Coaching weight gain and clients wanting to quit working with you because of it! As the provider, how do you move through both of these aspects?

Coaching weight gain

I’ll be teaching on the two angle of this circumstance: 

1-How do you move yourself through this circumstance as a the non-diet professional or coach

2-How you help your client with the fact that they are gaining weight.

This is a difficult topic and there isn’t one answer so instead of pretending to have the solution I will help you understand the problem better so you can form your way of coaching weight gain and desire to quit the work with you.

Mentioned in the show:

Register for How to coach the desire to lose weight training Oct 13th

Non-Diet Coaching Certification

Free Resources 

Transcript:

Coaching internalized fatphobia is not as difficult as it may appear. 

Internalized fatphobia, also commonly expressed as fear of gaining weight or fear of fatness, is something most self-identified women are faced with at some point in their life.

This is why many non-diet professional & non-diet coaches struggle with the thought of having to talk about this with their clients let alone help them move through it with coaching.

Coaching internalized fatphobia

Coaching internalized fatphobia becomes a much easier process when you have begun your own journey healing internalized fatphobia in yourself first.

As a non-diet professional & coach, it’s my duty to become great at coaching internalized fatphobia.

Let’s dig into internalized weight stigma aka internalized fear of fatness.

Mentioned in the show:

Non-Diet Coaching Certification

Free Resources 

Transcript:

Undiet Your Coaching Ep82: Coaching internalized fatphobia

Hello my dear colleagues and welcome back to Undiet Your Coaching Podcast. It’s been almost three months since we ended Season 7 and now we’re back with Season 8, which is gonna take us all the way into 2024. So right now, so we have 14 episodes lined up for you.

That’s gonna take us into mid January. And it’s loaded. That said, it’s possible to expand between 14. I’m going to deliver 14. But there could be a couple of bonus episodes as I get moving into the season eight. and we’re going to tackle both sides of our businesses. We’re going to talk about professional skill sets.

We’re going to start with a two part series for the first two episodes, 82 and 83 on The two most frequent topic I held professional true in the non diet coaching certification. And then we’re going to have some guests also in season eight. I brought in I think five or six guests on really interesting question that I was asking myself.

And I thought I would go out there and talk to colleagues and record a conversation I had with them. So that’s coming for you as well. And we’re going to talk about business, more specifically towards the end of the season, as we get ourselves into 2024. Kind of strategic thinking, planning for the new years and how to approach business.

As a non-diet professional. So that’s what’s in front of us. and the podcast will drop every Tuesday every week from now until next year. And I wanted to highlight that the non-diet coaching certification is a go forward for the first six months of 2024. We’re gonna run our. I think it’s our eighth cohort.

So if you want to join us, be sure to jump on the waitlist. The waitlist, the link is on the sales page of the program. It’s also linked in the show note. The reason why I’m highlighting that for you before we even get started is that we have the extended eight month payment plan that’s going to be offered to people on the waitlist So if your name is not on the waitlist and you want to take advantage of that, you’re likely going to miss out. I’m also going to hold consultation in the first week of October, so in two weeks from now or next week, depending on when you’re listening to this. For all of you who have Specific question about your profession, about the current format of your business. Does it fit within the curriculum of the non diet coaching certification?

Are you the right fit for it? All the question you have in these consultation will go out to folks on the waitlist. So get your name on there. If you want to spend 30 minutes with me, one on one, answering all your questions. Okay, let’s get season eight started with a two part series. I didn’t title it series in the title of the episode, but I think it is a series.

it’s my top two most frequent coach topic with my students. Reminder that my students are professionals like you, and coaches, and therapists, and fitness professionals, people who help other people. And there’s two things that I coach over and over again, is how to help our clients.

When they’re experiencing weight gain and also how to help our clients specifically at the beginning of their non diet journey with the fear of gaining weight, the fear of fatness, the internalized fat phobia. And that’s the one we’re going to get started with today. How to help our clients with the fear of gaining weight, the fear of fatness and what is really behind that.

