webpchecker

Make peace with your summer body

Summertime calls for shorts, tanks and swimsuits. If you love or like your body, no matter what it looks like, terrific. But if you don’t, baring more skin can produce body insecurities. You might find it hard to make peace with your summer body.

Over 91% of women report struggling with some aspect of their appearance. It makes sense when women compare their bodies to perfectionist images that less than 5% of women naturally possess. So that means most of our bodies don’t “measure up.” It’s a frustrating statistic to face when bodies are supposed to be diverse, as our uniqueness is what makes us human.

To address this reality, body positive messages such as “love your body, flaws and all” or “every body is a swimsuit body,” are wonderful, yet it’s understandable if you just can’t relate. Despite seeing progress with body diversity in women’s clothing brands, you’ll still be bombarded with “perfect” images in advertising because creating body insecurities sells — cellulite creams, anti-aging potions or quick- fix weight diets. It’s a multibillion-dollar business that’s not going anywhere.

Because of this unfortunate truth, it’s important to build your body image resilience muscle. To be clear, having a healthy body image isn’t about what your body looks like but how you think and feel about your own body.

Benefits include:

Benefits of healthy body image, make peace with your body
Benefits of healthy body image, make peace with your body

So how can you make peace with your summer body?

Consider the practice of body neutrality.

What is body neutrality?

It’s establishing a neutral relationship with your body. It’s taking the focus off your body’s appearance and placing it on its purpose — as a vessel for living your life, a home for expressing your true self — your spirit, your soul, like you once did when you were a kid.

Kids are body neutral. They simply enjoy their bodies. They use their bodies as a vehicle to live and express themselves instead of defining them by appearance, that is, until they observe that our culture sadly values some bodies over others.

But you can return to valuing your body for its true purpose (and teach your kids, too). You can reap the benefits of having the healthy relationship with your body by practicing these three body neutral skills:

First, if you feel a little (or a lot) “meh” toward your body, shower yourself with self-compassion. What’s self-compassion? It’s the same kindness you would share with your best friend, daughter, or anyone who feels challenged, acknowledging that the lack of body diversity and perfectionist body ideals is one that most women face.

So, practice getting out of your head and back into your body. Humans have a natural tendency toward the negative: What’s wrong with me? You can begin by noticing and naming these thoughts and actively choose to see your body as you once did as a child.

Yes, your brain can be retrained. Mindfulness skills such as meditation and breathing exercises are great practices to break the chain of negative body focus. While it may seem like a simple practice, neuroscience research proves that it works. So make a conscious effort to redirect your brain toward body purpose not appearance.

Second, I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to take care of your body, no matter how it appears. We often judge our own health and fitness by our body size. But that’s not true health. A thin body may be healthy or not; a larger body may be healthy or not.

And third, your health is multi-faceted.  If you’re viewing it based solely on the number on the scale, you’re missing critical key factors that affect your wellbeing. These factors, known as your “deep health,” include your physical health as well as your mental and emotional health, the quality of your connection with others, the environment that you live in and existential health: Are you living your life with purpose?

And what brings meaning to your life isn’t the pursuit of body “ideals.”

My intention in writing this article for my column in the Jackson Hole News and Guide has been to shine a light on our limited view on what it means to be healthy, and in particular, how it’s often confused with the “look” of health.

So that’s why my focus as a wellness coach isn’t about you achieving one magical number on the scale but instead on teaching you to build healthy behaviors with your food (not a diet), movement, sleep and stress management skills, while considering all the factors that influence your ability to take care of yourself. And ultimately success is allowing your body to be where it healthiest, instead of focusing on the “look” — the supposed aesthetic of health.

As Dr. Kara Mohr of “Girls Gone Strong” says, “We may have attachment to an ideal body weight, despite powerful evidence that our bodies may be stronger, fitter, faster, healthier at a different weight.”

And finally, I want to leave you with one more critical body neutral practice.

Feel good about yourself in whatever body you have. Wear summer clothes that suit your unique body. And if you’re not comfortable revealing certain body parts with shorts or sleeveless tops, it’s OK.

Wave the white flag. Our hearts our craving more — to be more than our bodies. Let your spirit, your soul, the real you shine through whatever body you were gifted. Be kind to your body. Be compassionate with yourself. Show yourself true self-care. Make peace with your body by practicing body neutrality this summer.

Want to learn how to make peace with your (summer) body? Let’s set up a time to chat so you can share you personal wellness story with me and I can share my deep health approach to your whole health. I’d love be your guide. ♡ Tanya

Why You Can’t Stop Emotional Eating

There are three main reasons why you can’t stop emotional eating.

And according to a recent survey by Precision Nutrition, you’re not alone.

Nutritional Challenges - emotional eating

3 reasons why you can’t stop emotional eating

Notice when intense cravings happen.

Awareness is key.

There’s often a pattern that’s triggered by certain thoughts, feelings or situations.

#1 You’re restricting certain foods or calories on a “diet” or restrictive meal plan.

That’s why I find it crazy that so many of us go to them as solutions to the challenges of cravings, overeating, stress and emotional eating. Yup, often they’re the CAUSE!

Yes, read that again.

So the solution is to stop dieting and going to restrictive meal plans to improve your health and well-being. That’s why I take a non-diet, no meal plans approach. You focus on improving your eating behaviors and relationship to food and your body (and your entire self-care) to help you feel and be your best self.

Sucking diet BS out of your head - how can I stop emotional eating

Next notice your energy levels when you’re eating.

# 2 You are exhausted.

Maybe you’re not sleeping well (or your list of reasons) so you find yourself in a pattern of drinking tons of coffee and/or reaching for sweets to get through another day – to give you more energy.

Nope you don’t have a problem with sweets. You’re exhausted. Let’s figure out how to get you sleeping better or whatever is causing your fatigue.

# 3 You’re stressed.

Why do you crave crunchy potato chips every Sunday night (or every evening)? Are you feeling stressed and anxious about heading back to another day in a toxic work environment?

Again, it’s common for us to try and solve cravings or overeating by dieting or restricting that specific food — when it’s not a food problem. The challenge is coming from feeling stressed or ___(lonely, angry, sad etc.) about work or __ (whatever the cause is for you).

The solution is to recognize your triggers and then find alternate solutions to break this unwanted pattern.

The list of stress, emotional eating, and cravings triggers is endless and unique to you.

