Life. Unrestricted.

Latest Episodes:

LU 035: Dan Lewin – A man turns his body image and weight issues around and helps others heal. Mar 22, 2017

Show notes

Hey there, lovely radicals! This week on the "Life. Unrestricted." podcast, you'll hear me a chat with a fellow official "Body Image Movement Global Ambassador": Dan Lewin from the Sunshine Coast in Australia! Dan is 35 years old and has recently graduated with a Bachelor of Nutrition & Dietetics (Honors) and he has started working for a group of specialized dietitians dedicated to working with clients who are battling eating disorders, disordered eating and weight and body concerns in general. In all of his work, he uses the principles of Health at Every Size (HAES) and the non-diet approach. He is very passionate about working with community and raising awareness around body image issues, for women as well as men. As a professional photographer, he uses imagery as a tool to bring attention to male and female body image concerns. Today, you'll hear Dan talk about: – How he remembers his relationship to food and body as a young boy – Where he got the message that his body was too big – What the role of his family was in the development of his body image – What experience kicked off his first engagement in dieting and trying to "look normal" – How he became a slave to restricting and counting, even while traveling overseas – Why he took things to the extreme after meeting his wife, especially with exercise – How his behaviors influenced his relationship – How, when he got the most compliments, his mental and physical health suffered the worst – What made him let go of his perfectionistic tendencies – Who and what made him see that he didn't want to spread the diet-word and make others as miserable as he was – What helped him to let go of his old belief that his worth was tied to his looks – What he replaced self-hate and self-criticism with – Why he describes the journey towards body acceptance as an ongoing, fluid process – How defining his personal values helped him move through the initial phase of letting go of dieting – Why uncomfortable feelings and difficult emotions are part of the way to liberation, not a sign that it's not working – Why we need to face our fears and actually go collect the evidence (that nothing bad will happen if we gain some weight or lose tone) to see that it was only our mind holding us prisoner for so long – Why the study of dietetics and nutrition often only reinforces body-negativity and fails to address the epidemic of disordered eating and the increase of eating disorders – How he discovered "The Body Image Movement" that was created by Taryn Brumfitt, the creator of the documentary "Embrace" – Why he would love to see more men watching this movie – How he tries to encourage and inspire other men to talk about their struggles – Why he thinks body image can never be a static thing – Why he believes it is critical to teach the younger generation about media- and marketing literacy – How he intends to fight against the disgraceful "headless fatty" phenomenon in media imagery... ... And so much more! Check out Dan's work here: www.innerselfrevealed.com.au www.fmb.com.au His favorite quote: "To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best to make you everybody BUT yourself means to fight the hardest battle that any human being could fight." – E. E. Cummings Please consider supporting the podcast with a donation by becoming a "Patreon"; so that I can keep producing it. Thank you! Here's the link: https://www.patreon.com/lifeunrestricted Like the podcast? Great! Do subscribe on iTunes (Apple): https://itunes.apple.com/ch/podcast/life.-unrestricted.-podcast/id1130713233?mt=2 or on Stitcher (Android): http://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=93987&refid ********* Don't forget!********* Make sure to join my tribe and meet some of the most supportive, loving and kind people of all shapes and sizes, including great coaches and leaders! We're right over here at: http://www.lifeunrestricted.org/join/

LU 034: Anne Poirier – No more compulsive exercise: How to break the chains of "being the fit one". Mar 15, 2017

