Archives September 2020

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. 

I’ve had a couple of readers ask me this recently.

It’s a logical question.

Confusion among the dietitians

One minute we’re being told – if you want to lose weight, you gotta go keto.

But on the next page of the magazine, a different expert says “being vegan is the only way to go.”

Is it any wonder we’re confused?!!!!!!

I’m going to share my food philosophy – it’s super simple.

I think you’ll love it.

But first, I want to ask a question of you.

Here’s a more relevant question for long term weight loss

It’s a question I believe is even more important than the ‘what should I eat’ question when it comes to weight loss.

And that question is….

…“what’s eating you?”

As in, what’s going on in you

• that’s causing the night-time cravings for sugar?
• that means you regularly demolish a family-sized bag of chips? (without the family!!!)
• that’s making you snack and nibble throughout the day even when you’re not hungry?

Answer THAT question.

That’s where the real gold is.

Not what you’re eating.

But what’s eating you.

Until you get to the bottom of that question, weight loss will always be elusive.

Because I know plenty of vegans who’re carrying extra weight because sure they’re vegan but they’re living on chocolate and chips.

Does that make sense?

My food philosophy

Now I said I’d share my food philosophy.

It’s pretty simple.

1.  Eat small portions of food you enjoy. Enjoyment is key. Enjoy your food. No guilt, no shame, no beating yourself up. Enjoy your food.

And remember the most important question

2.  “What’s eating me?”

The clearer you get on that answer, the more you‘ll feel indifferent to junk food, intuitively select foods that are right for your body — and you’ll shift the excess weight.

I hope you found that helpful!

If you’d like help around exploring what’s eating you, get in touch – I’m here to help.

Have a lovely week x

PS: If you’d like more helpful and encouraging mindset tips that you can apply at home, why not come on over to Peace With Food.

As a child were, you taught to eat everything on your plate?

And now, as an adult, it feels almost sinful to leave any amount of food on the table — no matter how bloated your tummy?

Most of the women I work with grew up with this rule.

And, as you may have found —without hypnosis — it’s one of the hardest habits to break.

BUT IT CAN BE DONE.

Have compassion for yourself

Firstly, if you were raised with the well-intentioned guilt trip of “you have to eat everything on your plate because of all the starving children in the world,”

….I want you to have some compassion for yourself.

No wonder you have a sense of shame around leaving food on your plate or putting it in the bin.

After all, those starving children right.

Take back control with some logic

When we apply logic to the dinnertime rules we grew up with, we can take start to take our power back.

Think about it.

You eating everything you your plate helps those starving children — how exactly?

You knew that logic was flawed even as a child, didn’t you!

The only thing that guilt trip achieves is to teach us to ignore and override our body’s instinctual fullness signals — which sets us up for weight gain.

Please send it to the children

If you really want to help the starving children, what I encourage you to do is purchase, cook and serve smaller meals.

All that money you save on your shopping bill, send it to charity.

And with the smaller portion sizes, you’re no longer using your body as a waste bin either.

How practical and tangible is that?

PS: Your mum was coming from a good place. It’s probably she grew up listening to Aunt Gertrude’s stories of food storages from the Great Depression.

PPS: Remember eating everything on your plate is just a habit, and all habits can be changed. If you’d like help resetting unhelpful eating habits so you can be your happy shape and size, Lighten Up might be for you.