1. Develop gratitude for your body

Have you ever stopped to think about what your body has helped you survive? All the bad days, possibly the traumas in your life, maybe dealt with chronic illness, even a global pandemic? What about the good times your body has allowed? Possibly birthing your child(ren), allowing you to hug your loved ones, allowing you to touch your toes in the sand, smell the saltiness of the ocean or listen to your favourite songs? Our bodies allow us to breathe, to smell the amazing scent of coffee, to taste amazing food. Isn’t it crazy when we think about all our bodies do for us EVERY SINGLE DAY and some of us can only say back to our bodies “You’re disgusting”?  So rather than viewing your body through the lens of society beauty standards, practice viewing your body through the perspective of gratitude. Ask yourself daily, what can I thank my body for today.

2. Diversify your social media

When we follow influencers who match society’s beauty standards (are not attainable, hello surgery, airbrush, filters, perfect angles and lighting, usually selling us some BS product), then we reinforce to our brains that this image is what we need to strive for.  One tip is to change the information you’re being exposed to on social media.  Unfollow any influencer or person who taps into your body shame. And instead follow accounts promoting diverse bodies. This means people of all body sizes, all races and all sexual/gender identities. Again, this gives your brain new information! It tells your brain that happy and healthy bodies come in diverse shapes, sizes and colours!

3. Get rid of small clothes and wear stuff that’s comfortable

I will produce further content on this very topic so stay tuned! However, when we keep clothes that are too small, we usually have some underlying anxiety or pressure to one day fit into them again. How many of you have those size x jeans sitting in your closet beating yourself up about whether you’ll ever be able to wear them again?! I did this for months and months. So what helped me was to donate the clothes that didn’t fit me. Do you know how much better it feels to now walk into my closet!? SO. MUCH. BETTER.  The other tip, especially on “bad body image days” is to wear clothes that are comfortable.  There’s nothing worse than feeling bad about your body, maybe bloated from your period, and then forcing your body into a tight pair of jeans.  My recommendation is on these days, and really all days, is to wear clothes that you FEEL comfortable in, that you can move freely in.

4. Engage in self-care and joyful activities

Diet culture has led to people obsessing, avoiding or feeling guilty in their relationship with exercise.  I’m here to say that the kindest thing you can do for your body is to widen your lens of what self-care involves and shifting from dreading exercise to reframing it as joyful movement. Some self-care activities that could support your emotional, physical, mental, social and spiritual health include:

• Meditation
• Mindful walks and showers
• Reading a great book
• Listening to a supportive podcast
• Meeting your good friend for coffee
• Trying something new (I’ve booked to do an art therapy class soon, even though I draw stick people on the regular)
• Examining where you could implement boundaries (maybe working less or finally saying no when you need to)
• Engage in therapy to process your emotional struggles or traumas
• Journal each day (writing down our thoughts and emotions is proven to be helpful)
• Go on a beautiful hike or walk (in stretchy, comfy clothes)

You see, diet culture wants us to think of health as so strictly diet and exercise. Part of what I’m recommending is to expand what it means to take care of our bodies and health!

5. Understand that your body shame is not healed through weight loss

If this were true, then no skinny person would suffer body shame. Body image has 4 components including:

• Perceptual (the way you see yourself)
• Affective (the way you feel about how you look)
• Cognitive (the thoughts and beliefs you have about your body)
• Behavioural (what you do/how you behave as a result of the above- cue wearing black outfits, avoiding water activities and dieting)

What we know from research is that 91 percent of women are unhappy with their bodies and resort to dieting to achieve their ideal body shape. While only 5 percent of women naturally possess the body type often portrayed in the media (Palmer, Mario “5 facts about body image). We also know from Brene Brown’s 10-year research, that the top 2 places women hold shame is body and motherhood. So, the tough news is that dieting and weight loss is not going to address these 4 components of body image. Part of this is because the goal post for what we are supposed to look like is NOT attainable and there is never a stop point. Think about it, here are some body standards for us women:

