Women Weigh in on Aging Bodies

Posted on August 22, 2022March 16, 2024 by tmAdmin

Wrinkles. Waistlines. Rippled thighs.

It feels strange to look in the mirror at my 53-year-old body and no longer see my younger self. I’ll be honest, aging isn’t easy when 20-somethings Botox “wrinkles” and Instagram influencers filter and perfect their images and instruct midlife women to “just skip the carbs” to flatten our rounded bellies. (No thanks).

And while I’m certainly not immune to our fix it, fight it, “anti-aging” culture, deep in my heart I simply want to be me and accept and allow my body to age naturally.

I wondered how other women are thinking and feeling about aging and their bodies.

So, I reached out and asked. Here’s what those women, aged 45-87, had to say:

Our 40s:

My thoughts and feelings about my body have been a big obstacle to my happiness and well-being for most of my life. It’s amplified now that I’m seeing the first real signs of aging. There’s resistance to that process and some fear. It feels strange to see extra fat on my abdomen. I still want to be thin and toned. It is very much a mental game that I struggle with.

Our 50s:

It seems like everything went downhill when I turned 50. Menopause is awful — brain fog along with perpetual exhaustion, saggy skin, hot flashes. I’m always looking at serums and creams and medical services. I started Lexapro to help me sleep and find my old self. Pandemic stress hasn’t made it any easier — political division, teenagers missing prom, graduation. I have some “additional COVID me to love” that I can’t lose. I learning to embrace graying hair, wrinkles, and I’m trying to embrace my body.

Our 60s:

I’m sorry I wasted so much of my life worrying about my weight. I think my body is an amazing machine. I feel like I owe it to my body to treat her well.

Our 70s:

I feel better about my body and aging than I ever thought possible. I practice mindfulness meditation, and that has taken me to a deep appreciation for my body. I treat myself as a dear friend and a deep appreciation for all of life.

Our 80s:

I can’t stop my body from aging but do my best by taking daily walks up and down hills. I enjoy it. I think that it is more important than ever to stay active. I feel better and sleep better. So I do not focus much on how old I am. It is just a number.

So, what wisdom can we gain from these women and their experiences with body image and aging?

Aging can take us by surprise. Yet with education it doesn’t have to, and women can shift self-care to focus on a healthy functioning body while softening how they see themselves in the mirror. And overall, women want to see aging normalized and not make women feel wrong if they choose to age naturally. Education matters

“There needs to be more discussion and transparency about women in their 40s and moving toward menopause and the changes that happen and what to expect,” says one 45-year-old woman surveyed, “so it doesn’t feel so scary and wrong.”

Life isn’t about your dress size

When I asked what advice women would give to their younger self, they said:

Put yourself first. Be kinder to yourself. Listen to your body and fuel it with what it wants and needs, not what the current diet fad says you should eat. Body diversity is normal and OK. No one will stop being your friend because you gained weight. Stay active, move your body to feel good mentally and physically not to burn calories or lose weight. Rest. Get more sleep. Wear sunscreen. Play more!

Focus on finding what makes you happy and confident. Living a full life is more important than stressing about your dress size. Give up perfection in appearance. Stop worrying what everyone else thinks of you. You are enough. Have more confidence. Confidence is beautiful.

And ultimately, honor, appreciate and befriend your body because life is precious.

♡ Tanya

Want to read more about how to have a healthy body image as you age? Check out:

How to Embrace Your Aging Body

Body Appreciation is Key to Healthful Aging

(This article was originally published in the Jackson Hole News and Guide, April 13, 2022.

3 Steps to Banish Body Comparison

Posted on August 9, 2022October 4, 2022 by tmAdmin

Do you struggle with body comparison, your body image? What if you could live your best life in whatever body you have?

I’m reading Brene Brown’s new book Atlas of the Heart and was struck by her research on comparison. Brown says that humans are hardwired to default to comparison and that it seems to happen to us rather than be our choice.

She shared a story about her love for swimming and how she used to shift her attention to the person in the next lane which had the potential to ruin her swim. She compared herself to a twentysomething triathlete. (We’ll return to her story below.)

“If we don’t want this constant automatic ranking to negatively shape our lives, our relationships, and our future, we need to stay aware enough to know when it’s happening and what emotions it’s driving” says Brown.

Brown says that the goal is to raise our awareness about how and why comparison happens so we can name them, think about them, and make choices that reflect our values and our heart.

Here’s Brown’s definition of comparison:

Comparison is the crush of conformity from one side and competition from the other – it’s trying to simultaneously fit and stand out. Comparison says, be like everyone else, but better.

Comparison drives big feelings that affect our relationships, self-worth and feelings of well-being.

The good news, she says, is that you get to choose how you’re going to let it affect you. Instead, you can be yourself and respect others for being authentic.

3 Steps to Banish Body Comparison

1. Embrace imperfection.

How did we get to this place where we compare ourselves against perfection? Well, we live in a perfectionist body culture that portrays an “ideal” body type as only looking one way: thin, young and pretty (or muscular, young and handsome). Less than 5% of people naturally possess this body type and of course bodies change as we live, nobody is getting younger and at some point (if ever) we will no longer fit ideal beauty standards.

2. Focus on the positive.

Focus on something you do like about yourself to prevent your mind from automatically hyper focusing on what you don’t (*what I like to call “going down the rabbit hole of sht). For example, if you’ve been hard on your body weight, focus on a feature that you do like. I personally choose to focus on my green eyes.

Be positive. What you focus on expands.

3. See your whole self.

We tend to see ourselves as a bunch of body parts that are judged and scrutinized. We think that others are focusing on and judging the body parts that we don’t like about ourselves but they aren’t (and if they do it’s often because they have their own body insecurities). So, let’s send them kindness and compassion.

Remember, that when you compare yourself to somebody that you feel “looks perfect” that you don’t know how this person feels about themselves on the inside. Body image isn’t about appearance. It’s about how we think and feel about our bodies.

Practice seeing yourself as a whole person, not a sum of body parts. This includes seeing yourself beyond your physical body because you are more than a body.

Let’s show ourselves kindness and self-compassion.

You can retrain your brain to shift away from comparison with awareness and make new choices. And research shows that it works!

So let’s return to Brown’s swimming story. Her new strategy is “to look at the person in the lane next to me, and say to myself, as if I’m talking to them, ‘Have a great swim.’ That way I acknowledge the inevitable and make conscious decision to wish them well and return to my swim. So far, it’s working pretty well,” she says.

Instead of comparing bodies, look for the joy

The more we know, the more we can choose connection over comparison.