Want more insights into how you can stop emotional eating? Reach out, I’d love to help. ♡ Tanya

P.S. Like what you’re reading? Join my free newsletter Reclaiming Wellness and receive wellness wisdom in your inbox!

Women Weigh in on Aging Bodies

Wrinkles. Waistlines. Rippled thighs.

It feels strange to look in the mirror at my 53-year-old body and no longer see my younger self. I’ll be honest, aging isn’t easy when 20-somethings Botox “wrinkles” and Instagram influencers filter and perfect their images and instruct midlife women to “just skip the carbs” to flatten our rounded bellies. (No thanks).

And while I’m certainly not immune to our fix it, fight it, “anti-aging” culture, deep in my heart I simply want to be me and accept and allow my body to age naturally.

I wondered how other women are thinking and feeling about aging and their bodies.

So, I reached out and asked. Here’s what those women, aged 45-87, had to say:

Our 40s:

My thoughts and feelings about my body have been a big obstacle to my happiness and well-being for most of my life. It’s amplified now that I’m seeing the first real signs of aging. There’s resistance to that process and some fear. It feels strange to see extra fat on my abdomen. I still want to be thin and toned. It is very much a mental game that I struggle with.

Our 50s:

It seems like everything went downhill when I turned 50. Menopause is awful — brain fog along with perpetual exhaustion, saggy skin, hot flashes. I’m always looking at serums and creams and medical services. I started Lexapro to help me sleep and find my old self. Pandemic stress hasn’t made it any easier — political division, teenagers missing prom, graduation. I have some “additional COVID me to love” that I can’t lose. I learning to embrace graying hair, wrinkles, and I’m trying to embrace my body.

Our 60s:

I’m sorry I wasted so much of my life worrying about my weight. I think my body is an amazing machine. I feel like I owe it to my body to treat her well.

Our 70s:

I feel better about my body and aging than I ever thought possible. I practice mindfulness meditation, and that has taken me to a deep appreciation for my body. I treat myself as a dear friend and a deep appreciation for all of life.

Our 80s:

I can’t stop my body from aging but do my best by taking daily walks up and down hills. I enjoy it. I think that it is more important than ever to stay active. I feel better and sleep better. So I do not focus much on how old I am. It is just a number.

So, what wisdom can we gain from these women and their experiences with body image and aging?

Aging can take us by surprise. Yet with education it doesn’t have to, and women can shift self-care to focus on a healthy functioning body while softening how they see themselves in the mirror. And overall, women want to see aging normalized and not make women feel wrong if they choose to age naturally. Education matters

“There needs to be more discussion and transparency about women in their 40s and moving toward menopause and the changes that happen and what to expect,” says one 45-year-old woman surveyed, “so it doesn’t feel so scary and wrong.”

Life isn’t about your dress size

When I asked what advice women would give to their younger self, they said:

Put yourself first. Be kinder to yourself. Listen to your body and fuel it with what it wants and needs, not what the current diet fad says you should eat. Body diversity is normal and OK. No one will stop being your friend because you gained weight. Stay active, move your body to feel good mentally and physically not to burn calories or lose weight. Rest. Get more sleep. Wear sunscreen. Play more!

Focus on finding what makes you happy and confident. Living a full life is more important than stressing about your dress size. Give up perfection in appearance. Stop worrying what everyone else thinks of you. You are enough. Have more confidence. Confidence is beautiful.

And ultimately, honor, appreciate and befriend your body because life is precious.

♡ Tanya

Want to read more about how to have a healthy body image as you age? Check out:

How to Embrace Your Aging Body

Body Appreciation is Key to Healthful Aging

(This article was originally published in the Jackson Hole News and Guide, April 13, 2022.

4 Steps to make peace with forbidden foods through Intuitive Eating

Can Intuitive Eating stop your cravings?

In a word, yes, because one goal of Intuitive Eating is to have a peaceful relationship with all foods!

But you might be thinking, what about salt and vinegar chips, cookies, and salted caramel ice cream, they’re “bad,” and “hyper-palatable,” right?

It can feel like the chips are stacked against you because many of these “forbidden” foods are designed by lab engineers to be irresistible to your tastebuds and brain.

But the good news is that there’s a way out of what might feel like vicious cravings, out of control eating (and guilt). No  “diet” or restrictive food plan required.

So how can you overcome your cravings with Intuitive Eating?

Get honest with yourself and explore these four questions:

1. Are you overly hungry, ravenous?

It’s common to want to reach for quick and convenient, packaged “easy” foods when you’re so hungry you want to “eat your arm.” Principle 2 of Intuitive Eating is Honor Your Hunger which says that can be difficult to make rational, conscious eating decisions once you’ve reached this point.

For example: That’s why when you may have packed your lunch but it no longer sounds good anymore).

An overly hungry Garfield the cat at the table.
Can Intuitive Eating stop your cravings?

Furthermore, because you’re “too hungry,” you might eat this food quickly and end up at the bottom of the package. Or maybe you graze while preparing dinner and you’re no longer hungry by the time you eat, but you eat anyway.

The Practice: Eat meals and snacks with awareness of your biological hunger needs throughout the day. Do your best to eat when you are gently hungry which means that you feel relaxed and ready to eat and could prepare food without feeling like you have to graze.

And bonus, when you work on honoring your hunger when it’s gentle, you’ll be better equipped to  honor comfortable fullness which is Principle 6 of Intuitive Eating.

2. Are you tired, lack time, unprepared? (uh, STRESSED)

So maybe you’re not overly hungry, but you’re living under chronic low-level (or high-level) daily stress. Again, it’s challenging to make conscious foods choices (especially in the late afternoon or at the end of the day when you’ve reached decision fatigue).

It makes sense that you want to press the quick and convenient button and reach for what’s easiest.

So be kind to yourself.

In my article, 3 Reasons Why You Should Ditch Your Scale (and get healthier), I discuss how you (yes, me too) can get in self-care ruts. But there’s a way out through baby steps. What small shift do you have the bandwidth for right now?

The way you do food often mirrors how you do life.
Yes, Intuitive Eating can help stop cravings.

The Practice: Figure out what’s going to work for YOU. I know this isn’t an easy question to answer. What do you need to set yourself up for a more nurturing day? What CAN you do to make nourishing yourself a priority and not put yourself last?

Here are a few ideas:

  • schedule time each week to grocery shop (or have a family member do it)
  • batch cook so you just have to reheat it (and have leftovers too!)
  • try one of the many meal kits out there (if your budget allows)

And if you don’t have an answer yet, don’t worry, that’s OK, I’ll be happy to help you – for now, just move on to the next question.