Let’s get started. And what is the best approach for you to help your client with that? And I have to say this, and I’m gonna expand on this as I go through this episode. There’s a distinctive element that makes the process for professional to help other people with internalized fat phobia is their own journey through their fear of gaining weight and their fear of fatness. We all have it. I mean, I don’t want to speak in absolute term, but I’m pretty sure that all of you listening to this have had the fear of weight gain. Or currently are experiencing some degree of fear of weight gain or fear of fatness or discomfort in your own current body.

And your ability, your journey through moving this fear for yourself is what will create ease. And create proficiency, I have to be honest, in helping others. So that’s what we’re going to talk about in the rest of the episode. It’s a training that I did actually. So mypodcast producing team is going to roll in the pre recorded training that I did for one of my program and that I’m sharing with you here on the podcast, because it was one of my most, I gotta say, brilliant moment.

It was very well done. My brain was just really. Deeply focused on the topic, and I wanted to share that training with you because it was profound. So I hope it serves you well. Next week we’re gonna talk about how to help our client with weight gain and the desire to quit working with us because they’re gaining weight. So stay tuned for next week’s episode. I’ll see you then .

The desire to lose weight in my perspective is only but a symptom. It’s a symptom of a dissatisfaction with who we are. It presents itself outwardly into the world as a dissatisfaction for our like physical body and it’s because that’s how we meet. The world, that’s what our socialization and our system and our belief we live in tells us that we can feel better about our life if we are smaller, we wear sexier clothes, we, somebody just commented on my post, but my life is better because I fit in the sexy clothes.

So this person has this perspective on life because that’s what she’s being reflected on everywhere into the world. It’s 100 percent normal that she would want to lose weight because she is being told repeatedly over and over again that if she looks a certain way, she’s going to be able to finally wear the sexy clothes and she will be fine.

appreciated by the world because she wears the clothes, because she’s in a smaller body, her life will be better. And because that person is not, and I’ll talk in the context of self identified women, because This person is not questioning what she’s being told is the solution to her dissatisfaction in the core of who she is.

She’s not questioning what she’s being told is the solution. For sure, she wants to lose weight. Now, how do we deal with that? Because our whole approach is a non diet approach where we don’t sell intentional weight loss. We don’t. For many of us, we don’t coach people towards intentional weight loss. So when people tell us, but I want to lose weight, how do we react?

Do we, and here’s where I see the major like why in the road is the background of the professional. So I’ve kind of categorized that if I can say, I’ll categorize it based on my own journey. Back 7 year plus ago, 7 plus years ago, when I was just coming off of a traditional nutrition practice, I didn’t have the skill sets that I have today and somebody would come into my office and say, But I need to lose weight.

I would get angry. There’s spirit to like convince them that losing weight is a terrible thing, that is not the way true. But I didn’t have the ability. To verbalize another solution or to help them understand another solution. I didn’t understand what it meant at a deeper level. So I didn’t know what to do with those people.

And in a way I was avoiding attracting those people. I was avoiding having conversation about the desire to lose weight because I wasn’t equipped to do it. Because as a nutritionist, I’ll think. Nutritionist, dietician, fitness trainer, who else have I trained? Doctors, anyone that is not from the field of therapy or psychology or even social work, if you’re not from these fields and you are from the field of healthcare, dietician, nutritionist, health coaches, you have not been trained inIn the psychology of human being, you don’t understand the bigger arcing principle of life coaching of the human relationship with themselves.

So when you’re faced with the desire to lose weight, you feel like lost. You’re like, I don’t know how to deal with this. I just know it doesn’t work. So I’m going to keep telling them it doesn’t work, hoping that they will change their mind. And it doesn’t. Just telling someone it doesn’t work is not going to offer them a solution to their deeper problem, which is their relationship to themselves globally.

