17: Hate your body? 15 ways I learned to love my body

0:00:00
 Hey guys, and welcome to No Wellness Wankery Podcast. I’m your co-host Lyndi Cohen and I’m joined by Jenna D'Apice 

0:00:41
 Hi. Thanks for having me here today.

0:00:43
 As always.

0:00:44
 As always.

0:00:45
 I'm really excited about today's episode because this is a big thing that I've been working on as an active mission, and I know everyone is probably thinking, oh, I should do it, but it's something you really have to work on every day.

0:00:59
 And what is this? Ways that we can love our bodies. So today we're going through 15 ways that I've reached that point. And number one, let's start there. You don't have to love your body.

0:01:09
 So that's a...

0:01:11
 What a twist.

0:01:12
 That's a...

0:01:13
 Just gonna throw it out. To go from hating and loathing your body, as I did, to go in one fell swoop and then imagine that you're going to love your body is huge, especially in a world that's constantly telling you that your body is flawed. I was just laughing with Jenna because I got a text just before we started recording this telling me how I can fix my complexion, complexion correction for your face because my face is flawed. We live in a world that's constantly telling us that we are flawed. Therefore, to love your body is a supremely defying act. I don't even know if it's possible. What we'd rather aim for is just simply respecting our body, body neutrality, not hating on it. I will settle for not hating on our body.

0:01:53
 I think it always comes down to why do you need to love your body when it shouldn't be that big of a deal? It's just this is your vessel that you've been given. It helps you do things. It helps you live It's not something that can be good or bad loved or hated. I feel like hate and love kind of come in that

0:02:08
 They come together. Yeah, and almost like we're striving to love your body. You're spending even a lot of time thinking about your body and We shouldn't yeah, you shouldn't have to think so you can't think about caring for it and respecting it But beyond that just like less thoughts about your body. That is the goal.

0:02:27
 That is the goal. So our first way to learn to love the body is that you don't have to love your body.

0:02:32
 What is number two?

0:02:33
 Number two is to get really good at reminders. So because we live in this world that's telling us we're not good enough, to you are gonna have days where you wake up and you go, I don't like the way I look. That is just unfortunately the way we live. And I know there are a few people who don't have to have bad body image days. I am impressed by you. I don't know how you do it, but for the rest of us, expect bad body image days. Instead of letting them sweep you off and you hop on the scale and you're the wrong weight and it ruins your entire day, you try on a pair of jeans and they don't fit you anymore and that cascades into body loathing, what we want to try and do is firstly notice what is happening. First, we go, okay, all right, so I'm feeling pretty bad about my body right now. Notice that that is what that actually means. What it means is discomfort in my body. And then think about what can I do today to help me feel less uncomfortable in my body. Firstly, find pants that fit, okay?

0:03:25
 Always point one.

0:03:26
 It's always point one. Make sure your underwear aren't too tight, okay? Cool, it's the underwear's problem, not your body's problem. And then think about what's one thing you can do that day that can help you move your body, whatever it is. One thing I always think about is that my brain is a radio and I just imagine whenever I notice that thought going, you're fat, you need to lose weight, you have to go on a diet, I decide that my brain is a radio and I choose to change the channel. I just go, okay, we're not going to have that thought right now. I actively choose something else to think about. If my brain deviates back to that old radio station, I decide to change it again and I just do that as many times as I need to do.

0:04:02
 And the brain is a powerful thing and the more you do that, the easier it becomes.

0:04:06
 You're carving out new neural pathways and finding a new way to think. Exactly. And one thing you can actually say to yourself is, it's not my job to look perfect from every angle. I don't need to be thin to be healthy. You need to find a statement that you can kind of come back with to help you on those bad body image days.

0:04:24
 And I also find just kind of being prepared. So say I have, there's a few things that I love wearing and I feel good in sometimes, but sometimes if it's that time of the month or I'm not feeling good, I don't want to wear them. So if I'm going away, I don't just take that one thing to be trapped to wear it because then it'll ruin my weekend away or my holiday or something if I have to wear something that's maybe more form-fitting and I don't feel like wearing it. So it's like give yourself options because you're not always gonna feel the same in your body as you do right now as if you do in a

0:04:55
 few days it fluctuates. Absolutely so I did this thing where I tracked my period for nine months and every single day I'd record things like my mood, my bowels, how much energy I had, my sex drive, my skin. Yes actually I'll plug your blog because you have a very good blog post about that which I read. Go on and have a read if you want to. And one of the things that blew me away the most was how much my body confidence was so deeply tied to my period. So on the the week before my period, we know that you were very savagely hungry that week. I just hated how I looked. And what was very interesting for me to see was that actually it wasn't a reflection of how my body was. It was very much just a reflection of my mood which is related to my hormones. And once I could get past that week, the feeling of needing to diet dissipated because suddenly I was feeling a whole lot better. So, is your period coming up? That would be a question to ask yourself. Maybe that's something that's contributing. And number three, one more way that helped me love or accept or not hate my body was to follow other role models. I personally, and I know there's a bit of debate about this in the body positive communities, I follow people on Instagram or wherever who I think are amazing and they're in bigger bodies. Someone like Ashley Graham, I'm like, oh my goodness, you're a goddess.

