KATY: Welcome back to Rebuilding Trust with Your Body. I am Katy Harvey, your host. Things are starting to heat up, and summer has unofficially begun. Now that we are past Memorial Day, and I don’t know about you, but I have been hearing constant chatter from people dieting and trying to slim down for summer, cutting out carbs.

Seeking out weight loss meds for aesthetic reasons. But then I’m also hearing people like you who you’re in the intuitive eating sphere and you’re committed to not dieting, so you’re not straight up in that diet mentality where you’re like doing all the dieting things, but. You’re still feeling the tug and the body image stuff is louder for you as you’re getting out your shorts and your tank tops and your swimsuits, and maybe you are even bargaining with yourself, that you’re not gonna go on a diet per se, but you’re just gonna watch your carbs, stay away from sugar, or maybe even try to lose weight the healthy way.

Well. Pull up a seat because we need to have a heart to heart about this. And you know me, I have not only got thoughts, but I’ve got strategies to share that are gonna help you work through this so that you can have the best summer of your life, a summer that is filled with trips to the lake where you’re walking around in your swimsuit all day and letting those rays of sun hit your cellulite and it doesn’t even.

Phase you and where you’re able to go to a 4th of July barbecue and enjoy a burger or a hot dog, or my personal favorite, a bra with a bun, and you’re not secretly plotting the workout you’re gonna do the next day to make up for it. I want this to be the summer that you allow yourself to be in the photos, to wear the shorts, to get in the pool, and to experience the joy of living your life fully.

I know that you need to hear this, and if there is anyone in your life who needs to hear it too, I want you to grab the link for this episode and send it to them. Sharing is caring and this is how we can dismantle diet culture bit by bit together. I wanna give a quick shout out to listener MLPS for this incredibly kind five star review.

Uh, it said Best intuitive eating podcast. This is a fantastic podcast. I’ve explored so many podcasts on the topic of intuitive eating, and this is always in my top one or two. Katy has wonderful suggestions and great ways of putting things, and I always feel better after listening to her. I also really enjoy her public Facebook group.

Thank you for all the time you spend on this podcast, Katy. Oh my gosh. Thank you so much for your kind words and for, um, the gratitude that you have about this. And I’m glad that you’re also in the Facebook group, by the way. So if you’re listening to this and you’re not in the Facebook group, like 12 outta 10, you need to be in there.

Called intuitive eating made easy. It’s linked in the show notes. It is a wonderfully supportive and compassionate community. It’s very low drama because I run a tight ship. So if you’re looking for like very much a, a safe and um, low conflict space to hang out on the social media networks, then come on over and hang out because it, it’s a wonderful place for everyone who is trying to make play.

Peace with food. Now, before we dive further into our main topic for today, you know what time it is, we’ve got some wellness. Woo to talk about. Wellness. Woo is the stuff that diet and wellness culture tells us we should do in the name of health, but it’s really based on pseudoscience, exaggerated claims or just nonsense.

Today’s wellness. Woo. Is hydrogen water, also known as super water. And I, I can’t even say this without laughing because it’s just so absurd and comical to me. So let’s break down the science of this. Hydrogen water is regular water. That has been infused with additional hydrogen gas. And the way that they do this is there’s two ways you can either bubble in pure hydrogen gas directly into the water, or you can do a process called electrolysis where they use electricity to create.

More hydrogen in the water. Now, if we go back to our high school chemistry class, you probably learned that water is called H2O because it’s made up of two hydrogen molecules and one oxygen molecule. So H two is for the two. Hydrogen and O is for the oxygen. So to be clear, water already has hydrogen in it.

And I think that this begs the question, is it really worth doing things to water to add more hydrogen to it? Here are the claims that are being made that it supports anti-aging, which side note you guys have heard me talk about this anti-aging is this whole branch of diet, culture and beauty culture that.

Is toxic in its own regard. It, it’s this idea that we’re not allowed to get older, even though at the same time we’re also trying to biohack ourselves to live 150 million years. And so it’s like we’re trying not to get older, but also to get as old as possible. And it’s another example of how we’re being held to these completely impossible standards.

And unrealistic expectations and that we’re trying to fight biology in our bodies. Uh, other claims about hydrogen water are that it can reduce inflammation, improved endurance for athletes, it might help with diabetes or metabolic syndrome. And then there’s cancer claims allegedly that it will inhibit tumor growth and make cancer treatment more effective.