Being able to unpack why this person has this desire, being able to present it to them in a way that they can see Solving their problem and living the life that they want is from another skill set. That’s from the skill set of Relationship. It’s from the skill set of coaching. It’s from the skill set of Loving yourself and we don’t have the skill set for that and that’s why it’s such a struggle.

That’s why we become Tiny this thing happened. We want to disappear under the table. I’ve coached many times Professionals says I don’t want to work with people who want to lose weight I want them like further along their journey But let me tell you this if we don’t work with those people if we as non diet coaches are not willing to work with people who still want to lose weight or we’re not willing to Help them through this desire.

Who in the hell will? Certainly not the weight loss industry or wellness culture or diet culture. They want people to keep want to lose weight. That’s what they sell. That’s the product they have. So they’re never going to coach someone on understanding their desire to lose weight and really making a consensual choice.

for what is best for them. and here’s the truth of it all. Many, most of us in the health field have been trained by diet culture. So here’s another reason why we don’t have the skill set to coach people through their desire to lose weight. It’s because the training we’ve received is from diet culture or wellness culture, which sells the desire, sells product for the desire to lose weight.

People that are following me that are from the field of therapy, psychology, social work, all these fields, they know what to do with this. They know they’re equipped to ask the bigger question and coach the person towards getting to the bottom of it all and helping them move towards what is really best for them.

that’s where I fill in the gap with my program. I’m going to host a workshop on Friday called How to Coach the Desire to Lose Weight. and the solution that I offer to the desire of losing weight is number one is coaching, right? Getting a new perspective on your desire to lose weight and then body acceptance.

And if the process of body acceptance, if for me, body acceptance. is about evolving your relationship to yourself. It’s about creating a new relationship with yourself. Because really, when you’re working on accepting your body, you’re working on accepting yourself. that’s what you’re working on. We may say it’s body image work, but it’s really about accepting yourself.

And I get it. As I said again a couple times, most of us don’t have the skill set. To coach relationship to self now that’s on us to take responsibility for that and it yeah, it’s totally true It’s a gap in our industry. That’s why I created the non diet coaching certification so we can have a Training platform that gives you the tool to deal with helping people in a non diet approach.

Training that is created to give you the tools to really help people in all the parts that they need help with. And it’s the only program training certification that I know of. That is not rooted in diet culture and wellness culture that is not fatphobic. And if there’s another one, please let me know.

But most of them all, they all have a tincture of wellness culture, diet culture, and fatphobia. So, that’s what I’m going to try to help you with on Friday. I’m going to try to, first of all, help you understand what do people really mean when they say, But I want to lose weight. What is it that they’re really saying?

I’m going to help you understand that at a much bigger picture level, and a much deeper level at the same time. And then, how to communicate that to the person in front of you. How to have that conversation with someone about their desire to lose weight in a respectful, and I want to talk a lot about consent.

How to have this conversation. And this is when you’re thinking about like respect, when you’re talking about ethics, it’s really about creating an environment where people feel safe. So how do you create a conversation with someone? That they will feel safe listening to you knowingly that you’re not expecting them to change their mind.

That you’re not telling them they’re wrong for wanting to lose weight. How to have this conversation with people. How to position, how to talk about what you do in a way that will not make people feel unsafe to be with you. In a way that will, will people want to hear you. That perhaps they’ll even ask questions. They’ll get curious. They’re like, oh, I’ve never heard this before. Tell me more. and this is a great insight for you if you’re currently a practicing non diet professional and you’re having a conversation about The desire to lose weight, and as soon as you start talking to this other person, they back away, they end the conversation, they interrupt you, they change subject, it’s likely because they don’t feel safe.

So how can you talk about what you do without making it about them being wrong? And them being stupid, and them being… Terrible for wanting to lose weight, because let’s just face it, they won’t change by being made wrong. So, have that conversation, and then, and this is 90 minutes, I’m obviously not going to train you to be a body acceptance coach, but what would it look like for you to create a coaching process, That will ultimately lead people to have a different relationship with themselves.