0:06:19
 She's unbelievable.

0:06:19
 She's amazing, if you don't follow her, do follow Ashley Graham. And I just see her working her magic, being confident, being sexy and sassy and cool, and I'm like, it's a reminder that I don't need to weigh less in order to be all these things, to be confident and like myself. And I just think the more role models we have of people doing that, and whether or not you can still want to aspire to be sexy or beautiful, that's a whole different discussion. But if you do, that even having these people can give you- Can show you that sexy and beautiful doesn't- It's not a size.

0:06:52
 Yeah, it's not a size.

0:06:53
 Yeah. And oh my goodness, it really, really helped me to follow more people like that and unsubscribe from those thin body ideals where it seems like the person's only accomplishment is that they don't weigh that much. And I'm like, that's not that impressive to me anymore. Yeah. There's so many people on Instagram that have, or social media in general, that have so much substance it's not just about what they look like in every photo and you just got to troll. It's like a good op shop. You just got to troll through and find the good ones and leave the bad ones on the rack. And if social media keeps suggesting that you might like this content, you say no, bugger off. I don't want that content. And you toggle that thing that says I'd like to see less of this. Okay, cool. Number four is consider that you might not see yourself correctly. This is an important thing when it comes to body dysmorphia. So we have this idea that our brain is trustworthy. We trust our brain to tell us a whole bunch of things to do.

0:07:50
 But our brain is a big fat liar.

0:07:51
 It can be, you know. It might tell you when you need to pee and be spot on about that. But the way you see yourself might not be an accurate reflection of how you actually look. And I think that's a really important thing. So sometimes when you catch a glimpse of yourself and go, I hate how I look, that might not have anything to do with what you weigh or how you look, that is just you being programmed that unless you are like a perfect looking model person at every single moment that you're going to dislike yourself. So can you just when you have those sorts of things yourself, maybe I'm not seeing myself correctly.

0:08:22
 Yeah I was gonna say what should you do just a quick little mental reminder.

0:08:25
 Yeah.

0:08:26
 So, firstly, it's not important. Like I don't need to look perfect in order to be happy or to be healthy or whatever you want to do. And then just a quick reminder going, I'm probably not seeing myself correctly right now. Yeah. Like, okay, so you know how you've felt fabulous wearing a certain dress and you go and you like see a photo of yourself like, shit, is that how I looked? And you never wear that dress again. I mean, this whole idea that you will have great angles, you will have bad angles, you don't need to throw out an entire dress in order to like yourself.

0:08:59
 Yeah, and I always think if I catch myself at a bad angle, it's like no one's looking at me from that angle. That's just a glimpse, a fleeting second. Not everyone has a razor focus on every single inch of my body like I would in that moment. It's like everyone doesn't have hype, everyone's just focusing on themselves.

0:09:19
 Yeah, and everyone's going to have a double chin from some angles.

0:09:22
 Correct.

0:09:23
 No one else has.

0:09:25
 Number five.

0:09:26
 Just clean up how you speak to yourself.

0:09:29
 This is huge.

0:09:30
 Yeah, so self-talk really matters. And you know, it's like sometimes you notice that you're being so hard on yourself. For me, normally this would happen when I'm trying to fall asleep at night. Oh yes, it's like a quick rundown of the day you were born and every mistake you've made

0:09:46
 up until this moment.

0:09:47
 How could I have said that thing? That must have been so stupid. Or feeling, you know, body checking and checking your body and being like, oh, I don't like how I feel right now. This is like going back to that idea of changing the radio channel and just deciding that you don't want to talk to yourself like that. So number one is become aware of when you're actually being a bit of a dickhead to yourself and then deciding that you're not going to do that anymore. Have you found anything that works for you when it comes to negative self-talk and beating yourself up?

0:10:18
 The biggest thing that's had an impact on me is stopping focusing on diet and food because then all I'm thinking about is diet and food, then that correlates straight back to all that I'm thinking about is my body. And the more you relax around food, around time, the less time you're thinking about your body and the less time you have to be hating on it.

0:10:37
 Yes, I love that.

