Download Episode! Hey, lovely radicals... Ear-treat ahead! In this episode of the "Life Unrestricted" podcast, Virgie Tovar and I chat about how she became the unapologetic badass she is today. As you might guess, she wasn’t always as confident as she is nowadays, and she had to learn a lot about life, herself, sexuality, feminism and diet-culture to finally be able to liberate herself from the oppressive, fat-phobic cultural paradigm that keeps women desperately trying to fit in, often in the form of dieting and obsessing over their weight. She experienced first hand, what it means to be fat-shamed, stigmatized and devalued and she is now fiercely on a mission to educate people about the ugly truths behind the merciless profit-seeking mechanisms of the diet-industry, media-literacy, the effects of weight-stigma on mental and physical health and the ways of changing the current narrative. Virgie shares her story with us and you’ll hear: – How early it got into her head that women should "lose weight" – What measures she was willing to take in order to change her body – How fat-phobia and weight-stigma can cause women to engage in risky sexual behavior – How fat-stigma intersects with other cultural injustices like racism, homophobia, sexism, classism or ableism – How she ended up with an extraordinary lifestyle and sexual adventures when she was only a teenager – What it was that made her feel desired and more comfortable in her body – How feminism helped her to reclaim her own power – What the exact moment was that she finally broke up with diet-culture for good – Why feminism is seen as something "OH, NO, THANKS!" for many people, especially women – What her journey towards self-acceptance looked (and looks) like – What causes her to experience bad body days – Why fat-phobia causes ongoing trauma for people – How bigger-bodied people can protect themselves and take care of their own mental health first – How we can help changing the current diet-culture-poisoned paradigm one woman at a time – How we can engage in political activism so that it can be a form of self-care – What her nationwide lectures are all about, and what her main messages are – What her online course "Babecamp" offers to women who are ready to ditch their diet-culture-brainwashed mentality – What her deepest wish is – What she would like to be remembered for... ...And so much more! Check out her website with all of her work (including her latest book project and details about "Babecamp") at: www.virgietovar.com and on Facebook: www.facebook.com/virgietovar Here’s the link to her groundbreaking anthology "Hot & Heavy: Fierce Fat Girls on Life, Love and Fashion": http://www.amazon.com/Hot-Heavy-Fierce-Girls-Fashion/dp/1580054382 ********* Don't forget!********* Make sure to join my tribe and meet some of the most supportive, loving and kind people of all shapes and sizes, including great coaches and leaders! We’re right over here at: www.lifeunrestricted.org/join/ Please consider supporting the podcast with a donation by becoming a "Patreon"; so that I can keep producing it. Thank you! Here's the link: https://www.patreon.com/lifeunrestricted Please: Do subscribe on iTunes (Apple): https://itunes.apple.com/ch/podcast/life.-unrestricted.-podcast/id1130713233?mt=2 or on Stitcher (Android): http://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=93987&refid=stpr

Download Episode! In this episode of the "Life Unrestricted" podcast, you are going to meet one of my favorite ladies in the world of body positivity and body image: It's Summer Innanen from Vancouver, whose podcast has literally changed my life. In my opinion, every woman can use a good dose of Summer in her life! She works as a Body Image Coach who has her own past with diets, restriction, body insecurity and exercise addiction, and she now helps women to stop living behind the number on their scales, to ditch the diet demons for good and to develop real inner confidence. Today, and only on the "Life Unrestricted" podcast, she's letting us know some things about herself that she hasn't shared anywhere else before. So listen in and learn: – How being  body-shamed, bullied and being surrounded by diet-talk and an ever-dieting mother contributed to her slipping into a very obsessive mindset – What she was trying to achieve by "becoming thinner" and why so many of us fall into this trap – Why she never realized she had a problem until very late in the "game" – What terrible advice she was given by various doctors before she found someone who was educated enough to know about the harmful effects of overexercising and restriction on the female body – How she stopped lying to herself – How she managed to break her exercise addiction and gave her body time to heal – How long it took her to get the "thin-obsession" out of her head – Why discovering Intuitive Eating and Health At Every Size (HAES) played such an important role in her recovery – What she learned about the underlying issues that keep women in the diet- and weight-obsession trap – Why anger and resentment are blocks to becoming an authentically kind and compassionate person – What women are REALLY trying to fix when they are trying to fix their bodies – What body positivity means to her – Why body image is much more than how we think about our thighs and stomachs – How learning about the mechanisms of diet-culture and the huge fitness- and weight-loss-industries can help us snap awake – Why developing an inner rebel helps on our journey towards accepting our bodies – How to find a tribe of likeminded rebels is key to the healing process – How she works with her clients and how she challenges them to step out of their comfort zones – Where she expects the most resistance in her coaching work – Why emotional eating is part of the process when healing body image, diet-obsession and exercise addiction – How having a healthy body image doesn't mean it's all sunshine and rainbows – Where her inner Gremlin shows up for her these days – Why she would never go back to that small life she previously had as a career dieter – How all of us can discover that freedom and solid self-worth beyond the scales and our jeans size... ... And so much more! Check out Summer's website and find out about her coaching business at: www.summerinnanen.com www.rockyourbodynow.com Details for the 2017 retreat are here: www.reclaimretreat.com ********* Don't forget!********* Make sure to join my tribe and meet some of the most supportive, loving and kind people of all shapes and sizes, including great coaches and leaders! We’re right over here at: http://www.lifeunrestricted.org/join/ Please consider supporting the podcast with a donation by becoming a "Patreon"; so that I can keep producing it. Thank you! Here's the link: https://www.patreon.com/lifeunrestricted Please: Do subscribe on iTunes (Apple): https://itunes.apple.com/ch/podcast/life.-unrestricted.-podcast/id1130713233?mt=2 or on Stitcher (Android): http://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=93987&refid=stpr