This one really grinds my gears. People with cancer are already preyed on with so much nonsense, and they’re in such a vulnerable state because cancer is so scary and obviously can be life threatening, and people are often willing to do anything and everything that might help, and they’ll throw money at these types of products even if it doesn’t have good science behind it.

And so a lot of these things that are being claimed to help. You know, treat cancer or make it the treatment work better, blah, blah, blah. It is a complete scam and I. I can’t, I, I do not have tolerance for that. So where are all of these claims coming from? What’s the rationale or the justification for it?

Well, the claim is that hydrogen has antioxidant properties that can neutralize harmful free radicals in the human body. I. And that it can mitigate oxidative stress, induce damage through its, uh, supposed anti-inflammatory and anti-aging pathways. And the thing with this and all the free radicals and stuff like that, there are a lot of nutrients in our food that can also help to do that.

And so there’s so many things out there that it’s like, oh, in theory it does this. And yes, it, you know, food and drinks that we ingest can help with these things, but. You know, while it’s true that hydrogen has some of these properties at the biochemical level, does that actually mean that pumping more of it into your water is going to make a meaningful impact on your health?

That’s the million dollar question here. So there was a systematic review published of this last year. Which is where the authors take a look at all of the currently available research and they summarize the totality of the findings and their conclusion was that some of it might be promising, but also that we are nowhere near there yet in terms of the science to justify this as something that people should actually be doing.

It’s like, eh, maybe there’s benefit, but, but there’s not enough research to say, yeah, this is a really good idea and there’s so many other things. For each of these health claims that are being made about hydrogen water that have good, solid evidence behind them, such as, you know, other things that are antioxidants and, and things you can do from a lifestyle standpoint to support any of these health conditions and to make a meaningful impact on your health.

And so it, it’s like. Even if in theory maybe this might help, there are so many other things you can do that we already know is helpful and impactful. Like focus your energy there and you know, who knows, maybe someday this will be a thing and the data will be there to support it and I will be proven wrong, but I am not impressed by the studies that I have read, especially not the human trials.

So there’s a couple other things you should know about hydrogen water and the fact that it might not even contain what you think It does. Surprise, surprise. It’s kind of like the supplements. There’s no guarantee that that’s what’s in there. There is no industry standard for the amount of hydrogen that can be added to water.

So something that’s labeled as hydrogen water, the concentration of what that actually means can vary. Widely. The other thing is the hydrogen that they pump into the water dissipates quickly, and so if you’re opening a can of it or, or whatever, most of the ones I saw online are cans, but there may be bottles and stuff.

It dissipates. So if you don’t drink it pretty quickly, it just dissolves into air. The other thing is the con type of container itself can allow the hydrogen that has been added into degrade. So you know, it’s. You might be thinking that you are drinking this special magical super water and it’s just the same as water you would get out of the tap or that you would drink out of any other bottle of water.

Now here’s the thing, if you wanted to try it, if you’re like, Katy, I am so curious, I just think I need to try this hydrogen water, you can go right on over to Amazon and get a 12 pack of it for only $35. This is such a scam and it is a good example of how the wellness industry makes hundreds of billions of dollars per year with false and over exaggerated claims.

So I don’t know about you, but I would rather spend my $35 on something else. So, uh, to each their own. If you have an example of wellness, woo, send it my way. I am all ears. I love listener suggestions. And for right now, that is enough of that. Let’s move on to today’s main topic. Just because summer is coming doesn’t mean that you should cut out carbs or try to lose weight the healthy way.

And I wanna take this conversation beyond the basic. Your current body is already a beach body message, and I do stand behind that message, and I want you to remember that like you don’t have to get a beach body to go to the beach. The body you have right now is the beach body. Take it to the beach, right?

Yes. I wanna go a little bit deeper today. Because if you already know that diets don’t work, but you’re still secretly wondering if you should just tighten up your eating or do more gentle nutrition or ramp up your workouts for summer. I see you. This episode is for this inner tug of war and those thoughts that bubble up about how you can essentially sneakily try to shrink your body without calling it a diet.

And trust me, I get it. I was just talking to some of my NDA alumni membership clients during our group coaching the other day, and they were sharing about how they’re so happy to be free from the stress and turmoil of dieting and. Part of them does miss their smaller body from when they were restricted and part of them, it misses that sense of being in control or having a way to know if they were doing it right when they were on a diet.