0:10:38
 You get to just coast a little bit more through because if you're not always... Kind of diet, food, and exercise just kind of go with your body. So when you're always thinking about one, it just goes into the other. So just thinking about, I don't know, other things that I want to do in my life other purposes. I have like living being friends with people having joy Good goals to focus on

0:10:57
 You guys know you know that thing that happens where you run into an old friend They've like lost all this weight, and they they just can't stop telling you But they want to talk about weight loss, and they want to tell you hey, they've done it I always think about that person, and I think I don't know if you are aspirational because I can hear how obsessed you have to be right now with food. That is it. To have attained this weight loss, you have had to hyper focus on weight and now that's all you keep bringing the conversation back to that and you're angry with me because I didn't comment on the fact that you lost weight and it's just because you are hyper focused and obsessed and I think that's disordered and I don't want to play into it. So rather than saying that is something to be jealous of, well, what if we could be like, that is disorder and I don't want to actually be part of that.

0:11:46
 No, that's exactly right because the more you fixate on something, then you think everyone else is fixating on it and they're actually not. And it's kind of like if they're thoughts you're having, then it's maybe you do need to get some help, talk to someone because that stuff doesn't go away.

0:12:01
 No, it doesn't. We've got to work on this stuff. It's a conscious decision. Number six is a conscious decision that we can make and it's doing a closet cleanse. Oh my goodness, we talk about this often. Your clothes are meant to fit your body. Your body doesn't need to change to fit your clothes. And do not underestimate the power of putting on clothes that fit you and how that changes your body confidence. Recently, I've noticed that I started to get the desire to go on a diet again. Even after all these years I still get that feeling and I realized, well, I was like, what's causing this? This is crazy. Where is this coming from? My pants were too tight and it's like, you know what happened is after I'd given birth I was like slowly coming back into the size I was before I gave birth and so I just went ahead and I bought my old size clothing not realizing that my body has just shifted and like things fit differently, particularly around my stomach. And so the new style of pants that are currently cool, I'm trying to be a cool mom, it's just too tight around my stomach and I was making me feel so uncomfortable. And here's a bit of a styling tip. You are limited by your styling options by your pants and your bottoms, okay? So you can have so many different tops, but if you only have one pair of pants that actually feel comfortable in, you're so limited by how many clothes you have. So having bottoms that fit you properly is so important. I know for many of us, our stomachs are that really sensitive part of our bodies where we feel most insecure about. Sizing up is a fabulously smart thing to do. Clothing companies really do manipulate our clothing sizes so that we could feel better or we feel worse or whatever it is. And now I've just gotten really comfortable with the idea of sizing up and I feel so much more comfortable. And you look better when you're wearing the right size clothing. You don't look like you're squished in.

0:13:51
 You're not squished in. I think it's also about just accepting things. I know I bought this really nice dress and I wore it to a wedding and then COVID happened and then I had another wedding last weekend and I thought, oh, I'll wear that dress because I spent so much money on it and I love it. And I only got to wear it once. I'm so excited to get to wear it again. COVID, that was a long time ago. A lot's happened in those two years. And when I tried it on, it didn't fit me. And I was really crushed by that. But that's a lot of time. Like I've been alive for what, 29 years and that's two and a half of them.

0:14:22
 That's a big hunk.

0:14:24
 It's like, body's are going to grow and change. And yet maybe it doesn't fit me right now. Maybe it never will again, but it's like, I don't have to be tied to that as that is my now marker of why I feel upset.

0:14:36
 It's not worth sacrificing your health and your mental well-being for a dress.

0:14:41
 No.

0:14:42
 Or some money that you once spent. The money's gone.

0:14:45
 The money's gone.

0:14:46
 Let's let that go. Exactly. I have a similar story. the story I got this dress pre-kids and it's like this beautiful black sexy dress and we had our anniversary my husband and I so we went out for dinner like a 11 course digger station yeah it was opulent it was 10 years anyway wore the dress and then by the end of it I was like so I was like I was like I felt like a sausage I was stuck in a sausage casing it was like a it was a bodycon dress yeah and the dinner was like four hours long. Anyway, I'm leaving and we're in like King's Cross kind of way and a homeless man comes up to me and he's like, congratulations on the baby. I'm like, oh, I'm not pregnant. I had an 11 course day special meal. And then part of me thinks about when you buy clothes, like think about, am I going to sit down in this? Okay, so do the sit-down test and am I going to eat in this? Because maybe while you're standing up you can wear

0:15:44
 that, but are you gonna eat and sit down? Yes, so many of my friends will buy pants and then at the end of dinner they're like I've got to undo my pants. It's like we