3. Do you have a rule about this food, restrict it?

Yes, you’ve heard it from me many, many times before. Nothing amplifies a craving like restriction. It makes the food extra special so when you feel like you need, want or deserve something special, you will want this food(s).

With Intuitive Eating, you learn how to make peace with this food through a science-backed practice called habituation.

Unconditional permission to eat is vital to a healthy relationship with food

The Practice: Notice your relationship with your “forbidden” foods. Does restriction make these foods more special? And by the way, if you’re substituting a “forbidden” food with a food that doesn’t truly satisfy you, you may continue to seek satisfaction. Learn more about this in Principle 5 of Intuitive Eating: Discover the Satisfaction Factor.

4. Do you eat foods that you like, satisfy your taste buds AND make you feel good?

The Practice: Explore and create a list of foods that fulfill your desire for tastes such as salty, sweet, savory that ALSO make you feel good physically when you eat them. Do you have these foods readily available in your home, purse, workbag?

I used to crave Pepperidge Farm Milano cookies. I often wanted them after dinner, even when I was full (and just a side note, yes, this mental seeking occasionally happens as I am a human just like you).

Sometimes I choose to eat them, but now when I check-in with myself, most of the time, I don’t really want those cookies (as I’ve made peace with the Milanos through the habituation process, mentioned above).

I’ve learned that some other sweet is equally as good or tastes better AND bonus also makes me feel satisfied and nourished physically. Personally, I’ve found that I love dark chocolate dipped in natural peanut butter. Or, sometimes eating some raspberries fulfills my desire for something sweet. If you hate dark chocolate, find what works for you (as remember satisfaction is key).

Furthermore, having foods that you enjoy that also support your health are great to have available when your hunger might be more stressed, emotionally-based such as wanting some comfort, pleasure, energy, a reward and the list of emotions goes on.

And of course, the most nourishing solution is to learn new stress management skills to cope with your emotions with kindness instead of relying on food to fulfill needs that it can only temporarily band-aid. This is Principle 7 of Intuitive Eating.

And one final word. And this is a very important piece of wellness wisdom:

Stop feeling guilty about, beating yourself up anytime you eat a “forbidden” food.

Remember, it’s what you eat for the most part that impacts your health. Good nutrition isn’t perfect eating and it’s just one piece of your complex health and wellbeing. To learn more about this, read: 3 Reasons Why You Should Ditch Your Scale.

And by the way, if you find yourself doing the opposite – eating mostly highly processed, “forbidden” foods – be nice to yourself. Offer yourself kindness and compassion. Revisit these self-reflection questions and get curious about what’s behind your desire for these foods. What’s your why?

So yes, Intuitive Eating can help stop your cravings. Reach out and let’s chat, as I’d love to help you explore and solve your cravings.

Tanya Mark Love Love Coffee Mug

♡ Tanya

P.S. I am a Non-Diet, Body Image Expert on The Body Love Society’s UnDiet Your Mind App! It’s the # 1 app for ditching the diet, intuitive eating and accepting your body!

3 Reasons to Set Your Scale Aside (and get healthier)

Do you love the idea of ditching your scale, but you’re worried about your weight?

If so, you’re not alone. You’ve been taught to focus on your weight (like all of us) – with your BMI number labeling your supposed health status.

And holy moly, as a culture, we spend enormous amounts of time, energy and money focused on weight and worried about what we see in the mirror.

So first, let’s honor that it’s freakin’ hard to live in this perfectionist body culture.♡

Next, I know that you wouldn’t be a part of my community if you didn’t care deeply about your health. Yet you may not know how to take care of your health without focusing on the scale.

Perhaps…

✔️ You’ve been focused on weight loss for a long time and maybe you’ve had some “success” but then you worried about gaining it back. And sure enough, when the diet or food plan ended or you found being hypervigilant with food and/or exercise just got plain exhausting, or life got in the way (because you are an actual human being) – you, like most people, gained it back and maybe more. This is not your fault, my lovely friend. Diets are not designed to be sustainable long term.

OR

✔️ You’re stressed about maintaining your current weight – berating yourself anytime there’s a scale fluctuation. And you too, my friend, it’s not your fault either because weight has been a proxy for health and no body talks about how weight fluctuations are normal. So no wonder you worry.

If not scale focused, what can you do to take care of your health?

You can take the approach I took with my current client, Maureen (and all my clients).

Mo Living Her Best Life

Here’s a shout out to Mo – who is always smiling!

“Mo” was dissatisfied with pandemic weight gain when she started her coaching journey with me. I deeply respect body autonomy. So only Mo gets to decide what’s best for her body. I never dismiss her (or anyones) desire to lose weight.

Instead, I shared with her my reasons for not focusing on her weight and how this approach would make her healthier and yes, much happier 😊 along her well-being journey. You can read Mo’s full story, in her words below in the P.S.

What’s the approach?

It’s taking care of yourself.

“Uh duh, Tanya. That’s what I’ve been trying to do!”

But has your self-care been focused on the number on the scale?

♡ What if your self-care wasn’t about self-control or “shoulds?”

♡ What if you didn’t have to use willpower to white-knuckle it to “be good” and restrict your favorite foods?

♡ What if you put the scale aside and practiced self-care from a place of self-love (instead of body hate or fear)?

TRUTH BOMB: Focusing on your weight can get in the way of you taking care of your whole self, in your unique body.

3 Reasons To Set Your Scale Aside & Get Healthier

#1 Your weight and BMI are not the best indicators of your health.

♡ Consider a woman in the “normal” BMI range and looks “fit” yet she struggles to eat well and move her body because of lack of time, money. She smokes to “deal with” stress and isolates herself. A doctor could miss helping her improve her health if she isn’t asked about her behaviors and life circumstances.

♡ Consider a young man in the “o” BMI category. His behaviors with food and movement are terrific, as are his health labs, yet he’s considered unhealthy by BMI numbers.

♡ Consider a woman in her sixties who falls in the “underweight” category who might be praised by friends and family for “being good” with food and exercise, yet her behaviors are disordered.

It’s kind of a mess, right?!

We know that people can be healthy across the size spectrum. I have patients that are ‘normal BMI’ that have Type 2 diabetes. And I have patients that are well above ‘normal BMI’ that don’t have any health problems. If you hide their weight, if you just compared their labs to each other, you’d think the person with the poorer labs was the heavier person. It’s not always true. – Dr. Gregory Dodell, Central Park Endocrinology, New York City – January 3, 2022, USA TODAY article – Everything you miss when you think weight is about willpower.

