It’s Beyond The Food: Non-Diet Health Coaching

Latest Episodes:

272-Comfort Eating: Curiosity or Judgment Jan 28, 2021

Show notes

Let's unpack comfort eating or eating for comfort.

Comfort is defined as a state of ease and freedom from pain or constraint.

When we eat for comfort, we feel uncomfortable; we don't want to feel discomfort, so we look for a solution to not feel comfortable and that solution is food. So we comfort eat.

Sounds like a pretty legitimate action… it is a coping tool. It's a variation of the larger family of emotional eating- whereby you eat in response to an emotion. Most often, uncomfortable emotions like stress. Stress eating, comfort eating, emotional eating - all the same thing - using food to cope with physical or emotional discomfort.

Why is it a problem to solve?

Is comfort eating a problem?

Let's imagine that same person feels the same level of discomfort, but instead of opening the fridge or the cupboard and reaching for food, that same person would say go for a run.

Would it be a problem to solve? ….

Interesting question, right?… but necessary. Especially as women, we must challenge all the beliefs we have learned about food, body and health. Remember that diet culture was created by Patriarchy in order to keep women obedient and insecure.

Why is it that comfort eating is a problem to solve for women? What diet culture is telling us is that it will lead you to eat too much, eat the "bad food," and gain weight. Diet gurus will tell you that if you could only control your emotional eating, then their diet would work… and you'd be thin!

Familiar…

But here's my question to you: Would you even desire to eat to comfort yourself if we weren't relentlessly chasing the thin ideal???

Think about that for a minute?...

How much of our discomfort physically and emotionally that we appease with food is caused by the relentless pursuit of the thin ideal, therefore diet culture

A shit load of it... lol.

Since this is a feminist podcast that promotes women empowerment with food and their body… I'm not going to teach to shame you for comfort eating or tell you that it is to be avoided.

No… that's diet culture way.

In this podcast episode, we will unpack this subject in a non-diet way... by asking WHY.

What you'll learn listening to this episode:

The reason why diet culture of comfort eating is so toxic
The non-Diet approach to comfort eating
The two questions to ask yourself when feeling the urge to eat emotionally
Comfort food versus Comfort eating

Mentioned on the show:

Podcast Roadmap

Conquer & Thrive

271-People-Pleasing 2.0 Jan 21, 2021

Show notes

People-pleasing isn't a character trait or, for that matter, a personality trait that we are born with.

In fact, people-pleasing is a belief, a set of thoughts that we as women are socialized to. More precisely, we aren't socialized or educated to be people-pleasers… we are socialized to be "good girls".

The Good Girl Syndrome is like a character we are asked to play as women and from a very young age. As people identifying as women, we are socialized to be polite, modest, quiet, not to argue, not to fight, play within the parameters, and most importantly, fit the norm…

Indeed, we are socialized to believe that we are responsible for other people's perceptions of us. Other people's perception of us is more valuable than our own opinion of ourselves.

So effectively, we are taught to be people-pleasers.

But I'm not a people-pleaser... really?

If you are thinking right: well, this is not me, BUT you are struggling to accept your body. I'm afraid to tell you, my sister, it's you.

Women's relentless pursuit of the thin ideal and unwillingness to accept their bodies is grounded in our socialization to be good girls and meet others' expectations.

This is why in great part, most people identified as men aren't affected by body image. Moreover, they can't even begin to comprehend why we care so much about what other people think of our bodies. That is to say, they aren't socialized the same as we are as people identified as women.

It's not built in their belief system as it is for us.

So, how does being a people-pleaser show up in other parts of your life? That's what we will unpack in this podcast episode.

What you'll learn listening to this episode on people-pleasing:

How women are socialized to be people-pleasers
Understand the link between body dissatisfaction and people-pleasing
The big lie fueling the desire to please others
The 4 steps for women to free themselves from people-pleasing

Mentioned on the show:

Podcast Roadmap

Conquer & Thrive

270-Tuning Out the Weight Loss Industry Jan 14, 2021

Show notes

This podcast is going to be for every woman - every woman who has been targeted by dieting ads.

I have chosen this title for a reason: "Tuning out the weight loss industry" instead of "tuning out diet culture" for a reason: to reach more women.

When you are at the beginning of your journey shifting out of dieting, the word diet culture doesn't mean a thing… actually, for many, it means being on a diet.

Diet culture is a new term that is not part of women's vocabulary, and for a good reason. As women, when we learn about the word "diet culture", it has a massive impact. In #5, I share the definition of diet culture for all the newbies.

Tuning out the dieting noise is a choice

This podcast intends to help all women make a choice.

A choice in the face of all the marketing from the weight loss, fitness, and wellness industry aimed at women and our bodies.

