravings, overeating, and even bingeing.

    Science has shown that food scarcity/restriction activates a millennia’s old survival instinct in our brains that triggers cravings, compulsions, and even food obsessions until we “cave.”

    Self-punishment contributes to bingeing because we treat ourselves how we believe we deserve to be treated.

    We’ve been taught that certain foods are good and create “good” bodies, and that certain foods are bad and create “bad” ones. We’re taught that we are what we eat, and to judge weight gain or eating “bad” things as failure, that we are good or bad depending on what we eat and what size we are.

    We punish ourselves by trying to restrict even more, or we go in the other direction and overeat the things we keep telling ourselves we’re not supposed to have, which fuels the cycle.

    How can you want to make nurturing or nourishing choices for yourself when you’re hating, judging, shaming, and criticizing yourself? You can’t.

    That thought, “Oh well, you already screwed up, you may as well eat the rest and start again tomorrow”—that all or nothing thinking, the bingeing, the self-sabotaging—it’s being driven in large part by those two things: restriction and self-punishment.

    Full permission, even to binge, helps start to shift both.

    It stops the feelings of scarcity around certain foods (so they lose their allure), and it helps improve the relationship you have with yourself (so you’re no longer judging and berating yourself for eating “bad things”).

    Now, you may be thinking, but Roni, eating whatever I want got me into this mess. I can’t be trusted to just eat whatever I want.

    Here’s where the biggest lie of all has steered us in such a toxic direction: the idea that our natural compulsion is to “be bad” and eat all that bad stuff is bull.

    We’re not born into bodies that naturally want to eat in ways that make them feel like garbage. We’re not even born into bodies that are “too lazy to exercise.” I call bull on all that too.

    We’re born into bodies that know how to eat and naturally want to move. We’re born into bodies that want to feel good and are actively working to try to keep us healthy 24/7.

    But we’re actively taught to ignore or disconnect from them, and we get so good at ignoring and disconnecting from our bodies’ natural cues that we can’t even hear them anymore.

    We learn patterns of thinking and behaving that get programmed into our brains and end up driving our choices, rather than the natural instincts we were born with.

    It’s not your natural instinct to chow down on a whole bag of potato chips just because they’re there. Nor is it your natural instinct to ignore your body’s cry for some movement. Those are learned behaviors.

    By the time we get to adulthood, the ways we eat, think, and live just become learned patterns of behavior—that can be changed when you stop trying to follow other people’s rules and start understanding how you got where you are.

    When you spend your life stuck in that “on track” versus “off track” cycle you’re completely disconnected from yourself, your body, and what you actually want and need.

    The two things that are driving you and your choices when you live in that place are either:

    1) learned patterns of thoughts and behaviors from old programming (when you’re “off track”)

    or

    2) fear and other people’s rules about what you think you should be doing (when you’re “on track”)

    Neither have anything to do with you—with what you, at your core, actually need or want.

    By giving yourself full permission to eat what you want, when you want (yes, even permission to binge) you’re given space to reconnect with yourself and what’s best for you.

    What You Think Permission Is Vs. What It Actually Is

    There are two ways to do this whole permission thing: the way you think you’re doing it when you’re “off track” and the helpful way.

    Typically, when we “fall off track” or binge, we start “allowing ourselves” all the foods we can’t have when we’re on track, but the whole time we keep telling ourselves it’s okay because when we get back on track, we won’t have it anymore. Then we feel bad and guilty the whole time.

    That’s not permission, it’s a clear example of the food restriction/self-punishment cycle that fuels feeling out of control around food/overeating or bingeing.

    How? It’s restrictive and punishing. We know at some point we won’t be “allowed” to have it anymore—ya know, when we start “being good”—and since we’re already “being bad” we may as well just eat all of it, then we end up not feeling great.

    That’s a food restriction/punishment fueled diet mindset that perpetuates those old patterns.

    True permission means losing all the food rules and judgments. I know it sounds scary and wrong, but it really is key to learning to want to eat in ways that serve you and hearing your body when it tells you what makes you feel your best.

    Begin noticing the things you’re saying to yourself around your food choices and start noticing how the foods you’re eating make you feel after you eat them.