So numbers don’t mean what you think they mean.

You could be healthier at a lower or higher weight or maybe you’re already at your healthiest weight range (even though you, diet culture or your BMI label says otherwise).

Want to read more about BMI? The Myths of BMI Can Hurt Your Health

And by the way, weight fluctuations are normal. If the number on the scale goes in a direction you don’t like, it can unnecessarily make you feel crappy about yourself and send you spiraling back into “diety” behaviors – restricting, controlling, “shoulding” on ourselves. No bueno (good)!

That’s why an important part of learning Intuitive Eating (one of my favorite non-diet nutrition tools) calls for setting the scale aside because it gets in the way of you being able to listen to your own body’s signals with hunger, fullness, satisfaction and more!

Ok, let’s move on to the next important reason why you should take the focus off your weight.

#2 Weight is not a behavior

Research shows that it’s your self-care behaviors that impact your health and longevity not your weight class (BMI). This makes a lot of sense especially after reading the above real life stories.

Weight is not a behavior

So how are your self-care behaviors?

Are you taking care of yourself from a place of self-love? If so, great! ✰✰✰✰✰ (5 stars for you)!

But maybe, like all of us, you get in self-care ruts. (Yes, this includes yours truly 🤚). So first, please, please be kind and compassionate with yourself.

Maybe you didn’t sleep well and you’re exhausted, but you feel like you “should” get up early before work to exercise. (FYI, it’s better for your body to get rest than force a workout, yes, really

Then because you’re tired, so you crave carbs, sweets (check out: Why Am I Craving Carbs, Sugar) and then you beat yourself up over it. And when you get home, you order takeout because making dinner just takes waaaaay too much bandwidth.

Or maybe you just started a new job; you’re going through a divorce; you’re caring for an elderly parent or pet or you have to shuttle your kids to a zillion different activities; or you’re injured or ill; or you’re struggling with a mental health challenge and the list goes on……..

Often, your self-care rut is caused by a **combination** of things!

The best part of taking a self-love approach to self-care is that it’s flexible and you!!! get to choose what feels “doable” because you know yourself best. Period. I can’t stress enough how critical personal autonomy is to your success. Nobody likes to be told what to do – even if you think that’s what you need. I promise that you are full of wisdom. My job is to help you bring it forward.

Maybe you start with a gentle improvement to your eating habits, or moving your body in ways that you enjoy, or going to bed earlier, or having the wine a few nights instead of every night, or winding down with hot tea instead, or learning stress management techniques to calm your nervous system, or carving out time to connect with others, or making time for fun, or maybe learning to separate your self-worth from a scale number?

Focusing on the scale can be such an unnecessary strain on your health (which may already be super stressed – so let’s not add to it)!

#3 Your health is complex

Let me tell you two stories to illustrate the many factors that influence your health:

♡ Consider a woman with a higher weight (BMI) who lived healthfully into her hundreds. She drank a couple cocktails and ate fried food daily, smoked, did little to no exercise. But…she slept great, was super social, had little stress, had tons of friends, and a lovely family that adored her and she adored them.

♡ Now let’s consider a man who had a “ideal” body weight (BMI) and lived the life of health as a personal trainer and was “perfect” with his food. Yet he was a stressed about lots of things including maintaining his physique. He ate “healthfully” – but out of fear of getting a disease or gaining weight; he declined social invitations to workout or avoid the “unclean” food at the dinner party. Sadly, he died from a heart attack in his thirties. (His “health” background sounds similar to mine).

Why did one out live the other?

There are waaaay too many factors to consider, but the main point I’m making here is that weight isn’t one of them.

To summarize, the 3 reasons to set the scale aside are:

  • weight (and BMI) are not the best indicators of your health
  • behaviors are far more impactful
  • and your health is full of complexities.

So together, we (like I did with Mo!) will focus on your self-care behaviors and all the factors that influence your health and well-being,  while allowing you to live your best life (and not feel guilty for simply enjoying an ice cream cone). And ultimately, trusting your body weight to settle where it’s healthiest for you. (And don’t worry, if you struggle with body image, I’m here to support you with this too)!

♡ How does that sound dear reader? Reach out and let me know! T

P.S.🤩 Here’s what the lovely “Mo” has to say about her well-being journey:

Mo Winter Biking

“I am fortunate to have found Tanya’s coaching services.

After 20+ years in a fast paced and high-pressure career it took the pandemic to “wake me up” to the fact that my version of wellness was not effective nor sustainable.

After two years in a toxic work environment, I found myself burned out, stressed, anxious, irritable, experiencing weight gain, relying on prescription meds and just an overall lack of joy in life. This overall sense of fragility led me to research and engage with a well-being coach.

I chose Tanya over other providers because I wasn’t looking for traditional therapy or psychology nor was I uneducated about health and wellness. Tanya provided a holistic all-encompassing approach that leveraged the tools I already had at my disposal. I felt Tanya was able to customize her coaching based on my life stage.

♡ There were no rigid rules but a journey that felt organic and customized to my needs.♡

Each week Tanya listened to my needs and empowered me with digestible knowledge based on current science in a range of fields. It was with that information I could adventure out in life experimenting with what worked best for me. Tanya supported me with accountability and creative solutions along the way.

No matter what your well-being goal is, feel confident that Tanya is proven, licensed and offers versatile programs for a wide range of client needs.

After just a short time partnering with with Tanya for weekly coaching, I have benefited from the following results in seven months: improved strength and mobility, reduced aches / pains, improved body composition, menstrual cycle and elimination of PMS symptoms, stabilized mood, reduced anxiety, minimized stress and improved sleep and my nervous system, improved work life balance resulting in a fulfilled life — eventually eliminating previously prescribed meds.

Having Tanya as a virtual coach was easier and more rewarding than I expected and has led me to truly embrace flexible self-care and overall life satisfaction! Thank you Tanya – I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t met you!” – Mo Lang

♡♡♡ Thank you, thank you, thank you Mo, for these kind words! (It’s such a JOY! to be working with Mo by the way).

And if you’re curious about coaching and how we can work together to reach your goals, click here to discuss long term deep health coaching and/or book your first session. ♡ Tanya

3 Steps to Banish Body Comparison

Do you struggle with body comparison, your body image? What if you could live your best life in whatever body you have?