And it’s really, really natural to miss the comfort. The familiarity of dieting or to romanticize what it was like when you were fitting in with the people around you when you could participate in the diet. Talk of who’s doing what and how much weight have you lost. And you know that ability to bond with people over dieting.

You can start to feel like an outsider. When you’re like, yeah, I’m not doing that anymore. So it makes sense that part of you wants to return to this at times. Part of you longs for that. Part of you misses it, especially this time of year when all of that summer messaging is in full swing and our bodies are more exposed in the shorts and the short sleeves and the swimsuits.

So let’s break this down and I wanna kind of think through this in different sections, if you will. So let’s first look at. Why this urge to shrink for summer still shows up even if you’ve been working on intuitive eating and accepting your body for a while. And sometimes people will have shame about having these thoughts because they’re like, I, you know, I am not.

Fat phobic. You know, I, I’m trying to accept and embrace that body diversity exists and all bodies are good bodies. And so sometimes people will have shame for still feeling this way. And I really want to validate for you, th this isn’t just about vanity. This is not a superficial thing that you are wrestling with and you’re not a superficial person.

What it’s actually about is. Your desire for a sense of safety and belonging. Because here’s, if we look at it from a sociological perspective, at a society perspective, we are socially conditioned to believe that thinner bodies are more worthy of acceptance and should have less shame. And so the idea that a thinner body is going to fit in more, be accepted, be loved, be more successful, all the things, and then the.

You know, unspoken part is that a fatter body is not worthy of acceptance, love, belonging is not successful, is failing all of these things. So it is this. Hardwired evolutionary need that we have and desire that we have to be part of the group to not be rejected. And we have been conditioned to believe that we are going to be rejected if we gain weight, and that we will be safer if we lose weight because of a lower risk of rejection.

Because think about it, you know, at a very, uh. Kind like a, an ancestral perspective back with our ancestors who were hunters and gatherers. If you were rejected from the tribe, you had a higher risk of being eaten by a predator. So I. Humans became conditioned to do things that allowed us to fit in with society because it literally was a life or death thing.

Our safety depended on it. And now because of the intensity of diet, culture, and weight stigma and anti-fat bias, our brain has learned to believe that the size of our body can become a threat to our acceptance and our survival. So it makes. Total sense that that is part of what you yearn for and part of what you’re afraid of, even at a subconscious level when you’re afraid of gaining weight, your nervous system is interpreting this as a threat and, and also what can feel like a threat is this time of year when we shift from winter clothing to summer clothing where, you know, having less clothing, less layers on our body, more skin showing.

It, it literally is and feels like more exposure and exposure can feel like vulnerability. So those diet thoughts about, you know, how am I going to make myself feel safer when I’m exposed? It feels like you’re creating control and safety. So this thought process and this urge to shrink for summer is not a failure of your beliefs, and it doesn’t mean that you’re just being shallow about your size of your pants.

It’s a stress response in a culture that continues to uplift and reward thinness and to do so when the attitude is, you know, thinness at all costs. That, you know, we’ll, they can talk about it as like, oh, it’s all about health all day long. But if we’re deeply honest with ourselves, the things that we have done to try and lose weight, there’s often some things in there that are not healthy at all.

It’s not about health per se a lot of the time, and I know that for a lot of you, you’re worried about your health, so I don’t wanna dismiss that. But when it’s this like summer body image stuff, I wanna look at this stress response and this, um, you know, safety and belonging element to it, because that’s often.

A subconscious piece of it that, that people aren’t actually aware of until we start talking about it and they go, oh my gosh, that makes so much sense. So let’s go on to our next part here. I wanna look at what are some of the sneaky forms of diet, culture and weight stigma that show up in the summer that you need to be aware of so that it doesn’t act like a, a pothole that you accidentally walk into and sprain your ankle.

So. Sometimes what happens is that thing I mentioned a second ago where our brain tries to make it about health in order to justify it to say, you know, I don’t wanna lose weight just because I care about the way my thighs look in my shorts. It, it’s because I wanna be healthier. And again, I 1000000% honor and validate and support your desire to take care of your health.

I want us to almost envision, like separating this out outlook. If we were making piles of stuff, like if you were trying to organize a room and you’re putting stuff into piles, I, I wanna put the health thing into one pile and to put the desire to shrink your body in another pile because shrinking your body does not automatically make you healthier.

And I know that that’s hard to tease those things apart, especially if you have been healthier, like blood work or, um, you know, blood pressure, things like that. Or even if you’ve just like, felt physically healthier at a lower weight. There’s a lot that goes into that and we don’t have time to unpack all of that today, but I wanna separate these out there.