Download Episode! In this episode of the "Life Unrestricted" podcast, I get to talk to Dr. Linda Bacon from Berkeley, California, USA. It’s a lucky day for all of us, because we get to listen to her highly insightful knowledge and opinion about our relationship to food, bodies and health. Dr. Linda Bacon is a health professor and researcher on the inside track of weight-regulation science, she holds graduate degrees in physiology, psychology and exercise metabolism with a specialty in nutrition. She has conducted federally funded studies on diet and health and is well-published in top scientific journals, and has written two books, first, her highly acclaimed bestseller "Health At Every Size – The Surprising Truth About Your Weight" and recently "Body Respect – What Conventional Health Books Get Wrong, Leave Out Or Just Fail To Understand About Weight". She is currently a health professor at City College of San Francisco and an Associate Nutritionist at the University of California Davis. She is sharing her story with us and will tell us: – Why she invested decades diving into science – How it is possible, that the clear understanding about health (and how little weight really plays into it) has for decades been kept from the public – Why the truth about diets not working and weight not being an important determinator of health is being held back – Who is really behind the decision to make "obesity" classify as a disease – Why there is such tremendous resistance to the idea of size-acceptance – Who and what is behind the "obesity"-crisis, fat-fear and weight-stigma – Why our capitalist society needs us to believe there is something "wrong" with us – Why putting the sole focus on weight-loss will not improve health markers, and what does – Why so many women and men aren’t even recognizing the damaging effects of the myths they believe in – Why diet and exercise are only small contributors to a person’s actual health – How social status, agency, genes, mental and psychological stress and unfair treatment are so much more important in determining someone’s health – How, during her Phd, she was confronted with the fact that the actual (!) truth wasn’t appreciated by decision-makers – Why so many doctors are innocently prescribing weight-loss despite the fact that this most often doesn’t address the issue at hand – What the pillars of Health At Every Size (HAES) really are and what the most common myths about it are – Why Health At Every Size (HAES) is for people of all sizes, and why it gets so much push-back – Why we need a lot of critical thinking to see behind the lies that keep so many people trapped, unhealthy, and frustrated – Why weight- and fat-discrimination are highly detrimental to a person’s health and will never lead to long-lasting, healthy weight-management – Why it is wise to look at so-called "scientific proof" with a critical eye – Why people who accept and appreciate their bodies will take better care of it – Why much of the problems we blame on fat have, in fact, nothing to do with fat – Why both thin people as well as people in larger bodies risk medical misdiagnosis due to the BMI index – Why she is optimistic that the medical profession will, ever so slowly, change their views – What her mission in life is... ... And so much more! Check out Dr. Linda Bacon, her work around Health At Every Size (HAES) and her coaching over at: www.lindabacon.org All the relevant infos and the Health At Every Size (HAES) community are here: www.haescommunity.com www.healthateverysizeblog.org www.sizediversityandhealth.org Here’s the links to her books: – "Health At Every Size – The Surprising Truth About Your Weight" https://www.amazon.com/Health-At-Every-Size-Surprising/dp/1935618253 – "Body Respect – What Conventional Health Books Get Wrong, Leave Out Or Just Fail To Understand About Weight" https://www.amazon.com/Body-Respect-Conventional-Health-Understand/dp/1940363195/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1471714036&sr=1-1&keywords=body+respect+linda+bacon   ********* Don't forget!********* Make sure to join my tribe and meet some of the most supportive, loving and kind people of all shapes and sizes, including great coaches and leaders! We’re right over here at: http://www.lifeunrestricted.org/join/ Please consider supporting the podcast with a donation by becoming a "Patreon"; so that I can keep producing it. Thank you! Here's the link: https://www.patreon.com/lifeunrestricted Please: Do subscribe on iTunes (Apple): https://itunes.apple.com/ch/podcast/life.-unrestricted.-podcast/id1130713233?mt=2 or on Stitcher (Android): http://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=93987&refid=stpr

