We are not born hating our bodies. We get this way because of diet culture.

Diet culture is the not so invisible forces that make us believe that being thin is beautiful and guarantees health. It’s the messages from the media, advertising, news stories, celebrities, magazines, social media and influencers as well as our families, that have led us to believe that unless we fit into society’s narrow view of beauty or wellness we’ll never be enough.

Listen to understand how a self-compassionate approach is best for our overall health outcomes and some tips to create a ripple effect that could see us eradicate diet culture forever!

And you can check out the video that goes with this podcast here.

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A little while ago I surveyed everyone on my email list about what they wanted to know about Body Love.  (If you want to join my email list and receive weekly emails from me you can do that here.  Plus you’ll get access to some free meditation downloads.)  These were the top 10 most common questions and in this podcast episode I’ll answer them.

1. How do I stay motivated?
2. How to find a balance between work, kids, husband and maintaining the house, basically how to find time for me?
3. How to make exercise fun?
4. How can we persevere in body love when it's so counter cultural? 

• Join The Body Love Collective free Facebook group
• Join The Body Love Coach 12-month certification course

• Join The Body Love Coach 12-month certification course

If you’ve got more Body Love questions let me know in the comments below or send me an email at [email protected]

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When I hear women in cafes say things like this about cake, it makes me want to scream!

🙊 It's my guilty pleasure

🙊 Oh I shouldn't eat this, but I will

🙊 Go on, let's be naughty together

🙊 I'm so bad

🙊 No thanks, I'm being good

But then I remember that it’s not their fault.  It’s diet culture that makes us do it!

In this episode I give you some alternatives to Food Guilt that you may never have thought of before.  

Let’s embrace Body Positivity and let Food guilt be a thing of the past.

Let me know what you think in the comments.

Links:

The Body Love Collective - Facebook group

Shrill TV show

Ditching Diet Culture Podcast episode

21-days Body Love Meditation

Chakra Balancing Course

The Body Love Coach 12-month Certification Program

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Last week I owned up to the fact that I don’t love my body at the moment and one of the big reasons is that I’m doing too much which means I am exhausted.

To continue the theme, this week I wanted to unpack the idea of exhaustion because the feedback I got is a lot of people are feeling the same way (shout out to all the teachers and EAs who listen!)

One of the big reasons we feel tired all the time is because we are doing too much and we have high expectations of ourselves and we find it hard to ask for or receive help.

But I think it’s bigger than that.  I think it’s because our souls are tired from living out of alignment with our values.

Listen in to this week’s episode to find out if that is true for you and for some practical advice about what you can do to rectify it.  

It’s the first step of The Body Love Method.

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I don’t love my body anymore.

In this personal episode I admit to not loving my body anymore.  It’s not that I don’t feel love toward my body… it’s that I don’t treat my body with love.

I have started putting too much emphasis on achievement, even when it comes to my self-care practices, rather than allowing myself to feel good.

It happens to all of us at some stage.  And it never feels good.

So, I am recommitting to the Body Love Method and the overarching principle of allowing vs. achieving.

And it means I will be decluttering my business.  I’ll have to decide what I love and what I don’t love anymore and make some changes.  Watch this space.

Can you make some changes in your life too?  Let’s do it together.

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I believe that all women can learn to love their bodies and free themselves from all the self-loathing that diet culture encourages!  But it does take some work. I hope this podcast and The Body Love Method™ give you lots of tools to love your body. But I know one size does not fit all so I want to share with you some of the biggest influencers in my Body Love Journey.  I call them my Body Love Heroes.