I’m reading Brene Brown’s new book Atlas of the Heart and was struck by her research on comparison. Brown says that humans are hardwired to default to comparison and that it seems to happen to us rather than be our choice.

She shared a story about her love for swimming and how she used to shift her attention to the person in the next lane which had the potential to ruin her swim. She compared herself to a twentysomething triathlete. (We’ll return to her story below.)

“If we don’t want this constant automatic ranking to negatively shape our lives, our relationships, and our future, we need to stay aware enough to know when it’s happening and what emotions it’s driving” says Brown.

Brown says that the goal is to raise our awareness about how and why comparison happens so we can name them, think about them, and make choices that reflect our values and our heart.

Here’s Brown’s definition of comparison:

Comparison is the crush of conformity from one side and competition from the other – it’s trying to simultaneously fit and stand out. Comparison says, be like everyone else, but better.

Comparison drives big feelings that affect our relationships, self-worth and feelings of well-being.

The good news, she says, is that you get to choose how you’re going to let it affect you. Instead, you can be yourself and respect others for being authentic.

3 Steps to Banish Body Comparison

1. Embrace imperfection.

How did we get to this place where we compare ourselves against perfection? Well, we live in a perfectionist body culture that portrays an “ideal” body type as only looking one way: thin, young and pretty (or muscular, young and handsome). Less than 5% of people naturally possess this body type and of course bodies change as we live, nobody is getting younger and at some point (if ever) we will no longer fit ideal beauty standards.

2. Focus on the positive.

Focus on something you do like about yourself to prevent your mind from automatically hyper focusing on what you don’t (*what I like to call “going down the rabbit hole of sht). For example, if you’ve been hard on your body weight, focus on a feature that you do like. I personally choose to focus on my green eyes.

Be positive. What you focus on expands.

3. See your whole self.

We tend to see ourselves as a bunch of body parts that are judged and scrutinized. We think that others are focusing on and judging the body parts that we don’t like about ourselves but they aren’t (and if they do it’s often because they have their own body insecurities). So, let’s send them kindness and compassion.

Remember, that when you compare yourself to somebody that you feel “looks perfect” that you don’t know how this person feels about themselves on the inside. Body image isn’t about appearance. It’s about how we think and feel about our bodies.

Practice seeing yourself as a whole person, not a sum of body parts. This includes seeing yourself beyond your physical body because you are more than a body.

Let’s show ourselves kindness and self-compassion.

You can retrain your brain to shift away from comparison with awareness and make new choices. And research shows that it works!

So let’s return to Brown’s swimming story. Her new strategy is “to look at the person in the lane next to me, and say to myself, as if I’m talking to them, ‘Have a great swim.’ That way I acknowledge the inevitable and make conscious decision to wish them well and return to my swim. So far, it’s working pretty well,” she says.

Instead of comparing bodies, look for the joy

The more we know, the more we can choose connection over comparison.

– Brene Brown, Atlas of the Heart

How does comparison shows up in your life? Shoot me an email and let me know or share a comment or question! I’d love to hear from you. ♡ T

P.S. Looking for body image support? Send me an email to get on the waitlist for my next Be Body Positive Group Coaching class. Get the details here.

Digestion, Food Intolerances, Inflammation – The Missing Piece

If your digestion isn’t great and/or you’re worried about gut health or food intolerances causing “inflammation,” bring the power of eating psychology to your plate.

As a Nutrition Therapy Practitioner (NTP), I was trained back in 2012 to support clients through an elimination diet as the “gold standard” to find out what foods may be causing your digestive challenges or health conditions.

Elimination diets were preferred over the popular and common use of the IgG Food Panel (which are now sold on infomercials for $99 which should scream red flag 🚩right there my friend).

The American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, Immunology explains why they don’t recommend the IgG Food Panel Testing here.

So is an elimination diet the answer to improving digestion, inflammation, intolerances?

In many client cases an elimination diet isn’t necessary, could mislead you and could even be harmful. Here are a few reasons why:

  • They can leave you with very little to eat – not eating enough calories or missing key nutrients to nourish yourself properly.
  • They can harm your relationship to food, creating disordered eating and leading to an eating disorder.
  • They are hard to do because they are strict and stressful.
  • You might feel a symptom because you learned that X food can cause your symptom. Your belief can create the placebo effect.
  • And you might feel a digestive symptom that may have nothing to do with the food itself.

TAKEAWAY:

The Metabolic Power of Relaxation is the missing piece to your digestive and metabolic health. How you eat and who you bring to the plate could be the cause of why you’re not digesting food properly, causing discomfort, and “inflammation.”

The Stress, Digestion, Metabolism Connection


“The key to understanding the stress metabolism is the central nervous system (CNS). The portion of the CNS that exerts the greatest influence on gastrointestinal function is called the autonomic nervous system (ANS). This aspect of the nervous system is responsible for getting your stomach churning, the enzymatic secretions in the digestive process flowing, and keeping the dynamic process of nutrient absorption into the bloodstream on the move. The ANS also tells your body when not to be in digesting mode, such as when there’s no food in your belly or when you’re in fight-or-flight response.

Two subdivisions of the ANS help it accomplish its dual task of digestive arousal and digestive inhibition: the sympathetic and parasympathetic branches.

The sympathetic branch activates the stress response and suppresses digestive activity.

The parasympathetic branch relaxes the body and activates digestion.

It might be helpful to think of these two parts of the nervous system as on-and-off switches.

Simply put, the same part of our brain that turns on stress turns off digestion. And conversely, the part of the brain that turns on the relaxation response turns on full, healthy digestive power. Eating nutritious food is only half of the story of good nutrition. Being in the ideal state to digest and assimilate food is the other half.”

  • Institute for the Psychology of Eating

Ready to get started strengthening your digestive fire to metabolize any food better?

Stress, Digestion and Metabolism (FREE PRINTOUT)

Stress Digestion Metabolism

Want to print out a copy? Just shoot me an email and I’ll send it directly to your inbox!

Have a question about the Metabolic Power of Relaxation and how it can help you improve your digestion and metabolism? I’d LOVE ♡ to hear from you. Tanya

Why Am I Craving Carbs and Sugar?

If you find yourself frustrated, asking yourself “Why am I craving carbs and sugar,” you can learn why and make peace with food through the process of Intuitive Eating.

But first, let’s talk about some root causes.

Have you tried to solve your “problem” by restricting carbs and sugar completely?

