The secret diet companies don't want you to know.

in

Whenever the weather changes, we suddenly get inundated with new messages on how to "fix", "prepare" or "change" our body to fit some ideal shape or to combat some event or time.

After you have a baby, coming back to the office after working from home during the pandemic, holiday get togethers, season changes, aging...we have all been hit with it at some point in time or another.

One of the worst times is summer.

We have all felt it — the dread to put on a swimsuit.

The hope that no one asks us to go to a pool party or head to the lake because we fear having to see ourselves (let alone have others see us) in our swimsuit.

"It can't be that time of year again, is it?"

And we start feeling this pressure to do what we can to "get in shape" to wear a swimsuit. But all of that messaging is brought to you by the diet, fitness, and clothing industry. They want you to buy the newest supplement. They get rich on your negative self-talk and count on your shame taking over as soon as the sun hits your face.

Sure, their marketing plan works. Why?

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What if we could live in a world where we actually thought everyone was beautiful?

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Beauty. A concept I have found difficult to define to encapsulate the depth and complexity of the term. While it is true, our worth and value should consider who we are, what we stand for and how we show up for those around us, there is another side to the coin.

We live in a culture where the way you look (appearance, body type, weight, skin color, gender presentation, etc) often outweighs those things in determining someone's "beauty".

And yet we pretend this ladder of comparison and judgment doesn't exist, silently perpetuating the polarization of who is and is not beautiful based on a subjective physical experience of a person or people.

In an attempt to move away from this exclusionary system, many have swung to the other end of the spectrum. They are focused on defining beauty purely for who we are on the inside. And as I said a few sentences ago, this is important and should be a factor. But we can't pretend that we are not physical beings in a physical world where we experience people based on the way they look (sight) and the presence of their physical bodies (touch). As such, the term MUST be defined in a way that includes our physical self and our mental, emotional and spiritual self.

Let me clarify what I mean by this.

You, yes, you, are already beautiful both inside and out. What do I mean by this?

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My Eating Disorder Lied. Food is Not the Enemy.

in

For years, I had been under the control of an insidious eating disorder making me see food as the enemy and my body as the war zone. I would count every calorie I ingested. I loved to cook but would never taste the food when I made it because I feared that I could not accurately count the calories and factor them into my day. I would plan out every item of food I ate and spontaneity felt like a grenade thrown at me, making me implode from the anxiety and distress it caused. I would body check before, during, and after every meal. I restricted. I binged. I compensated. I lived every waking moment in self-loathing. My eating disorder had made me fear food, telling me that how I looked was directly correlated to my worth and value and that if I gained weight or ate "bad" foods, then...


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