– Brene Brown, Atlas of the Heart

How does comparison shows up in your life? Shoot me an email and let me know or share a comment or question! I’d love to hear from you. ♡ T

P.S. Looking for body image support? Send me an email to get on the waitlist for my next Be Body Positive Group Coaching class. Get the details here.

Reject dieting and learn Intuitive Eating

Posted on August 9, 2022August 11, 2022 by tmAdmin

Maybe you’ve heard that diets don’t work and believe that diet culture’s “thin(er) is better” messaging is toxic. Yet you, like millions of other Americans, still want to lose weight.

You find yourself wanting a healthy relationship with food but you’re bombarded by the “New Year, New You” pressure to transform your body.

That makes perfect sense. And I get it because I too, as a former fitness expert and “eat this, not that” nutrition professional, fell prey to the “wellness” marketing that says you must, “look good to feel good.” Who doesn’t want to feel good about themselves? But remember, it’s diet culture that masquerades as “wellness” that convinces you that only one body type is “healthy” and to tie your self-worth to your looks.

Every January the mental berating in your head goes something like this – “Why can’t I just eat well without needing a “plan” to follow? Why don’t I have the discipline to sustain “success” after 30 days?”

Following the rules of “healthy eating” and restricting your favorite foods is exhausting. You feel guilty for ordering a Domino’s pizza or enjoying a Ghirardelli chocolate square after dinner; it’s only ok to eat these “bad” foods on a “cheat day.”

You’re “good” when you control your portion sizes, yet you’re hungry in an hour. But now it’s after 7pm and you “shouldn’t” eat because the “kitchen is closed.” “How can I possibly be hungry? I just ate.”

Or maybe you “can’t” eat because you’re still within your 16-hour intermittent fasting window. The negative self-talk in your head is loud, rigid, and lacking self-compassion. You wish you could stop thinking about food and your body all day, every day.

Does this sound like wellness? No.

What’s creating all this food drama? Diets.

Diets teach us to follow food rules that restrict or ban foods rather than listen to our own body’s food and self-care needs. Many of us believe that “dieting” is healthy eating and good nutrition. It’s not. Eating healthy includes having a healthy relationship with food. It’s approached gently and respects biodiversity – different bodies, have different needs.

The ✨ good news ✨ is that you can:

Ditch diets and learn how to eat intuitively

Dietitians, Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch created Intuitive Eating in 1995, as an anti-diet, a response to the failure of “diet” plans. Intuitive Eating is a self-care eating framework with 10 principles designed to guide you back to attunement or body awareness – listening for and responding to your individual body’s needs for nourishment – physical, emotional, and psychological.

You were born knowing how to eat. As an infant, you cried when you were hungry and turned your head, refusing to eat, when you were full. But over time, you can lose this natural ability to honor hunger and fullness because external forces interfered.

Maybe you had to “clean your plate” even if you were full.
Or you were served portioned plates and not allowed to have a second helping despite being physically hungry.
Perhaps you weren’t allowed to have dessert unless you ate your vegetables.
And cookies or chips were forbidden foods in your home so when available you “binged” on them.
Or you learned that you “shouldn’t” trust your body’s signals when you first dieted.

So how do you return to eating intuitively?

“The first thing you do in Intuitive Eating is reject that diet mentality – meaning we’re not getting back on that diet this new year, we’re going to reject those juice cleanses and intense programs and start eating food when we’re hungry, we’re going to start making peace with all food,” says clinical mental health counselor and Therapy Thoughts podcast host, Tiffany Roe.

Interviewed on CBS News this month, Roe discussed Intuitive Eating as the antidote to dieting.

“The difference between a really healthy relationship with food and dieting is you feel connected to your body, you feel satisfied, you enjoy variety, you enjoy life, and you can listen and respond to all your bodies cues. Dieting doesn’t give us that result. Dieting is about restriction, obsession, fixation. And its short-term results never stick. We get stuck in this cycle of depending on dieting” says Roe.

So what if you want to eat pizza tonight and feel you shouldn’t?

“What I am going to say is going to go against everything we’ve learned in diet culture. Eat the pizza,” advises Roe.

“The dieting rules trigger an inner rebellion, because they’re an assault on your personal autonomy and boundaries” says Tribole and Resch. A 2012 research study “Dieting and Food Craving” by Massey and Hill provides evidence that dieters experience stronger cravings for the foods restricted on their plans compared to non-dieters.

A healthy relationship with food could be enjoying a green smoothie, because you like it – and pizza. Intuitive Eating takes an all foods fit approach to gentle nutrition where pizza isn’t “bad.”

Instead of restricting and banning foods, Intuitive Eating gently guides you back inside your body asking:

What do you need?

♡ Are you honoring your individual hunger and fullness?
♡ Which foods give you pleasure and make you feel good?
♡ And if not food, what are you hungering for in life – making a difference, more pleasure, connection?

You might have one big question:

Will Intuitive Eating make me thinner?

When your mind is stuck on your weight – the goal of diets, it interferes with the foundational concept of Intuitive Eating – body awareness – listening to the physical cues coming from your own body without diet culture “shoulds” and “shouldnts” getting in the way.

Intuitive Eating is an empowerment tool that guides you to trust your body to settle where it’s healthiest, not where diet and “wellness” culture says it “should” be.

Liberate yourself from diet culture and weight obsession in 2022. Reject dieting and eat intuitively. You are the expert of your own body.

To your happiness and health,

Tanya

♡ Ready to transform your relationship to food and your body? Get started!

You might also enjoy Intuitive Eating: Do you need to relearn how to eat?

Don’t let diet madness ruin the new year

Posted on August 9, 2022August 11, 2022 by tmAdmin

“When I was little, someone asked me what I wanted to be when I grow up and I said, ‘Small.’

By the time I was 16, I had already experienced being clinically overweight, underweight, and obese. As a child, fat was the first word people used to describe me, which didn’t offend me until I found out it was supposed to” says Blythe Baird in her spoken word poem video When the Fat Girl Gets Skinny which has received over 4 million views.

She describes a teenaged life filled with eating “skinny-pop,” complimenting each other’s thigh gaps, trying diets she and her friends found on the internet, “Googling the calories in the glue of a US stamp” and “hunching naked over a bathroom scale, trying; crying into an empty bowl of Cocoa Puffs because I only feel pretty when I’m hungry.”

When Baird lost weight, her dad was so proud that he carried her before and after photo in his wallet, relieved that he could stop worrying about her getting diabetes and finally see her taking care of herself.

“If you develop an eating disorder when you are already thin to begin with, you go to the hospital. If you develop an eating disorder when you are not thin to begin with, you are a success story” says Baird.

