I met someone recently who told me she was really about intuitive eating. Even though she exercises almost every day and eats healthy, she can’t get rid of her belly and this was stressing her out, big time. “I just don’t feel pretty,” she said. She also mentioned that even when she’d been much thinner, she still wasn’t happy with her appearance. For decades she'd been doing a mental calorie calculation of every single bite of food that passed her lips. She wanted to be make peace with food and her body but she had no idea where to start. 

I told her I’d start with her mind. 

We aren’t born thinking our thighs are too big, our butts are too flat, or our tummies are too jiggly. We learn that our bodies aren’t good enough from the messages that are coming at us from practically every direction. 

Those messages come in the form of watching our moms frown at themselves in the mirror when we’re little, our dad's casually cruel comments about fat people on TV, and the magazine covers that promise to show you how to supercharge your metabolism and feel great (because now that “diet” is a dirty word, it’s all about confidence and optimizing our health).

The messages are in the form of a snack food claiming to be “guilt-free!” (guilt is not an ingredient) and the menu item they named “sinful chocolate cake” (pleasure is not a sin!), and stupid tweets like this. 

I suggested spending a few days noticing diet culture in all its (many) forms. I asked her to start a note in her phone, keep a little notebook around, or even record into a voice memo, to catalog every time she encountered an example of diet culture. 

The simple act of noticing diet culture is a powerful step toward realizing that many of the thoughts we have about our bodies are a product of our culture — not facts.* 

xo,

P.S. If you're ready to heal your relationship with food, exercise, and your body, I can help. Click here to find out how. 

P.P.S. If you haven't seen this newsletter in a while, it might be going to your Promos in Gmail. If that's the case, go back to your inbox and drag this email over to your Primary tab and it should start showing up there in the future.

P.P.P.S. Is it too much with the PSs? Sorry not sorry. Creating this newsletter for you brings me so much joy. I seriously get so excited to hit send on these. (Or "schedule" if I'm really on top of things.) If you love seeing it land in your inbox, it would mean a lot to me if you'd share it. 

*If you’re wondering, “What about health? Won’t I be unhealthy if I gain weight?” The answer is: not necessarily and that’s a whole other thing.
Some great resources to learn more include:
*Intuitive Eating, 4th edition by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch
*Anti-Diet by Christy Harrison
*Food Psych podcast 
*Maintenance Phase podcast 

5 Things Worth Checking Out

• If you have four minutes: I wrote a personal essay for Insider on why I hide food from my husband and it's probably not for the reasons you think. (Side note: this essay has been met with a ton of "me too's" from readers when I posted it on social media! Should we make #normalizesecretfood a thing??) 
   
• If you have six minutes: Proof that coffee is indeed the life-giving elixir we've always known it to be, according to science. 
   
• If you have an hour: I got to interview Leah Jantzen, a mother of four who is working full-time and growing a coaching business while training for the Ironman World Championships for the Real Fit podcast. And, oh yeah, she learned to swim in her 40s. Listen to learn about how to change your limiting beliefs, why you might want to get more uncomfortable, and for a big heaping spoonful of YES I CAN. 
   
• If you have no great books in your queue: The Younger Wife by Sally Hepworth will keep you turning the pages but won't stress you out.
   
• If you have two minutes: Check out The Sample. They curate articles from hundreds of blogs and newsletters and send you the ones worth subscribing to.