Can there truly be a body love diet?  A diet that’s core message is Body Love?             

I am here to tell you, yes there is!

Many of us feel we are struggling with our weight at some point in our life, some more than others … but there will always be a time in our life that seems to revolve around our relationship with food.

I remember many a time in my life where I used food ~

to gain some form of control

to self sabotage

to pile on the pounds to protect myself.

to suppress my emotions.

I know I am not alone in these unloving relationships with food.

I have had times in my life when I have restricted what I ate and followed a strict diet plan and diary to desperalty look like anything, other than how I looked.

Only to find further on down the line that the reasons behind my unhappiness with my body image or the way I felt in my own skin, would come round again and stronger.

For this reason and working alongside many clients whom have struggled with their weight, I am not a believer in just dieting.

It is a miserable existence, sometimes achieving the desired outcome … sometimes not.  But it does not attend to the core reason why we have this relationship with food and our body in the first place.

These destructive relationships with food exist, where love is missing. 

Something in our psyche feels ~

Unloveable.

Not good enough.

Unworthy.

Fearful.

Empty.

Disconnected.

LOVE creates a kind, nourishing, attentive, listening environment like an unconditional embrace that allows and enhances the natural growth and unfolding of beauty in all living things and we are no different.

And so if love is missing, the first step to any diet is love.

I want to share a story of a client I had.

Sue (not her real name) weighed over 20 stone.  She had not had a relationship for 15 years.  She suffered with vaginismus, anxiety and depression.

She would have periods of eating well, caring about what she put into her body and then anytime something in her external life felt overwhelming or made her feel unlovable and small.  She would binge eat all day, for days.

The triggers in her world, she would add power to.  She felt unlovable, so she disappeared for days in to that feeling, making it larger and sticky and TRUTH  with the dirtiest junk food she could get hold of.

No diets were working because she had not attended to how she felt about herself on the inside so that triggers no longer had any standing in her life.

We started to gradually play with suggestions, that Sue would go home and experiment with … noticing and journally (sometimes painting) what came up for her as she introduced new self loving ways into her daily routines.

Simple things like how she touched her own skin while showering.  How she touched her skin after showering.

These steps increased to listening to her body … knowing what it wanted to eat and when.  Rather than Sue deciding for it, when and what was best.

She did not diet at all.

But in just six sessions, Sue was losing weight with no effort.  Her smile reached her eyes.  She had found a new love for art and joined an art class.  She had a boudoir photo shoot … just the way she was. (I was blown away with the photos)

She walked down the road, proud to be in her body.  She moved like she owned it and with this exocitc sassy wiggle.  She moved like she belonged here!

Her vaginismus had eased and she had met a guy, she wanted to develop a relationship with.

With the body love diet, Sue was able to witness, hold, and love her inner self and so all the ways in which she sabotaged and suppressed herself behind food dissolved, changing her relationship with food, her relationship with her body and the world around her.

When loved, our bodies take their natural shape of beauty, we exude all that we are from the inside out.  All that is not love falls away  … without trying, struggle, force or watching the scales.

How to begin your body love diet:

Get rid of the scales.  We do not need to measure our body, this is about how you feel in your body.

Bring a daily loving body ritual into your life.   That maybe buying some new soap or oil and being attentive to your skin in the shower, by simply slowing down and noticing how you touch your own skin.  Can you soften it to a caress?

Notice any discomfort when loving your body … take long, slow breathes.

Where is the discomfort residing?  Belly, throat, solar plexus?  Allow the discomfort to speak through journally, painting … any medium that supports you to express.  Listen as if you were listening to a friend or a child, with compassion.

This is so we may witness, parent and change this unloving, untrue belief we have that is keeping us stuck in unhealthy food relationships.

I would love to hear from you.  Tell me your struggles and your celebrations.

Or work one to one with me through an adventure of body love.