There’s the body image and, and the desire to lose weight. Pile. Another pile that is sitting in front of us is the health part of it. And another pile here that we wanna look at is body grief. And, and what do I mean by body grief? I mean the grief that comes up, including all of those stages, denial, bargaining, anger acceptance, or depression acceptance and, and.

We go through these phases of body grief when we’re letting go of dieting, because part of letting go of dieting is letting go of the fantasy of what it was gonna do for you, and it can feel like you’re letting yourself go or you’re giving up on hope for a better life. You know, sometimes that’s part of that grieving process.

And go back to the episode as few episodes ago where I covered body grief because it’s a really important. Thing for you to understand as a normal part of this process. And so sometimes the body grief feels so heavy and intolerable that our brain wants to say, well, let’s just make it about health so that it’s seen as a valid and justified reason to pursue weight loss.

Another thing that I will hear, and essentially if we look at it through that lens of grief, it’s the bargaining. Part of it when people will say, I’m not dieting, I’m just eating cleaner, or I’m just trying to move more. And really it, it’s kind of a covert way of restricting and trying to lose weight or that phrase that I hear all the time.

I’m not dieting, I’m just trying to lose weight the healthy way. The problem is. That, that thought process, regardless of how you’re going about doing it, or whether you’re calling it a diet or not, it’s going to have the same biological and psychological impact and outcome that dieting does. It’s gonna have the same problems attached to it.

Sometimes it, I want you to be curious with yourself about this. Sometimes the thought process of, I’m just being more intentional with my eating or more mindful with my eating. Like, that’s fine. I, I love intention and mindfulness, but we wanna unpack the difference between intention and restriction.

Because if being intentional or being mindful is code for, I’m restricting then. That’s diet mentality. We can be intentional as part of an intuitive eating process, but we’ve gotta, you know, there’s a fine line between the difference here and, and we need to look at where’s that coming from and what’s your actual motivation behind it.

It’s also challenging this year, time of year with all of the comparisons that are set up out there. You know, we’re, we’re going on vacation and so you might be seeing other bodies on vacation, or you might be seeing pictures on social media of people on their vacations. Uh, we’re seeing people in swimsuits.

We might be comparing our bodies there. You might be going to outdoor events, whether it’s, you know, like concerts or picnics or, um. You know, just gatherings and stuff that take place outdoors, sporting events, stuff like that. And the body comparison is there because we’re more exposed. We were talking about that a second ago.

There, you know, there’s less clothing on the body so you can see a person’s actual body and your brain may start comparing yours to theirs. And the other thing is that for a lot of people, their body image thoughts in their head and that critical voice will get louder. When they feel seen. Think about all the ways we, you’ve tried to hide your body and make yourself look smaller and more invisible.

And you know, things like wearing black or clothes that’s supposed to look slimming, uh, layers of clothing to try to hide and cover that thing where you sit down on the couch and you put the pillow over you. When we feel seen and not hidden and more exposed, like when we don’t have our layers on, ’cause it’s hot outside, that body image gets louder because it’s like, oh my gosh, now everybody’s looking at me.

Now they can see the thing. I’ve been trying to hide. So I, I want you to pay attention for these ways that those diet culture thoughts can creep in this time of year. And to keep coming back to what is it that you’re actually trying to accomplish here? What is the path and the journey that you are trying to stay on, and how do you keep yourself on that path and not get veered off onto this other path that’s gonna derail you?

So I wanna give you some ideas for how to reframe your summer body script and that dialogue that’s going through your head. So the first thing is, what we’ve been doing here in this episode is let’s acknowledge and let’s normalize the urge and, and to say it makes total sense that you are thinking and feeling this way rather than shaming yourself for feeling this way.

And then to say. But that thought process is not serving me. That’s not going to help me to go down that path. So now we’re gonna choose to respond to these thoughts in a very purposeful and values aligned way. So the first thing. Is if you’re having one of those moments where you’re freaking out, for lack of a better word, where you’re in the spiral, you caught a glimpse of yourself in the mirror, or your shorts are too tight, or you saw a picture of yourself and the body image spiral has begun and your nervous system is activated and you’re freaking out and you’re thinking, oh my gosh, what am I gonna do to fix this?