0:15:50
 need to allow a little bit more room in these pants. Yeah, and by the way, if you have to undo your pants next to me I'm also like... Oh, I could probably undo my pants right now. When you're sitting in this position for a bit longer I'm like that buttons kind of digging in yes and then you can't stop thinking about it so getting pants that fit you is a very very important thing to do guys I think that's coming up to the second motto of the podcast is we don't like bonus wankery and get pants that fit you that's how important it is what number we up to number seven is don't buy clothes that you need to lose weight to wear this is very in line with this but I used to do this all the time but if all the time if I just lost a bit of weight, then I could wear this. Or if I had perfect right underwear, then I could wear this outfit. But the stars never align. It would stare at me in my wardrobe and make me feel shitty about myself every day because I couldn't wear it today. And I just think, screw that. We cannot buy clothes that we need to lose weight to fit into.

0:16:46
 And then it also kind of attaches this negative emotion to it. So it's like even if you do, like even if you probably won't, but if you ever fit into it, it's kind of like, it wasn't a positive experience to get there. There was like some loathing and hatred and all these things wrapped into a little dress. It's like that's, we don't need that.

0:17:05
 No, Liz, we don't need that. So, and if you do have currently those items in your wardrobe, pop them into a box. We're going to take them out of our wardrobe so they don't have to stare you in the face and like you can stick them on the top of your wardrobe, you can donate them if you want. But let's vow to never buy clothes that we need to lose weight to fit into.

0:17:21
 This is it. A new thing that I'm doing, if I'm like buying things online, which granted in today's world a lot of shopping is online, if there's two sizes, I always get the bigger one because I'm like, I would rather my clothes be too big than too small and if I have to buy clothes and it's too small and I have to return it for a bigger size, that's just going to put me in a bad mood and I don't need that. Just size up.

0:17:43
 Size up. Yeah, I'm all about that. Okay, that's the moral. That's the moral. That's the thing I'm taking home from this. Number eight is stop using the explore function on Instagram. And I don't know if you know what that is. That's a little magnifying glass at the bottom of Instagram where you can go and see all the people that you don't follow. Instagram has changed the algorithm slightly and so now they're also suggesting to you people who don't follow content that you might like. It is very hard to curate your feed these days, so my top tip would be to use social media less. Something you can do is go into the settings of your phone, go into screen limits, screen time, and see how many hours a week you are dedicating to Instagram or social media. It might be an entire day of your life per week and using less of it is going to be a good idea. But another thing we can do is every time we get recommended something on social media that we don't like, just tell them to bugger off. I don't like this. This sucks. This is not what I want to see more of and just be ruthless around it. The number of times I have to say I'm not interested in these before and after photos is out of control and the algorithm is clearly not picking up.

0:18:49
 And surely it will pick up more and more over time what does it

0:18:51
 keep giving you the same thing you know what it does as well I think if you like stare at it for slightly longer then it's gonna think that you do like it so even if you are saying I don't like it I think it's like oh no she does because that diet part of your brain is still like well are we interested in this yeah

0:19:06
 maybe we are so we're gonna be a bit ruthless about that number 10 number 9 oh there's a connection between number 8 number 9 so I thought they were the same thing. No, number nine, this is huge.

0:19:19
 I'm for Fitspo and Thinspo. That's if you are opting in. Opt out, opt out, my friends. And this includes the magazines that you read. So sometimes you can call those magazines that are like, they'll pay lip service to things like, love your body, but then they'll also just tell you how to lose 10 kilograms in 10 days, that kind of thing.

0:19:36
 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:19:37
 Let's ditch those all night.

0:19:38
 I keep getting this ad served to me where it's like, never diet again, eat whatever you want, buy my plan, and I'll give you your exact macros. It's like, so I never diet again, but I still have to weigh everything I eat and pre-plan my whole day's worth of intake so that I... and it's like, then what is a diet?

0:19:57
 If that's not a diet, I don't even know what a diet is. Yes, the number of these so-called healthy lifestyle approaches and actually just diet. They'll like blatantly say we're not a diet and then give you a meal plan in the next breath. It's out of control. Oh, and by the way, it costs like $80 a month to do these things and it's like so expensive. Let's opt out of it.

0:20:18
 So tell those ads to piss off as well. Unfollow, unsubscribe. Number 10, this is a big one.

0:20:24
 Stop wishing you had another body. Oh wow. I mean sometimes I think about the body I had when I got married. Sometimes I think about the body I had before I started all this dieting stuff. Firstly your body is allowed to change. You don't have to stay the same weight for your entire life. You'll go through ebbs and flows. Sometimes you'll be lighter, sometimes you'll be heavier, sometimes you'll be stronger, sometimes you'll be fitter. And I think we need to allow for that And when we see someone whose body we think is better than ours, I think it's easy for us to get really envious of that person, not knowing all the things that they might need to do in order to have the body. Or the feelings they have towards their body that might be even more negative than you

0:21:10
 have towards your body.