That’s what we’re going to do on Friday. So, highly recommend that you come there. And if it’s not with me you’re learning, that’s totally okay. Whoever you are learning to coach the non diet approach in a way that will truly change people. That will make them better from after working with you, by all means go learn that from someone, but that’s the work we need to do it and I’ve said this many, many times, we are at the beginning of our industry, 20 years from now, we will look back at today and say, Oh my God, how did we do what we were doing?

20 years from now, we will, our approach will be better known. We will have sturdy research based process. Like, it will be like so much easier than it is right now. And there will be a ton of training program and certification out there. that will graduate people in the health field by the thousand with this approach.

Right now, we’re like… at the grassroots level. That’s why, as far as I know, what I do, I’m the only one doing it professionally and training other professionals because this is how grassroots this is. The one thing I know for sure is that women deserve to be trusted. Women’s body deserves to be trusted.

Women have the right to feel safe in their now body. Women deserves the right to choose. And that’s what we do. We give people an option that’s currently not in their perspective. We come to that desire to lose weight to say, It’s totally normal you desire to lose weight, but did you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you can also do this.

You’re there to give people an option. Women deserve the right to an option. And that’s what we do. That’s what our duty is as a non diet professional is to offer the self safe environment for women to know that they have an option. They have choices. They don’t have to go back on the 12th diet in their life. That’s what we do. But I can put that in a post. I would love to hear from you. What do you struggle with when it comes to having the conversation about the desire to lose weight?

I guarantee you, I’ve missed some perspective, I’ve missed an angle, I’ve missed… A point of view, please let me know what you struggle with so I can give you tools for it and resources.

Scaling Your Non-Diet Business-What no one talks about an interview with Vanessa Preston. 

What does it take to make it happen? What do you need to know that will tremendously move the dial up and grow your business.

I’ll be honest it’s likely not what you think it’s about… 

Me and Vanessa go deeply behind the scenes and share what it really looks like and feel like to grow your non -diet business.

Scaling Your Non-Diet Business 

What you’ll learn listening to this episode:

• The “behind the scenes” of our personal journey to scaling our non-diet business
• The failures and how we handle them
• How we befriend our nervous system
• Did someone say photoshoot???
• Real raw conversation about scaling your non-diet conversation

Mentioned in the show:

Non-Diet Coaching Certification

Free Resources 

Connect with our guest:

Website – Vanessa Preston

Instagram – Vanessa Preston

Facebook – Vanessa Preston

Transcript:

Scaling Your Non-Diet Business-What No One Talks about with Vanessa Preston

Hey, my dear colleague, welcome back. I have, or we have a treat for you today because it’s two of us. Today’s an interview with a colleague, former student of mine, Vanessa Preston, and we had this beautiful conversation that we recorded about business growth, about scaling our businesses and what it really takes.

We’re taking you behind the scene and the real raw emotion and thoughts that goes on in each of our brain when we think about our business. And it’s likely not about what you think it is about, because most of us have been sold by business culture, that it takes action, it takes strategy, it takes a lot of complicated things in order to be successful in business.

And this conversation is going to highlight from people in the trenches who are growing their business what it really takes behind all those strategy and what makes both of us successful. So I invite all of you to listen to this conversation. It is one of the longest interview I’ve ever done because the conversation was too good to end it.

So, enjoy it and I would love to hear from you after you listen to this episode, how it helped you, because I know it’s gonna be a tremendous help to many of you.

So give me some feedback on social media, on email, and I hope that it helps you as much as it helped me and Vanessa to have this conversation and record it for you.

So to my team, let’s roll over the interview.​

Stephanie: Welcome to the show, Vanessa.

Vanessa: Thank you. I’m excited to have a chat with you.

Stephanie: I’m excited too. So I’m gonna put a context to this for everybody listening. We literally just jumped on Zoom and I said to Vanessa, I want to have a casual conversation and I wanna record it, and I want everybody to listen to two friends having a conversation and what kind of conversation we’re having. So, that’s the context. She hasn’t said barely anything to me other than you’re doing well and doing well and that is it.

