If you've been listening to season to of my podcast Outside the Square, you would have heard that our group program 12 weeks to Confidence is now open!

I'm so excited to be working with my amazing co-host Josephine in a live format where we will be able to support you and answer your questions live. We have so much fun recording our podcast, and I know that our first round of 12 Weeks to Confidence will be just as wonderful.

After healing my dysfunctional relationship with food and body image by processing stuck emotions and life experiences, I became an Eating Psychology and Emotional Release Coach to help others to achieve an easeful and joy filled relationship with food, body and life.

When I think about my past eating experiences, I realised I only brought out the ‘good’ crystal glassware or that ‘special’ salad bowl when creating a meal for others, believing those things were ‘too good’ to be used for just me. I often ate on the couch watching TV, not really paying attention to my meals and could finish a meal within one or two ad breaks in the show.

For many of my clients, their biggest concern when they first came to see me about their relationship with food was emotional eating. This is something I have experienced myself too and continue to even now, having completely transformed my relationship with food and body.

Eating Psychology Coaching and Emotional Release Coaching contrary to what might come to your mind first, is not about making dietary changes and focusing on what food you’re eating.

Welcome to episode two of the vlog series. We’re talking today about working with weight.

Weight is something that many of us feel a need to control. We have been conditioned to watch the scales, and have been told that our happiness and worthiness is only as good as the number on the scale.

Welcome to episode one of the vlog series. I’m so excited to share some information with you about a whole range of topics over the coming weeks.

For so many of us, we are holding out on the life we want until we have reached what we feel is required of our body or our eating habits. A great exercise to assist with setting us up for success is to begin to put those things in place now.

I love blending essential oils and making fragrances. To launch my new Aroma and Emotions sessions, I’m offering you 15% off.

I received these beautiful blooms a few weeks ago with a message from a friend telling me how she found my steps in creating this beautiful Mind Body and Eating space was inspirational to her.

"I just want to get back to...":

• the weight I was <insert time of life>

• the diet that worked for a while that one time

• the body I had when I was doing competitive exercise

• my pre-baby weight

• fitting back into that one pair of pants

"then I'll be happy and I won't diet any more and I will accept my body."

I hear so many versions of this desire to get ourselves, our diets and our bodies back to another time. But what do we do until then, do we just keep hating ourselves and telling ourselves that we're failures for not being where we once were?

It’s been an unsettling and uncertain time for many of us as the globe shifts and changes during the Covid-19 pandemic. I’ve heard lots of worry and fears surfacing for many, and also hearing lots of people talking negatively about how little they are achieving during this time that we’re now all spending at home. To this, my response has been ‘try to have some self compassion’.

Making resolutions at the beginning of a New Year can be a great way to focus your mind. When our goals about our bodies and diets are strict and do not allow for flexibility, we can often feel a sense of failure if we don’t achieve them exactly. 

The first time I did a juice cleanse was about 3 years ago. My motivation was clear as crystal - to lose weight, plain and simple. I believed that three days of drinking juice not only would get me to my goal weight, but would also change all my habits so that on the other end I would find it so simple to stick with eating only beautiful healthy green foods and maintaining my new weight would be a breeze. I struggled through, wishing I could eat almost the whole time, and while I enjoyed the juices, I realised that my expectations had really been rather askew.

Many of our eating behaviours are based on beliefs or fears that are unconscious to us, established from our early food experiences, conversations around our dinner tables in childhood and the values and beliefs of those around us.

Why is it that when it comes to utility companies and other large service providers the common saying is 'don't treat me like a number', yet when it comes to the numbers on the scales and on our clothing we tend to reduce ourselves to a number. So much so that for many of us, when we see the number as higher than we deem acceptable, we are already telling ourselves that we're unworthy or setting an internal intention to have a bad day, but if that number is lower, we equate that to better and we have a spring in our step.

Our relationship with food is a reflection of other relationships in our lives. It is these areas that become wonderful doorways for us to walk through to help us discover the things that can cause our discomfort around food, body image or weight. As women, one of the most impactful doorways to walk through for exploration is how our relationship with food is a mirror of our relationship with our mothers.

Just a few years ago, I remember getting to the end of  Summer and thinking ‘oh I wish I had gone swimming’, having spent another Summer avoiding both the beach and the pool because I felt that I was too large, that I took up too much space, that my legs were not tanned enough, that everyone would be looking at me and disapproving. I was determined that I would only go again once my body was ‘good enough’ to be seen in swimmers in public. And I would regret it each Summer.

I've noticed lately that we have a bit of a habit of commenting about the weight of friends and family as a way to compliment them - "You look like you've lost weight"