0:21:12
 Yeah, absolutely. What they might be sacrificing in terms of mental wellness or physical wellness, and I just don't think that's aspirational And what's a kind of comment? It's not someone else's beauty is not the absence of your beauty You know, it's all be beautiful. They are all beautiful Yeah, and even if you're ugly you can still be respectful and love your body You don't have to what I'm saying is we don't have to Beauty isn't the aspiration.

0:21:37
 No.

0:21:38
 You don't need to be physically attractive, although you can want that, to be worthy of

0:21:42
 respect.

0:21:43
 A big thing I've always had to work on lately, I had this really big, not actually lately, across my whole life, is I really had this big thing about my legs and I hated my legs. I found that, and still this is a focus I have to do, I'm constantly looking at people's legs and I have to, in a movie or something, my eyes just immediately go there and I'm like, no one is looking down. It is so true. No one is looking at people's legs as they cruise around. People look at people's faces because that's the normal thing but I'm always like, oh they're really thin or they look really good or they're really tanned or blah blah. Are you looking at shape? What are you looking at? I look at, yeah, the shape and mainly just if they're thin. And I have to focus myself being like, my legs are great. My legs, I can walk around, I can do all these amazing things, I can run, jump. I love my legs. But it's a conscious decision of like, every time I'm walking anywhere, because if I've done

0:22:39
 that for nearly 30 years, it's going to take a little while to stop. And what are you hoping is going to be accomplished by looking at other people's legs? I don't know, feeling bad about myself? Hating myself more? Which we think hating ourselves is the way to feel more worthy. I think we do. We think we can hate ourselves into a version of ourselves that we like.

0:23:01
 And it doesn't work that way.

0:23:02
 Sadly, it doesn't work that way.

0:23:03
 And the fight to stop comparing yourself to other people is like an everyday process.

0:23:07
 It is. It is a constant reminder. I saw an interview with Rihanna where she talked about how she used to hate her bum and her thighs and her lower half and that was very much the thing she hated. And then she decided one day that that was actually going to be her favorite part of her body. She just decided. She was like, this is now my favorite part of my body. And somehow that decision that she made to start respecting and loving and paying more attention to it shifted things for her.

0:23:37
 That's the power of the brain.

0:23:38
 That is the power of the brain. So I guess whatever thing you feel insecure about, you can decide, that's actually the part of me that I really like. Maybe.

0:23:46
 Give it a try.

0:23:47
 You were both like, I hope that works.

0:23:48
 Try it and let us know.

0:23:49
 Try it and let us know. Number 11, can you please throw out your scales? It's like this idea that how much your body weighs is in some way going to reflect on your health or how worthy your body is. And we all have this goal weight, right? Like a number, a special number, that somehow we've collected of what we think we should weigh and an idea is your healthy weight is probably not gonna be the same as your goal weight.

0:24:17
 No, the weight that you can remain at without sacrificing life is not probably what your goal weight is.

0:24:24
 Yeah, exactly. So I think we very much need to abandon this idea of the goal weight and that's the thing that keeps us stuck, attached to the scales as using this numbers, arbitrary numbers like a metric for our success.

0:24:35
 I've been thinking about the scale a lot lately. I don't have a scale. I haven't had a scale since I moved out of home. I made a conscious decision that obviously my mum's big on the scale in the house. Once I moved out of home, I'm like, I can control this. I don't need to buy one. But the past few weeks, I've joined a new gym. I'm actually really liking it. It's like a big, like, Globo gym type thing. I can set up my little area on the mat, do my own thing at my own pace. I really am getting a lot out of that. But the thing is, where I'm setting up is right next to the scales. And I'm trying to work out, obviously, just an app. I'm not even kidding. The entire time I'm working out, there is a constant stream of people weighing themselves. Ooh, that is triggering. And I'm like, it actually is fine for me. It doesn't bother me, but I would just think I could never get on the scale, so probably I'm too scared of the scales to get on. And I'm kind of thinking, do these people have a really healthy relationship in terms of they can get on and it doesn't trigger them for the rest of the day? Are they kind of gym people that are wanting to put on weight? So I don't know. It's like, do people actually have a good relationship with the scale where they can get on or they just need to stop doing that?

0:25:41
 I can't work out. I think some people do have a normal healthy relationship with the scale, but I'd say that that's a minority, a very small number of people who have that relationship.

0:25:50
 Yeah, and I feel like I'm so far the other way. I'm like, how could you just get on a scale in the middle of a room in front of all these

0:25:56
 other people? With your clothes on in the middle of the day.