• Have white skin. But also, if you’re too light, use spray tanning and if you’re too dark, use this skin lightening cream.
• Have flawless skin. Use these expensive products to get rid of any blemish, any dimple, any uneven skin tone, any sign of cellulite (more on the history of cellulite in further content-stay tuned)
• Have eyelashes up to your forehead. Use these sew-in lashes or glue on lashes or this expensive mascara.
• Be skinny but also have curves in all the “right places”. What the actual fu**
• We love your baby bump while you’re prego, but once you have that baby, you better bounce back, you better work your a** off to get that “pre baby body back”.

You see what’s happening? We think our body image will be fixed by the perfect weight on the scale, or the perfect product to correct our flaws. We spend thousands on getting it right. We are losing precious time and energy in an attempt to meet impossible and racist beauty standards. When really, body image is an internal process of shifting our thoughts, emotions, beliefs and our environment (as much as we can).  All the weight loss and skin care products will not fix the internal shame.

Recommended Resources:

• If you’re interested in healing the relationship with your body and food, please contact me about my 16-week group program called the Body and Food Freedom Project.
• For further learning, watch “Body positivity or body obsession” Ted Talk by Lindsay Kite.

Intuitive Eating (IE) is an eating framework which was developed in 1995 by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch. IE looks at the interplay between our instincts, our emotion, our thoughts and our body sensations.  IE is a weight neutral approach to eating, meaning it places emphasis on nurturing your health while putting weight loss on the backburner. IE is an evidence-based model with assessment scales and over 100 studies!

IE is full of nuance and is about helping people reconnect to their innate wisdom. What I’ve noticed is that the longer I have practiced intuitive eating, I feel more deeply connected to myself and I feel more aligned in other areas of my life. I think this is because during the process of intuitive eating, I’ve quieted all the stress and food rules that used to dictate so much of my life.

I want to be clear that IE is not about moving through each principal sequentially and perfectly. I have found that it is important to be compassionate with yourself, to start and move at a pace that feels most respectful to you and where you are on your own journey.

So if you’re curious about the 10 principals of intuitive eating, I have outlined them below.

1. Reject the Diet Mentality

Opting out of diet culture has been one of the most empowering and freeing experiences of my life. This doesn’t mean that I don’t notice diet rules pop into my head at times or I don’t on rare occasions feel the pressure to join my friends in their weight loss attempts. But it does mean that I can let those thoughts go and come back to my own values and beliefs and what I know the evidence shows to be true. That my health is so much more than a number on the scale or the number of carbs I’ve eaten that day!

Rejecting the diet mentality can be a longer-term process for some people and that’s ok <3 This involves getting rid of the diet books, the diet magazines, throwing out the scales, unfollowing diet culture influencers and jumping off the yoyo dieting rollercoaster that’s cost us our precious time and energy.

2. Honour Your Hunger

Something that diet culture normalises is sourcing our hunger cues to external things such as Fitness Pal or a restrictive meal plan or a points system (WW I’m looking at you, your rebrand did not fool any of us). The consequence of chronic dieting is that we lose touch with our hunger cues.  Part of IE is learning what your hunger cues feel like and learning to respect them. Just like we usually go to the toilet when our bodies tell us it’s time, we do the same with hunger. When we feel hunger, we eat. This is an important part of rebuilding trust with your body. Your body will learn that when it’s hungry, it can trust you to feed it (an important part of survival I might add).

3. Make Peace with Food

This involves giving yourself unconditional permission to eat. In this stage of IE, it is important to learn more about the role of restriction.  When we have spent years labelling foods as good and bad, keeping certain “trigger” foods out of the home, then we have set ourselves up for the restrict/crave/binge cycle. A huge part of why we feel out of control with certain foods is because we have restricted and deprived ourselves of them. This restrict/binge cycle often includes overwhelming guilt and shame. So creating peace with food is allowing all foods to be part of your diet.