Stephanie: And the second piece I wanna say to everybody, this conversation was triggered by an email I got from Vanessa. So I put myself on her list of future client and I got this email from her and I’m like, holy shit, we need to talk about this.

Stephanie: So here we are.

Vanessa: Yes, and I

Stephanie: You excited?

Vanessa: I’m excited. And the one thing I did say before you hit record was your haircut is so fabulous.

Vanessa: [Sheik] See you, you have on your cute business Kinded jacket and for listeners, I’m in Australia, so it’s like 7:00 AM. So I like, in my hoodie and in my recording closet,

Stephanie: and I’m in the bright yellow jacket.

Stephanie: So it’s been what, a year and a half. When is the last time we got on Zoom? A year and ago when you taught a masterclass for the professional about regulating the nervous system? [Yes. Yeah.] Yeah. I think that’s what it was, right? [Yeah.]

Stephanie: We’ve been conversing over emails and over dms and PMs and all of that stuff, but it’s been a year since we had a conversation. So Vanessa graduated from the Non Indict Mentorship program. She has an extensive background in therapy, complex trauma therapists. She came to us, did her personal work, and then went on to build a business. And when I got this email from you, like you’ve gone all like serious in, serious business.

Vanessa: Stephanie, when I knew we were gonna have this chat, I was like, in my soul. I was like, how honest am I about to be.

Stephanie: Real raw, honest, because that’s the only thing we do.

Vanessa: Cause I’m like, some of what I might share, I don’t know how inspirational it will be at first, but I think it will be stuff that maybe other business entrepreneurs and women are sitting with and might even feel ashamed of. So I can kind of speak to. the reality of behind the scenes and it’s worth it and I’m so excited. [Yes.]

Vanessa: But one of the things I tell my clients is anxiety and excitement can feel the same in the nervous system. So sometimes I’m like, when I’ve taken the next step in, the next step in the business, I’m like, I sit down, I take a breath, I’m like, is this anxiety or am I just excited?

Stephanie: Yes.

Vanessa: But since, since I taught that trauma kind of informed type workshop, which I love doing, I have, I do it for lack of better wording, leveled up. I guess it really had to take that next step in the business. And I’ll tell you a few things that I’ve kind of faced, and when I was thinking about sharing this with you as well, I was like, Stephanie, I did not manage my brain all the time.

Stephanie: You shunt, you’re human.

Vanessa: She was running around like a wild toddler who was hungry and grumpy sometimes. So, where I think the, actually, the growth happened, which I’m certainly not saying this is something that would be the right move for everybody, but I took a total step back from social media. [Mm-hmm.] A total step back.

Vanessa: And that is a decision that I had been kind of ignoring from my gut for a little while. And it was really hard because it’s like, oh my gosh, what’s gonna happen? No one’s gonna know what I’m doing. It’s kind of this massive fomo, like everything I had learned through lots of business coaching was how to show up on social media.

Vanessa: And so, but what I learned from kind of following my gut with that decision [mm-hmm] is I think what you’ve witnessed on my email list is I had been avoiding, like the social media had become an avoidance tactic for me. So it would be, I’ll show up, I’ll record a story. That’s great, nothing wrong with that. But I would do it so I got this short term feeling of being productive while I was avoiding creating a product suite, automating things, hiring a VA who has the skills that I don’t have. [Yeah.] And so it, all of these things, once I listen to that gut instinct, did unfold. And it’s kind of what you’ve been witnessing over the 12 months [mm-hmm] with emails going out and things like that.

Stephanie: Yeah.So all of that, all hell yes to that. But, so from my perspective, so I wanna give a bit of context for people, when we met, you were in private practice for like 20 years, as a therapist with an established practice, with a wait list, well known in your field in Australia, not on social media from a business perspective, not an online teacher, not a podcaster, no, nothing of that.