“So when I evaporated, of course everyone congratulated me on getting healthy. Girls at school who never spoke to me before stopped me in the hallway to ask how I did it. I say, “I am sick.” They say, “No, you’re an inspiration.

How could I not fall in love with my illness? With becoming the kind of silhouette people are supposed to fall in love with? Why would I ever want to stop being hungry when anorexia was the most interesting thing about me?”

I share Baird’s story with you with urgency, before the new year, to stress the harms of continually reinforcing the societal norms that we’ve been socialized to accept such as dieting before any major life event, “swimsuit season,” beginning every January or actually just dieting in general.

Think of someone you know whose time, energy, money, physical and emotional health and self-worth – whose life is being stolen by the constant pursuit of maintaining or attaining an “ideal” body shape or size, that is, according to diet culture.

Maybe this person is your best friend, your mother, or you.

Nobody diets for fun

Like Baird, we try to control our bodies to belong, to be accepted as “healthy.” We believe we must “look good to feel good” about ourselves, the diet industry marketing messages promise.

Diet culture equates thinness, muscularity, and particular body shapes with health and moral virtue, according to author of Anti-Diet, Christy Harrison. You can spend your whole life thinking you’re irreparably broken just because you don’t look like this ‘ideal” she says.

And even if you have a small body, you may live with fear of weight gain.

I want you to know that you have a choice. Your only option for love and a content life isn’t to be a slave to the scale and other people’s opinions.

Ditch diet culture

You can choose to opt-out of harmful dieting and diet culture.

Dieting is disordered eating and is one of the strongest predictors for the development of an eating disorder, which can occur across the weight spectrum according to the National Eating Disorders Collaboration.

And you don’t have to be actively “on a diet” to be swept up by the culture of dieting.

Disordered eating habits also include preoccupation with food and your weight, feeling stressed about food and whether you’re eating the “right” or “wrong” foods and rigid food rules. It’s fasting, cleansing, detoxing, skipping meals to save calories, avoiding a type of food or food group, drinking laxative teas.

We can take “healthy” eating too far. There’s a term for this, orthorexia, also disordered eating, which is an unhealthy obsession with eating healthy foods.

The risks associated with disordered eating and dieting include developing a clinical eating disorder, osteoporosis or osteopenia, fatigue and poor sleep quality, gastrointestinal problems, headaches, muscle cramps, feelings of shame, guilt, low self-esteem, depressive or anxious symptoms and behaviors, and nutritional and metabolic problems according to National Eating Disorder Collaboration.

And because diet culture is deeply embedded in Western culture masquerading as health, wellness and fitness, disordered eating habits have become an alarmingly “normal” way to “take care of ourselves.”

Nearly 75% of women reported engaging in disordered eating behaviors in a 2008 survey of over 4,000 women done by UNC and SELF magazine.

“Ideal” weight as myth

But you have another option. You can separate “taking care of yourself” and your “health” from some “ideal” number on the scale.

Think about how we determine a “healthy” weight. It’s measured by BMI (body mass index) – just your height to weight ratio. That’s it. It doesn’t consider your eating or movement habits, muscle mass. It doesn’t factor in a long list of behaviors that impact your health such as smoking. It doesn’t consider your genetics, nor the complexities of health. BMI is a poor determinant of health.

Furthermore, ingrained beliefs that fat poses significant mortality risk are not fact.

Research reported in Weight Science: Evaluating the Evidence for a Paradigm Shift shows that except at statistical extremes, BMI only weakly predicts longevity. People who are “overweight” or “obese” live at least as long as normal weight people, and often longer.

You can’t determine somebody’s health status just by looking at their body size. A small body may be healthy or not and the same is true for a larger body.

Honor Body Differences

With this knowledge, you can choose to honor that your body, other bodies may want to be different than what you and our culture think they should be.

Baird lamented that her “small’ body was the “most interesting about her,” but now as part of her healing “how lucky it is now to be boring,” says Baird.

“My story may not be as exciting as it used to but at least there is nothing left to count. The calculator in my head finally stopped. Now, I am proud I have stopped seeking revenge on this body.”

As the new year approaches and yet another wave of dieting madness tries to steal your self-worth, I want you to know that you have another option: you can ditch the false belief that there’s only one size that’s “healthy,” worthy of love and belonging and make peace with food and your body.

To your happiness and health,

Tanya

♡ Ready to transform your relationship to food and your body? Get started!

P.S. (You can watch Blythe Baird deliver her powerful poem, here).

(This article was originally published in the December 8, 2021 issue of Jackson Hole News and Guide.)

Body image can be ‘life thief’ by Jeannette Boner

Posted on August 9, 2022August 9, 2022 by tmAdmin

We’ve all been there. Standing in front of the mirror, pulling at our clothes that seem to stick a little too tightly to our stomachs or arms. Changing out three or four outfits before leaving for the day. Eating a nice lunch out with co-workers while secretly promising ourselves we’ll run an extra 3 miles later or skip dinner that night.

“It’s really easy to get sucked into this kind of thinking,” said Mary Ryan, a Jackson-based certified eating disorder specialist through the International Association of Eating Disorder Professionals. “We fixate on whether our pants fit too tightly, or we are constantly asking, ‘Am I getting my heart rate up?’ That mismatch between what we are doing and what is expected of us, it’s real and it can be really difficult to break that cycle of self deprecation.”

Women’s issues can hardly be talked about without shedding some sort of light on the relationship — often fraught — that women have with their bodies. What is healthy? What is culturally prominent and acceptable? Here, two body positive professionals talk about this tension.

The diet industry preys on weaknesses. Scrolling through social media platforms, users are bombarded with ads promising a “new way to eat,” “cleanses for the health conscious” and, of course, the more overt “lose weight now!”

“The pandemic created massive body image issues,” said Tanya Mark, a nutrition therapy practitioner and eating psychology coach in Jackson. “The changes in our lifestyles caused by the pandemic turned us upside down, and the diet culture clamped down. They are spending massive amounts of money on diet methods, and this kind of advertising ramped up tenfold during the pandemic. It’s not our fault that we feel compelled to click on the ‘lose weight’ button. We want to fit into our culture around here.”

Mark is a non-diet nutrition and body image coach in Jackson working to untangle individuals from the self-deprecating web of society’s definition of bodily perfection. She believes strongly that it takes a community to reclaim a holistic approach to health and wellness. Ryan is a licensed clinical social worker and registered dietitian nutritionist with a Master of Science degree in foods and nutrition.

While she and Ryan operate different practices in Jackson, both are committed and passionate advocates working to defend and reclaim our health against the untold damage that dieting and the culture of dieting leave in their wake.