The first thing is, if you’re in one of those moments. We need to ground your nervous system and calm you back down because the decisions you’re gonna make when you’re in that state of activation and shame are often not going to be aligned with what it is that your true self values and what you’re trying to move towards in terms of creating peace and freedom with food in your body.

So. Some things that can help when you’re feeling really panicky inside or when that shame is really big within you at the nervous system level, breathing is gonna be one of the most powerful tools, you know, to do some big, long, deep, slow inhales and exhales. There’s also different breathing techniques and strategies that you can look up on YouTube, and there’s guided meditations for them where, where it’ll have you doing like different counts for how long you inhale and hold it and exhale.

This is all a way that you can help to get your nervous system from that state of fight or flight into a calm and restful place where you can think more clearly and choose more wisely. Another way of working through this might be some type of movement. And it doesn’t have to be high intensity, although maybe sometimes you want it to be.

Sometimes when we’re really activated, that high intensity type of movement of, you know, doing something more sort of like cardio based or even something like. Getting in there and doing some yard work or some gardening can feel really good, or something kind of gentle like stretching or yoga or a nice slow walk might feel good.

I, I heard this on a podcast the other day, and it was not even about like body and stuff. It was a parenting podcast, um, about how to help when our kids are really, um, you know, dysregulated and having big emotional out outbursts. Uh, the, the host of the podcast, he said, motion changes. Emotion. So he said, you know, when your kid’s really upset about something, you might try to just help them, like go do something.

Give them a task to go do or try to do something that includes movement with them. Offer to play catch, because sometimes moving our bodies can help us move through that emotion and have, give that that emotion a place to go. Sensory input is another one that can be helpful. So if you think of your senses, um, having something to touch that feels good.

So like something soft might be feel soothing, I’m thinking of like, I have some really soft blankets that I love, or sometimes I’ll put on like a soft, um, sweater or something like that. Um, smell can be one. So if you have a candle that you really like or some lotion or, um, if you like to, to use, you know, diffusers.

Um, with the essential oils and stuff like that. Um, another sensory thing could be temperature that, so there’s this strategy within DBT. It’s a type of therapy where, uh, they’ll have people hold something frozen, like ice cubes or a bag of frozen vegetables. Sometimes that coldness can kind of help bring you back into the present moment.

So you can play around with things. Music would be another one. Maybe just put on a song that, uh. Will help you to regulate. It could be like a favorite song that’s like a total throwback for you where you can sing along and pretend you’re that teenager holding your hairbrush in your bedroom again and sing along.

Or maybe you’ll put on a song that’s, um, something kind of inspirational and calming and soothing to you. Like you get a choose what would feel best in that moment. But listening and music and engaging that sense can be very powerful. So the, the point here is to find a way to regulate your nervous system before you do anything else.

When you’re really activated about the body shame. And then once you’re in a place where you can be more calm and thoughtful and reflective to be able to ask yourself and get curious, what is it that I am hoping that weight loss will give to me this summer? Like, what are you hoping that would do for you?

Why is that something you want? Is it about having more freedom? Or being more confident or having more joy or. Feeling like you fit in and, and you’re less judged. Is it about, you know, being able to do certain things physically? Like what is it that you’re wanting to accomplish via the weight loss? And, and let’s look at those things that you desire and some ways that we can cultivate that, that is not contingent upon your body being smaller and, and to ask yourself, can I give myself some of these things now?

At this size in my here and now body, you will be surprised if you actually sit and do that type of journaling. That you will figure out that there’s a lot of the things you’re yearning for that you can give to yourself and work on in your here and now body. And, and then there may be some things that’s, that don’t feel accessible in your here and now body.

I’m thinking of like going to a an amusement park and if your body is too big for some of the rides, that’s not something that’s gonna just change overnight. Right. So you might feel hung up on that, that it’s like, well, I wanna be able to do that with my kids and I can’t. And there may be some grief that you have to work through around that.

And then I would encourage you, in this example, to think a little bit outside of the box. So let’s not think that, well, the only way to get what you want is if you can ride that rollercoaster ride. Maybe it’s about thinking, how do I participate in a family trip to an amusement park where. I can still enjoy the day and the situation, and maybe it means that while they go on the rollercoaster ride that you get to go, you know, do a little like shopping in the little shops or like get yourself something to drink and, and sit there and rest your feet for a little while.

That’s my favorite part. When I go to an amusement park, when I can take a load off for a second, I’m like, okay, I just need to sit down because. You’re on your feet and you’re walking around so much, or you know, maybe you, you pick some of the rides that you really want to go on that are accessible to your body and make sure that those are included in the rotation of rides that day.