Vanessa: Nothing. And the thing is, I remember telling you this when I did the mentorship program. That didn’t require marketing. It was just this, it’s a different vibe. It’s just a totally different kind of thing. So yeah, when I came to you initially, it was full-time private practice and I think that’s one of the things that have kind of, has seen me through is that focus. When the anxiety was up or when my perfection is in part, which I’ll share with you, kind of was activated, I really came back to what’s my long term focus. [Mm-hmm] And it is help women make peace with their now bodies and food. Right? [Yeah] I want women to find radical self-acceptance.

Vanessa: And two is, like you said, years and years in private practice. I really have this longing to diversify that. I love the one-on-one work but diversifying that to prevent burnout and kind of just have this different thing. So yes,you helped me start that move in the mentorship program from creating these online groups and programs.

Stephanie: Well, I think it’s in like in, so it’s been two years. I can’t remember when you did the mentorship, two, two and a half years ago. Like, I just want you to think where you came from in those two years. Like, just like I kept reading your email, I’m like, what the fuck? Like, you’re blowing my mind. I hope you’re blowing your own bro.

Vanessa: That is the deepest compliment because you’ll tell it like it is. So it’s like when I get a compliment from you, I’m like, it’s true.

Stephanie: It’s like going from this and I know how difficult it was for you to start crafting this other identity, we’ll call it what it is. You have the well established expertise and therapy, but you had to create from the bottom up, just like a brand new coach. [Yes.] You had to build yourself up from like literary ground zero to start, to get where you are right now.

Vanessa: Yes. And I remember when me and you were talking about starting the podcast, I think I’m in like maybe episode, I don’t know, 69 or 70 next week or something. But I remember me and you talking about that, and I was like, Stephanie, I don’t even have enough to say. [I know.] And I also, this is kind of shows what’s possible when you are supporting your nervous system [mm] and doing the deeper work because I remember jumping on the microphone for that first episode. Stephanie, I recorded it four times. [Yeah.] I was shaking. I felt anxious in my stomach and in my chest. And now I can just jump on it’s second nature,

Stephanie: open the mic and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right?

Vanessa: Yes. Yes. So it’s kinda like, it’s kinda like exposure therapy. It’s like over the two years I just keep taking gradual steps. The thing that scares me, where can I start? That’s like a two outta 10. And then once I’ve done that and I can restabilize, where can I move? That’s like a four or five outta 10. Restabilize. And that’s really the approach I’ve tried to take.

Stephanie: And that’s where you and me agree on like the, that bridge between therapy and coaching, which is really like coaching is about becoming that version of you, of taking that step forward, anxious and scared, but safe. [Yes.] Like if you wanna create, for all of you listening and you want to create that practice or you want to create that business, you’re gonna have to do things scared shit. [Yeah.] It’s just like, it’s a fact.

Vanessa: Yes, but I think though your words has have always stayed with me and I’ll, I’m gonna swear for a second. [Yeah] But you were like, fuck it. Do it scared. [Yeah] And so I’ve really held onto that of, do it scared but not unsafe. [Yes] that’s what I teach my clients with body image work too. I’m like, we’re about to get uncomfortable, but we don’t want you unsafe. So where do we, how do we find that kind of line together?

Stephanie: Where do we find that limit? So let’s talk about this. So you did the mentorship, you started your podcast and we, you went on your way, you came back and taught a class for me. But now you’re at a place where you have a website, you have an online program. You have professionally designed, like online. You had the next step. You’ve ran your program a few time. Now it’s like out there in big time. There’s a photo shoot of you on that sales page. Like people you don’t understand, she did a photo shoot.

Vanessa: Yes, and that’s an example of like, if you look back, Stephanie, what you’ll see is one headshot of me, [mm-hmm] one headshot. After all the work I’ve done around the past eating disorder and the past chronic dieting and the past body shame, I still had this fear of being seen from the neck down type thing, right? [Mm-hmm] Like, and so yes, that pho it’s funny you bring up the photo shoot because I’m like, the VA that I’m working with is brilliant, you know her, Adel.