“We’re off swimming in this toxic pool of what our bodies are supposed to be like,” Ryan said. “I’ve had a lot of my own issues with food at different times in my life. I remember the first time I heard the term ‘muffin top,’ and I had all these mixed emotions. These kinds of terms can send people spiraling.”

All of that is easier said than done in Jackson, where post-powder day debriefs are epic stories of how high and how deep the snow was that day. Trail runs are not meandering walks through the woods but instead often a means to push back on what aging is naturally doing to our bodies. Even walking the dog can become a hike up Munger Mountain instead of a stroll through the park.

“My work is really about helping our community to build community around the practice of separating what our body looks like from what is fitness and health,” Mark said. “And that is not easy, and it is difficult to do alone. We are constantly bombarded with these images of perfection. When you consider that less than 5% of women have this perfect ideal of what a body should look like while society tries to sell us this perfection, it’s really hard on all of us. I think first we need to educate and create awareness and shift our thinking from the idea that what you are seeing in the mirror is not the problem. The problem is the perfect cultural ideals that are more prominent in the Jackson area.”

In January, CNBC reported that 45 million people in the United States pursue weight loss programs. “Diet and weight loss have grown to be a $71 billion industry, yet according to studies — 95% of diets fail,” read the report.

Ryan, like many of us, moved to the Tetons for the love of the big landscapes and endless adventures. And while so much of the Jackson lifestyle is found in pursuit of the mountaintop experience, Ryan slowly peeled away some of the darker realities of Jackson’s “healthy” lifestyles.

“We don’t understand how it’s impacting us,” she said of the high pursuit of the ultimate Jackson lifestyle modeled by uber athletes and the bodily perfection that follows. “And what is that costing us? What is the cost of you not beating yourself up, juggling kids, work and everything else, because you didn’t get up Glory? I think awareness of what we trade off is just a process of all that we have to go through. You don’t figure out your body image problems and live happily ever after.”

Ryan explains on her website, “Beyond Broccoli,” that her mission “has always been to guide and support you toward nutrition changes for health and well-being. I have expanded this mission with my additional therapy skills for us to work together towards any lifestyle changes that help you make your life better.”

Mark is also sounding the alarm on diet culture and specifically where it seeps into the Jackson culture. She said the diet industry has changed the way it uses certain terms. “Clean,” “detox” — those words are really the same as the word “diet,” Mark said.

“My clients are women who are badass,” Mark said. “But this piece really holds them back, this piece that we spend so much time and energy on that we could be using to live. It’s what Christy Harrison calls the ‘life thief.’ We change our clothes three times before we think about going out, and then we just don’t go out. Or you don’t take your daughter to the Rec Center because you are uncomfortable in your bathing suit. We are smart, successful women, but this piece, this way of seeing our bodies as less than perfect, can be crushing and hold us back. That is where we need to do this work collectively.”

“We have so much more power collectively as a group,” she said.

Mark hosts group workshops that bring clients together to share struggles and triumphs where body image, health and well-being intersect. “This is about reclaiming our health back from diet culture. I really encourage our community to dive deeper. The ultimate step for us is to move beyond beauty and be more than a body. Our body is a fraction of who we are.”

Mark considers for a moment and then asks, “Think about all the women who you admire. The fact that you admire them has nothing to do with what they look like.”

Ryan cites some sobering statistics from the National Eating Disorders Association, the largest nonprofit organization working to support people with eating disorders. According to NEDA, by the age of 6, girls will begin to express concerns about their weight or shape. NEDA points to 40% to 60% of elementary school girls ages 6 to 12 years of age are concerned about their weight or about becoming too fat. This concern endures through life.

Additionally, 70% of elementary school girls who read magazines say that the pictures influence their concept of the ideal body shape, with 47% of them saying the pictures make them want to lose weight.

“The two biggest areas I work with with clients are in orthorexia, which is an unhealthy obsession with eating healthy. And the second is hyper-exercising,” Ryan said. Both of which, she said, are prevalent and even a celebrated way of life in Jackson Hole.

“Jackson attracts people who have a high level of perfection and high levels of achievement,” she said. “So many of my clients don’t have a healthy perspective when it comes to eating and exercising. So many have an active lifestyle but feel if they don’t top a four-hour trail run or didn’t hike Glory that day then they didn’t do anything to contribute to their overall well-being. That is such an impossible standard, even for a young person.”

“I think that we are still sort of caught up in the expectations of what our bodies are supposed to be,” she said. “Because I specialize in disordered eating, many of my clients present problems with their relationships with food or their bodies. My clients want to change their bodies, and that can mean gaining muscles or losing weight. They say, ‘I’m so tired of not liking my body. I don’t want to fight my body.’ There are years and decades that they have been struggling, and they are tired and don’t want to feel that way anymore.”

“We are obsessed with wellness and wellness culture,” Ryan said. “We don’t even know how to separate weight from wellness. Because we do have this bubble of uber athletes in Jackson, what I am seeing more and more of are people who are desperate to not get to another size and to maintain this high standard of eating clean. That’s like nails on a chalkboard, ‘clean eating.’ When I eat Ben and Jerry’s, I am not eating dirty. I am sorry, I am not.”

There is hope, always. And that first step toward healing and relearning and to looking at ourselves through a healthier lens is much harder than the last push to cresting Glory.

“With bodily dissatisfaction, trying to fill in the ‘blank’ in ‘enough’ with words like ‘strong enough, ‘fit enough.’ We live in this culture where we are not enough. It’s a little bit of an oversimplification, but if we can take a step back and be curious about what is going on, that’s a first big step,” Ryan said.

“I am seeing the shifts,” Mark said. “I am starting to see a shift in magazine articles and how they talk about body and image. I’m seeing it in the community’s desire to separate wellness from weight. We are seeing some changes in society, and I’m having these conversations locally with yoga and fitness instructors. We’re talking about how we talk about health, from mental health to emotional and social health, and we can separate these from the scale.”

Mark added: “We have some work to do and we can do it. The power that we have is in the collective community. I’m hoping we will get there.”

-————————————————————–

Contact Jeanette Boner via wnroyster@jhnewsandguide.com

“It’s not our fault that we feel compelled to click on the ‘lose weight’ button. We want to fit into our culture around here.” — Tanya Mark non-diet nutrition and body image coach

The 4 Body Truths You (and Every Girl) Should Know

Posted on August 9, 2022November 5, 2023 by tmAdmin

The things I love most about my friends have nothing to do with what they look like.

Let that truth sink in.

I know deep in your heart, dear reader, you feel this way too.

But despite that heartfelt truth, weight and appearance take a front seat in most of our lives, driving or crushing our self-confidence.

Women and girls are literally not participating in their own lives, opting out of important life events because they don’t believe they look good enough.