    Do you feel energetic and good when you eat that thing, or do you feel bloaty, lethargic, and sick? How do you want to feel?

    If you’re eating lots of things that are making you feel the latter, just notice that, get curious about why, and most importantly, extend yourself compassion and kindness.

    The next time you’re about to eat something that you know makes you feel terrible, remember how it made you feel last time and ask yourself, do you really want to feel that way right now?

    If you think, I don’t care, ask why? Why do you not care about treating yourself and your body well? Don’t you want to feel good? If you keep hearing, I don’t care, that’s a sign more digging is likely required, but permission is still where you start.

    Notice how often through the day you judge yourself for eating something you think you shouldn’t. How does that judgment affect the choices you make next?

    Remind yourself that what you eat doesn’t determine your worth, and you’re an adult. You’re allowed to eat whatever you want.

    Giving myself permission to eat whatever I wanted, even to binge, was the first step toward a binge-free life because it helped me learn to change the biggest reasons I was bingeing in the first place: destructive thoughts, habits, and behaviors that were caused by food restriction and self-punishment.

    It’s how you start learning to end the food war, to trust yourself and your body, to stop feeling out of control around food, and to start making choices that make you feel your best, because you deserve to feel your best.

  • Freedom from Food – This Time for Good!

    Freedom from Food – This Time for Good!

    “Nonresistance is the key to the greatest power in the universe.” ~Eckhart Tolle

    I cannot say that I didn’t struggle in my life. But there’s one area in which I have overcome the challenges I was facing with hardly an effort: letting go of the eating disorder I was suffering from, getting rid of the extra weight I was carrying, and maintaining the results easily for twenty-eight years.

    How Did I Do That?

    In a minute I’ll tell you exactly how I did that and how you can do it too. But first let me take a moment to explain what exactly I was dealing with.

    As a child I always loved to eat and ate quite a lot, but though I wasn’t skinny I was always thin.

    At around fifteen I developed an eating disorder. I usually say that I suffered from bulimia, but when I read the symptoms, I’ve realized it might have been a binge eating disorder.

    I would eat a huge amount of food one day in a short period of time, and the next day I would start an extreme diet plan that I never managed to maintain for long. On one occasion I managed to maintain such a diet plan for several months until my period stopped and my hair started falling out.

    I would rarely vomit. Firstly, because it took a couple of years until I found out it was possible, and secondly, because it made my eyes red and swollen.

    But I think the exact diagnosis is not that important. In any case, I was suffering. And I’m sure you can relate, because even if you are not diagnosed with an eating disorder, you might still be struggling with endless cycles of dieting and overeating.

    (You may not be calling your eating plan “a diet,” since today it’s fashionable to say “I simply eat healthy” instead. But all those healthy *and strict* eating plans are ultimately diets, and like any diet, they eventually drive us to binge eating.)

    Why Did This Happen to Me?

    Concurrent with the development of my eating disorder I struggled as a teenager with bullying for six years.

    As an adult, when thinking about what happened, I used to say that eating was a distraction from my feelings. This is not entirely wrong; however, over time I’ve realized that this was not the main cause of my problem.

    My mother struggled most of her life with obesity and for years she tried all sorts of diets, without success.

    When I was in the seventh grade, she became concerned that I was eating too much. “If you keep eating so much, you’ll end up being fat like me,” she repeatedly told me.

    As a consequence, I came to believe that I inherited her tendency to be overweight and thus shouldn’t eat certain kinds of food. And because I had a hard time resisting the temptation, I started eating in secret and eventually developed an eating disorder and gained weight.

    The Big Shift

    Toward the age of twenty-three I woke up one morning with the understanding that not only did I think about food all day long, my efforts to overcome my weight problem didn’t get me anywhere.

    That morning I decided I would never diet again, even if it meant being overweight my entire life. I also decided that the foods that made me break my diet time and time again would become an integral part of my menu.

    For instance, from that day on, for many years my breakfast consisted of coffee and cookies (and that wasn’t the only sweet thing I ate that day).