Show notes

Download Episode! Hey, lovely radicals... it's podcast time! In today's episode of the "Life. Unrestricted." podcast, I'm talking to Anne Poirier. Anne is the new program director at Green Mountain At Fox Run in Ludlow, Vermont. Green Mountain is a non-diet mind and body wellness center that offers retreats for women who want to start the journey back from years of dieting, body shame, weight-obsession and food fears. They re-learn to enjoy food again, and re-learn to move in a way that brings joy, and has nothing to do with food, calories or punishment. Anne was a fitness trainer for 30 years, battling her own body-shame-demons, and she came to the realization that the fitness industry is - sadly! - making many people less healthy, instead of more. She saw, time and time again, that the same people she had been helping to lose weight through diet and exercise, were coming back to her, after they had gained the weight back, feeling frustrated, depressed and convinced that they had failed. At the same time - unbeknownst to her clients - this same cycle was happening to her as well. Even though she did everything to look like the usual fitness professional, even though she tried modeling a "good way of eating", and "exercising harder" than others, she finally came to see that this was no way of living, as it really leaves everyone trapped in a vicious, painful cycle, and that it is time to think about sustainability and enjoyment again. Listen to Anne tell us: – How her mother related to food – How early she internalized the idea that her body was something to be fixed – How quickly this idea led her to anorexia – Why she resisted to be treated – How her anorexia eventually morphed into exercise bulimia – How her eating disorder made influenced her decision to go into exercise science in college – How she managed to hide her eating disorder in her athleticism for years – How she - for years - tried to find her identity behind labels like "fit", "strong" or "skinny" – Why her two pregnancies were the only time she remembers feeling free around food – How the disorder popped right back up after she gave birth – How her profession kept feeding her eating disorder, and why she wasn't even really aware of it – How exercise is a legit addiction like any other – What kind of issues and pain we are numbing out from by exercising compulsively – What the biggest hurdle is for many people when they are tackling their exercise obsession – How we can reframe how we think about our bodies towards a more realistic, grateful body image – How painful it is to realize that she lived like that until she was almost 50 years old, too afraid to let go – Why it was that only when her body started to break down that she started waking up – How a forced break from exercise turned out to be the first step towards real healing – How suddenly she discovered a life beyond fitness and training and weight-suppressing – How she dealt with her changing weight – Why "Drums Alive" turned out to be a real game-changer for her in terms of exercise – Why it's never wise to compare our insides to other people's outsides – Why some people have to hit rock bottom before they start to see that they don't really want to live life presenting a facade that isn't even them – How she now sees clearly how she was desperately trying to "be someone special" all her life and how she lost herself in that for a long time – How she describes her life from, say, five years ago, compared to her life now – What her focus is in her work as program director at Green Mountain At Fox Run... ... And so much more! Check out the wonderful Green Mountain website: www.greenmountainatfoxrun.com Please consider supporting the podcast with a donation by becoming a "Patreon"; so that I can keep producing it. Thank you! Here's the link: https://www.patreon.com/lifeunrestricted Like the podcast? Great! Do subscribe on iTunes (Apple): https://itunes.apple.com/ch/podcast/life.-unrestricted.-podcast/id1130713233?mt=2 or on Stitcher (Android): http://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=93987&refid ********* Don't forget!********* Make sure to join my tribe and meet some of the most supportive, loving and kind people of all shapes and sizes, including great coaches and leaders! We're right over here at: http://www.lifeunrestricted.org/join

LU 033: Hilary Kinavey – How to be truly nourished and trust your own body. Mar 08, 2017