Or perhaps you’ve tried a 30-day sugar detox or a “healthy lifestyle” eating plan “to fix” your cravings for carbs and sweets. And maybe it felt like it “worked” but then after, your cravings returned. 😬

And consider your relationship with simple carbs like breads and cookies. What feelings come up? Maybe you feel guilty, ashamed, stressed, or worried when you eat foods that diet culture labels as “bad.”

I too once had a fraught relationship with carbs and sugar stemming from the low carb trend that said bread and sugar are “bad.”

I used to follow a “healthy lifestyle diet” that restricted grains, added sugar and even the amount of natural sugars in whole foods.

  • I avoided sandwiches and was “good” when I had a salad instead. And if I had a sandwich, I would avoid other carbs that day.
  • I viewed sweets as “bad.” ( I mean everybody knows this is true, right?)
  • I could have berries but not a banana (because some sneaky diets out there say they’re too high in sugar and don’t care if your banana contains fiber that slows down how you metabolize the sugar.) Yikes.

I was “so good,” until I ended up overeating them and even bingeing on them, eating an entire bread basket and six-pack of cupcakes. Then I felt horrible both physically and emotionally – beating myself up, worrying about my health (and if I’m honest – my weight).

But after working for over a decade in nutrition, eating psychology, Intuitive Eating and body image, I learned that if healthy eating doesn’t include a healthy relationship with food, where all foods could fit, it wasn’t truly healthy eating.

healthy relationship with food

Here are four reasons why you may crave carbs, sugars and the solutions so you can finally have a healthy relationship with all foods and your body.

4 Reasons you crave carbs and sugar and what to do about it

# 1 You crave carbs and sugar because you’re restricting food.

One of the number one reasons we crave carbs and sugar of diet culture.

You’re body tells you what it needs, but diets teach us not to listen.

Simply put, if you’re not honoring your unique biological hunger needs, your body will drive you to eat.

And guess what it will drive you to eat more? Yup, you guessed it – carbohydrates and sugars. Carbohydrates such as sugars give you quick energy but like kindling on a fire, also burn out just a quick.  So it might feel like just can’t stop eating sugar if you’re stuck in this cycle.

Have you heard of Neuropeptide Y?

Neuropeptide Y is a chemical produced by the brain that triggers your drive to eat carbohydrates, the body’s primary and preferred source of energy. NPY production is increased by food deprivation, under-eating and during stress. Eating carbohydrates produces serotonin which turns off production of NPY.

And did you know…

When your body is not getting enough of its preferred fuel source (glucose), it will break down protein mainly from muscle to convert it to glucose through a process called gluconeogenesis. This process comes at a high cost, as protein is then used as expensive fuel source instead of what it’s supposed to be used for: repair, maintains and builds muscle, hormones, enzymes and cells in the body.

It’s like using batteries in your toaster instead of plugging it in to use electricity – not efficient and potentially harmful.

When people lose weight on low carb diets it can be caused by losing muscle tissue – which is NOT what we want to be doing. Muscle tissue is your most metabolically active tissue (calorie burning tissue)!

KEY POINT: The more you deny your true hunger and fight your natural biology, the stronger and more intense food cravings and obsessions become. Furthermore, honoring hunger is foundational to being able to honor comfortable fullness (yes, read that again if you feel like you’re an over-eater).

Barriers to honoring hunger include:

✅ Diet culture rules: it’s not time (intermittent fasting), skipping meals to “save” calories, not eating after __ pm (even if you’re biologically hungry), diet plan says you can only eat __ calories, certain portion sizes, restricts carbs – so you feel hungry. You ignore hunger or at least try to using your “willpower.”

✅ Chaotic life: you’re too busy, over-scheduled. You can’t (your job doesn’t allow you to) or won’t stop and give yourself the gift of time to nourish yourself. Then by time you eat, you’re ravenous, hangry and might even feel “out of control” with your eating, or beat yourself up for craving sugar.

💡THE SOLUTION: Make sure you’re biologically fed with adequate energy and yes, carbohydrates. Ditch the diet mentality and its rules that take you further away from being able to tune and honor your true biological needs (Principle 1 of Intuitive Eating). Practice honoring your hunger when it’s gentle so that you can make conscious eating decisions and avoid triggering a primal drive to overeat (what you learn and practice in Principle 2 of Intuitive Eating).

# 2 You crave carbs when you’re feeling emotional, stressed.

First, nothing will make you feel more emotional than not getting your energy needs met (read that again). Thus dieting, restricting food (both physically and mentally!) is a stress on the body and can feel very much like emotional eating.

Also recall from above, that when you’re struggling with stress of any kind, such as an out of balance life, your body will produce Neuropeptide Y and trigger your drive to eat carbohydrates: your body’s primary fuel source.

Third, we are all emotional eaters to some degree because we’ve learned to equate food with love and comfort since infancy when we were held, loved and fed.

Anxiety, loneliness, boredom, and anger are emotions we all experience throughout life. Each has its own trigger, and each has its own appeasement. Food won’t fix any of these feelings. It may comfort for the short term, distract from the pain, or even numb you. But food won’t solve the problem. If anything, eating for an emotional hunger may only make you feel worse in the long run. You’ll ultimately have to deal with the source of the emotion. – Evelyn Tribole, Elyse Resch – Intuitive Eating

💡 THE SOLUTION: Cope with your emotions with kindness. These are skills that you will learn and practice in Principle 7 of Intuitive Eating.

# 3 You crave carbs and sugars because you have food rules that forbid them.

Humans don’t like to be told what to do period and that includes with food. We want autonomy over our food choices and nothing amplifies a craving like restriction. If we make something “off limits” – we will want it even more.

Nothing amplifies a craving like restriction

For example if you tell a toddler that he can’t have a special toy that his friend his playing with, guess what, he’ll want that special toy even if other toys are available.

Thus because of dieting, restricting or forbidding foods (physically or mentally not allowing them due to food rules) you’ve made certain foods “special” or off-limits.

A non-dieter that allows all foods in her diet has a completely different relationship with a pan of brownies. She may eat one or more and move on versus a dieter who is fixated on the plate of brownies and feels like he can’t have them in the house as he’ll eat the whole pan. Restriction and food rules cause the physical and or mental seeking – the obsession with forbidden foods.

