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Posts tagged with “weight”

How I Am Learning to Trust My Body More and Control It Less

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“I’m a beautiful mess of contradiction, a chaotic display of imperfection.” ~Sai Marie Johnson

I don’t identify as having an eating disorder. I don’t struggle with anorexia, bulimia, or binge eating.  Yet I exercise precise control of my weight, down to the pound. If I gain a mere two pounds, I can feel it. First in my stomach. Then in my face.

That’s when the self-loathing kicks in.

I beat myself up for gaining those two pounds.

I wear a shirt to sleep at night, instead of being naked like I am when I am two pounds lighter.

I …

Thinner is Not Better – Healthy, Connected, and Happy Is

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“Standards of beauty are arbitrary. Body shame exists only to the extent that our physiques don’t match our own beliefs about how we should look.” ~Martha Beck

I have so many women around me right now—friends, mothers, clients that are on a diet—constantly talking about their weight and how their bodies look, struggling with body image.

I am profoundly sad about the frequency and theme of those discussions.

At the same time, I deeply get it; it is hard to detach from our conditioning.

I too struggled with body image at one point in my life, and for a very …

How Restrictive Diets Mess with Our Brains and Lead to Bingeing

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“Your body is precious. It is your vehicle for awakening. Treat it with care.” ~Buddha

When I went on my first diet in my teens (low-carb, it was back in the Atkins days), I wasn’t even overweight. I weighed less than 120 pounds, but my jeans had started to get a little tight, so I thought I needed to lose five pounds or so. At the time, I didn’t have a bad relationship with food; I just ate like a typical teenager—not the best choices.

About two hours in, I remember starting to obsess over the things I couldn’t eat …

How I Got Healthy & Overcame My Food/Body Issues by Ignoring Conventional Advice

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I was an award-winning personal trainer and nutrition and wellness coach for over eight years.

I also spent close to three decades struggling with my own weight and food issues—trying to “stick to” diets and/or healthy eating and lifestyle goals. And many years struggling with binge eating, bulimia, and (what I thought at the time was) an uncontrollable sugar addiction.

During the years I was working in the fitness and nutrition industry, whenever I’d get new clients, I’d find out what their health and fitness goals were, and I’d give them the perfect plan to help them get there.

And …

The One Thought That Killed My Crippling Fear of Other People’s Opinions

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“Don’t worry if someone does not like you. Most people are struggling to like themselves.” ~Unknown

For as long as I can remember, I have been deathly afraid of what other people thought of me.

I remember looking at all the other girls in third grade and wondering why I didn’t have a flat stomach like them. I was ashamed of my body and didn’t want other people to look at me. This is not a thought that a ten-year-old girl should have, but unfortunately, it’s all too common.

Every single woman I know has voiced this same struggle. That …

How to Protect Our Kids from a Lifetime of Food, Weight, and Body Image Issues

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I went on my first diet when I was around fourteen or so because, as they often do in growing teens, my jeans started getting tight.

And because I grew up in the same anti-fat culture we all have, I hated myself for it.

Around the same time, an adult in my life who was always obsessed with “eating healthy” gave me a copy of the new book she was reading outlining the healthiest way to eat.

It was a book on the Atkins/low-carb diet.

The author spent the bulk of the book demonizing carbs, explaining in convincing-sounding …

How Weight and Food Obsessions Disconnect Us and Why This Is So Harmful

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“We are hard-wired to connect with others, it’s what gives purpose and meaning to our lives, and without it, there is suffering.” ~Brené Brown

I was inducted into diet culture in my early teens and then into the health and fitness industry in my early thirties, when my “fitness journey” had finally really taken off, and I ultimately became a personal trainer and nutrition and wellness coach.

Once we’ve given enough years of our life to diet culture, many of us begin to recognize the ways that it’s harming us and all the things it’s stealing from us.

Peace of …

When Things Have to Change: How to Find the Willpower to Achieve Your Goals

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“When it is obvious the goals cannot be reached, don’t adjust the goals, adjust the action steps.” ~Confucius

Do you want to know my biggest fear?

I’ve just come out of the closet, my parents have rejected me, and I am terrified, really, really terrified, because I’m completely alone, and the pain is unbearable.

But it’s not just the rejection that terrifies me—it’s also what happens after that.

With no one to turn to, I find comfort at the bottom of a bag of chips.

Three months and thirty pounds later I’ve yet to leave the confines of my bedroom. …

Discovering Pleasure in Movement Instead of Exercising from Fear

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“The choice that frees or imprisons us is the choice of love or fear. Love liberates. Fear imprisons.” ~Gary Zukav

I come from a family of runners. When I was a young girl, my father would rouse us out of bed on the weekends to run the three-mile par-course at the local park, competing with my siblings for who could do the most sit-ups at the stations along the route. We would end the event with a bunch of chocolate eclairs from the local 7-11 as a reward.

As benign as this story may be, it describes a pattern of …

I Was a Bulimic Nutritionist, but I’m No Longer Ashamed or Hiding

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“Shame derives its power from being unspeakable.” ~ Brené Brown

I felt like a hypocrite. I would tell my nutrition clients to eat a salad with vegetables, then I’d go home and scarf down an entire pizza. After guilt and shame set in, I would purge and throw it up.