And. To think about what can you do and, and to not just stay stuck on the what you can’t do, and then maybe you also think about what are some of the activities that you want to include this summer in your life that are accessible to you right now? And to think about, okay, what does that look like in a way that doesn’t require me to change myself, but that just allows me to go and participate as I currently am.

And what accommodations might you meet need, or what are some creative ways that you could still enjoy the situation, even if it’s not to the full extent that you wish that you could. So I want you to think outside the box is, is kind of the moral of the story there. And then we get to. Rebuild some trust with yourself and and with your body through these little things that you can do for yourself.

These little daily things. A good example is dressing for your comfort, not. Dressing as a way to theoretically avoid judgment. So one, uh, an example of this is if you’re someone who walks around in pants and leggings and and covering your legs all summer, even when it’s really hot outside because you’re so ashamed of your legs, what would it be like to dress for comfort?

And by that I mean like wearing shorts or a skirt that allows your legs to breathe so that you’re not so hot. And yes, it might be uncomfortable from that emotional standpoint, but you’re gonna physically be more comfortable. And when we can work through the emotional discomfort, then you get to eventually become emotionally comforter comfortable and physically comfortable.

My uh, members inside non Dieters Club are calling this dopamine dressing. They’re dressing in a way that feels good, that gives them that dopamine ’cause they’re physically comfortable and they’re not walking around uncomfortable in their clothing all day long anymore because they’re not walking around trying to hide themselves, uh, saying yes to fun things, even if your body doesn’t match.

Your old ideals. So an example of this in the summer might be getting in the pool or the ocean or the lake, instead of hiding your body on the side saying yes to doing the thing, even if your body doesn’t look how you would want it to. And then another thing is on the food front. Body trust and compassion and kindness is built through intentionally providing your body with what it needs.

And a, an example of that is making sure that throughout the summer that you are eating and. Hydrating your body intentionally that you’re taking care of your body in that way, especially if you’re gonna be outside in the heat, because the heat itself can really zap our appetite, or it can make, we might be like, oh, well I don’t wanna look bloated because I’m gonna be, you know, in my swimsuit or whatever.

You need to be eating and feeding and fueling your body. That’s an act of body respect and body kindness and that that is how your body. Trusts you more when you are consistently and reliably taking care of it. Now I want to, uh, wrap up here by giving you some journaling exercises and a little bit of homework.

Uh, you know, I love a good journal prompt and I want to help you expand your summer narrative. So some journaling exercises. You wanna write these down. If you need to come back and jot them down later, that’s totally fine, but it, it’s just three really quick things. So the first one is, who could you be this summer without the obsession?

So what could your summer look like if you were not obsessed with your body with weight loss or with food? What would your summer look like? The next one, what memories do you want to make? And how would body obsession interfere with you making those memories? And then the third one, redefining summer success.

How can you care for your body this summer rather than control it? Let me say these again. Number one, who could you be this summer without the obsession over your body? Number two, what memories do you wanna make? And how would body obsession interfere with making those memories? And number three, redefining summer success.

So how can you care for your body? Not control it. I also have some additional body image journal prompts that are really powerful. They’re not specific to summer, but they’re, they’re more of just body image in general. And you can download those for free. Uh, just go to non diet academy.com/body image to grab them, and I’ll send them straight to your email.

So as we wrap up, I want to reiterate to you that this is deep and ongoing work, and you’re not a failure if you’ve been having to circle around this body image stuff over and over again. It is okay if those urges to lose weight are still coming up. That is a normal and expected part of the process. It doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong, but it does mean that you need to continue working on that.

We can’t just ignore it and expect it to go away. It is something that you are going to have to intentionally directively and actively work on. And the goal here is not perfection. It’s not to be like, I’m never gonna have another weight loss thought again, or I’m always gonna love my body. Like those are unrealistic goals and honestly, not that helpful.

The goal here is having awareness, having self-compassion, and choosing to respond to these thoughts and urges differently than you did in the past when you were dieting. So I will leave you with that happy summer. I can’t wait to hear how the summer goes for you. I hope that this can be a summer of joy and freedom, even if there’s challenges along the way.

And I hope that this episode gave you some different ways of thinking about these thoughts that you might be having and a bit of a path forward. And in case nobody has told you today, you are worthy just as you are. We will talk again soon.

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