Show notes

Hello, sweet radicals! In today's episode of the "Life. Unrestricted." podcast, I get to talk to Hilary Kinavey from Portland, Oregon. Hilary is a licensed professional counselor who specializes in disordered eating, trauma, anxiety, depression and addictions. She works in partnership with clients to develop a deeper understanding of their personal challenges, inner wisdom and their personal story. As a counselor, she places an emphasis on developing insight, mindfulness, and empathy for oneself. In 2005, she and Dana Sturtevant started facilitating groups to help women let go of food and weight obsession, and – sharing the same ideas – they then merged their practices to create a revolutionary approach to re-establish the "Body Trust" that we all had when we were born. They founded "Be Nourished", a partnership that is based on the passion to help people lose the weight of body shame and to create the change they seek from a deeper place. They offer programs, workshops, retreats, and e-courses to help cultivate body trust, as well as counseling, yoga and naturopathic care to complement long-term body acceptance and the benefits of being physically and psychologically nourished. In addition to counseling, coaching, and facilitating, Hilary is a popular speaker on topics such as Health At Every Size, Intuitive Eating and Body Respect in health care communities, and she is a regular contributor to the Huffington post. You'll hear Hilary talk about: – How her mother's dieting made her focus on her own body – How she came to believe that her body was not ok – What she learned about what it meant to be "a successful woman" – Why so many people still aren't aware of how harmful diets can be – What most of us are trying to achieve when we start weight-obsessing – Why her parents' feminism helped her a lot, even though dieting wasn't being questioned yet back then – How she learned about social justice issues from her parents – Why people's struggles with food and weight are often not addressed in counseling – Why, sadly, women are lead from focusing on their own heart's desires towards being stuck focusing solely on their desirability – What it was that made the pieces fall together for her on her journey to self-acceptance – What her first reaction was after she figured out what it is that keeps women from living their fullest expression and following their true desires – What 5 steps we can all take to get rid of body-loathing – How Intuitive Eating connected her with her own body – Why Intuitive Eating and enjoying food freely leads to a feeling of empowerment – How her whole life changed when she started trusting herself, her body and food – How she breaks through the diet-mentality barriers of her clients – What this body image work is really about, at the core – How she helps her clients get over their resistance to feel emotions – What her (and Dana Sturtevant's) work at "Be Nourished" is all about – How body respect is the first and easiest step towards body trust – How to learn what diet-culture has robbed of us, and how that can help us grow – Why it's not about "not ever having a bad body day" again – How "Be Nourished" helps health care providers get rid of weight-bias... ... And so much more! Check out Hilary Kinavey and Dana Sturtevant's work with "Be Nourished" here: www.benourished.org Here's the link to their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/benourishedpdx/?fref=ts Please consider supporting the podcast with a donation by becoming a "Patreon"; so that I can keep producing it. Thank you! Here's the link: https://www.patreon.com/lifeunrestricted Like the podcast? Great! Do subscribe on iTunes (Apple): https://itunes.apple.com/ch/podcast/life.-unrestricted.-podcast/id1130713233?mt=2 or on Stitcher (Android): http://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=93987&refid ********* Don't forget!********* Make sure to join my tribe and meet some of the most supportive, loving and kind people of all shapes and sizes, including great coaches and leaders! We're right over here at: http://www.lifeunrestricted.org/join/

LU 032: Diane Summers – There is hope for healing and achieving a life free from body issues. Mar 01, 2017

Show notes

Lovely radicals! Welcome back. This week on the "Life. Unrestricted." podcast, it's my pleasure to bring to you a fellow size-acceptance fighter: Diane Summers from Everett, Washington. Diane is a nationally registered and state certified dietitian with extensive experience treating eating disorders at all levels of care. Diane has been involved in the awareness, prevention and treatment of eating disorders for more than 10 years, and has treated hundreds and hundreds of people of all ages and across the entire spectrum of eating disorders and eating issues. She is recognized as a Certified Eating Disorder Registered Dietitian through the international Association of Eating Disorder Professionals for her expertise in treating eating disorders and training other professionals in the treatment of eating disorders. She is also a Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor. Diane has presented at local and national conferences, schools, universities, clinics, and church groups. Today, you'll hear Diane talk about: – How her parents feed her as a child and why she is extremely grateful for that – What her emotional difficulties looked like as an "army kid" – The ways in which her body image suffered in her adolescence – Why she felt like "the odd one out" as a nutritionist – What it was that made her question the diet-y ideas she got taught in nutrition school – The reason why she got interested in working with eating disorders – Why eating disorder treatments so often fail – Why we are often unaware of our internal "size-ism" and how to bring that into awareness – What it would take to make treatment success stories improve tremendously – What she teaches her clients about weight-discrimination – How we can smartly respond to body-shaming/food-shaming comments – Why we should all abstain from making ANY comments on bodies, whether good or bad – Why not just "the very thin", but also a person in a bigger body might show signs of anorexia – How a session with her could look like – What it is that is way more telling if someone has disordered eating or an eating disorder than the actual weight – What makes the diet-mentality so hard to break free from – What people with disordered eating and eating disorders have in common – Why the role of parents is crucially important in the development of a child's body image – How it is never really about food or weight, once the layers of the struggles are being worked through – Why what the media presents us in terms of post-menopausal women is a legitimate set-up for body-wars – Why weight-gain after menopause is the best life-protection for you... ... And so much more! Check out Diane's website: www.hopenutritiontherapy.com Please consider supporting the podcast with a donation by becoming a "Patreon"; so that I can keep producing it. Thank you! Here's the link: www.patreon.com/lifeunrestricted Like the podcast? Great! Do subscribe on iTunes (Apple): https://itunes.apple.com/ch/podcast/life.-unrestricted.-podcast/id1130713233?mt=2 or on Stitcher (Android): http://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=93987&refid ********* Don't forget!********* Make sure to join my tribe and meet some of the most supportive, loving and kind people of all shapes and sizes, including great coaches and leaders! We're right over here at: http://www.lifeunrestricted.org/join/

