Archives 2020

Are you a perfectionist?

Having helped hundreds of women to become their happy shape and size, I can let

you in on a secret.

‘Perfectionism’ works NOT at all as a weight-loss tool.

(Hands up if you’ve already found this to be true!!!)

The big myth…

In our heavily photoshopped and diet-driven world, we’ve been tricked into believing that if we are just “a bit more perfect”, we’ll lose weight — and live happily ever after.

It’s a complete and utter myth.

The problem with perfectionism is that it conveniently forgets something fundamental:  that we’re human, and we live in the real world (not the Instagram world!)

Here’s how destructive perfectionist thinking can be:

For example, you decide to sugar-free. But uh-oh it’s also your kid’s birthday, so you eat a slice of his cake.

And instead of savouring the chocolatey treat and celebrating your boy’s birthday –  you immediately berate yourself.

“Oh crap, I’ve eaten the cake — what a disaster—I might as well eat the party food out of the way, and I’ll go sugar-free on Monday.”

That’s the lie of perfectionism. It makes us quit on ourselves. Hello, guilt and shame.

Aspiring for perfection leads to weight gain

Many of the women I work with have been doing this on high repetition for years.

The more perfect they try to be, the more weight they gain.

And it’s not your fault – being perfect is a myth that the diet industry spends billions of dollars tricking us into believing.

Ditch perfection for this.

Here’s what I want you to do instead…

First of all – stop with the extreme soul-destroying diets!!!!!

Second – focus on progress over perfection

I get that progress over perfection feels counterintuitive at first.

But it allows you to be human.

It allows you to stumble, to dust yourself off and keep on keeping on without the heaviness of guilt r shame.

For example, just because you had a slice of cake doesn’t mean you have to eat the rest of your kid’s party food.

It reduces the drama, and the “OMG, I fail at everything!!”

You’re human!

By focusing on progress over perfection, you recalibrate your mind.

You replace that All or Nothing thinking…that we’ve learned from the diet industry (which keeps us stuck!)

And before you know it, you’ll well on the way to becoming your happy shape and size, imperfectly, step by step by step.

If you feel like you “blew it” with Halloween treats, this video is for you.

I’ll admit I got pretty excited about the chocolate treats while at a party on Saturday.

And boy oh boy did I pay for it on Sunday! I woke up with a massive sugar hangover. Haha.

Was this you too?

Spiral from Halloween to the New Year….

I’m going to be honest. The old perfectionist me would’ve felt super guilty about eating the chocolate which would’ve spiralled into a guilt-ridden junk-food binge that would’ve lasted until January’s NY’s resolutions.

My perfectionist voice would’ve said: “Well you already ‘blew it’ so you might as well keep blowing it for the rest of the week, end of the month, until the new year.

You too?!!

Guilt begets guilt….

Can you see how insidious that is?

We feel guilty from eating Halloween chocolate, which leads to EVEN MORE guilt eating.

It’s a very slippery and depressing slope.

Here’s what to do instead…

Recognise your ‘perfectionist thinking’.

Stop believing the lie that your mind is trolling you with.

The fib that: “eating Halloween chocolate is the end of the world”.

So, you had some chocolate. (Maybe quite a lot of chocolate)

…..big whoop!

You haven’t blown anything. (That’s the old diet mentality kicking in).

No food is off-limits

The way I live is that no foods are off-limits.

Enjoy the delicious chocolate, and enjoy the Halloween fun – that’s a beautiful part of life.

And now that Halloween is over for another year, I encourage you to get back to eating the foods that nourish your body.

Simples.

Stop being so dramatic!!!

It’s not the chocolate at Halloween that prevents weight loss.

It’s the choices you make the next day and the next and the next that makes the difference.

So please, call yourself out on your perfectionist thinking and get back to nourishing your body again today.

I hope you found that helpful and I look forward to seeing you next week with another making peace with food tip.

Love etc, Avril x

PS: Helping women take back their power from that perfectionist voice is one of my superpowers. If you’d like help eliminating that trolling voice in your head so you can feel more in control around food, drop me an email.

At a recent BBQ, a lovely lady said “You talk a lot about self-love. I’m not interested in loving myself, but I would like to lose some weight. Can you help?”

“Loving yourself is for sissies!”

It such a juicy question because self-love is something that most people don’t talk about in the weight loss equation.

Maybe you resonate with her.

I know I did. Heck, I was her for 15 years!!!

I used to be very dismissive of anyone who mentioned self-love.

“Loving yourself is for sissies,” I believed.

Much like the lady at the BBQ, I just wanted to fit my skinny jeans.

But here’s the interesting thing.

Even when I was skinny, I didn’t like myself.

I’d lose weight with a very rigid diet, and even when I was in a smaller sized body, and fitted my skinny jeans, I still didn’t love who I saw in the mirror.

It was me in smaller sized jeans — still not liking myself.

How’s that joyful or meaningful?

Because of advertising, messages from the media, we’ve been conditioned to believe that slimness guarantees self-love.

But it’s simply not true.

It works the other way around.