4. Challenge the Food Police

This refers to the thoughts that can dictate so much of our eating experience.  Does any of this sound familiar:

-I’ve already gone over the calories for the day

-How much carbs are in that?

-I can’t have that, there’s too much sugar.

-I’m not having sugar, gluten, wheat or dairy.

-I must eat certain grams of protein, carbs and fat.

-I need to enter my food into Fitness Pal.

-I can’t have any cake at her party, I must stay strong.

These thoughts are all part of our inner food police that stems from diet culture. Normally, when we act against our food rules, it fuels anxiety, guilt and shame.  Hence an important part of IE is learning to challenge and ignore the food police.

5. Discover the Satisfaction Factor.

This is by far my favourite principal LOL! This refers to considering what sounds good to you, slowing down to mindfully eat and take pleasure in what you’re eating.  I have learned to check in with myself- am I wanting something sweet? Crunchy? Salty? Bitter?  I have found that rather than being fuelled by guilt or shame or what I “should” eat, I feel happier, and more satisfied with my eating experience and have way less urge to binge eat. It’s also been fun reconnecting to happier experiences through food. For example, when I make my Memaw’s chicken noodle soup, I feel deeply connected to the warmth and comfort it brings.

6. Feel your Fullness

I find that this principal can highlight shame for many people.  After all, we’ve likely spent years feeling guilty or anxious about our fullness. Especially for those who have struggled with emotional eating and binge eating, there is a way we can disconnect from our bodies during those eating episodes, which means we aren’t as present to truly notice our fullness. Rather we notice once we feel “sick fullness” and then beat ourselves up about it! This principal is about tuning in, slowing down, take a pause while you’re eating to check in: how does the food taste, do I feel full, what is my current hunger.

7. Cope with your Emotions using Kindness.

In my 16-week group program, I teach people how to practice self-compassion. This is such an important part of this whole process!  We must understand the role of mental and physical restriction (ie- dieting) in our relationship with food. We must understand that “emotional eating” is a concept developed by diet culture to define when we’ve been “bad” and eaten over our allotted calories or meal plans.  Giving ourselves grace, self-compassion and adding to our list of coping mechanisms is a key part of this.

8. Respect your body

Part of what we learn in my 16-week group program is that our health is not defined by our weight or our BMI (the BMI has many limitations and should not be used but more on this in another blog or video).  We focus on moving from body hatred to body neutrality and then ultimately to body respect. This can take some time but again, for me this was one of the most healing and liberating experiences in my life.  Rather than obsess about weight, respecting your body means knowing regardless of size or shape or cellulite or stretch marks, that your body deserves dignity and nurturing.

9. Movement- Feel the Difference

This involves examining your relationship with exercise. It involves shifting from a perspective of exercise that you must burn x number of calories or walk x number of steps or punish yourself for last night’s splurge or do exercise you hate every day to a perspective of enjoying body movement. This means thinking of movement as what feels good and what brings you joy. Perhaps you hate running but love swimming. Perhaps you prefer working out in a group rather than alone. Perhaps you prefer outdoor hiking rather than walking on a treadmill in the gym. This principal can be quite exciting and fun!

10. Honour your Health- Gentle Nutrition

This involves making food choices that honour your mental, emotional and physical health. It means eating foods that you enjoy, that taste good, that support your body to feel its best! However, this is all about progress, NOT perfection. Perfection stems from diet culture and we just don’t have time for that anymore.

 

Resources:

If you’d like to learn more about intuitive eating, please feel free to contact me about my 16-week women’s group called the Body and Food Freedom Project! Some other great resources would be the latest intuitive eating book by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch. Or you could check out Evelyn’s latest book called “Intuitive Eating for Every Day: 365 Daily Practices and Inspirations to Rediscover the Pleasures of Eating”. Wishing you all the best on your intuitive eating journey!

