To go from that place of “I know” to “I actually treat my body in the way that she deserves, in the way that she really needs to be taken care of,” there’s a huge gap in there for most of us.

– Nina Manolson

On this episode of the Plan Simple Meals Podcast, I’m delighted to have Nina Manolson back. She’s been on the podcast twice before, and I always love talking with her. She’s a holistic health coach and health and wellness coach, and I love her approach to food and body.

We start off talking about compassionate eating and how just saying the word compassion can help you soften. But we often don’t extend compassion to ourselves, and then we add a push dynamic to our relationship with our food and our body, which leads to tightness, restriction, and striving. Compassionate eating isn’t about your eating plan … it’s about how you treat yourself with whatever you are eating. 

A lot of us know what we need to do, but we get caught up in managing food and body, but the management model isn’t very successful. And what if you don’t know what you should be eating? It comes back to compassion and listening to yourself and what you need. 

We talk about: 

• Living “next door to your body” and how living in your body helps you learn what you need
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• Getting support to learn to interpret what our body is trying so hard to tell us
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• Recognizing that some experiences don’t serve us—even if they might seem healthy on the surface (Nina shares her conclusions about a rock climbing trip that wasn’t serving her)
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• Being body current—responding to the body you have now, not the one you want to have next summer or the one you had back before kids or 30 years ago
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• Hormonal changes, how our body is always changing
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• Developing a compassionate relationship with yourself and quieting your “mean mirror” voice
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BIO

Nina Manolson is a certified holistic health coach, a board-certified health & wellness coach, a certified Psychology of Eating Coach and Teacher, and she has a masters in counseling psychology. She is passionate about helping women end their food and body struggles and begin healthy, vibrant living that becomes a habit and easily fits into their busy lives.

LINKS

• We Got The Body Thing Wrong
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• Compassionate Eating Course
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• Get Along With Your Body with Nina Manolson
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• Eating on Purpose with Nina Manolson
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• A Day in the Life of Nina Manolson
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• Nina’s Decadent Dandy Drink
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Doable Changes from this episode:

• LISTEN TO YOUR “MEAN MIRROR” VOICE. To start being more compassionate with yourself, start simply by listening to the conversation that is currently going on with you and your body. Notice that conversation and put a label on it: “Oh, that’s my inner critic” or “That’s my mean mirror voice.” We need to hear that voice so that we can start to cultivate a voice of compassion or kindness toward ourselves. 
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• CALL YOUR BODY BY A LOVING NAME. To get into a relationship with your body, stop referring to your body as It. Start talking to yourself kindly, using the word darling or lovey or some other name you’d use with someone you love.
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• ASK: WOULD I SAY THAT TO SOMEBODY ELSE. When you find yourself talking critically to yourself, ask, “Would I say that to my daughter?” or “Would I say that to a friend?” or “What would I do if I heard somebody else say that to my daughter or a friend?” Use those cues to help you find a kinder way to talk to yourself.
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