    Once the burden of dieting was removed from my life, I no longer felt the irresistible urge to finish a whole block of chocolate like before. I knew I could eat chocolate today, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, and so on; and thus, I got to the point where I had chocolate at home and didn’t touch it—something I couldn’t imagine before.

    During the following year my weight has balanced and to this day, twenty-eight years later, I am thin and maintaining a stable body weight.

    I still think quite a lot about food, but not obsessively, only because I enjoy it so much. I also eat quite a lot, by estimation between 1700-2000 calories a day (I don’t count). I love healthy food but also enjoy unhealthy foods, and I never feel guilty for something I ate; in the worst-case scenario I suffer from a stomachache or nausea.

    The Principles That Gained Me My Freedom

    1. No food is the enemy.

    Contrary to popular belief, no food by itself has the power to create addiction, ruin your health (unless you are suffering from a specific medical condition), or make you instantly fat. However, many people have gotten extremely rich by convincing you otherwise.

    Obviously, the main part of your diet should be healthy, yet the bigger problem than eating unhealthy food is stressing, obsessing, and loathing yourself for doing so!

    If you can’t control yourself in front of a certain food, allow yourself to eat it only when you are outside or buy it in small packages.

    2. No food is strictly forbidden.

    When we forbid ourselves from a certain food, we inevitably develop an uncontrollable desire for it, and eventually find ourselves helplessly bingeing it.

    When we allow ourselves to eat whatever we crave, as I did with sweets, the day that we don’t feel like eating the food we couldn’t resist before, or desire it only once in a while, will surely come.

    The reason why this idea seems so unrealistic to most people is due to what I’ll describe next.

    3. Give yourself permission.

    The secret of my success was that I really allowed myself to eat whatever I want for the rest of my life.

    While people sometimes say that they give themselves permission to eat certain foods, they are still driven by fear of these foods and by the belief that they shouldn’t be eating them.

    While “enjoying” their freedom, in their minds they say to themselves, “tomorrow I’ll get back on track.” (Tomorrow, in this context, can mean the next day or “as soon as I can.”)

    And as long as this is their state of mind, they’ll be impelled to eat as much as possible of the forbidden food today.

    4. Stop treating yourself as an emotional eater.

    According to the urban legend about emotional eating, a “normal” person should only eat when they are hungry, only healthy food, never eat for pleasure only, and never reach a sense of fullness.

    Anything but this is emotional eating.

    But this is a complete deception, and if you hold onto it, you’ll forever be dieting and bingeing and will always feel that something is wrong with you.

    I often eat a bit too much or things that are not so healthy. I eat not only according to my needs but also for pleasure. And if I overdo it, nausea, stomachache, and a feeling of heaviness remind me that I need to regain balance.

    I’m not saying that overeating has no emotional motive; I’m just saying that this idea has gone way too far.

    5. Follow your own guidance.

    I can promise you that as long as you eat according to someone else’s plan, or according to any strict plan, over time your efforts will be futile.

    Rules such as “You must eat breakfast,” “three (or six) meals a day,” “Chew each bite thirty times,” “Never eat in front of the TV,” or, “Don’t eat after 7pm,” will only stand between you and your natural instincts and enhance fear and self-judgment.

    I eat fast, mainly in front of the TV, I eat small portions every one to three hours, I eat late at night—and that’s fine for me.

    So listen to yourself and learn through trial and error what works best for your body.

    6. Be honest with yourself.

    Often people say things like, “I’ve forgotten to eat,” “I’m never hungry before 4pm,” or, “one modest meal a day totally satisfies me.”

    They insist so strongly it’s the truth that they manage to deceive even themselves. But only for a while. Eventually their natural hunger and satisfy mechanisms reveal the truth, and again they find themselves bingeing.

    So don’t play games with yourself. It might work in the short term, but it keeps you in the loop of weight fluctuations and obsessive thinking about food in the long term.

    7. Do not waste calories on something you don’t like.

    If you insist on eating something you don’t want to, you’ll find yourself craving what you really desired and eventually eating it in addition to what you already ate.

    8. Be physically active.

    Being physically active boosts your metabolism and immune system and supports your emotional and physical well-being.

    Sometimes, however, people set a trap for themselves when they push themselves too far with exercising, and thus, after a while they can’t endure it anymore and ultimately quit.