 

The inner critic. The internal judge and jury.  The critical inner voice. The inner mean one. All labels for that inner voice that tells us:

I am not good enough.

I’m a failure.

I should give up.

I should be over this by now.

I’m ugly.

No one likes me.

I’ll never succeed.

I’m useless.

I’m weak.

I’m crazy.

(It’s hard to have a happy face when you’re constantly berating yourself)

Every time I find myself explaining the “inner critic” concept to a client, I am met with an all-knowing head nod as if to say, “yes, I know that voice well”.  Some of my adolescent clients respond more poetically with, “oh yea, that part is a total bitch”.

The inner critic can lead to feelings of guilt, shame, anxiety, depression and can at times feel debilitating.  Our inner critic is shaped by our experiences throughout our lives and especially by our primary attachment figures (carers and parents).  Were you bullied throughout school? Was your mother or father especially harsh or perhaps neglectful? Did you attend a school where the culture focused on perfectionism and achievement? Have you experienced a trauma in your life? The legacy of these experiences and the voices of these people throughout our childhood and throughout our lives can sneakily become huge influences of our inner dialogue.

As Eric Morris explains, “The inner critic is there, because you have a mind that likes problem-solving and judging everything, including you. The trick is to consider this as just your mind doing its thing, and that you don’t have to follow it.” Viewing the inner critic in this way means we maintain some curiosity and understanding of our critic, but we don’t have to believe it, nor do we have to work to “get rid of it”.  It is at times just along for the ride!

I know, I know but there are healthy ways to cope with our inner critics and I have provided some tips below. As we are all unique and different, I encourage you to experiment with the below ideas and see for yourself what works best.

1.  Practice becoming aware of the inner critical voice.

This might sound simplistic but it does take practice. People often say to me, “I know I shouldn’t feel this way but” or “I know it’s so stupid but…” These simple statements are signs that our inner critic is making a judgment about ourselves, our experiences or our emotions.  So, step one is to develop your awareness of this inner dialogue and eventually reach a place of being able to simply observe these thoughts. Awareness is key to change.

2.  Practice self-compassion.

This is the anecdote to the cruel inner voice.  Rather than saying, “I’m so stupid that I can’t just get over it”, a different statement might be, “Hey this is really challenging for me and I’m trying my best”.  The first is critical and the latter is compassionate.  A great way to “check” your inner critic really quickly is to ask yourself “Would I speak to my best friend this way?”. Think about that for a second. Would you follow your best friend around all day saying, “you suck, why try, lose some weight fatty, no one likes you, you’re useless”?  Of course, you wouldn’t! That’s because we often show compassion to our friends that we aren’t showing to ourselves.

When I first speak about self-compassion, many people feel this is the same as self-pity.  People will say things like, “I don’t want to sit around feeling sorry for myself”.  Dr Kristin Neff has done beautiful work in this area and has helped to create a simple distinction between self-compassion and self-pity. Self-compassion is being kind to yourself about your struggles while holding that other people are going through struggles too. Self-pity is not holding the realisation that other people are struggling; the “I have it worse than everyone else” sort of mentality. Developing a sense of self-compassion does take time but it’s worth practicing.

3.  Gently challenge it.

I recommend approaching your inner critic with curiosity and holding the understanding that our brains judge everything (it’s part of our survival if you think about it!).  Keeping this in mind, it can be helpful to gently challenge your inner critic.  For example, if I am preparing for a job interview, my inner critic might be “on steroids” ….loud, intrusive and difficult to ignore.  Cognitions such as:

You’re going to humiliate yourself.

No one wants to hire you.

You don’t have the experience or skill.

You’ll say something stupid.

You’re wasting your time.

I might challenge this by writing down more adaptive thoughts such as:

I have done well in past interviews.

I have 5 years experience in this area.

I have been offered jobs before.