LU 031: Julie Duffy Dillon – Have you hit diet rock bottom and need more peace with food and body? Feb 22, 2017

Show notes

Download Episode! Lovely radicals, it's podcast time! In today's episode of the "Life. Unrestricted." podcast, I get to talk to Julie Duffy Dillon from Greensboro, North Carolina. Julie is a food behavior expert who helps people enjoy eating again. Award winning with her progressive approach, Julie was featured in TLC's documentary "My Big Fat Fabulous Life". She also has an active blog, writes the weekly "Food Peace Newsletter", but she also hosts a podcast, called "Love Food", where she addresses people's struggles by way of a love letter from food. Julie has a Bachelor in Nutrition from Ohio University, and a Masters Degree in Mental Health Counseling from the University of North Carolina. As a Registered and Licensed Dietitian, she founded BirdHouse Nutrition Therapy, a group practice passionate about helping individuals and families recover from eating disorders. As a Certified Eating Disorders Specialist, she also supervises other dietitians who are on the path to become eating disorder specialists as well. Listen to Julie talk about: – What kind of messages she got about weight and body – Why she got into nutrition and counseling – What she learned about the treatment of people who are considered "overweight" – How she realized that, as a nutritionists, they didn't give those people the right treatment – What's wrong with the education of future nutritionists – Why it is often those who are themselves disordered choose to study nutrition or personal training – What she found out when she dug into weight-science and research studies – What she found out about diets, restriction, weight-obsession and the harm of it all and the risk of developing an eating disorder – What the Minnesota Starvation Study was about and what happens when we diet/restrict/overexercise – Why binge-eating and overeating are rooted in restriction, be it physical and/or mental – How our mental health is closely related to how well-fed we are – How, after periods of restriction, binge-eating is completely normal and our body's way to save us – How she discovered Health at Every Size and started to question her approach and her beliefs – How feminism and the knowledge about social justice issues helped her in developing a deeper understanding of people's body issues – Why body image must be addressed on the way of diet- or eating disorder recovery, in order to make sure that people don't get stuck in disordered eating and a full recovery is possible – What she means by "hidden faces" of eating disorders, and why they are the vast majority of eating disorders – Why anorexics often don't look like the clichéd "skeletal-looking" person – How she found out how hurtful our society's fear of fat really is – What we must be cautious about when choosing a dietitian or nutritionist – How she found out how exaggerated the connection between weight and health really is – Why it can be very helpful to feel healthy anger when we find out how we have been deceived – Why those evasive 3 percent of people for whom dieting "supposedly works" are those who are sacrificing everything just to keep that weight off, and why even those people come to sanity (and their natural weight) eventually – How weight-suppression keeps us from living our lives fully and freely – How we can learn to consume media's messages with a more critical, schooled eye – Why developing a healthy anger towards the diet- and beauty industries will help us grow strong enough to channel it into advocacy... ... And so much more! Check out Julie's websites: www.juliedillonrd.com and www.birdhousenutrition.com Please consider supporting the podcast with a donation by becoming a "Patreon"; so that I can keep producing it. Thank you! Here's the link: www.patreon.com/lifeunrestricted Like the podcast? Great! Do subscribe on iTunes (Apple): https://itunes.apple.com/ch/podcast/life.-unrestricted.-podcast/id1130713233?mt=2 or on Stitcher (Android): http://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=93987&refid ********* Don't forget!********* Make sure to join my tribe and meet some of the most supportive, loving and kind people of all shapes and sizes, including great coaches and leaders! We're right over here at: http://www.lifeunrestricted.org/join/