As a Be Body Positive Facilitator and ambassador for The Body Image Movement, I’ve observed in media, especially social media, that there’s this misconception that the goal of heathy body image is for us to eventually love the appearance of our bodies, “flaws” and all.

But “body image work has very little to do with our outside appearance because the reality is, even if we come to love the appearance and shape of our bodies now, they are ever-changing” says clinical psychologist Dr. Colleen Reichmann.

Fostering a healthy body image involves talking openly about the realities of living in a human body. By teaching our young girls to normalize “normal” bodies by embracing diverse and changing bodies and acknowledging the complexities of human health, we can push appearance where it belongs, to the back seat and get back to living fully.

I encourage you to share these four body truths, ones I wish I’d learned as a young girl, with your girls (and with everybody).

The 4 Body Truths You (and Every Girl) Should Know

“Precious girl, your body is supposed to look different.”

Tell her she was born with a unique body. Encourage her to embrace the differences in her own body and respect all bodies. Diversity is part of the human experience.

Her body is not flawed or imperfect. There’s no one “right” way to have a body.

And be upfront with her. Share that our culture will try to convince her otherwise, but she can resist.

“Precious girl, your body will change.”

Explain to her that her body will go through life transitions: puberty, maybe pregnancy, perimenopause, menopause.

Tell her what to expect from her body, such as the average child gains 40 pounds during puberty, and that it’s good and normal. And that bodies change for all kinds of reasons: injury, illness and just living. Teach her that our culture demonizes aging, but she can celebrate it.

And that “no matter what, if we are privileged enough to age, we will all wind up in bodies that society has deemed as ‘not the beauty standard’ anyway,” says Reichmann.

At the end of her one precious life, no one is going to stand up at her funeral and remember her for her waist size. The most attractive thing about her should have more to do with her heart and how she treats people.

“Precious girl, your body is not a machine, it’s a miracle.”

Tell her that her body has innate wisdom, sending her messages to meet its needs for self-care, and for her to listen.

Help her separate her weight from her wellness.

Warn her of diet culture’s false and simplistic definition of health and to resist comparing herself to social media influencers’ before and after images and “eat like me, move like me, look like me” messaging.

Remind her that even if everybody ate the exact same foods in the same amounts and exercised the same, we’d all look vastly different from one another — again, honoring body diversity.

Tell her the importance of having a healthy relationship with food. Tell her exercise is a celebration of what her body can do, not a punishment for what she ate. Talk openly with her about the dangers of dieting and “clean” eating. Labeling food as “clean” or “dirty” is just dieting by another name. In a large study of 14- and 15-year-olds, dieting was the most important predictor of developing an eating disorder compared with those who didn’t diet according to National Eating Disorders Association. And maybe you didn’t even know this, but discuss with her that eating and exercise disorders come in all body sizes, again, according to NEDA. Yes, read that again.

Explain that she’ll be bombarded by advertising messages trying to profit off body insecurities that the billion-dollar weight loss industry created. It’s about profits, not health.

And share that human health should be embraced with compassion as complex and multifaceted.

“Precious girl, fall in love with your life.”

Ultimately, teach her that the goal of healthy body image isn’t to love our “flaws” but to be able to live out our values in such a way that appearance takes more of a back seat.

“The real goal is to create a life that feels bigger than appearance. It’s to be able to live out your values in such a way that you are in your life, versus staring at it on the periphery,” says Reichmann. “This likely means having some days where, yeah — you don’t love the outside of your body as much as other days. But the goal is for you to continue living out your values with very little impediment on those days as well.”

And finally, take some time to share with your daughter the things that you most love about her and her friends that have nothing to with appearance.

We have more to offer this world that has zero to do with our bodies. Empower your daughter to be more than a body.

“You have more to do than be weighed down by pretty or beautiful. You are a fiery heart and a wicked brain. Do not let your soul be defined by its shell.” — Unknown

To your happiness and health,

Tanya

♡ Ready to transform your relationship to food and your body? Get started!

(This article was originally published in the October 27 edition of the Jackson Hole News and Guide Weekly.)

Tips to feel confident when starting out at the gym – Guest Post from LoyoboFIT

Posted on August 9, 2022August 11, 2022 by tmAdmin

I’m so proud to collaborate with some of the leaders in the wellness industry who subscribe to my philosophy of following an anti-diet approach to fitness and body acceptance!

LoyoboFIT is one of them! Below is a brief description of their philosophy:

“WE ARE NOT YOUR TYPICAL GYM AND WE LIKE IT THAT WAY.

We want to do things differently. We focus on fostering a community of people who support one another to be their best selves; to be fit, happy, body positive and healthy.

We focus on small group training that allows for a high-level of individualized attention, with a wide variety of class formats and special events, as well as wellness coaching to create personal action plans, goals and create behavior change in all areas of life.

Our goal is to help you feel better both inside and out. We want you to leave every class with a sense of belonging and a smile. Take the first step of your journey and try a class today!”

I’m excited to share LoyoboFIT’s blog post below on Tips to feel confident when starting out at the gym. Keep reading for the full article. Make sure to visit LoyoboFIT’s blog for more great posts on fitness and learning to love your body!

Tips to feel confident when starting out at the gym

One of the things we hear most often at our studio is that people are reluctant to start their fitness journey because they lack the confidence to try attending a new gym or online class! There are so many fears that people associate with gyms: hurting themselves, looking foolish, getting judged…. And most of us have had bad experiences that prove our fears right!

Confidence is a tricky thing because when you are afraid, you don’t feel confident enough to get out of your comfort zone and take on something new, yet…. getting out of your comfort zone is exactly how you can start to develop that confidence and face your fears!

Take comfort in knowing that you are not the only one. We all prefer being comfortable or sticking to habits we know. We want to share some of our own experience and knowledge on how to feel confident moving your body joining a class online!

Find the right gym/online platform

The better a gym fits in with what you are looking for, the more comfortable you will feel working out there – especially when you are a beginner!

Take time to figure out which environment or style you feel comfortable with. Ask your friends, co-workers – do a little digging to see what is out there and what you see yourself wanting to try.

A few questions to guide your search are what are you looking for from your workout? What types of exercises do you enjoy? What types of people do you want to work out with? Does it align with your values when it comes to feeling safe, having fun, approachable instructors and community you like?

These questions can help you narrow down the community you are looking for, the type of space you like, and to determine whether a gym/virtual fitness community has what you need.

And don’t just focus on price! There are plenty of free online work-outs out there, but will they offer you the motivation and accountability to start and stick to a work-out routine? Or is a paid live virtual platform more suitable to your needs? Focus on VALUE and bang for your buck!