The worse that will happen is I do not get hired.

It’s normal to feel nervous or scared before an interview.

I find that tangible adaptive thoughts are more effective. Rather than saying “I am smart”, it can be more effective to say, “I’ve been hired 10 times before”.  Our minds can argue easier with the first statement when we are feeling particularly down, whereas if it is a tangible fact, it’s harder for our inner critic “to disagree” with it so to speak. This is a classic Cognitive Behavourial Therapy exercise. Write down the event, the emotion and your cognitions/thoughts. When you see your inner critic’s cognitions on paper, it can be easier to write challenges to this.

4.  Do not become or stay immobilised in shame.

Without taking some action, we are at risk of becoming immobilised in our own shame; cue disconnection, isolation, overeating, anger, yelling and more. Brene Brown, a shame and vulnerability researcher and author, defines shame as, “the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging – something we’ve experienced, done, or failed to do makes us unworthy of connection”. She moves on to discuss the difference between shame and guilt and has this to say about guilt, “guilt is adaptive and helpful – it’s holding something we’ve done or failed to do up against our values and feeling psychological discomfort”. Simply put, shame is labeling our character and guilt is labeling our behaviour. This distinction goes far beyond semantics and is important to pay close attention to.

5.  Take action

Not falling into a shame spiral involves taking action. When we have moved to a place of shame, there are key actions that can make a massive difference.

–Talk to a trusted friend, family member or therapist: Shame begins to lose its powerful grasp the moment we share it with someone else and serves as a reminder that we are not alone in our experience.  So many times, when I have shared my shameful experiences with others, I am met with a “me too”.

– Exercise or move your body: Once you get your body moving, your nervous system becomes more regulated and you can more easily access healthier thought patterns. Exercise promotes the production of neurohormones such as norepinephrine that are associated with improved cognitive functioning and boosting mood.  To put simply, moving your body and exercising helps you think more clearly. This doesn’t have to mean a bootcamp style class, just put your shoes on, get outside and take a walk. This can also mean changing your body posture. If you’re in a business meeting or talking on the phone to your mother who can be quite critical, stand up, lift your chin, put both feet on the floor and take a deep breath.

–Use a positive affirmation: When you notice your inner critic is as I say, standing on a table with a megaphone, have a pre-chosen affirmation ready.  Affirmations such as, “I am enough” or “My worth is not negotiable” or “I am trying my best today”.  Reset and repeat your affirmation as many times as you need.

–Name your inner critic: This is an Acceptance and Commitment Therapy strategy and I find, the more humour you can use the better!  Naming it means you can identify it quickly and using humour can help shift the shame. Brene Brown refers to hers as “gremlins”.  Others I have heard have included the nag, the terminator, the wicked witch of the west and the lizard. This can also shift the way you relate to the inner critic. I can almost start viewing “the nag” for example as a caring but overzealous old friend.

Summary:

So to sum all this up (I recommend taking a photo of this summary on your phone so you can easily reference it):

• Develop awareness of your inner critic. A quiet mind can distinguish more effectively between your inner critic and your inner guidance

• Respond with self-compassion- would I speak this way to my best friend?
• Gently challenge with curiosity and understanding.
• Take action.
  1. Talk to a trusted family member, friend or therapist
  2. Exercise or move your body- fresh air if possible
  3. Use a positive affirmation
  4. Name your inner critic

Resources if you’d like to do further reading and listening:

1. Brene Brown’s book titled “Daring Greatly”

2. Brene Brown’s Ted Talk “Listening to Shame”

https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_listening_to_shame?language=en

3. Self- Compassion with Dr Kristin Neff

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUMF5R7DoOA

4. Eric Morris is co-author of ACTivate Your Life: Using Acceptance and Mindfulness to Build a Life that is Rich, Fulfilling and Fun

I hope this has been helpful and feel free to share with your circles or leave a comment below or via Facebook or Instagram ?