1. Taryn Brumfitt - director of the movie Embrace.  FInd her at tarynbrumfitt.com
2. Megan Jayne Crabbe - amazing Instagram personality and Body Positivity activist.  Plus author of Body Positive Power.  Find her on Instagram here.
3. Linda Bacon PhD created the Health at Every Size Movement and co-authored one of my favourite books Body Respect with Lucy Aphramor, PhD.  Find Linda at lindabacon.org.
4. Jaclyn London MS, RD, CDN author of Dressing on the side (and other diet myths debunked).  It’s a fun look at healthy eating without all the diet culture bullshit.  Check it out here.
5. Laura Thomas, PhD is s a kick-arse registered nutritionist and Intuitive Eating Counsellor based in London.  She is also the author of the book Just Eat It.  In her book Laura reminds us that our bodies are our own and we don’t need magazines, social media influencers or our mums to tell us how to treat ourselves.  Check her out here.
6. Mel Wells is an ex model and actress from the UK who knows how it feels to have her body publically scrutinised by the media!  Her book The Goddess Revolution - Make peace with Food, Love Your Body and Reclaim Your Life is easy to read and packs a huge inspirational punch.  Find her here.
7. And I couldn’t go without mentioning Louise Hay as one of my Body Love Heroes.  Here is an amazing affirmation from her book, You can heal your life.

“In the infinity of life where I am,

All is perfect, whole and complete.

I accept health as the natural state of my being.

I now consciously release any mental patterns within me

That could express dis-ease in any way.

I love and approve of myself.

I love and approve of my body.

I feed it nourishing food and beverages.

I exercise it in ways that are fun.

I recognise my body as a wondrous and magnificent machine,

And I feel privileged to live in it.

I love lots of energy.

All is well in my world.”

Image Credit: https://www.facebook.com/bodyposipanda

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It’s occurred to me that I say the words “diet culture” A LOT on this podcast but perhaps you don’t know what I mean when I say that…

Diet culture is the not so invisible forces that make us believe that being thin is beautiful and guarantees health.  It’s the messages from the media, advertising, news stories, celebrities, magazines, social media and influencers as well as our families that have led us to believe that unless we fit into society’s narrow view of beauty or wellness we’ll never be enough. 

It’s why we oppress people with larger bodies - call them lazy, don’t give them promotions or jobs, or use them at the butt of jokes in movies and tv.

Diet culture is a slippery, conniving, ever changing thing that robs people of their time, money, health, happiness, and so much more.

And it’s been completely invented mostly in the 20th century by the advertising industry and big pharma.  I mean it’s bloody genius because diets don’t work which means when we are caught up in diet culture we’ll just keep going back for more and more and more.

So what do we do about it?

1. Well, now you know about it that’s the first step.  Decide that you don’t want your life, body. Money, mind and self-esteem determined by this completely made up bullshit
2. Start to accept that all bodies are amazing! Our bodies are a complex system of miracles that keeps us alive every single day.  And just like everything else in nature is diverse, so are human bodies
3. Understand that it is possible to have health at every size.  Fitness levels and mobility are much better indicators of health than body size.
4. Stop praising people for being thin or losing weight.  Start to appreciate people for who they are rather than what they look like.
5. Learn to love yourself no matter what you look like so that you’ll want to take the best care of yourself that you can.  The Body Love Method is a great starting point. Watch a video all about The Method here.

As a last note, please don’t beat yourself up if you have been caught up in diet culture.  Don’t start to regret all the time you have spent on diets or feeling bad about yourself or all the money you have wasted on diets.  Wipe the slate clean. You can just start fresh today.

And know that you are enough, you have always been enough and your body is worthy of love and respect no matter what.

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This week I was reminded of how far I’ve come with my Body Love mission in two ways.

Firstly I was reintroduced to a podcast interview I did late in 2017.  It was a few months before I wrote The Body Love Method and I had started to see results in my clients.

In the interview I spoke about how Body Love is essential for two reasons:

1. It frees up a lot of brain space because when we let go of diet culture and feeling not good enough ALL.  THE. TIME. we have more time for thinking about and doing things that are really important. And we’ll naturally take good care of ourselves because we believe we are worthy.
2. It allows women to be seen as they really are, not as some pretty play thing for others to look at.  So that might mean you are more likely to put your face on a Facebook Live or go swim at the beach with your kids or put yourself on a dating app. 

If you’d like to listen to the interview you can check it out here.

The second blast from the past was being asked to be a speaker on a post-screening panel of the documentary Embrace.