    Instead, be as active as you can and in the way that best suits you. That will serve you much better in the long term.

    9. Focus on reaching a balance.

    Your ideal body weight might be a bit higher than the one you desire. But remember, insisting on reaching a certain body weight that is beyond your natural balance will cost you your freedom and keep you in the vicious circle of dieting and bingeing.

    Last but Not Least…

    The concept I’ve offered here won’t make you lose weight overnight. It took me a year to lose the excess twenty-two pounds I was carrying. And if you have more weight to lose it might take a bit longer.

    But if you feed it well, without driving it crazy with constant fluctuations between starvations and overeating, over time your body will relax and balance itself, this time for good.

  • Do You Remember When You Didn’t Worry About Your Weight?

    Do You Remember When You Didn’t Worry About Your Weight?

    “We need to start focusing on what matters—on how we feel, and how we feel about ourselves.” ~Michelle Obama

    Do you remember the little girl (or boy) in you? The kid who ran, jumped, danced, laughed anywhere and everywhere they felt like it—before someone told them to shush, that they were too big, too loud, too much.

    The kid who didn’t even know what a scale was before someone told them their size was wrong.

    The kid who just ate—before someone gave them a mile-long list of “bad” foods and made them scared of food and distrusting of themselves.

    After over two decades of fighting with food and my body, I’ve spent the last four years reconnecting with and relearning to trust the little girl in me. And it’s been glorious. The little girl in me, before she was taught to suck in her stomach, lift her boobs, hide her flaws, ignore rumblings of hunger in her belly,  or endure the excruciating pain of the perfect heels because beauty is pain and only skinny matters.

    We were born into bodies that we loved. Bodies that fascinated us. We learned to run, jump, dance, with no thought of how we looked while we were doing it.

    Our relationship with food and our bodies was easy, joyful, and magical.

    We’re born into bodies that know how to eat. They know what they need, when they need it. They know what makes them feel their best and what doesn’t, and they instinctively want to move and feel good.

    They also come with all kinds of built-in functions designed to communicate with us so we hear their signals.

    But slowly, it all changes. We hear people making jokes about weight gain. We hear those around us talking about being fat, needing to lose weight, or otherwise being self-critical. We’re warned against “bad” foods—“Careful, you’ll get fat if you eat that,” as though it’s something we should be afraid of.

    And we’re told we are what we eat, as though we’re good or bad based on what food we choose to consume on any given day.

    We start looking at ourselves and our bodies critically. We start learning that food comforts and we start learning to numb—to ignore the messages we get from our bodies.

    The little kids in us get pushed aside. They get quieter and quieter. We stop trusting them and eventually we forget all about them.

    All of a sudden, the wonder and joy with which we used to look in the mirror is replaced with feelings of disgust, distrust, and shame. We feel frustrated, discouraged, stuck…

    Rather than carrying the joy and wonder for our bodies that we’re born with, we waste decades stuck in the never-ending trance of self- (and body-) criticism, chasing external fixes to make it all go away. 

    Because we’re taught to. The sickest part of all is that it’s usually in the name of “health.”

    Like you, I grew up in a society where I learned that certain ways to look, eat, live, and be are good, and everything else is bad.

    Those messages first became destructive for me in my teens, when I read my first diet book and started my first attempt to lose weight, get fit, and eat healthier.

    I was already fairly small, but every time I looked in the mirror, I saw a reflection I hated because no matter how small I was, I was never small enough.

    There was my life before that awful Atkins book and my life after. Before the book, I just ate.

    After the book, every time I ate my favorite chocolate bar or even just a piece of toast, I felt bad and worried about getting bigger.

    Over time, as I continued to try to “stick to” someone else’s rules about what I should be eating to “be good,” only to keep failing and gaining weight, the guilt turned into shame and judgment every time I ate almost anything.

    My inner world was consumed with one ever present concern: I have to get my act together and get healthy. I have to get this weight under control.

    I’d start and stop a new “weight loss” or “fitness journey” every other month. Vowing that this time would be different because this time, I had the perfect plan, the perfect goals. This time I’d be strict. This time, I’d be good. This time, I was motivated enough to stick with it and I was going to work extra hard.