To help women make an educated choice about their body, how they live their life, the way they eat, and the way they take care of their mind, body, and soul.

For women to free themselves from the thought "but I have to "and trade it for "I chose to".

What you'll learn listening to this episode tuning out the weight loss industry:

10 thoughts to consider as women when considering dieting.
10 tips for you to process the weight loss, fitness, and wellness marketing

Mentioned on the show:

Podcast Roadmap

Conquer & Thrive

The Good Girl Syndrome

269: How to Move (or Exercise) More Jan 07, 2021

Show notes

“I want to move with joy”
“I want to get out of the funk of not movement”
“I know exercise is good for me… just can’t bring myself to do it”
“How do I motivate myself to move more without dreading it.”

That you are at the beginning stage of challenging the concept of dieting or an advanced intuitive eater that now wants to work on reclaiming their relationship to exercise. Or that you have made peace with food already and now want to tackle your relationship to movement.

This podcast going to help you.

How to move more

I know for me I’ve known that I SHOULD exercise more often for decades… and my solution for years has been to sign up for a gym membership and resorting to using discipline, punishment, and willpower to force me into the gym until, just like dieting it didn’t work.
Diet culture has taught us to jump into action… without ever asking why and how we got there in the first place is the reason why we keep repeating the same patterns time after time.
Find the place to start is to find the reason(s) why we resist exercise…. That’s the starting point of reclaiming the joy of movement.

What you’ll learn listening to this episode:

Why we resist exercise
The power of changing vocabulary
The simple process to create more movement action in your life
My movement goals for 2021 and game plan

MENTIONED ON THE SHOW:

Podcast Roadmap

Conquer & Thrive

268-My Goals for 2021 Dec 29, 2020

Show notes

What you’ll learn listening to this episode on my goals for 2021:

The reflective process for 2020
The 6 questions to use to reflect on 2020
My 4 lessons learned in 2020
The goals I have for 2021

Mentioned on the show:

Podcast Roadmap

Conquer & Thrive

267-Willing To Be Willing To Change Dec 22, 2020

Show notes

"Nothing is easy for the unwilling."

When we set a goal or desire to change an aspect of our life or self, we often get “stuck” into inaction.

The fear of taking action in the unknown and the paralysis into stagnation is normal. It’s present for most of us women. This fear is a normal reaction from our brain to command us into staying put instead of moving ourselves into the unknown.

It’s our brain’s duty to prevent us from taking action.

To create any new result in your life: becoming an intuitive eater, accepting our body, career advancement,... ANY CHANGE.

Being willing to be willing

You have to be willing to do two things:

Feel your emotions
Change your perspective on failure

And if you are unwilling to face your fears and emotions, then forward progress on improving your quality of life will not be easy.

You have to be willing to tell your brain: Hey brain, I get it, it’s your job to keep me safe and avoid the unknown & anxiety of newness, but moving forward, I’m willing to feel these emotions because I really want what’s on the other side. The new result.

That’s what we call managing your brain. First module inside Conquer and Thrive.

As women, we are socialized to be good girls. To be perfect. To obey the rules and perform them perfectly. That’s why we unconsciously chase the thin ideal. We’ve been told over and over by our mom, that is the gold standards body type as women. So as good girls we chase that perfection… relentlessly even if it makes us feel terrible.

To motivate this relentless chase of perfection, women are socialized to see failure as the most terrible thing that can happen to us. Any failure in our relentless pursuit of perfection means that we aren’t worthy and that we have failed dieting.

Questions to ask ourselves to become willing

I’ll be leaving you with these thoughts to reflect on:

Are you willing to redefine failure?

Are you willing to see the fear-based thoughts your brain will offer you when thinking about the new goal and be the observer of these thoughts?

How about being willing to see it’s not your thoughts but the socialization thoughts from patriarchy and diet culture?

Are you willing to feel the fear that your brain will present to you and still take action towards your goal?

Are you willing to take a chance on yourself?

How about being willing to bet on yourself that you too can achieve THIS new goal?

Are you willing to be willing to have the intention to be willing to be willing?

Are you willing to be willing to bet on yourself?

If you are, we here for you, sister… come and join us inside Conquer and Thrive and we will support you in your journey of being willing.

What you’ll learn listening to this episode:

Why the perfect next step from podcast 266 – Goal Setting
You are not your body or your brain...
The two elements needed to create new result in your life
Why women have a faulty concept of failure
How we can start to be willing to be willing

Mentioned on the show:

Podcast Roadmap

Conquer & Thrive

266-Goal Setting Dec 17, 2020

Show notes

Smart Goals are to goal setting what dieting is to Diet Culture.

For years, I set goals the diet Culture way… you know, the SMART GOALS. Every year the pattern repeated itself. Give up by the 5th week.