LU 030: Marsha Hudnall – Helping women find body-peace and a full life after an eating disorder. Feb 15, 2017

Show notes

Download Episode! Lovely radicals! In today's episode of the "Life. Unrestricted." podcast, I get to talk to Marsha Hudnall from Ludlow, Vermont. Marsha is a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist, and she really has been a voice of reason and a thought leader for the last three decades in helping women move away from restrictive notions of food and health. Ever since 1986, Marsha has been a guiding force at Green Mountain at Fox Run, the Vermont women's retreat that pioneered the non-diet approach to health and weight. She now serves as president and co-owner, and she is passionate about all of her work. She is an accomplished writer who has written hundreds of articles for popular magazines, and professional journals and has worked extensively to educate the public about nutrition and about the impact of dieting and the internal diet-mentality that drives our eating behaviors and obsession with weight. Marsha is also the president of the Center For Mindful Eating and a former board member of the Binge Eating Disorder Association. Listen in as Marsha talks about: – What it was the set the stage for her quest for thinness – How her mother's body image and diet-obsession influenced her – Why her personality type is typical for a person with an eating disorder – What perfectionism has to do with eating disorders – Why she never talked about her bulimia to anyone – How her bulimia has affected her health long-term – How restriction exacerbates any food-issues and causes food-obsession – What the diet-industry has taken from our experience of "eating" – Why that diet-mentality-induced guilt for eating created so many problems – Why she became a dietitian – What the steps to her healing looked like – Why Green Mountain At Fox Run literally changed her life – How her husband's mother became the pioneer in the non-diet approach – What the non-diet approach is REALLY about – How best to move away from body-hate – Why having a community and supporting each other can make all the difference – Why accepting size-diversity is the key to self-acceptance – How she introduces the concept of Health At Every Size to women who haven't heard of it before – What she means when she talks about structure around eating (it's not what you think) – Why eating fun-foods is very much part of a "normal" eating routine – Why sugar addiction is nothing but another misleading marketing tactic – How we can overcome those feelings of "addiction" with food – What kind of feelings and thoughts people are trying to cope with by obsessing over food and weight – How she deals with difficult feelings – What makes community the key ingredient to healing for people... ... And so much more! Check out Marsha here: www.greatmountainatfoxrun.com The Green Mountain At Fox Run Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/GreenMountainAtFoxRun/?fref=ts Please consider supporting the podcast with a donation by becoming a "Patreon"; so that I can keep producing it. Thank you! Here's the link: https://www.patreon.com/lifeunrestricted Like the podcast? Great! Do subscribe on iTunes (Apple): https://itunes.apple.com/ch/podcast/life.-unrestricted.-podcast/id1130713233?mt=2 or on Stitcher (Android): http://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=93987&refid= ********* Don't forget!********* Make sure to join my tribe and meet some of the most supportive, loving and kind people of all shapes and sizes, including great coaches and leaders! We're right over here at: http://www.lifeunrestricted.org/join/

LU 029: Isabel Foxen Duke – Learning from the mastermind behind "Stop Fighting Food". Feb 08, 2017