And let me ask you, when you eat your “forbidden” foods, do you eat them consciously, slowly, truly savoring them? Or do you eat this food fast and distracted, trying to “get rid of the evidence?” In order to feel fully satisfied with any food, we need to slow down and bring presence to our plates. So many of my clients don’t really eat the brownie when eating the brownie. Satisfaction is a key piece of your nourishment.

💡 THE SOLUTION: You learn to make peace with food through a science-backed strategy called habituation and challenge the food police (Principles 3 and 4) by practicing removing all or nothing thinking (such as it’s either 100% bad or good) about carbs, sugars. Do you remember a time when eating an ice cream cone or having a sandwich with 2 slices a bread wasn’t surrounded by the food police? You can return!

# 4 You crave carbs because your meals and snacks are unbalanced.

Like I mentioned above, carbohydrates give you quick energy. But also like kindling on a fire, the energy we get from them burns out quickly.

💡THE SOLUTION: Build meals and snacks, in general, by including all three macronutrients – protein, healthy fat and carbohydrates. There’s no need for perfection – as that’s black and white thinking and, it’s not necessary to be healthy. Read more about building balanced “campfire meals” here.

And remember that carbohydrates include whole foods such as vegetables, fruits, whole grains and beans!

It will take time to re-establish a rational relationship with carbs, sugars or your forbidden foods. But with consistent practice, over time, your body will learn to trust that you’re not going to put it on another self-imposed famine and/or forbid certain foods, either physically or mentally. Bagels and sweets will just be another food – nothing special.

Don’t let diet culture steal your life. Life is too short to waste another day struggling with food and your body.

So my friend, I’ll be 100% honest with you. I’ve been teaching Intuitive Eating for years and have found that sure you can read the book, but if you would ♡ to get to where you want to go much easier and much faster, reach out for private coaching or join my next group coaching class!

P.S. Like what you’re reading? Join my community to receive my free newsletter, Redefining Wellness! ♡ Tanya

10 Benefits of Intuitive Eating

What are the ten benefits of Intuitive Eating?

Learn the benefits of Intuitive Eating and how they can help you establish a healthy relationship with food and your body.

1. No more dieting

The first principle of Intuitive Eating is Reject the Diet Mentality. Why is this so important?

Diets have taught you to not listen to your body. The good news is that you can re-learn by practicing the 10 Principles of Intuitive Eating.

Diets don’t teach you how to have a healthy relationship with food which is essential to reaching “gentle nutrition” – the end goal of Intuitive Eating. Diets may give you short term weight loss but it’s almost always followed by regaining the weight and often more. Diets aren’t meant to be sustainable. Remember, diets are designed for short term “success” with repeat business as a billion dollar industry!

2. No more trying to ‘control’ hunger

The second principle of Intuitive Eating is foundational. It focuses on a critical skill that you may have lost due to diet culture – honoring your own individual hunger.

You may have learned to ignore your hunger through diets, skipping meals, intermittent fasting etc. But your body is asking for the exact opposite – to listen for your body’s cues telling you that you need energy and respond when hunger feels gentle. Why? Because once you feel ravenous (hangry!), all bets are off for eating to comfortable fullness.

♡ KEY POINT: Honoring your hunger when it’s gentle is foundational to honoring comfortable fullness.

3. No more ‘forbidden’ foods

One of the benefits of Intuitive Eating is that it can reduce sugar cravings.
One of the benefits of Intuitive Eating is that it can reduce sugar cravings.

What if having donuts (or insert your forbidden food) in your house was no big deal?

Perhaps there’s a family member in your house that may grab a donut, cookie, brownie and moves on. No guilt for eating it. No desire to eat the whole bag. This is the way a non dieter’s mind works according to research.

Through an evidence process called habituation, you too can have a healthy relationship with all foods including your ‘forbidden’ foods.

More benefits of Intuitive Eating

4. No more food rules, cheat days

Diets and eating plans are full of food rules. Once you break one by eating a “bad” food, you feel like you failed. This is madness.

Consider that every year new “plans” (diets) come out that often contradict the rules of previous diets – don’t eat fat became eat mostly fat. I remember the eat “fat free” food rules which have been replaced by eat fat according to the Keto diet. Sigh.

You don’t need a set of rules to eat healthy. Instead you will re-learn how to listen to your body and eat healthy foods for the most part, as healthy eating isn’t perfect eating.

5. No more dissatisfied, pleasureless eating

In Intuitive Eating, finding satisfaction in your eating experiences is important. Let me share an infographic to illustrate what happens when we “diet” but want a “forbidden” food.

Dieting mindset versus Intuitive Eater mindset
One of the benefits of Intuitive Eating is that it can reduce overeating by bringing satisfaction to your plate.

Humans are designed to seek pleasure and avoid pain. So you will continue to seek pleasure and satisfaction until you get it (notice how much food was eaten by the dieter versus the Intuitive Eater (non dieter).

6. No more controlled portion sizes

In order to honor fullness, you first learn how to honor your hunger needs.

Next, ditch controlled portion sizes because they’re not one size fits all – meaning that your body’s unique energy needs change every day.

Instead you learn how to feel your body’s cues of comfortable fullness.

Hunger and fullness scale
One of the benefits of Intuitive Eating is that it can teach you how to listen to your hunger and fullness.

7. No more beating yourself up for ‘emotional’ eating

Emotional eating is demonized in diet culture which is deeply imbedded in Western culture as “bad” and something to fix. The truth is that we are all emotional eaters to some degree as we’ve learned since infancy to equate food with love, comfort and pleasure. So it makes perfect sense that we go to food as a quick fix to feel or not feel. The solution is to have a toolbox of coping mechanisms to go to beyond food.

And there’s one other cause of emotional eating: dieting, restricting your food. Nothing will make you feel more emotional than not getting your energy needs met and not being allowed to eat a food you love because it’s forbidden on your plan.

8. No more body bashing

Learning to respect body is critical to your self-care. Diet culture is based in body shame. It teaches you that there’s only one body size that’s healthy and that your body should never change as you move through the stages of life. All of this is BS.

Unlearning toxic body image messages
One of the benefits of Intuitive Eating is that it can help you have a healthy relationship with your unique body.

Through Intuitive Eating you learn how to honor your unique diverse body with self love, not self-control. Having a healthy body image isn’t about what your body looks like. Instead, it’s about your mindset toward your body and separating your self-worth from your appearance.

9. No more exercise to “burn and earn” food

In Intuitive Eating principle 9, you learn to decouple moving your body from diet culture – as merely a means to changing your body, focusing on the scale as “success.”

