Small Steps

Thinking about going gluten free or curious what it's like to not eat gluten? This episode shares my personal journey to become gluten free, answers your questions about the gluten free life and gives you a place to start if you want to see if your body needs a break from gluten or not.

Small Steps in the Show:

• Get clear on why you want to try this
• Notice how much gluten you're eating right now, check out The Gluten Guide
• Read ingredient labels
• Slowly eat less gluten things and add in other non-gf things- more veggies, GF grains, starchy carbs, fat and protein ratios
• Find gluten free alternatives that replace things you use often, potentially try sticking with more naturally GF things first and adding in some alternatives here or there (depending on the ingredients and your health)
• Try it out for a month or two and pay attention to the whys. Are they changing? What differences do you feel? Different or less physical or emotional feelings?
• If you don't feel differences, try a reintroduction where you add one kind of gluten in slowly over the course of a week and see how your body feels. Notice the physical changes.
• After that phase is over, decide if you want to continue eating gluten or not, based on what works for you.
• Consider working with a practitioner if you need additional gut healing

Mentioned in the Show:

The Gluten Guide

Beth Manos Brickey of Tasty Yummies

Small Steps Podcast #1: My Healing Journey

Lisa Kara of Zinc Nutrition

Small Steps Podcast #21: Power of Words Around Food and Food Lists

Coconut Aminos

Siete Family Foods

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We're more connected than ever these days and have more access than ever to find people to listen to, follow and learn from. Which is great, and can become overwhelming. Lucia Hawley, NTP MSW joins the show to talk about the many layers of finding people and communities that resonate, letting go of those that no longer resonate and finding autonomy within ourselves.

About Lucia Hawley

Lucia Hawley, NTP MSW, is the blogger behind Essential Omnivore, the real food recipe blog and podcast that help you take the fear out of the food, one bite at a time. Lucia's background is in rooted in the core values of social work and helping others find their food freedom.

Small Steps in the Show:

• Consider unfollowing someone/a community/group
• Check back in with yourself for a period of time and see how you feel
• Check to see if that person/community/group aligns with who you are right now
• Writing out your thoughts around the situation and reflecting on that.
• Check in with your body and how you feel around keeping tabs on this person/community/group
• Remind yourself that you're allowed to say no
• Make space for yourself to be more autonomous
• If you're looking for autonomy around your food choices, consider looking into Lucia's Appetite Autonomy course.
• Examine where you're come from and the systems you're thinking in. Do you still want to hold on to those?
• Consider working with someone if you want to dive deeper or want some guidance
• Get support from someone you trust in your personal life
• Work on boundary setting
• Practice kindness and compassion for yourself
• Find the lessons in what you've been through

Mentioned in the Show:

Harder to Kill Radio #127 with Lucia

Listen and Subscribe to Lucia's podcast, Essential Omnivore

Appetite Autonomy

Dr. Tee Williams

Foundations of Social Justice Course

Lucia's Website

Follow Lucia on Instagram

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Good. Bad. Clean. Dirty. Guilt-free. Five words that can really mess with people's minds when it comes to food and the food choices they make based on these words and food lists that use these words. Today's episode breaks down why these foods and food lists can be problematic and how you can adjust your language and create a food list that works for you.

Small Steps in the Show:

• If you feel like you want to or need to stick to a list for your own reasons, start to listen to what you're thinking about the food you're eating.
• Focus on eating in a way that your body feels like how you want it to feel within that list.
• Notice your thoughts around you're food choices.
• See how you can use the list as a tool.
• Notice and take an inventory every time you notice yourself labeling foods as good or bad.
• Take an inventory of the food you're eating and ask yourself why you're eating it. Consider letting yourself off the hook from eating those foods, and eating something you DO enjoy.
• Give yourself permission to eat foods that aren't on people's "good" list, even if that includes something on their "bad" list.
• If you're eating based on what a list tells you, start to try other things that aren't on that list (fruit, carb veggies and fruit, grains, legumes). Notice how those foods make you feel in your body.
• Consider describing foods in a different way.
• Remind yourself that there are foods that work for you and don't work as well in your body right now and that's okay.
• Remember that what you eat doesn't affect your worth.

Mentioned in the Show:

Small Steps #17: What is Diet Culture?