Show notes

Download Episode! Lovely radicals! In today's episode of the "Life. Unrestricted." podcast, I talk to Isabel Foxen Duke from San Francisco. Isabel is a Certified Health Coach and Emotional Eating Expert. She is the founder of the renowned "Stop Fighting Food"-program that has helped countless women making peace with food and their body, so that they could finally stop obsessing about food, and get back to enjoying their lives. After years of trying to overcome her binge eating through "traditional" and alternative approaches Isabel managed to heal herself, as she discovered how binge eating and dieting are linked. She is incredibly successful in her work and has helped thousands of women overcome their food issues for good. Listen to Isabel as she tells us: – What her earliest memories are of "being in a body" – What made her feel unattractive and "too big" when she was only a child – What it was the set the stage for her quest for thinness – Why she never got help and denied she had a food and body issue for so long – Why no one recognized she had an eating disorder – Why that quest for a thinner body has everything to do with her ending up with a cocaine habit – What she learned in rehab – What she thinks makes most eating disorder treatments resulting in such poor recovery rates – What made her finally understand where her binging came from – What helped her on the way to body acceptance, and why that work is key – Why mental deprivation and restriction are just as binge-causing as physical deprivation – How many people unconsciously restrict and don't realize it – Why diet-mentality is a stumbling block for our attempts to free ourselves of the "crazy feeling around food" – Where weight discrimination comes from – Where the term "body positivity" comes from – Why healing our relationship with food does not mean acquiring a certain body size – Why the "sugar addiction" and "food addiction" hype is so problematic – How to overcome our internal diet-mentality – What her program "Stop Fighting Food" is all about – The difference between fat phobia and internalized fat-phobia and why both keep everyone stuck – How weight-suppression keeps us from living our lives fully and freely – Why it is important to see the toxic mechanisms behind diet-culture and the diet industry and how this can help us stepping out of old beliefs – How to heal negative body image, let go of disordered eating, overcome food fears and end weight-obsession... ... And so much more! Check out Isabel's website and program: www.stopfightingfood.com Please consider supporting the podcast with a donation, so that I can keep producing it. Thank you! Here's the link: https://www.patreon.com/lifeunrestricted Yes, yes, yes! Do subscribe on iTunes (Apple): https://itunes.apple.com/ch/podcast/life.-unrestricted.-podcast/id1130713233?mt=2 or on Stitcher (Android): http://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=93987&refid= ********* Don't forget!********* Make sure to join my tribe and meet some of the most supportive, loving and kind people of all shapes and sizes, including great coaches and leaders! We're right over here at: http://www.lifeunrestricted.org/join/

LU 028: Fiona Sutherland – Goodbye, scale! Time for positivity with food, weight and body image. Feb 01, 2017

Show notes

Download Episode! Lovely radicals! Let me bring some sunshine into your lives: In today's episode of the "Life. Unrestricted." podcast, I talk to Fiona Sutherland from Melbourne, Australia. Fiona is the Director of "Body Positive Australia" which offers therapy, yoga and retreats to the community and also of "The Mindful Dietitian" which offers mindfulness and client-centered practice, training opportunities and information, specifically to dietitians worldwide. Fiona is a specialist in Eating Disorders (mostly Binge Eating Disorder), eating behavior and body image. Fiona has recently been appointed to the Australia & New Zealand Academy of Eating Disorders Board, where she aims to strengthen the voice for ED recovery and Health at Every Size. She is a professional kid-wrangler (of two boys, aged 5 & 7) and she is currently half-way through her yoga teacher training. She is passionate about how we can help everyone – in every body! – live in peace within this very brainwashed diet-culture. You will hear Fiona share: – Why she thinks it's never worth to sacrifice birthday cake to a thinness-dream – What makes scales the worst device to have around – What she loves to do to scales and what she promises to do if I smash my elliptical – Why compulsive exercise can cost us the experience of actually truly fulfilled needs – How she proves why you, me and everyone else is inherently worthy; without pursuing our ideas of perfection (i.e. the need to be busy, the need to pursue weight-loss, the need to be fit, etc.) – What she learned about bodies when she was a kid – Why she describes her experience as a child as "thin-xiety" – How her mother's dieting behavior bewildered her – What traumatic memories she has of the time when she went to weight-loss group with her mother – How her sister got treated for being in a larger body – Why all of these experiences made her angry enough to DO something about the toxicity of diet-culture – How we get tricked by society's messages about weight and weight-loss that "there is a magic bullet" and how this sets us up for falling into the trap that everything "can be fixed almost instantly" – Why food-restriction and any attempts at dieting are so harmful and have ZERO to do with health – Why our internalized diet-mentality and weight-obsession can burn a whole into our self-worth – Why any sort of diet-recovery, be it for lifelong dieters, disordered eaters or people with eating disorders, is a slow process with lots of tiny steps – Why our belief that we master recovery success either instantly or just not try it at all is coming from the voice of the eating disorder – What little steps could look like, in terms of eating or exercising – Why our judgment of our behaviors (emotional eating, for example) is what creates the real problem and how we can start to become more observing and less judgmental about ourselves – What the key element is to a smoother recovery process – How she would raise ME if I had been her child (and what her goals are for her own children) – What her top tips are to avoid passing our body image struggles on to our children – What "The Body Positive Australia"'s mission is and what kind of services they offer – How they help make dietitians and other health professionals aware of the long-term harm of dieting and of weight-discrimination – Why her business partner's "Fat Yoga" classes are taking off like crazy – What they continuously do to change the harmful paradigm of weight-loss-idealization and diet-culture... ... And so much more! Here's the link to Fiona's website: www.themindfuldietitian.com.au Check out "The Body Positive Australia" website: www.bodypositiveaustralia.com.au Please consider supporting the podcast with a donation, so that I can keep producing it. Thank you! Here's the link: https://www.patreon.com/lifeunrestricted Please: Do subscribe on iTunes (Apple): https://itunes.apple.com/ch/podcast/life.-unrestricted.-podcast/id1130713233?mt=2 or on Stitcher (Android): http://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=93987&refid= ********* Don't forget!********* Make sure to join my tribe and meet some of the most supportive, loving and kind people of all shapes and sizes, including great coaches and leaders! We're right over here at: http://www.lifeunrestricted.org/join/