    It never lasted very long. I’d always “screw up,” lose motivation, “fall off the wagon” only to end up feeling even worse.

    We pray for the day we’ll finally lose weight and all our problems will be over, the day we’ll finally be able to stand in front of the mirror and feel the way we used to feel—before the world told us our bodies were a problem we needed to solve and gave us a thousand different “solutions” that only end up making things worse.

    And we’re taught the solutions to getting there lie in hitting goals. They lie in achievement. They lie in restriction. Deprivation. Suffering. Harder work. More discipline. More motivation.

    If we just hit those weight, food, water, lift, run time/distance, step goals (and stick to them), then we’ll be happy and healthy. Then we’ll be living the “good” lifestyle.

    So we try. Most of us have spent our entire lives trying, failing, and trying again.

    What part of any of that is healthy?

    Exactly none.

    But it’s how our population has been programmed to chase health and happiness. Through this warped need to achieve—to reach goals or see visible progress via the mirror or the scale or whatever.

    But human health and well-being has never been about achievement or goal-setting. It’s not the result of how much you can restrict or deprive yourself, how much you suffer, or how hard you work.

    It’s a moment-to-moment measure of our mental and physical condition, and it’s constantly changing based on a ton of different factors—only some of which have to do with our choices and none of which have anything to do with whether or not we have a thigh gap or what the scale says.

    Yet, those things can make or break our mood, our inner peace, the way we feel about ourselves, and what we think we’re capable of or worth as humans.

    We ride or die based on whether or not external measurements of success make us feel like we’re doing something right.

    Forget about how we feel and what we need—just be good. Be successful. Follow the rules, hit the goals, look good on the outside.

    Less than 5% of people will ever be “successful” at the whole “weight loss/fitness journey” thing, and since I was eventually one of them, I have to ask: How do you define success? We’re “successful” at what cost? 

    Yes, I failed for years, but I was also “successful” for years. I finally had what everyone spends their life chasing through all the diets, lifestyle change, fitness journey attempts, etc.

    Was I happier? A better person? Healthier? No.

    Sure, I looked it. I was celebrated for how amazing I looked, how hard I worked, how inspiring my “discipline” and “self-control” were. My Instagram account was peppered with #fitspo and before and afters. I regularly had comments like #bodygoals and questions from desperate followers asking how they too could achieve the same “success.”

    But in reality? It destroyed me mentally and physically.

    Even after I lost the weight, my life still revolved around the internal war I felt between what I thought I wanted to eat versus what I was “supposed” to eat to “be good” or “make progress” or hell, even just try to maintain the progress I had made. Because by that time, I used food as a coping mechanism for everything. And because reaching goals, forcing “lifestyle changes,” and even weight loss success doesn’t magically solve those kinds of food issues or self-destructive, self-sabotaging behavior patterns.

    I ended up with bulimia and binge eating so severe that many nights I went to bed afraid I may die in my sleep because I’d be so sick from what I’d eaten.

    But at least I was being celebrated every day for my “weight loss success.” At least I looked good. Right?

    It’s all so toxic.

    Because we’ve been taught to demonize certain bodies.

    Because instead of self-trust, kindness, and compassion, we’ve been taught rules and restrictions, hard work, self-control, and “success at any cost,” while ignoring the underlying causes of weight and food struggles.

    Forget about how we feel. Forget about what we need. Forget about the cues we’re getting from our bodies when they’re trying to communicate. Don’t listen to those.

    Just behave and do what everyone else tells us we’re supposed to do.

    We get so caught in this trance of obsessing over it all that we don’t even realize how miserable it’s making us, how much of our life it’s consumed, or how much damage that obsession and all those messages is doing to our health, happiness, and peace of mind.

    We waste decades not only distrusting and disconnected from our bodies, but full on rejecting and fighting them.

    Why? For health? Happiness? To feel good about ourselves? Because it’s just what everyone does so we think it’s what we’re supposed to do?

    We wonder why we struggle so much while being completely disconnected from, and even at war with, not only ourselves but our our bodies.