Download Episode! My friend, how nice to see you are tuning back in! In this episode of the "Life. Unrestricted." podcast, I get to talk to Vania Phitidis from Sussex, Great Britain. Vania is an Intuitive Eating Counsellor, an MB-EAT teacher, MB-EAT being the acronym for Mindfulness-Based Eating Awareness Training) as well as a Self Esteem Mentor. She has a master in Education for Sustainability from London South Bank and a Bachelor degree in Psychology and Art history from VITS. In order to resolve her own body image issues and eating disorders she found that she had to let go of 5 things. 1 – unrealistic expectations of herself, 2 dieting, 3 restricting particular foods, 4 trying to get and stay skinny and 5 attempting to be perfect. Sounds easy, but was a lifelong process that she will tell us about. What she is focused on nowadays is being her most powerful self and helping others to enhance the quality of their own life and make better use of it than eternally dieting. For me, it’s vulnerability time today... In this episode, Vania Phitidis doesn’t just show us how we can let go of our food and weight fears and approach health from a sane and loving perspective. But she uses me as an example... and questions my inner gremlin voice. Find out how that turns out! So, listen in and hear Vania tell us her story: – How early it got into her head that women should „lose weight“ – How quick children are to copy what they see their mothers do – What made her develop bulimia and how bad that got for her – Why giving up bulimia didn’t change anything on a mental level – Why she subsequently got stuck in dieting and being constantly worried about her weight – Why it is that diets (or "lifestyle changes" where weight-loss is the goal!) DO NOT work – Why we often do the worst thing for our body when we train too often and too hard. – What it takes to overcome the eternally distracting quest for thinness – How she overcame her internalized fear of weight gain – How we can choose what we expose ourselves to – How she learned that everyone, including herself, is inherently worthy – Why women who stay obsessed by weight-loss and dieting are severely limiting their potential – How she learned to calm her mind and catch the thoughts that kept her stuck – How we can learn to question our beliefs and our thinking – Why it is important to question what we believe is „true“, simply because we "always believed it" – Why mindfulness is key on the path to self-acceptance and body-acceptance – How mindfulness can help us become aware of our feelings and our spontaneous reactions – Why she doesn’t advise anyone to shout back at the inner critic, and what to do instead – Why she believes that Intuitive Eating is the only way to leave the days of "feeling crazy around food" behind – Why the switch from dieting to Intuitive Eating takes a leap of faith and can be very challenging – Why real progress in the direction of healing is not possible unless we work on our body image and our deep-rooted fat-phobia – How she deals with people who engage in diet-talk, body-shaming and eternal weight-loss-talk bonding. – What her mission in life is... ...And so much more! Check out Vania Phitidis and her coaching over at: www.peacefuleating.co.uk Also find her group on Facebook "It’s not about the weight" The book that opened her eyes on the oppressive nature of diet-culture: Naomi Wolf: "The Beauty Myth" ********* Don't forget!********* Make sure to join my tribe and meet some of the most supportive, loving and kind people of all shapes and sizes, including great coaches and leaders! We’re right over here at: http://www.lifeunrestricted.org/join/ Please consider supporting the podcast with a donation by becoming a "Patreon"; so that I can keep producing it. Thank you! Here's the link: https://www.patreon.com/lifeunrestricted Please: Do subscribe on iTunes (Apple): https://itunes.apple.com/ch/podcast/life.-unrestricted.-podcast/id1130713233?mt=2 or on Stitcher (Android): http://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=93987&refid=stpr