LU 027: Thom Rutledge – Confronting the "inner Gremlin voice" and learning how to disobey it. Jan 25, 2017

Show notes

Download Episode! Lovely radicals! In today's episode of the "Life. Unrestricted." podcast, I talk to Thom Rutledge from Nashville. Thom is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, psychotherapist, author and speaker, who has experienced both sides of the therapeutic relationship; as a clinician and as a client. He blends his personal recovery from depression, addiction and excessive self-criticism with 30 years of professional experience to guide his clients, readers, and audiences from self-judgment and perfectionism toward genuine self-compassion. He's the author of several books like "Embracing Fear", "Earning Your Own Respect" and "The Greater Possibilities", and he has co-written "Life Without ED" (ED meaning Eating Disorder) with Jenni Schaefer. Thom's trademark sense of humor, a down-to-earth practicality, and his own compassion are the common threads than run through his unique brand of psychology. Thom will tell us: – How contributing to a bestseller about eating disorders led to him specializing in eating disorder treatment – How he as a recovering alcoholic (who's been sober for 30 years) can relate to people with eating disorders and disordered eating – Where he sees the familiarity between eating disorders and alcoholism – Why eating disorders are often more difficult to recover from than alcohol addiction – Why he asks his clients about their relationship to fear – Why there often are existential fears underneath eating issues – What his intra-personal therapy model consists of – Why trust is such a crucial part of eating disorder therapy – How we can separate our fear voice (inner Gremlin/inner bully) from our healthy voice (recovery voice) – Why it is normal to often have different feelings or even opinions about things in life – How clever our inner Gremlins are and how they trick us – How this inner Gremlin actually manages to scare us into paralysis – Why the inner Gremlin is a synonym for catastrophic thinking – Why we should never expect to be able to fully rid ourselves of those inner bullies – Why we can only learn to deal with them when we first start to listen to what it actually says – Why it helps to ask ourselves how much of what this inner Gremlin predicts has ever really happened – What we are really afraid of when we say "we are afraid of weight-gain" – How he specifically works with my example – Why rejecting and disobeying the inner Gremlin is the way to recovery – Why in healing from bad body image and disordered eating it often gets worse before it gets better – Why, when we have believed our inner Gremlin for decades, it often feels like shedding our old identity when we are on the way to becoming our true selves – Why the inner Gremlin doesn't get to use the "I" pronoun – How to strengthen our inner, true recovery voice – How we can become the real decision-makers in our own life – How community and support play a pivotal role for our mental health – Why he thinks the universe purposely designed us to be "forgetting machines"... ... And so much more! Check out the Thom's website to find out about his work and his books: http://www.thomrutledge.com/ Please consider supporting the podcast with a donation by becoming a "Patreon"; so that I can keep producing it. Thank you! Here's the link: https://www.patreon.com/lifeunrestricted Please: Do subscribe on iTunes (Apple): https://itunes.apple.com/ch/podcast/life.-unrestricted.-podcast/id1130713233?mt=2 or on Stitcher (Android): http://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=93987&refid= ********* Don't forget!********* Make sure to join my tribe and meet some of the most supportive, loving and kind people of all shapes and sizes, including great coaches and leaders! We're right over here at: http://www.lifeunrestricted.org/join/