0:25:58
 With your clothes on in the middle of the day. Are you kidding? And then some people, you can see like they take their shoes off and I'm like, well, you obviously don't want to put on weight if you're taking your shoes off.

0:26:08
 It's such an interesting thing that just getting up there and doing it constantly. Yeah. And just to reiterate the scale and the way that it can muck us up, if you hop on the scale and you're hoping to lose weight and you do lose weight, you might be like, yay, okay, and you keep going, doing what you're doing. If you hop on the scale and you don't lose weight, you stay exactly the same, you're probably going to be disappointed because you've probably been trying really hard to lose weight. There's a high chance that that's not going to motivate you further to try harder. You're going to feel discouraged and think, well, what's the point of all the stuff that I'm doing if I'm not even getting the goal that I'm trying to aspire to? If you gained weight, oh my goodness, the likelihood of you doubling down and going harder. You're probably more likely to go to extreme measures because you're like, well, if just doing this isn't enough, I need to go harder. And then that's when you get this large pendulum swing and this all or nothing kind of thinking where you eat pure, clean, perfect food, whatever that means, during the week and then blow out on the weekends. All that kind of stuff starts to happen. And this is why the risk you take in using your weight as a metric for your success. It's so flimsy, it's so unreliable, it's such shaky territory to get yourself into. It changes so quickly. Yeah, and the chance of it being helpful is so slight and the risks of it being detrimental are so grand. I just don't think that it's worth it.

0:27:30
 So you say you can either stay the same, put on weight or lose weight, therefore you have like a 66% chance that things aren't going to go well if you step on the scale. So people still do it every morning.

0:27:40
 And when you consider that weight loss is not linear and weight, your total body weight is not a reflection of your actual fat or weight. So for example, like your period's coming up, you're going to weigh out at least half a kilogram more than you normally do. So if you like hopped on the scale and you like didn't consider what day of the month it was, you're going to think that you've gained weight even though it's your period coming or you've gained more muscle and you're hopping on the scale. Anyway, it is flawed. It is crazy stuff. Can we please stop weighing ourselves?

0:28:06
 If we can, ditch the scales.

0:28:08
 Cool. Number 12. All right, let's quit unfun exercise. Damn, I hate those gyms with all those mirrors. Is your new gym like that?

0:28:14
 Actually, no, because there's kind of things in the way. There's so much equipment and stuff on there. Cool. I like it.

0:28:20
 I like it. Cool. Stop doing unfun exercise, especially exercise with the pure purpose is to lose weight. Start doing exercise that you think answers the question, would I do this even if I didn't lose weight as a result of it? And you might be like, yeah, I love going to a high-intensity workout class. I love going for runs. And if that's the answer, please keep doing it. A fun way to work out whether or not you are doing exercise that you enjoy is to think about, what exercise did I do when I was a kid? What did I enjoy doing back then way before weight became a thing that I had to focus on? Was it playing netball? Was it going for walks? It probably wasn't going for walks when you were like an 11-year-old going for enjoyment

0:28:58
 walks.

0:28:59
 But what was it for you? Try to find out what that fun, enjoyable exercise is because when it's enjoyable, we know you're so much more consistent and when it comes down to it, health is all about consistency, not eating kale for a weekend and then like blowing out.

0:29:12
 This is it. I found so many new things that I actually really enjoy doing. And it's a whole different mindset when you're doing things not for the purpose of losing weight. Like yesterday, I had this weird moment of I couldn't – so I was doing some just like gentle like Pilates type stretching on the floor in my lounge room. Just I felt like I was a bit stale in the head. I'm like, I just want to move my body a little bit. So I was doing this Pilates thing. And my boyfriend was making cookies randomly. He never makes cookies. So then like mid-thing, he just made a fresh batch of cookies. And at first I was thinking, I'm exercising, I can't have a cookie. But then I thought, how often does someone in the house make cookies? Probably once a year, even if it happens regularly. But in my household, not like we're making cookies all the time. And I'm like, no, I can actually stop this and eat a cookie when it's at its best, when it's hot, and then go back to doing what I was doing. Because normally I'd be like, oh, I can't have one and then I'd wait until three days later when they were stale and then I would eat

0:30:06
 them. Yes, eat the warm cookies. Do you know what happens as well when we try and exercise to lose weight? Exactly what you're talking about. You're like okay well I'm exercising therefore I have to eat so well and we go into extremes or you're like not exercising at all and you're getting takeaway and you're doing all the things. What if there is a sweet way in the middle where we can be exercising, we can be eating things like cookies and takeaway and finding a bit more of a balance where it wasn't like all or nothing?