Download Episode! My friend, lovely seeing you here again! In today's episode of the Life Unrestricted podcast, I talk to Kathleen A. Bishop from San José, California. She is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor and Relapse Prevention Specialist. In private practice, she specializes in Eating and Substance Use Disorders and she works at a non-profit providing Intensive Outpatient Treatment to clients with Substance Use Disorder and cooccurring mental health conditions like anxiety, depression or Eating Disorders. Kathleen, who is also a body positive size diversity activist who promotes Health At Every Size (HAES) principles to end stigma and mistreatment that is associated with weight, has overcome her own body image obsessions and she shares her great insights with us! In this episode of the Life Unrestricted podcast, she talks about ... all of it. You'll even hear about the craziest diet you have ever heard. Wait for it. Horse urine is involved.... But more importantly, you'll learn: – How she finally found freedom from yoyo-dieting, body insecurity and disordered eating – Why a person's size never tells us anything about their health and the dangers of equating "thin" to "healthy" – How she started to appreciate her own body – Why we will always be stuck in a weight-obsessed mentality (and spend precious amounts of energy and time trying to "fix" our bodies) unless we address internalized fat-phobia – Why it is so important to surround ourselves with people and images of people of all shapes and sizes to end our inner fat-phobic beliefs – How we can learn to trust ourselves and our bodies again – How to heal negative body image, let go of disordered eating, overcome food fears and end weight-obsession - Why it is important to see the toxic mechanisms behind diet-culture and the diet industry and how this can help us stepping out of old beliefs – How harmful weight-stigma really is and that it is a lose-lose situation for everybody – How thin people can use the word "fat" appropriately when talking about bigger bodied humans... ... And so much more! Check out Kathleen's body positive page on Facebook, where she promotes self-acceptance through Intuitive Eating and with the Health At Every Size principles. The page is called "Body Peace & Liberation". If you are interested in her work or working with her, you'll find all the infos here: www.bodypeaceliberation.com ********* Don't forget!********* Make sure to join my tribe and meet some of the most supportive, loving and kind people of all shapes and sizes, including great coaches and leaders! We’re right over here at: http://www.lifeunrestricted.org/join/ Please consider supporting the podcast with a donation by becoming a "Patreon"; so that I can keep producing it. Thank you! Here's the link: https://www.patreon.com/lifeunrestricted Please: Do subscribe on iTunes (Apple): https://itunes.apple.com/ch/podcast/life.-unrestricted.-podcast/id1130713233?mt=2 or on Stitcher (Android): http://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=93987&refid=stpr

Are you ready to meet the first drag queen who is actually trapped in a woman’s body? In today's episode of the Life Unrestricted Podcast, I am chatting with Kaila Prins, the woman with the most awesome drag make up I've ever seen. She is a body positive burlesque and pole dancer and by that she is a performing woman... performing "woman"! Kaila is also a body positive wellness and recovery coach, feminist writer and speaker and a fellow podcastine... She talks about her 13-year battle with eating disorders, calorie counting, yo-yo dieting and compulsive exercise and has the most amazing guests. Kaila is one of the precious few voices who bring the taboo topics of eating disorders, exercise addiction, and body image obsession into the open and is an inspiration for thousands – myself included. This show will leave you feeling ready to change the world, one step towards self-acceptance at a time. You will hear us talk about:

– How "healthy" and "skinny" have nothing to do with each other
– How we are potentially harming ourselves by doing what society calls "healthy"
– How most eating disorders go undiagnosed in a culture that promotes harmful behaviors
– How to tell if you are exercise dependent and how to break free of exercise addiction
– How too much exercise can be severely damaging to our bodies, our fertility and our emotional health
– How our obsession to be skinny can keep us trapped in recovered-enough and how this can hold us trapped and certainly keeps us from enjoying life as fully as we could – How we can actually LET ourselves enjoy life, step out of our obsession to control our bodies and the need to be thinner
– How to get over our internalized fat-phobia and diet-culture mindset
– Why burlesque dancing is a great way to help you reconnect to and feel good in your body as it is returning to its happy weight
– How discovery is an important to leave the disordered mindset behind and step into your real self
– How discovering who you really are is worth so much more than living your life trying to match an unrealistic, distorted ideal
– How important it is to see behind media's messages, to understand the psychology of marketing, to educate ourselves how we are being marketed to and why advertisement is intended to make us feel "less than" and "not good enough", so that we, as customers, keep coming back
– How we can change the conversation, one brave woman at a time...

... And so much more!

 

Kaila is currently working on a program to work with clients who want to leave their exercise addiction and disordered eating behaviors behind and start living a fulfilling, satisfying life according to their own rules. You'll find out more about her, her blog, her dancing gigs and (soon) her program on her website: www.performingwoman.com
You can follow her on all the different social media platforms (@performingwoman) and her awesome podcast is here:
www.findingourhunger.com

********* Don't forget!*********

Make sure to join my tribe and meet some of the most supportive, loving and kind people of all shapes and sizes, including great coaches and leaders! We’re right over here at:
http://www.lifeunrestricted.org/join/