When you start loving who you see in the mirror — including ‘that bit extra’ around your tummy — from that kind, gentle and loving space, you’ll be motivated to create the changes you need to make so you can fit your skinny jeans.

Here’s what I know to be true.

When your self-love is high, it feels natural to make more nutritious food choices.

When your self-love is high, it feels abhorrent to treat your body like a rubbish bin.

When your self-love is high, it feels effortless to say no to that fourth chocolate biscuit.

Because why would you ever abuse something you love?

So I encourage you, as you move through today, start to make choices for your body from a place of love.

And your body will love you for it.

I hope you found that helpful.

See you next week for another making peace with food tip x

I’ve had a couple of people ask me this recently so let’s jump in.

First of all, what is a cheat meal?

Basically, a cheat meal is where you give yourself permission to eat whatever you want, and it usually involves a lot of junk food.

Some dieters have a specific cheat meal, whereas other people have a cheat day.

But I’m not judging you!

I used to do it.

I’d spend all week living on rice cakes and salad, depriving myself of all the foods I actually wanted to eat, when Friday evening came – I went mental.

I’d demolish a tub of ice cream, a packet of family-sized salt and vinegar chips, and liquorice allsorts.

I’d go CRAZY.

That was my go to cheat meal.

After living on rice cakes all week, it felt so good to eat unencumbered.

I’d obsess about what I was going to binge on at my cheat meal all week.

Ironically, I’d consume so many calories in the form of junk in that one cheat meal, I’d completely undo any calorie deficit I’d created during the week.

And sadly, there were no vitamins, minerals or nourishment in that cheat meal.

Doesn’t work for sustainable or joyful weight loss.

Cheat meals are a popular trend in the fitness industry.

Some people say it’s good to get all your cravings out in one go and shock your metabolism – many bodybuilders use it as a weight loss strategy.

If it is working for you – yay, keep on doing what works.

But I’m going to make the assumption that you’re not a bodybuilder.

If you’re like the women I work with, extreme dieting combined with cheat meals is a miserable way to live your life.

It’s punishing and oppressive and rigid.

And it doesn’t work for weight loss!!!

Having eliminated cheat days from my life, I literally eat what I want.

And yes that includes cake!

But now, mostly what I crave is real food – veges, fruit, and ‘real’ food jam-packed with vitamins and minerals.

Ditch the cheat meal as a first step.

As a first step to creating peace with food, I encourage you to ditch the cheat day mentality and instead focus on nourishing your body.

Have a lovely week!

Love etc, Avril

PS: If you’d like to cultivate a more peaceful relationship with food that doesn’t involve guilt, or shame or cheat days and – where no food is off-limits – why not come on over to Peace With Food.

How often do you yourself?

Daily, weekly, monthly, never?

There’s a lot of conflicting advice out there about the scales.

For example, if you come from a Weight Watchers background then you’re used to frequent weigh-ins.

These frequent weigh-ins are based on the idea: “what gets measured, gets done.”

And I agree – but only if you’re a bloke!

Men do great with frequent weigh-ins because they are biologically programmed to shift the weight more quickly than we are.

(It’s a sad fact of life, ladies.)

For men, daily weigh-ins can be very motivating.

But for us women, what I encourage you to do is toss the scales.

I’ve found – specifically with us women – that frequent weigh-ins leads to perfectionist thinking.

Which is a sure way to self-sabotage.

Here’s why.

When we women stand on the scale, only one of three things can happen.

1. The scale goes up

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh CRAP!!!”

Stress hormones flood our body along with that frustration of “nothing EVER works for me!”

Which leads to commiserating with chocolate. Not very helpful!

2. The scale remains the same

“Boooooooo, the dreaded plateau. What’s the point?”

Once again, we can go into that place of self-doubt and anxiety. Hello, self-soothing chocolate!

3. The number goes down

Even when the number moves in our desired direction, we still self-sabotage!

Either with:

1. “Yahooooooo,” I’m stoked!” and—you guessed it—I’m going to celebrate with some chocolate.

Or, b. “Ohhhhhh man, is that all I lost, I expected more than that,” where’s that chocolate?

So, you can see the theme developing here.

Regular weigh-ins cause self-sabotage for women.

No matter what the number reads, we use that number, as a way of beating ourselves up— and that makes progress virtually impossible.

The freedom you seek does not come from a number on the scales.

The freedom you seek comes from a deep and loving acceptance of yourself.

We women to give ourselves ‘space’ to change

When you’re first pregnant, can the outside world see the miraculous shifts happening inside you?

Course it can’t!

The mirror only reflects the changes in the second trimester.

Becoming your happy shape and size is a similar journey.

The scales simply aren’t sophisticated enough to show all the changes happening inside.

So I encourage you to measure your progress by more encouraging means, like noticing how easily your jeans button up, or becoming aware of how energised you feel.

Because that’s what becoming our happy shape and size is really about.

It’s about how good you feel inside. NOT the number on a scale.

I invite you to toss your scales and use more encouraging ways to measure your progress.

So let me know, does that resonate with you? How will you change your behaviour based on what you’ve learned today?

I hope you find it helpful.

And remember, the scales can’t tell you how beautiful YOU are, or how valuable YOU are.