0:30:34
 Yeah, because you think like, I can't eat that because I've just exercised and I would just ruin it all. It's like, well, if you're not, there's nothing to ruin. You just eat exercising to move your body because it feels good. Then you can eat healthy foods and the foods you enjoy and cookies and cookies and be happy

0:30:48
 and enjoy it. Oh my goodness. I feel like you're, that's the solution.

0:30:51
 I know, I was very happy with that. Number 13. Get a leaning mirror. Do you know what this is?

0:30:56
 Yeah, well I'm looking at one right now. Because we're sitting in my wardrobe, basically. I work for my giant wardrobe. Anyway, it's actually just a room where I get dressed. And on the wall, I have taken a mirror, which I sold. You know those sliding doors that you get on those old school cupboards?

0:31:15
 Oh yeah.

0:31:16
 I removed that mirror because buying a huge mirror is very expensive. And then I put duct tape around it.

0:31:22
 I have looked at this mirror so many times and I never noticed that there is just duct tape around the edges.

0:31:26
 Yeah, the edges are just duct taped with black duct tape. And now I have a mirror that leans, it stands on the floor and it leans up against the wall. Now it is an incredibly flattering mirror when you have a leaning mirror. And this is what I'm telling you to do. Get a flattering mirror. Get a leaning mirror that leans so it gives you a very nice angle so that when you get dressed in the morning, you think, I'm fabulous. That is so important. That's how I want you to feel when you get dressed every morning. People are like, but why would you want to have a flattering mirror? Then you might be able to see all the realities. You want to be able to know what's wrong with you.

0:32:02
 I'm like, there is reality.

0:32:03
 You're always going to have things that are wrong with you. Like, why do I need to put a magnifying glass? Like, do you know what happened when I had one of those magnifying glass mirror face things?

0:32:11
 Oh yeah.

0:32:12
 Where you can see every pore. I got into skin picking. Yeah. I would go crazy trying to like declog my pores and fix my face. Creating problems that aren't there. Created so many problems, so much skin infection, so much, so many issues happened from me being able to see my imperfections from zeroing in on this and this is exactly what I'm saying but the equivalent is for your body and your body image. So get things that are flattering. Get better mirrors. Make sure your lighting is flattering and that you're helping yourself like yourself.

0:32:43
 And also sometimes if I'm shopping and I'm thinking those mirrors don't look good, those lighting, I'll just buy it. If they can return it, I'll try it on home and then bring it back because the mirrors I don't need a hexagonal every angle mirror with downlights and no one needs downlights. No one needs that. The fact that they haven't got shops haven't cottoned on to maybe make the lighting a little bit better so people don't look terrible that's on them but I'm like I know this situation I've been at a thousand times I can just if you do it have a good returns policy

0:33:12
 I'll try it on the comfort of my own home. Why don't they have better mirrors?

0:33:15
 I don't know.

0:33:16
 You would sell so much more product if I actually liked how I looked.

0:33:19
 Ridiculous, is that.

0:33:21
 So I will just back this up and say that I am all about online delivery for my clothing. I only shop online these days, which means I can try on all my clothes with the right underwear that I have. You can get multiple sizes. You try them on with your beautiful, flattering, leaning mirror in front of you with music on and you vibe yourself. Yes. And that's the way we should be doing it. No more sad trips to the shops where we walk away after bikini shopping and self-loathing because we ended up getting nothing. How depressing. No, let's make shopping fun again.

0:33:51
 I like that.

0:33:52
 And size up.

0:33:53
 And be a fantasy. Number 14 is compliment others. Okay, so what do I mean by this? I think firstly, when we have a default setting where we're going to comment on other people's bodies, and I think firstly, let's try not to do that, but can we try to find compliments to other people that are unrelated to how they look? And there's so many qualities people have, but we just don't focus on them. Yeah. Jenna, I love how warm you are, and I feel like you're so easy to talk to. Oh, thank you. It's so easy for me to think about things that I like about you. We need to give out more of those reminders because it also changes the energy, right?

0:34:33
 100%.

0:34:34
 Nice to hear about the things that have nothing to do with how you look. And another thing I do try and do is I noticed I was doing this with women my age, particularly when I was younger. My dad actually said, when we walk past other young girls, why do you stare them up and down and look so judgmental? And why do they do the same thing to you?

0:34:55
 That's because we probably are all judging each other.

0:34:57
 We're all judging each other, so I noticed this was happening. So since then, I make a conscious effort that when I see another woman and we kind of like catch eyes for a moment, I smile. And then they smile back. Yeah, and now you've made a friend. I know this sounds like not a big deal, but genuinely, this changes stuff for me because it takes this idea of everyone's judging me and it turns it into actually we're all just a bit insecure and you can kind of give someone else that gift of like, hey, I'm your ally. I'm like your buddy. Ninety percent of people will smile back. I'm so much happier for it. I love that one.