By taking the time to do this, you can start off on the right foot in a place you enjoy. This way it doesn’t feel like you are dragging yourself to a class you don’t really like.

Create a dedicated space to workout

When it comes to virtual classes, many people are concerned to get started as they don’t think they have the space for a workout. But the truth is that the majority of online workouts are planned with small space in mind. Even in studios or gyms, the space you occupy in a class with a room full of other people isn’t actually that big. We are confident that there is plenty of sweating and moving you can do in a small space! 😉

A great way to feel more comfortable working out in your home is to find a spot where you can comfortably roll out a yoga mat. Make this place in your home your dedicated workout spot. Set up a water bottle there for whenever you plan to do a workout and keep your mat rolled up there so it is always easily accessible.

Understand your why

Before you start with any gym or fitness plan, you want to be really clear on why you are doing this. What are you hoping to gain? What are your goals? How do YOU define success?

Write it down and be clear about the reasons you are pursuing fitness. Your journey is about you, so being clear that you are not doing it for someone else can help you shift your mindset when you’re starting to feel insecure at the gym.

You aren’t working out for anyone else, you are doing it because of your commitments to yourself. You’re doing it for you!

Ask questions!

When you are starting out, it’s okay not to know how to do exercises perfectly. Instructors, trainers and staff are there to support you – They want you to be safe!

Ask questions about how to move your body safely and do what is good for you. They may suggest modifications or adjustments that aid you in continuing to exercise without causing injury. You don’t want to push yourself too hard or too fast if it’s not right for your body.

This is especially important in online classes where you are not in contact with people directly. – Our live classes provide the platform to check in with instructors and ask questions before and during the workout whenever issues come up!

Speak up if something doesn’t feel right. The last thing you want when you embark on your fitness journey is to hurt yourself in the process because you were too nervous to ask for advice.

Focus on YOU and resist the urge to compare yourself to others

Whenever you start to compare yourself to others, and start to give attention to your insecurities about your body, stop and bring your attention and focus to your workout. Concentrate on your movements, and remind yourself how well you are doing.

Celebrate the small gains! You may have bigger goals you ultimately hope to reach in your fitness journey, but recognizing the milestones it takes to get there is an important part of the motivation process.

If you felt more energy after your workout, if you were able to lift a little heavier or move a little faster- each of these are gains to be proud of and appreciate!

Believe in yourself

You make your mindset. You decide whether you will let negative thoughts hold you back. You decide whether you will try to find the brightside or not.

Choose to believe in yourself. Choose to be proud and recognize your strength and all that your body can do for you. Once you recognize that half that battle is with your own mind

A strategy that we love to use when we are facing our fears is to ask “What is the best possible outcome?” and to come up with a list of all the awesome things that may happen if we allow ourselves to try. We use that list as our focus. Our brains are so skilled at coming up with a long list of negative outcomes and it is easy to forget about all the positive ones!

With all these tips in mind, remember that your journey is your own, but that doesn’t mean you have to do it all by yourself. Find the right resources and tools to motivate you, a space you feel comfortable and a supportive community to help set you on the best path.

BONUS TIP:

An extra tip to help you start making movement a part of your life is to schedule time for a workout on the days you want to do them. Instead of trying to find time for it throughout a busy day, make a dedicated time slot BEFORE your day starts where you commit to your workout.

Make it a task on your to-do list just like anything else. Take this time for your body and mind – it’s worth it. 🙂 – LoyoboFIT

Let’s not cave in to the pressures of diet industry

Posted on August 9, 2022 by tmAdmin

Thin is “ideal,” and more body fat and weight gain are always “bad.”

Everybody agrees those statements are true. But are they?

Author and registered dietitian Christy Harrison dispels those myths in her book “Anti-Diet” and shares extensive research on the roots of diet culture to show us how we got to today — biased against fat. Spoiler-alert: It was not about health.

For much of human history, higher weights were associated with robust health and beauty, and thinness was equated with poverty, illness and death.

It wasn’t until the 19th century that fatness was observed as a trait often seen in “savage” people, making higher weight a negative attribute. Women were also believed to be at greater “risk” of fatness, a sign of evolutionary “inferiority.” Thus, anti-fatness beliefs were born that had nothing to do with health.

Regardless, the Victorian era brought a preference for hour-glass-shaped women, a visible sign that their husbands had the money to keep them well fed and away from work. Actress Lillian Russell, whose body mass index would have placed in her the “obese” category, was admired for this shape.

But that changed in 1890, when the preference for thin women emerged with the creation of the Gibson Girl, a pen-and-ink drawing, not even a real woman. She was young, white, wealthy, hourglass shaped, impossibly thin and a bit athletic to show that women can do things like tennis and croquet.

Marketers targeted women hoping to achieve that “ideal” look, offering weight-loss products, compression garments, diet pills containing arsenic, industrial toxins, thyroid extract and even tapeworms, according to Amy Ferrell, author of “Fat Shame.”

In the 1920s, ideals for women’s bodies trimmed further with Coco Chanel’s straight and slim flapper dresses. Women had to bind their breasts and restrict their food intake to fit into the dresses. This ushered in products like scales, laxatives and “reducing soaps” that claimed to wash away fat.

Next came the women’s suffrage movement, with opponents portraying suffragists as fat and “uncivilized” to dissuade women from joining. Early feminists played into anti-fatness by fighting back against this messaging by portraying women’s right’s activists as “civilized” and “evolved,” with images of thin, white women. Thus, slimness was related to civility and beauty.

All that changed in the early 1900s. From a strong cultural bias against fat came an insistence on weight loss advice. Some doctors were irritated with these requests, seeing them as problems of vanity, not health. But they found the overwhelming public demand difficult to refuse, and scales became common in doctors’ offices.

Doctors were further influenced by life and health insurance companies, which at the beginning of the 20th century began using the BMI, the height- to-weight ratio, to categorize people as “normal weight,” “overweight” and “underweight” to determine premiums.

While some preliminary data found “overweight” to be less healthy, a 2013 research study in the Journal of American Medical Association found “overweight” as the BMI group with the lowest mortality. Despite this flaw (and many others, including that BMI was never intended as a medical instrument), the BMI is still used to assess health.

Next came World War I and food shortages. Self-discipline with food was expected, and fatness was seen as a moral failure. This set the market for weight loss products ablaze: †he 1920s encouraged smoking and fasting for weight loss. The 1930s introduced diets and pills, gyms and weird gadgets like vibrating belts. The 1940s brought amphetamines for weight loss, while calisthenics and bariatric surgery emerged in the 1950s.

