#112: Strategies To Free Yourself From Food and Body Shame This Holiday Season

This is the final episode of the podcast! Tara shares her big takeaways from publishing over 100 episodes, including why closure is so important, some unexpected outcomes from the podcast and what happened when she trusted herself and the energy she was noticing. Tara also shares her vision for her next podcast. 

Erica Mather is a certified Yoga Therapist and the author of “Your Body, Your Best Friend: End the Confidence-Crushing Pursuit of Unrealistic Beauty Standards & Embrace Your True Power”. She brings her own struggles with body image from a young age and transformational yoga principles to guiding people to feel better in their bodies, no matter what body challenges they have.    On the podcast, we talked about why it’s so common for folks to dissociate with painful internal body talk and the difference between objectification and embodiment. We also talked about the importance of recognizing unrealistic thin body ideals and fat bias and the role of personal responsibility in freeing yourself from the impact of them.  Erica shares what it’s like to have your body as your best friend, so you can see that possibility for yourself. We also talked about body image in the yoga community, our drive for belonging, and how choosing to befriend your body is an ultimate act of defiance.    Check out Erica’s book: Your Body, Your Best Friend: End the Confidence-Crushing Pursuit of Unrealistic Beauty Standards & Embrace Your True Power on Amazon.    Website: www.ericamather.com Social media handles: IG: @Erica-Mather FB: https://www.facebook.com/erica.mather  

Adrien Paczosa believes that dietetic care with a health at every size approach should be accessible and affordable nationwide. Thanks to her vision, she founded Nourish, a virtual-first nutrition group with affordable access to nutrition care.     On the podcast, we talked about how focusing on body weight only creates harmful weight cycling, how every diet and diet book should have a warning that weight cycling is harmful to your health, and why everyone should be offered the option to define health for themselves because it’s a personal definition. We also talked about incorporating other ways of improving health into daily habits, without the focus on weight loss.    Learn more about Nourish here. www.UseNourish.com Connect with Nourish and Adrien on Social: @UseNourish.com @AdrienPaczosa

When you feel better about your body this holiday season, you’ll have the energy and emotional resilience to be more present and available. On the podcast, Tara offers you six strategies that will support you to feel better about your body and also feel better living inside of your body. These simple and practical strategies can be practiced all year round.  Let’s stay connected! Join my weekly newsletter here.

Diet and weight loss commercials are in full force in the holiday season and it can feel pretty overwhelming. On the podcast, Tara shares why this is happening and offers some concrete strategies with media, social media and in your relationships on how to set boundaries so you can continue along your non-diet and intuitive eating practices with more peace and ease.  Let’s stay connected! Join my weekly newsletter here.  

Holiday stress eating is often seen as a problem that needs to be solved by changing what you eat. But this strategy only makes you focus on food as the problem and distracts you from why you need relief in the first place. On the podcast, Tara offers you a new framework around holiday stress eating that’s based around needs and feelings. Stress eating is just a strategy used to try to get your needs met. When you understand what your needs are, you can start to use other ways to support yourself without food.  Learn more about Non Violent Communication and the Compassion Course here. https://www.nycnvc.org/ Let’s stay connected! Join my weekly newsletter here.

The holiday season is an intense time, and it’s not surprising that folks may feel more shame around their patterns of eating and their bodies. On the podcast, Tara shares what the mechanism of shame is and how it works, why you may be feeling more shame during this time of year, and how shame around food and shame around your body are two different things (but may feel like one thing). Tara offers some strategies around how to free yourself from shame so that you don’t need to react and reinforce it.  Let’s stay connected! Join my weekly newsletter here.

On the podcast, Tara speaks with the founders of the Center for Body Trust, Dana Sturtevant and Hilary Kenavey. They co-authored “Reclaiming Body Trust: A Path To Healing and Liberation”, which was recently published.  Hillary and Dana describe diet culture as a shapeshifter that’s incredibly deceptive. They also share how destructive it is because it speaks to people’s hearts and tender spots. This is why some people are more susceptible to the order and control around food that diet culture offers.  Hillary shares why it’s so heartbreaking that people aren’t offered consent to opt into diet culture, instead they are just immersed in it.  We also talked about what trust looks like and feels like. Dana asks “ Who are you placing your trust in?” when it comes to food, your health and your body. She shares the analogy of seeing your journey of body trust as a tree, and being able to move from old poisonous soil to nourishing soil.  Hilary offers a powerful distinction around transformation, which often comes from being able to reclaim our personal narrative around food and body image and being able to understand all the pieces of it including the impact of diet culture.    Connect with Dana and Hillary here: FACEBOOK: @CenterForBodyTrust   INSTAGRAM: @Center4BodyTrust   Order your copy of Reclaiming Body Trust here.    Stay connected with Tara and Join her weekly newsletter here.

I can just say “junk food” and you know immediately what foods fit into that category. You also know what foods are “healthy”. We’ve learned which foods are which from our parents, teachers, social media, friends, and diet programs.   But do these labels change whether you eat those foods or not? Or, do you just feel better or worse when you eat them?  On the podcast, Tara dives into the messages we hear about the value of foods and how conflicting they are, why these labels are meant to motivate us to eat in a certain way but that’s not really what it does, and how to look at food instead (without the labels).  Let’s stay connected! Join my weekly newsletter here.  

You may have hit diet rockbottom and refuse to go on another diet again. Or, you’re just frustrated with your relationship with food and you’re ready for something different and new. Or, you stumbled upon intuitive eating and are curious.    In this episode, Tara shares six things (she added one at the end) to keep in mind while you’re starting your intuitive eating practice. They include some of the challenges you may encounter when you reject the diet mentality, learn about diet culture, practice tuning into your body, want to know if you’re doing it right and feel alone because so many people around you are still dieting.    This journey is worth it and my hope this episode will leave you feeling better equipped to take these steps in a new direction.  Let’s stay connected! Join my weekly newsletter here.