0:35:32
 Try it.

0:35:33
 It's great. And our final tip, number 15.

0:35:37
 Reconsider who you spend time with. So your friends, your family, the people in your life are huge influences. You know, the five people you spend the most time with are the ones who influence you the most. So get curious about is your best friend like hyper obsessed with dieting and your weight? Maybe that's the reason you had such a good relationship for so many years because you always had calories to come back to as a connection point. And now that you're trying to move away from that, well, what are you gonna connect with? Maybe friends are allowed to shift and the conversations you have with the friends are allowed to shift, but think about the people who are being the biggest influences on your life. Are they people who are self-loathing and hate themselves and insecure and hyperjudgmental about other people? That's the real one to look out for, people who are like judgy people. I find judgy people tend to be more insecure. And it creates a culture of you thinking that everyone's judgmental when you hang out with judgmental people.

0:36:30
 Yeah, and probably they're not.

0:36:31
 Yeah, they're probably not. No, so trying to hang out with people who you feel like are self-assured, confident in themselves, aren't obsessed with how they look, and even if they're not there yet, maybe you can kind of both walk in that direction together. But just get curious about people that you're hanging out with.

0:36:46
 Yeah, look at the people that are around you. That's a very good list.

0:36:48
 Cool, guys. So you might not love your body but let's aim for self-acceptance a bit of more respect something we can all be working on. So many good things to look at and try. If you try any of those things and you want to let us know how it went tell us anything about it hit Lyndi up on

0:37:01
 Instagram nude underscore nutritionist we'd love to hear it. Oh and if you've

0:37:05
 got more tips like if you're like a hey I did this thing and you've all got to do this thing please share that thing with us. We want to know. We want to know about the thing. We're still on this journey too. We're always waking up each day and deciding to actually like ourselves.

0:37:16
 It is. And it kind of segues into our theme that we are loving at the moment because a brand that I'm loving, it's called YouSwim. I think they're from the UK and I just love it so much. So I bought their swimwear brand, I bought a pair of swimmers and they're kind of like they're a one size fits most type of vibe.

0:37:36
 Very stretchy, very big. And does it actually fit? Like does it do what it says on the box?

0:37:41
 Well, I'm so, I'm like a size 12 and one of my very good friends is like a size 6 and she tried it on and it fitted her. That's a big breath. And the things I love about it is because it is like that, it doesn't dig in, it's so stretchy. Like when you breathe it with your hands, it can move so far. They have so many different cuts and sizes and colours. And when you look on the website, it's got such a variety of models and it's not even just on weight, on age. It's the first time I've ever seen probably a 65-year-old plus woman still modelling swimwear and it's showing people that are older still want to go to the beach, they still want to swim, so why have they only got to look at 20-year-olds in swimwear and they have such a breadth of colours, cuts, what's comfortable to you and you feel really good in it.

0:38:33
 I think it's so important to feel good when you are literally staying on the beach essentially

0:38:37
 naked.

0:38:38
 Yeah, that's a really good time to feel good about yourself. And the idea that you could go on holiday because when you're going on holiday, you probably are exercising less and eating more and having lots of nice mojitos, that's what I'm doing, and maybe your body's going to expand a little bit. So having clothes like swimwear that's going to be able to expand or shrink with you as your body naturally shifts, I really, really dig that. We love that. And just quickly, one more thing to leave us with. If you are a parent, I think it is important for your kids to see you going out there and getting out and swimming and being in photos and turning up. They're not going to ever look back at childhood photos and be like, oh my goodness, can you believe how mum looks? They're going to think, oh my goodness, we were all there together. They might go, where was mum? She wasn't here. Mum was in the pool. She was sitting on the sideline just watching other people live their life. No one cares about your body. No one cares about your body. Put on a swimwear that you actually feel comfortable in, that you feel you can tolerate yourself in, and then go out there and live life.

0:39:36
 I love that.

0:39:37
 Anyway, guys, thank you for tuning in to another podcast. Please reach out to us, leave us a nice review and we'll see you next time. Do you feel like you know what you should be eating but like you feel completely out of control with food? You're either eating perfectly or you're face planting into the fridge. Well, if you've got binge eating or you're struggling with emotional eating, I can help. Check out my program, Keep It Real. I've got lots I can teach you and hey, you don't have to be a binge eater for the rest of your life. You can get 20% off Keep It Real when you use the code podcast when you check out via the website and because I don't want this to be just another failed attempt for you, I'm offering a 30-day money back guarantee because you know what, you've just got to give these things a go, no risk. give these things a go, no risk. Give it a try.