Just like diet culture, SMART goals are anchored on external results, accomplishment of actions, grounded into avoidance of failure and perfectionism. It’s archaic, sexist and builds on elitist principles.

Just like dieting doesn’t work, SMART goals do not work because it disregards how humans function. It requires constant willpower, which we know to be a limited resource, so when willpower runs out, action-driven goal setting techniques stop working.

In today’s episode, we are going to discover the right way of setting goals for women: the diet-culture-free way to set goals.

What you’ll learn listening to this episode:

Why SMART goals don’t work
How I created my life against all odds
My business success in 2020 in the middle of a pandemic
What is the diet-culture-free goal-setting process

Mentioned on the show:

Podcast Roadmap

Conquer & Thrive

265-Mom's Guilt with Unyime Oguta Dec 10, 2020

Show notes

“It feels terrible as a mom to put yourself first... it’s easy to say self-care when you don’t have kids”.

This is such a sensitive topic for moms... Me, the single woman with no kids telling them to take time for themselves.

I have avoided doing a topic on this subject because let’s face it, it’s true: I don’t get it. That’s until today...

I have a guest expert who can speak about this from a lived experience. She’s a mom of 3 kids under 12, with a professional career and now starting a business.

Unyime gets it.

Unyime Oguta is our guest today. She’s a Non-Diet Nutritionist, Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor and a student of mine. She’s just about to graduate from our Non-Diet Mentorship program.

What you’ll learn listening to this episode on mom's guilt:

Why balance is B.S...
The disease of “Shoulding yourself”
The toxicity of “getting your body back”...
How to no longer feel guilty around taking care of yourself
The way to feed my family healthy while trusting my children’s choices
How to do self-care as a mom

Mentioned on the show:

Free Guide from Unyime

Podcast Roadmap

Conquer & Thrive

Connect with our guest:

Website and Free Guide

Instagram

Facebook

PRO Series: Listeners Q & A - S2 EP8 Dec 08, 2020

Show notes

This is going to be a fun episode...

I’m answering 25 questions our listeners have submitted. Short to the point answer on all subjects related to the non-diet approach...

You’ll get an answer for each of these 25 non-diet approach & business questions.

You keep referring to PROs... I’m a health coach so I’m not a professional right?
How do I make money as a non-diet coach? How do I create a stable income so I have no doubt in my income?
I can’t launch my BIZ until I’m perfect in my IE and BI?
How to convince my clients this is the right approach?
How do I reassure my clients that it’s ok not to diet?
How do I figure out my ideal client and how do I speak to them?
Simple marketing process, please...
How to answer body image questions?
Because of COVID, people aren’t willing to buy anything, should I wait to launch my BIZ?
Scope of practice?
I’ve never been on a diet but I eat whole food and organic food. Or I make healthy choices normally? Can I teach intuitive eating?
How do I find a scientific way to promote IE?
How do I incorporate nutrition science in IE?
Outline a 1-1 session with a client?
How do you present a problem to a client without being insensitive?
I’m afraid they are going to think I think it’s all in their head?
How much free stuff do I need to give?
How do I use my communication to get more clients?
Quality versus quantity marketing?
How do I get myself out there?
How do I get my clients to see value in me as a coach?
Covid is making things challenging? Nothing I can do…
I have a tendency to make things complicated… how do I resist it?
I’m on social media and nothing is happening... Why?
If a client doesn’t reach her goals, what does it mean about me as a coach?

Ready? Let’s do this Non-Diet Q&A!

Mentioned in the show:

PRO Mentorship Program

Free Intake Forms

PRO Series - Free Training & Resources

PRO Podcast Series - Full Listing

264-Health Goal versus Weight Loss Goal Dec 03, 2020

Show notes

The end of a year in our current culture serves as a point of reflection: what went well, what didn’t go so well, for me what I’ve learned….what we accomplished and then we also use this time to set ourselves goals, objective, intention for the new year. This process of reflection and intention setting is a very powerful process for us and should be done.

Dec 1 is typically the date when the real hardcore holiday marketing frenzy takes over mass media, and right now, we’re about to be hit by New year's resolutions, new year's diets… lose the COVID 19…

Our bodies and our health will not be spared in the process.

We will be hard press to set weight loss goals, just like every year. Some messages will be direct: weight loss directly while others will be about our health with an undertone of “ If you focus on your health, you will lose the unhealthy weight”…

I call this the politically correct way to focus on weight loss.

Maybe it’s the narrative in your own mind… you don’t need marketing to get yourself to think about setting “body” goals for 2021.

This podcast intends to explore both sides of the coin to make an educated decision for yourself.

Although published in December, this podcast is relevant all year. Now, because a great proportion of us use the new year period to reflect on the past and future, I thought this might help many of you think thru your “body” goals for 2021.

Let’s do this!