Small Steps #6 Steph Gaudreau

Small Steps #20 with Taylor Gage

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There's so much advice on how to improve your romantic, familial and platonic friendships, but how much is really out there on how we can improve our relationship with ourselves? Today's guest Taylor Gage of She Thrives talks about a lot of ways we can improve our relationship with ourselves, from what we believe, how we speak and how we take care of ourselves.

About Taylor Gage

Taylor is a blogger, podcaster, portrait photographer, a CrossFit L1 and USA Weightlifting coach, and the founder of She Thrives. Her work covers a range of topics from fitness, body image, nutrition, and personal development, to healthy habits, self love, and confidence. Her mission is to help women empower themselves so they can ditch the shoulds and the shame, feel good, crush their goals, and live big.

Small Steps in the Show:

• Consider taking Taylor's course, The Confidence Lab
• Increase your self awareness.
• Notice the loop of thoughts that's playing your head (particularly during hard moments).
• Pay attention to what you reject about yourself.
• Rewrite a limiting belief.
• Ask if the belief is serving you.
• You get to decide what you believe and how you talk to yourself.
• Consider working with a professional to help you.
• Developing space between the stimulus in your brain and how your respond to it.

Mentioned in the Show:

Steph Gaudreau

Listen and Subscribe to Taylor's podcast, She Thrives Radio

She Thrives Radio #43

Chrissy King

Gretchen Rubin's Four Tendencies

She Thrives Radio Bonus 3

She Thrives Radio #33

She Thrives Radio #41

Jessica Rothley of Wholly Healed

The Confidence Lab

Ignited Womxn Summit

Taylor's Website

Taylor's Photography Website

Follow Taylor on Instagram | Private Facebook Community

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Go go go, do more, keep going, always hustling. There are the messages we're constantly getting and perpetuating in Western culture. Rarely are we told to really slow down and look around or rest, which can lead to feeling tired, getting out of alignment with our values, and feeling unhappy or uninspired. Today I talk about how to check in with yourself and adjust if you don't enjoy what you're doing.

Small Steps in the Show:

• Take an inventory of all the things you're doing right now.
• Do you really enjoy all of these things?
• Pick 1-2 things to adjust for a few weeks and see how you feel.
• Consider trying something new.
• Check back in after a set period of time.
• Be okay with letting things go and things changing.
• Accept that just because you're not doing them now doesn't mean you won't even do them again
• Remind yourself you're not a robot, you're allowed to change, the things don't define you, you define you.
• Share these thoughts and feelings with someone you trust.
• Practice lots of kindness and compassion for yourself.

Mentioned in the Show:

Outlier by Malcolm Gladwell (10,000 Hours)

Art & Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

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As womxn we're often told to look pretty, be small, quiet and look like the girl next to us. Today's guest, Chrissy King, is here to set the record straight on how there is another way. A way to take up space, be unapologetically you, how together, we can all work to see, recognize and support the beauty in each other's differences and uniqueness.

About Chrissy King

Chrissy King is a writer, speaker, strength coach, and self-proclaimed truth teller with a passion for intersectional feminism and creating a diverse and inclusive wellness industry. She has been featured in SELF, BuzzFeed, Muscle and Fitness, and Livestrong.

Small Steps in the Show:

• Journal on taking up space in a stream of consciousness style.
• Decide on one small way you can take up space and act on it.
• Take small daily wins and celebrate those.
• Share those wins with people.
• Celebrate your friends wins.
• Look at your own style/philosophy or approach and see how well it speaks to people that aren't like you.
• Considering what steps you're taking to make your space welcoming and inclusive to many groups of people
• Take an inventory of things you are and aren't doing, decide what you want to address first.
• Correcting your language if you're saying things that could be dismissive/offensive to other groups.
• Consider watching Chrissy's Diversity and Inclusion 101 Webinar.
• This all takes time.
• It's okay to make mistakes, not have all the answers and keep learning things

Mentioned in the Show:

Beta test Chrissy's Power Conditioning 2.0

Jill Coleman

Neghar Fonooni

Jen Sinkler

Chrissy's article on taking up space

Steph Gaudreau's article on taking up space

Brene Brown

I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn't) by Brene Brown

Shirin Eskadani of Whole Hearted Coaching

Chrissy's Diversity and Inclusion 101 Webinar

Chrissy's Website

Follow Chrissy on Instagram | Twitter

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The pressure to be smaller, toned, ripped or jacked. The shame around what you see in the mirror, especially if it doesn't match what you see idolized on social media, magazines and billboards. The fatigue from trying diet after diet after, not getting the results you want. This is Diet Culture, and it's messing with people's happiness, sense of self worth, and in some cases, their health. Today I talk about what is is, how it shows up, and how you can start to opt out.