If you’re not familiar with the documentary, it follows Australian Taryn Brumfitt on her quest to talk to women around the world about why they hate their bodies.  Taryn herself almost got plastic surgery at one stage and competed in a beach body contest after her babies. But she realised that having the perfect body did not make her happy - it just made her stressed out and depleted.  So she posted a photo of her in the competition as a “before” photo and after the competition with a few lumps and bumps as her “after” photo. It went viral.

I first watched this movie in 2016, just before I had a full hysterectomy to treat stage 4 endometriosis.  It was at the height of me hating my body because it was painful, it was bloated and I couldn’t live a normal life at that time.  So watching this movie sparked something in me and was the beginning of my body love journey.

Some of the key points in the movie are:

1. 70% of girls are dissatisfied with their bodies
2. 45% of women in the normal weight range think they are overweight
3. Australians spend more than $1 million a DAY on fad diets
4. More than 50% of 5-12 year olds want to lose weight
5. And many of the women interviewed in the movie used one word to describe their bodies - DISGUSTING

Check out the documentary here.

I had to learn to love my own body before I could teach you to love yours.  You have to learn to love your body before you can teach your girls to love theirs.  You have to model the behaviour… otherwise they just won’t believe you… and the cycle continues.  

And by loving your body I mean loving it as it is.  Not being obsessed with making it look a certain way.  Not by counting calories and weighing your food. You have to love your body unconditionally first and then it will be possible for the next generation.

Luckily it is possible to learn to love your body right now.  There are tools I talk about in the Body Love Method like forgiveness, decluttering, meditation and journaling.

There are movies like Embrace. There are books like Body Positive Power and Body Respect.  There’s this podcast.

And I’m also excited about the ripple effect The Body Love Academy is making.  My student Kat had body image issues (like the rest of us) and was worried about her teenage girl’s body image too.  But after just 8 months in the Academy both Kat and her daughter are in awe of their bodies and feeling increased confidence.  It’s a joy to watch.

So what can you do to strengthen your own body love, to pass it down to the next generation, to free yourself and others of all that mean girl clutter that goes with hating your body.  Imagine the freedom of letting it all go. I have and it’s amazing!

I am taking applications for the next round of the Academy right now with classes starting in October 2019 so if you’d like to see if you are right of the Academy, take the free quiz at bodylovehq.com/quiz

Have a great week and speak to you soon.

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The Body Love Show - Changing the face of fitness with Bevie Collier

Lately my body has been sore.  Sore feet, sore hips, sore neck.  And when I finally got to the point of cancelling classes due to headaches and pain I knew I had to do something about it.

More than once I had been recommended the services of Bevie Collier, a Master Rehab Trainer, Barefoot Specialist, Personal Trainer and founder of Sustainable Motion.

I’ve known Bevie for a while because I used to attend her fitness classes before she left the gym to start her own business.  While I was studying personal training I was in awe of the effortless way Bevie could teach classes. She was a role model.

So I went to see her for my body troubles and was delighted with the results.

In this episode I interview Bevie and we discuss her unique approach to fitness, dealing with repetitive strain, burnout, fitness plateaus, injuries or illness, and how to broach the gap between health and fitness (they are different things!).

You can connect with Bevie and Sustainable Motion on Facebook here or the website here.

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This is our 50th episode.  When I started this show I hadn’t thought about milestones but now that I’ve been producing this show for over a year I am excited to celebrate 50 shows and more than 2000 downloads.

I wanted to celebrate by interviewing one of my long term clients, Nadia.

Back at the beginning of 2018, Nadia was introduced to me by her friend Anne.  She knew she needed support and took the big step of investing in herself by doing my 12-week private coaching program.

Since then Nadia has re-evaluated her career, given up coffee (not always easy) and created a tool-kit that supports her through the good times and the bad.

Nadia has been to workshops, yoga classes and most recently my Body Love Bali retreat and she beautifully embodies living a Body Love life.

I hope you enjoy this special show.

If you would like to invest in yourself like Nadia did, go to bodylovehq.com/vip to learn more about the Body Love 12-week private coaching program.

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