Stephanie: Okay, yes.

Vanessa: And she has really helped me kind of get so much of this like up and going and our meetings, it kind of got to a point where it was like, Vanessa, we need photos of you.

Vanessa: I was like, but here’s a great headshot. But,

Stephanie: she’s like, no, we need a, like a full body picture.

Vanessa: Yes. And so that even that I, I actually have an episode coming out about what it was like to do that photo shoot cuz it was the next level being seen [yeah] in the business. And when you talk about the thought work that you teach, I will kind of often refer to what criticizes us around our bodies and the mirror and the reflection is that body critic.

Vanessa: [Mm-hmm] And what I find is each step in the business, it’s a version of the body critic that kind of gets activated. But over time, it’s less intense, it’s less frequent. You’re skilled up to manage that in a more effective way and quicker. The spiral isn’t there. And so the photo shoot was something that did trigger the body critic voice, but was equipped to fuck it and do it anyway.

Vanessa: [Mm-hmm] Do you know what I’m saying? And, and it ended up being fun. I started out like such unnatural smile, Stephanie. He was like, just look natural. And I’m like, Grinch, this, that soul Christmas. And, and then,

Stephanie: and stiff in one position, right?

Vanessa: He’s like, just kind of look like you’re speaking to a client on the screen. And I’m like, oh my gosh, I can, I’m too,I’m too uptight right now. But over the time I was able to find like a level of embodiment and by the end, we were at the beach and I was like, splashing water and I, and it felt fun and I didn’t care who was watching. So it was like a really great experience and, and an example of like, when you base it.

Stephanie: Do you find that, so your first professional photo shoot after having done the body image and the way I experience photo shoot these days, it’s almost like therapy. For me, it’s like I’m doing it for the business, but it has so much benefit for me. With every photo shoot, I embody myself better, I flow in my body better, I’m able to look at the photos right there on the spot in the camera, like it’s therapy for me. Did you find the same experience?

Vanessa: Yes. It was so therapeutic and it’s funny that you say this, that I was like,the body image group that you saw is, [mm-hmm] has launched. I’m like, I would love to create like a b fff, body food freedom like photo shoot, with the women who graduate. [Yes.] Because I’m like, there’s something magical about feeling that initial discomfort and having the skills to move into feeling more embodied. And also I looked at the photos, and this isn’t, I dunno, I looked at the photos and was able to see how insignificant the body critic stuff was. And I remember feeling like a giant pimple coming up [for sure] the chin, for Right, right on the chin. And, I was like, I am this strong woman and fuck your beauty standards. And then also I was like, but can I ice this? Will that help make, go away for the photos shoot? So it was also interesting to kind of see the, I don’t like the word hypocrisy, but something about that [yeah] where it was like, I actually do care what this looks like and I’m scared of people’s opinions. And at the same time, I have this part of me that’s like, fuck these beauty standards. I’m allowed to be seen. I’m worthy in this body.

Stephanie: And I’m gonna perhaps hear those comments of this and I’m gonna have my own back. Like for me, I like to say it’s gonna happen and I’m gonna fucking handle this.

Vanessa: Yeah. Yes. And when you, I have you in my ear saying that a lot of, like, and I’ve shared that with clients, have your own back. How do we get you there? And it’s this like, it’s this deeper, it is this like non-negotiable self-trust.

Vanessa: I will not harm my body again, and I will listen to like that internal kind of inner wisdom. I don’t, I won’t always get it right, but there’s a non-negotiable, that’s what I’m aiming to do. So when I think about, I’m like, I’ve invested in a va, I’ve invested in like a platform to start really housing the programs in a more professional way and [mm-hmm] yeah, it’s that. It’s a self-trust thing [yes] where I’m like, even if I do, cuz I think when I emailed you back initially, I was like, I’ve had moments of wanting to burn it all down. Even if that happened, even if that happened, I will still have my own back. [Yes.]

Vanessa: So kinda like, there’s not this circumstance that’s going to happen that changes that.