Small Steps in the Show:

• Notice the people/messages/images that are in all of the health and fitness media.
• Notice your own language and preferences.
• Notice how you're talking to yourself.
• Ask yourself if what you're saying/watching/learning contributes to staying in the diet culture norms.
• Start opting out: unsubscribe, unfollow, stop watching media that perpetuate these ideas
• Check in with your values around health and fitness, create them if you haven't.
• Notice when diet culture thoughts pop into your head, label it and ask some questions.
• Start to create or think on ways to create your eating and movement practices that are in line with your values and work with/surround yourself with people that share similar values.
• Consider sharing and talking about this with other people.

Mentioned in the Show:

Small Steps Podcast with Steph Ondrusek

Small Steps Podcast with Steph Gaudreau

Small Steps Podcast with Allison Tenney

Harder to Kill Radio Ep 162 Toning

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Living from your values can make things in your life feel more aligned and more like you. From those values, it can be clear that you may need to make some adjustments and find or create new spaces that embody your values so you can share that with others. Today's guest, Allison Tenney, shares how she did that in her own life and work, from her fitness coaching to her event the Ignited Womxn Summit.

About Allison Tenney

Allison is the owner of Allison Tenney Fitness, LLC, an online training business built on the belief that movement and heavy lifting are empowering and fun. She is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist and holds several other fitness credentials from USA Weightlifting, FMS, SFG, and RKC kettlebell certifications.

Allison combines her passion for movement and strength training with her commitment to social justice and aims to elevate the fitness profession and make it more inclusive for everybody and every body.

She is also the founder of the Ignited Womxn Summit, an annual wellness and leadership event that creates a space for learning through an inclusive lens. Her goal in creating this summit was to help womxn actively dismantle limiting narratives and systems that no longer serve them.

Small Steps in the Show:

• Take on your own learning
• Take on your own healing.
• Consider getting help and guidance with that learning and healing.
• Find a community of people taking a similar path.
• Get clear on your values.
• Check in with your values (they could change).
• Acknowledge community is something you need.
• Show up for yourself
• Find events where you share similar values with the subject/community
• Seeing where people you follow/share values with are going for events and where they create community and who else they follow
• Support and have conversations with people in your virtual or in person community

Mentioned in the Show:

Small Steps Episode 14

Buy Tickets to the Ignited Womxn Summit 2019

Steph Gaudreau

Allison on the Balanced Black Girl Podcast

Allison on Harder to Kill Radio

Foundations of Social Justice Course

Dr. Tee Williams

Ignited Womxn Summit

Chrissy King

Taylor Gage

Meetup

Allison's Website

Follow Allison on Instagram

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Instead of setting goals this year, what if you set a word for the next year? One word can be guide you in your actions, decisions, and how you show up in the following year. This episode covers how to find that word and how to carry that word and what it means to you, throughout your year.

Small Steps in the Show:

• Check in with your values.
• Write down how you want to feel in 2019, what you want to do
• Pick one word that personifies that feeling for you.
• Write it down and keep it in a place you see all the time.
• Check in with yourself when you're making decisions to see if it aligns with your word.
• Feel free to change your word or change the meaning behind your word as the year unfolds.

Mentioned in the Show:

Steph Gaudreau

The Small Eats Circle Values Worksheet

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Our health and wellness touches all areas of our lives, and all areas of our lives touch our health and wellness. This includes our race, religion, size, ability, gender, class and so much more. I'm sharing my experiences of being a biracial woman of color, how that's informed my life and how, especially after this year, it informs my vision of wellness and this podcast moving forward.

Mentioned in the Show:

Andréa Ranae

White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo

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Please leave this show a rating and review on iTunes!