I think I became a nutritionist partly so I could better control my relationship with food. If I learned the secrets behind eating I could biohack my way to putting the fork down, losing weight, and finally being happy. This was back when I thought thinness equaled happiness.

It’s taken …

How to Embrace Your Physical ‘Flaws’ and Feel Comfortable in Your Skin

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“When you’re comfortable in your skin, you look beautiful, regardless of any flaws.” ~Emily Deschanel

I started doubting the way I looked at the age of eight following comments from other children, about my twin sister being cuter/prettier than me. During adolescence I suffered from bullying because of my appearance and thought I was ugly. Like many others, I believed for many years that everything would’ve been easier if I was better-looking.

At eighteen, when I left home for military service (mandatory in Israel), I started to get positive feedback from men and to feel much better about the way …

The Surprising Strategy I Used to Stop Bingeing (and Why It Worked)

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“Sometimes the thing you’re most afraid of doing, is the very thing that will set you free.” ~Robert Tew

I recovered from binge eating and bulimia by giving myself permission to binge. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it?

My decades-long weight and food war started in my teens, immediately after reading my first diet book, about Atkins, to be exact. I spent the following two decades trying to lose weight (only to keep gaining) and struggling with food.

By my early thirties, I’d finally managed to lose weight, but it hadn’t end the war, it had just started a new one. The …

Freedom from Food – This Time for Good!

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“Nonresistance is the key to the greatest power in the universe.” ~Eckhart Tolle

I cannot say that I didn’t struggle in my life. But there’s one area in which I have overcome the challenges I was facing with hardly an effort: letting go of the eating disorder I was suffering from, getting rid of the extra weight I was carrying, and maintaining the results easily for twenty-eight years.

How Did I Do That?

In a minute I’ll tell you exactly how I did that and how you can do it too. But first let me take a moment to explain …

Do You Remember When You Didn’t Worry About Your Weight?

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“We need to start focusing on what matters—on how we feel, and how we feel about ourselves.” ~Michelle Obama

Do you remember the little girl (or boy) in you? The kid who ran, jumped, danced, laughed anywhere and everywhere they felt like it—before someone told them to shush, that they were too big, too loud, too much.

The kid who didn’t even know what a scale was before someone told them their size was wrong.

The kid who just ate—before someone gave them a mile-long list of “bad” foods and made them scared of food and distrusting of themselves.

After …

For People Who Look in the Mirror and Cringe

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“Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we’re supposed to be and embracing who we are.” ~Brené Brown

When I was fourteen years old, I vividly remember the first time I put my fingers down my throat and made myself puke.

I remember feeling fat, ugly, unworthy, and like I was not good enough. I felt as if I had no control and I was unable to effectively process the strong emotions I was feeling. Binging and purging allowed me to temporarily release these feelings, to numb them out, and created a fallacy of control …

If You Hate Your Body and Think You Need to Fix It…

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“That girl was fat, and I hate her.”

One of my clients said this the other day—about herself. Well, her little girl self. And my heart broke.

One of the very first things I do with clients is encourage them to practice self-compassion and kindness—just extending themselves the same basic human compassion and kindness that they would anyone else.

Very much the opposite of what most people who struggle with weight and food are used to. After all, when it comes to our weight and food, we’re programmed with messages like “You just have to want it more, be motivated, …

The Truth About Body-Positive Activists on Social Media

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“The most difficult times for many of us are the ones we give ourselves.” ~Pema Chodron

I’m on my phone, posting a photo of myself on Instagram. It’s a vulnerable shot—I’m holding my bare belly.

I type in the caption “Accepting my body isn’t easy, but it’s worth it.”

I mean this, but I also have voices in my head telling me to delete the picture because I’m gross, not good enough, and a phony.

I get half a dozen comments supporting me, mostly emoji hearts. One comment reads, “I wish I had your confidence.” I feel weird …

The Number on the Scale Does Not Dictate Your Value

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“To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

We try to give our bodies value with numbers. We’re obsessed with the number on the scale and the circumference of our waist.

We also think our value lies in labels. Words like “obese,” “fat,” and “overweight” are triggers for many, and we abhor them like coffee breath, because we’ve been immersed in pocrescophobia (the fear of getting fat) from before we can remember.

But we are more than a category on a pie chart. We are …

Why I’m at Peace with My Weight Gain

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“Resistance keeps you stuck. Surrender immediately opens you to the greater intelligence that is vaster than the human mind, and it can then express itself through you. So through surrender often you find circumstances changing.” ~Eckhart Tolle

I took a deep breath, feeling the recent change in my belly. I pinched at my belly rolls. They were familiar, I’d had them before, but recently I had gone through a period of over a year where I was in a smaller body. Now I was gaining weight again.

I refuse to step on the scale, so I don’t actually know …

How to Replace Body-Hate with Self-Compassion

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“Loving yourself is the greatest revolution.” ~Unknown

I’ve spent most of my life struggling with my weight and trying desperately to fit the idealistic image of beauty that our culture celebrates.

As a young teen, I was obsessed with magazines and all their secrets to be prettier and have a better butt and get your crush to notice you. I see now how desperate I was at such a young age to feel beautiful. Nothing seemed to work, though, as years passed and my need to fit the ideal beauty image only increased.

In high school I learned to skip …