The 1960s brought more diet pills (despite doctors warning against them back in 1943), Overeaters Anonymous, Weight Watchers and Twiggy, the 16-year-old British model who set another impossible standard for the “ideal” woman. From 1970 through the 1990s the market for dieting grew rapidly and now included men, people of color and the elderly.

By June 1992 the narrative shifted when a National Institutes of Health panel of weight-science experts concluded that diets don’t work and that most people who’ve intentionally lost weight regain most or all of it within five years. And a 1995 Washington Post article titled “Losing the Weight Battle” reported that “a decade of dieting mania has actually made people fatter.”

Yet the diet industry flourished. In the mid-1990s the number of dieters skyrocketed, with 44% of women reporting they were trying to lose weight, though 37% of those women were in the “normal” range of BMI.

Then in 1998, approximately 29 million Americans became “overweight” overnight without gaining a single pound. The National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention decided to lower the cutoff for “normal” weight BMI from 27.8 to 25 to follow World Health Organization guidelines. The WHO report was primarily written by the International Obesity Task Force, which was funded largely by two pharmaceutical companies that make weight-loss drugs, according to “Fat Politics” author J. Eric Oliver. Many “obesity” experts had ties to drug and weight loss companies, including the chair of the NIH panel, Xavier Pi-Sunyer, reports Oliver.

Weight loss became massively profitable and still is. The U.S. weight loss industry reached a record $78 billion in 2019, according to BusinessWire.com.

So you might be thinking, “All this history is enlightening Tanya, but why does it matter?”

Because despite what we’ve learned we’re still stuck in our “thinner is better” beliefs. Because our daughters are searching “healthy eating” on TikTok and following how-to guides to disordered eating to fit the “ideal” body size.

Because you can shop at TJ Maxx today and still buy ridiculous vibrating belts promising to “melt away your fat.” Because we still seek diets like Noom, a “mobile weight-loss company” with revenues over $400 million dollars in 2020. Because we still equate our self-worth, health and beauty to our body size. Sigh. And because we can learn from history and change.

Insanity is doing the same things over and over again expecting different results, Albert Einstein said. It’s time to stop this madness and radically shift from weight to a whole person-centered approach to health and well-being. Be a rebel.

To your happiness and health,

-Tanya

Body Appreciation Key to Healthy Aging

Posted on August 9, 2022March 16, 2024 by tmAdmin

Body appreciation while aging is critical to your physical and mental health.

Yet it’s a challenge most women face.

Scrolling through my Facebook feed, I recently read a post by an over-50 woman lamenting that she could no longer eat pasta. Dozens of women commented below, offering low-carb recipe substitutions, commiserating with her on the unwelcome midlife “muffin top.”

That post represents how most older women feel about their aging bodies. According to a 2013 study, “Characteristics of women with body size satisfaction at midlife” in the Journal of Women and Aging, an alarming 88% of women age 50 and over reported body size dissatisfaction. And that statistic doesn’t merely point to body image challenges.

Body dissatisfaction is negatively related to health behaviors and quality of life.

According to Dr. Elayne Daniels, an anti-diet, trauma-informed clinical psychologist, negative body image has an increased risk of health problems, including eating disorders, gastrointestinal disorders and nutritional deficiencies. It can produce social withdrawal and avoidance of events and activities due to self-consciousness. Body dissatisfaction increases the pursuit of diet plans disguised as “wellness” plans and risky behaviors such as disordered eating to lose weight. Furthermore, how you feel about your body can lead to mental health challenges such as depression and anxiety.

And alarmingly, trying to avoid body shame may prevent women from seeking health care and preventive screenings, which can worsen health outcomes.

On the other hand, women who honor their changing bodies reported fewer dieting behaviors and fewer eating disorder symptoms, which are rapidly emerging as a major public health problem for women at and beyond midlife, according to Margo Maine, a clinical psychologist, in her 2019 article “Body Image, Eating Disorders, and Women at and Beyond Midlife: The Nine Truths.”

Yet even among the 12% of women who reported body satisfaction, 40% admitted that even a 5-pound weight gain would make them moderately to extremely upset. Weight and shape play a prominent role in how middle-age women feel about themselves, reports study co-author Cristin Runfola.

Body satisfaction is a critical piece to enhancing well-being and healthful aging for women over 50 and beyond. And let’s be clear, body satisfaction isn’t about liking the way you look.

“Rather, it’s about building up a solid sense of self so that our appearance isn’t something that can make or break us anymore” says body image coach Summer Innanen.

“Diet culture, the beauty industry, Hollywood, etc., have told us that our destiny is dependent on being attractive, so it’s not our fault that we’ve conflated our happiness (and health) with looking a certain way” says Innanen.

Appreciate your aging body

But how can midlife women ditch body shame for appreciation?

Culturally, we need to shift away from the negative narrative about weight gain that occurs in women’s bodies throughout the life cycles. When we have open dialogue about these natural shifts, the shame fades.

“We gain weight at menarche, with the birth of each child, and we gain weight at menopause, so we’re not going to have the same body size and shape at 50 as we had at 20. And if we don’t expect that, that would be a help” says Joan Chrisler, a professor of psychology at Connecticut College and researcher of weight and eating disorders in women.

Maine agrees: “Today, we criticize an adult woman because she no longer has the body of a 16- or 20-year-old. Although natural for the adult female body, all weight gain is considered wrong.”

When Maine shares information about the incredible natural resources of the female body, she says women slowly begin to appreciate its natural wisdom and are more likely to make changes in their attitudes and behaviors. In her article, she states compelling facts about the protective nature of body fat such as:

First, women’s bodies are designed for survival, hardwired to beat starvation. In a famine, only about 10% of women die while as many as 50% of men will. It’s body fat that protects women.

And did you know that before puberty, a girl’s body is about 12% body fat? After, it’s 17% in order to produce ovulation and menstruation. A mature woman’s body is about 22% body fat, “providing the energy necessary for an ovulating female to survive famine for nine months” says Maine. Thus, women’s bodies have the capacity to maintain the human race. That’s an empowering fact!

Maine also shares this important fact: the weight that women gain after puberty and menopause is protective. Yes, read that again! To preserve fertility, reproductive and feeding organs, women first gain fat in their breasts, buttocks, hips and thighs. During the transitional phase into menopause, weight gain of approximately 12 to 15 pounds along with about a 15% to 20% decrease in metabolism naturally occurs. These biologically programmed changes allow women to manage menopausal symptoms, maintain bone density and decrease the risk for osteoporosis. Maine says hormonal shifts during this transitional phase increase the size of fat cells surrounding our reproductive organs as these cells produce estrogen, offsetting the shutdown of the ovaries.

The harms of dieting in midlife

Furthermore, malnutrition and dieting in midlife and beyond can be particularly risky.