Could you move your body because there are a ton of benefits of exercise that don’t have you focused on your weight such as getting stronger, feeling more empowered, energized, confident and overall improving the quality of your life?

And one my favorite benefits of Intuitive Eating is:

10. No more ‘perfect eating’ to be healthy

The final principle of Intuitive Eating is Honor Your Health – Gentle Nutrition. It’s the last guideline because you first have to learn how to listen to your body’s signals to guide you in principles 1 – 9. Now you will be able to listen for how your food choices make you feel versus external food rules.

And most of all, you learn that what you eat is just a piece of your whole health so you don’t need to eat “perfectly” because there’s a complex set of factors that affects your well-being including the social determinants of health. Healthy eating is what you eat consistently over time – for the most part eating!

* Have a question about Intuitive Eating? I’d love to hear from you, Tanya

P.S. Want to learn more? Check out The Anti-Diet is called Intuitive Eating.

The anti-diet is called Intuitive Eating

“Eating low-carb is part of my healthy lifestyle.”

“I have to have a meal plan to eat healthy.”

“I’m a sugarholic — I’m addicted to brownies.”

“Without portion sizes, I’ll overeat.”

Healthy eating has become synonymous with food rules, labeling foods as “good” or “bad,” eliminating gluten, dairy, sugar and processed foods, and restricting the evil macronutrient of the year — currently carbs. It has become “normal” to control your eating to get “healthy.”

But notice how this restrictive approach feels. It’s wrought with guilt and shame. It’s filled with fear and a preoccupation with food, creating a stressful relationship to food.

Relying on external rules to determine what we should eat disconnects us from trusting our inner signals to guide us to eat healthfully. We were born with this instinct and can return to our birthright through the process of intuitive eating.

What’s intuitive eating?

Intuitive eating is an evidence-based, compassionate self-care eating framework with 10 principles created by registered dietitians Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch as a solution to a problem they faced more than 25 years ago: “Dieting” doesn’t work.

The 10 principles are designed to enhance or remove obstacles to interoceptive awareness — considered intuitive eating’s “superpower” — a process in which your brain perceives physical sensations arising from the body such as heartbeat, breathing, hunger and fullness.

The 10 principles of Intuitive Eating

  • Reject the diet mentality
  • Honor your hunger
  • Make peace with food
  • Challenge the Food Police
  • Discover the satisfaction factor
  • Feel your fullness
  • Cope with your emotions with kindness
  • Respect your body
  • Move and feel the difference
  • Honor your health with gentle nutrition.

Only recently has intuitive eating gained popularity. Since this summer’s fourth edition release of Tribole and Resch’s 1995 book, “Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Anti-Diet Approach,” articles regularly appear in mainstream media such as Self and Real Simple magazines and Goop.com.

Why intuitive eating now?

Because we’re tired of being at war with our bodies. We’re fed up with the 95% failure rate of restrictive diets that an estimated 45 million Americans return to year after year. See BostonMedical.org. We’re frustrated by the dismal statistics that report two-thirds of dieters regain the weight, plus more, within two to five years. We’re craving both the happy and healthy relationship with food and our bodies that intuitive eating delivers.

The intuitive eating process begins with “reject the diet mentality.” But you may say, “I’m not dieting. I’m just eating healthy.” Most of us don’t realize that we’re swimming in diet culture. As Tribole says, we’re like fish in water: We’re not conscious of it.

Hardly a day goes by that we don’t hear conversations about being “good” for skipping dessert, needing to make up for “overeating” by skipping a meal or burning it off with exercise, and ordering bunless burgers. This is diet mentality, which has become a “normal” part of “healthy” eating. Thus we must opt out of the diet mentality to engage fully in the intuitive eating process.

Intuitive Eating is an empowerment tool to healthy eating

With popularity comes confusion

Perhaps you’ve read that intuitive eating is just a mindfulness diet or a hunger/fullness diet.

Yes, it includes eating with awareness and honoring satiety is key. But these descriptions oversimplify the process of intuitive eating by cherry-picking one or two of the 10 principles, which are designed to be practiced together, synergistically.

Furthermore, the principles are guidelines, not rules to pass or fail. Instead the process emphasizes a self-compassionate, curious, “for the most part” mindset. There’s no room for restriction, guilt, shame, judgment or the black-and-white thinking of diet culture in intuitive eating.

“Make peace with food” focuses on unconditional permission to eat all foods, especially the ones you feel are your “problem” foods.

Take the pan of brownies. You feel you can’t trust yourself to have them in your house because you’re “addicted” to sugar and will eat them all. But by practicing an evidence-based strategy called habituation — repeated exposures to a food making it less appealing — you can make peace with the brownies.

Common food “problems” such as cravings, emotional eating, binge eating, overeating are often caused by the restrictive, “I can’t have” mentality.

Intuitive Eating is not a weight loss plan

If you encounter an “intuitive eating” plan that promises weight loss, Tribole says to “run away.” Recognize that it’s sneaky diet culture co-opting the term.

Putting weight loss on the back burner is critical to becoming an intuitive eater. Focusing on your weight interferes with your ability to perceive the physical sensations that arise from within your body.

“Honor your health — gentle nutrition” is the 10th principle of intuitive eating. To make food choices that honor your health and taste buds while making you feel well, you must ditch diet culture confusion that muddles your mind, master interceptive awareness and experience all the principles of intuitive eating.

Finally, Tribole and Resch remind us that healthy eating isn’t perfect eating. “You will not suddenly get a nutrient deficiency or gain weight from one snack, one food, one meal, or one day of eating. It’s what you eat consistently over time that matters; progress not perfection is what counts.”

After learning, practicing and experiencing the 10 principles of intuitive eating, the conversations about healthy eating sound different:

* “I can enjoy sandwiches again, guilt-free.”

* “I don’t need a meal plan, because healthy eating isn’t complicated.”

* “Dinner didn’t fill me up, but it felt good not to have the negative head space about getting seconds.”

* “My husband is thrilled that having a pan of brownies in the house is no big deal anymore, just a pleasurable food to enjoy.”

Ah, yes, that last statement was one of my shifts.

Intuitive eating, the “revolutionary” anti-diet approach, is changing lives and healing relationships with food and body. Be a rebel. Let it change yours, too.

To your happiness and health,

  • Tanya

Ready to learn how to eat intuitively? Get started!

(This article was originally published in the September 20, 2020 Jackson Hole News and Guide).