LU 026: Melissa Toler – Bring sanity back to the way you eat, train and look at yourself. Jan 18, 2017

Show notes

Download Episode! Lovely radicals... it's podcast time! In today's episode of the "Life. Unrestricted." podcast, I talk to Melissa Toler, from Maryland, close to Washington DC. She is a certified health and wellness coach, speaker and writer, with a background as a pharmacist who offers a non-diet, weight-neutral health approach, and her goal is to help women connect the dots between our culture's ridiculous beauty standards and our personal struggle with self-acceptance. She helps women unlearn the toxic messages and behaviors from lifelong dieting so they can learn a new set of skills and live a life free from obsession and self-loathing. Having a 25-year history with dieting herself, she knows personally what it means to be stuck in the diet-binge-cycle. She came to sanity a few years ago, and she says it was one of the best decisions she has ever made. I believe her. Melissa also teaches workshops and courses to help people on the path to improving their body image. We will all get some of here awesomeness in this episode! Listen to Melissa talk about: – Where she got the message that her body was "not good enough" – What the moment was where she internalized the belief that she needed to change her body – Why she got stuck in this well-known hell of weight-suppression, dieting and overexercising for so long – What it was that made her wake up and learn to listen to her own body again – What helped her to question her own thinking and see behind the mechanism of diet-culture and how much money is being made by making women feel "less than" – Why it literally pays off to be hypercritical of media's, TV's and magazines' messages – Why by buying beauty/women's magazines and diet books/products, we vote "yes" to our oppression with our own money – Why we all need other people to help wake us up to what we have gotten so used to that we never stop to question it – Why it is always a good idea to be suspicious of the words "body positive" or "empowered woman", especially as it is being viciously co-opted by diet-culture these days – What TRUE empowerment means – What proved to be most helpful on her way out of constant dieting – How she helps women re-connect to their true selves – How we can learn and implement the skill of self-compassion even when it sounds weird at first – How we can start questioning our thoughts with curiosity instead of judgment – How to decode what's behind it when the "urge" to go on a diet comes up – How we can stop the diet-thoughts from influencing our decisions – How she helps her clients see where they have been mislead into "false" thinking about themselves being "not good enough", and who profits off of that – How much precious time in a person's life can literally be wasted by getting stuck in diet-land, being preoccupied by weight-loss, body-negativity and obsession – Why a person's size never tells us anything about their health and the dangers of equating "thin" to "healthy" – Why it is important to understand the sinister mechanism of diet-culture and how this can help us stepping out of old beliefs – Why stepping out of diet culture is a truly radical move... ... And so much more! Check out Melissa's work: www.melissatoler.com Please consider supporting the podcast with a donation by becoming a "Patreon"; so that I can keep producing it. Thank you! Here's the link: https://www.patreon.com/lifeunrestricted Please: Do subscribe on iTunes (Apple): https://itunes.apple.com/ch/podcast/life.-unrestricted.-podcast/id1130713233?mt=2 or on Stitcher (Android): http://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=93987&refid= ********* Don't forget!********* Make sure to join my tribe and meet some of the most supportive, loving and kind people of all shapes and sizes, including great coaches and leaders! We're right over here at: http://www.lifeunrestricted.org/join/

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