    No matter what it weighs, your body can and should feel like home. It should feel safe, loving, calm, and centered. But it’s very difficult to ever get there if you’re always fighting with it.

    Taking care of ourselves and our bodies should never have become associated with work, punishment, suffering, or something that required motivation, discipline, or even lifestyle changes.

    What do you suppose determines your lifestyle? Your daily choices.

    And what determines your daily choices? Your programming.

    That is, your thoughts, beliefs, and patterns of behavior. The vast majority of which have developed and been wired into your brain over the course of your life so completely that they run on autopilot.

    That’s why they’re so hard to change and it can feel like we have no control over them—because until we actively work to change those things, we kinda don’t have control over them.

    We just go through life in a trance being driven to repeat the same thoughts and behaviors day after day. If we’re not happy where we are for whatever reason, that’s all that needs to change. Change what’s going on inside and the outside falls into place.

    The greatest tragedy of all is that all the outside noise has made us stop trusting ourselves, our ability to decide what we should eat, and follow through, and often, even our worth as humans. 

    All of which affects our choices because we treat ourselves the way we believe we deserve to be treated.

    Really, all most of us want is to feel better, am I right? We want to feel healthy, happy, good in our skin, comfortable in our clothes, at peace and fulfilled.

    Stop trying to punish and suffer your way there.

    Healthy living shouldn’t make life harder. It should all make life easier, better, and make us feel better about ourselves.

    It’s time to ditch the healthy living goals, the lifestyle change attempts, and hopping on and off the fitness journey wagon every few months. It’s not working.

    Ditch the food rules and restrictions.

    Ditch the plans and goals and to-do lists.

    Ditch deprivation, suffering, and struggle.

    Ditch the fear and distrust.

    Trade them in for love. For self-acceptance. Self-kindness. Self-compassion. Awareness.

    Get to know yourself so you can start understanding what’s going on inside that’s keeping you stuck in patterns that aren’t serving you. That’s where the power is.

    Start finding your way back to that little kid, the one who felt like a superhero before the world taught her (or him) to fear, doubt, and live for achievements and goals.

    Forget all the things you think you “should be” doing and start reconnecting with yourself and your body.

    Pause and notice. Emotionally and physically—what do you feel? Where do you feel it? What is it trying to tell you?

    Try putting your hands over your heart and just breathing.

    Ask yourself, “What do I really want right now? What do I need?”

    Tell yourself and your body, “I love you and I’m listening.”

    Pay close attention to how you feel, physically and mentally, before and after you eat. Before you reach for that thing that you know is going to make you feel terrible ask yourself, “Why do I want it?” Is your body physically hungry, or is it a mindless, learned behavior?

    Ask yourself, “Do I really want to feel the way that’s going to make me feel if I eat it?” If you notice yourself answering, “I don’t care” ask yourself why. Why are you purposely eating something that makes you feel terrible?

    When I started asking myself those questions, I realized I was doing it to myself on purpose because I didn’t believe I deserved to feel good. That was super helpful information because then I could start practicing compassion and figuring out what I was punishing myself for, and ultimately stop.

    We’re born instinctively knowing how to eat, but by the time we reach adulthood, most of the ways we eat and live are learned behaviors.

    The beautiful thing about learned behaviors is that we can learn to change them if they’re not serving us, but it starts with awareness and kindness, not goals and restrictions.

    The more you love and honor yourself and your body, the more at home and connected you’ll feel. The more at home and connected you feel, the more you’ll be able to hear your body when it tells you what it wants and needs. 

    You’ll recognize and trust hunger and fullness cues. You’ll recognize emotions and manage them more easily, without always needing to numb or stuff them. You’ll naturally start feeling compelled to move in ways that make your body feel better because you’ll hear your body when it asks for it.

    The more you live from this place of love, trust, and connection, the more at peace you’ll be, and the better you will naturally start treating your body.

    That’s when health and happiness really have a chance to thrive.

    You don’t need another weight loss or fitness journey; you need a journey back to the place in you that is just love and trust.

    That little kid I spoke of earlier? That kid loves you, trusts you, and knows what you’re worth and capable of.

    That kid is still in you and you need each other.