According to Maine’s research, depleted fat stores will likely increase menopausal symptoms, and muscle-wasting can reduce metabolic rate and hasten neuromuscular decline. She also found that cognitive impairment secondary to dieting may also be greater, and the mortality risk associated with low weight is greater as people age.

Research in the American Journal of Public Health study, “Associations Between Body Composition, Anthropometry, and Mortality in Women Aged 65 Years and Older” found that women with BMIs in the “overweight” category from 25 to 29.9 had the lowest mortality risk with the optimal value estimated as 29.2 kg/m².

Moderate weight gain in midlife is associated with longer life expectancy for women.

Finally, Maine shares that “most — even well-informed, resourceful women — don’t know these facts. The truth is that the female body simply knows how to take care of itself.”

Shifting the midlife body conversation

Thus it’s key to women’s whole health to elevate the conversation regarding midlife body changes as natural and protective, not something to be ashamed of, but appreciated.

With these facts, one of Maine’s clients, a 73-year old woman who battled her body for decades, moved from body shame to appreciation. She stated, “I used to see weight around my middle as my spare tire, and I hated it. Now I see it as my life preserver!”

So instead of berating your belly and eliminating pasta from your plate, make peace with and respect the wisdom of your body.

Want to read more about the importance of body appreciation while aging? Check out Maine’s book “Pursuing Perfection: Eating Disorders, Body Myths, and Women at Midlife and Beyond.”

(This article was originally published August 4, 2022 in the Jackson Hole News and Guide).

Embrace body in all its forms for self care

Posted on August 9, 2022 by tmAdmin

Body dissatisfaction and eating challenges are on the rise, affecting every sector of our population, from our youth to our elderly, but with an alarming increase among teens, young adults and children of increasingly younger ages.

We’ve reached a point in history where nearly every person is in some way affected by society’s heightened focus on beauty images, health and weight.
– Connie Sobczak and Elizabeth Scott, co-founders of The Body Positive.

Almost half of American children between first and third grade want to be thinner, half of 9- and 10-year-old girls are dieting, and 58.6% of girls and 29.2% of boys are actively dieting. More than half of teenage girls and nearly a third of teenage boys use unhealthy weight control behaviors such as skipping meals, fasting, smoking cigarettes, vomiting and taking laxatives according to the Redefining Wellness Project.

What’s creating this heartbreaking reality?

The younger generation has learned to hate their bodies and “diet” from our culture — from us.

Redefining Wellness reports that “75% of American women surveyed endorse unhealthy thoughts, feelings or behaviors related to food or their bodies,” and “Americans spend over $60 billion on dieting and diet products each year” even though “95% of diets fail and most of us will regain the lost weight in 1-5 years.”

Kids model adult behavior — how we react to ourselves in a family photo, how we approach “good nutrition” going on and off “diets” to maintain or shrink our bodies, how we talk negatively about our bodies as they change, age — making them fear they won’t be loved unless they possess an “ideal” body. Sadly, this is normal, everyday adult conversation.

We can do better. We have the power to create the necessary cultural shift to save the next generation from negative body image as a root cause of many unhealthy behaviors with food and exercise.

You can learn to live peacefully and healthfully in your body by becoming competent in the five core skills of the Be Body Positive Model.

The model teaches us to:

♡ Reclaim health ♡ Practice intuitive self-care ♡ Cultivate self-love ♡ Declare our own authentic beauty ♡ Build community

ONE: Begin with the foundation of this work: Reclaiming your health.

Reduce suffering and heal from body dissatisfaction by challenging the ingrained societal and familial messages that say wellness is dependent on your weight.

Learn to identify and reject the billion-dollar diet industry that drives and profits off of body shame. If you’re not thin (enough) or if you gain weight for any reason, diet culture promotes “wellness” plans to achieve “health,” aka thinness, albeit temporary. Eventually you regain the weight, often more as a protective mechanism against future self-imposed famines. And then you start again, because it “worked” before, right? Truth bomb: All dieting is yo-yo dieting.

Maybe you’ve been able to maintain your body size, but at what cost? Has your forever diet led to obsessive behaviors with food and/or exercise?

To reclaim health, ditch diets and the limited view of health that equates your weight to your wellness.

♡ Want more inspiration and love to listen to podcasts?

Check out my latest interview: The Anti-Diet and Body Respect Movement – Episode 43 of the Love Your Enthusiasm podcast.

TWO: The next step to becoming body positive competent is to strengthen your intuitive self-care skills.

Improve your health by listening for and responding to your unique body’s needs with eating, exercise and all aspects of your life.

The outside advice from “experts” telling you what’s best for your body may not be right for you. What? No gluten-free, dairy-free, refined-sugar-free food plan to follow? With no food rules you may feel lost at first because you’ve become disassociated from your body, like it’s an object, just a machine to be fed and moved.

Instead, intuitive self-care teaches you to get back inside your body. With practice you’ll gain confidence to be the expert of your own body and health.

THREE: The third body competency skill is building a self-love practice.

Self-love is about cultivating kindness, respect and compassion for yourself and your perfectly imperfect human body. It’s a deep knowing that you are valuable and worthy regardless of your body’s size or appearance. And research shows that it leads to improved self-care — the intuitive kind, that is.

Furthermore, self-love is protective against your inner mean voice that hijacks your brain when you don’t like what you see in the mirror. Instead of pushing away your negative body talk, a self-love practice teaches you to turn toward the discomfort and meet it head on with compassion, giving you permission to be human and reject ideals.

FOUR: Next, you have permission to be entirely yourself and declare your authentic beauty.

Instead of feeling ashamed, fighting and fixing your “flawed” parts, respect body diversity and honor that your body is expected to change through each developmental stage of life.

“Finding beauty in aging, growing, and in being different means beauty is no longer something static we try to attain, but rather a part of our lived, changing experience,” body positive leader, Sarah Lewin says.

This wisdom, like self-love, also leads to true self-care, because you let go of striving to meet society’s definition of beauty.

We radiate beauty in many ways that have nothing to do with our appearance. For example, my beauty is my laugh, my passion for the body positive movement, the giddiness I feel when surfing a wave and my singing silly commercial jingles out of tune.

“Seeing our beauty is not an exercise in vanity — it’s a necessary component of good physical and emotional health,” Sobczak says.

FIVE: And finally, one of the easiest ways to reclaim your health, practice intuitive self-care and self-love and see your own beauty is in a supportive body positive community.

Together let’s promote awareness and education to reject our culture’s perfectionist body ideals that have led to the alarming increase in body dissatisfaction and unhealthy behaviors with food and exercise.

Join me in creating a Be Body Positive community — for the health of our kids, for every body.