Stephanie: I have a sentence,an intentional thought. I’m practicing this late summer song from a country singer, Luke Comms. I dunno if you know him. And it’s, he says, even if I wasn’t doing this, he talks about his career as a country singer and how he started in bars and just a stool in his guitar and now he’s on those big stage. He says, even if I wasn’t doing this, I would still be doing this. [I love that.] Like, like it’s for me because it’s my story and for you, because it’s your story, because we’ve healed ourselves and we really build this beautiful relationship with ourselves. Even if we launch something and it’s not gonna work, I’m still gonna be doing this.

Stephanie: Like, I’m never not going to be a coach for women. I’m just, it’s just can’t fathom this place where I would not, it’s non-negotiable for me.

Vanessa: Yes. I love that. And I think though, when you said like, launch the program, one of the things that I’ve been [Yeah] getting really curious about is the program that’s launched, this feeling comes up of being like a child.

Vanessa: This is not an actual memory [mm-hmm] but it’s the embodied feeling of like being a child and you have like everything ready for your birthday party, like streamers and balloons, and you have a cake and no one comes to it. I know that’s like devastating, but I’m like, that’s the fear. That’s the feeling for a minute. [Yes]

Vanessa: Just that’s like, that’s the feeling for a minute of, all this work has gone into this. Let’s just say that, that the first launch doesn’t go well. [Yeah] there’s this inner child part of me [Mm-hmm] and I don’t know, I don’t know where you sit with this, but there’s this inner child part of me and I’m like, so if that were my little inner child sitting there, kind of disappointed,

Stephanie: yeah

Vanessa: I would comfort her. Right. I would sooth her. I would have compassion. And then my adult self is like, okay, let’s reassess what happened with marketing. What’s my plan next? And so that’s how I’ve started to think about it is, cuz I do think launching and then not getting results you wanted can be so vulnerable.

Stephanie: 100% vulnerable. [Yeah] And it’s, it can be devastating. And this is where, for me, compassion, like the relationship I have with myself and the result is two different things. Like I’m the human behind the results. [Yeah] so I’m the human who feel disappointed, sad, rejected. Can we say rejected? [Yes] when you launch something, nobody comes rejected. [Yes] And it’s totally normal. Like the idea that it, we shouldn’t feel this way is insane. Like it’s not understanding the human nature to think that we should not feel disappointed is how, to me, it’s how I meet myself in disappointment and rejection.

Vanessa: Yes. Yes. It’s like that, exactly how you just said that, and sitting with the emotion that comes up.

Stephanie: Yeah. [Yeah] and see, yeah, it’s true. I feel rejected right now and it’s 100% normal. So let’s be with rejection. Let’s make it safe for me to feel rejected.

Vanessa: And then the curiosity of [yeah] what have I made this mean?

Stephanie: Yeah. The first of all, let’s stay with rejection. That’s like this cry and wanna kill everybody, [Yes] wanna quit. What the fuck have I done? All this money went into the shoot and this website page and oh my God, right? [Yes] It all happens to me.

Vanessa: And part of what you’re doing when that happens is like sitting with the emotion.

Stephanie: Yeah. We’re not trying to fix it first. [Yes] This is me as now a coach. That wasn’t me like 10 years ago. Like, let’s just be honest, like this is the skill. So right now we’re just gonna be pissed at the world and angry and rejected and do all the things and we’re just gonna be with that and feel it in the body and do all of, and let’s not try to fix ourselves out of feeling that shit.

Vanessa: Yes. And I think that’s what, like, I see this in other versions in clinical work too. [Yes] But certainly like the women that are in business that I’m connected to, I think, I think there can be this like pressure to, like toxic positivity, right? [Yes] Like pressure to hurry up and fix it and [yeah] positive vibes only and stuff like that where I think, what me and you are talking about is that permission to actually be with the emotion, regulate it, [Yes] regain safety and then you can reason, you know? [Yes]So that, that is something that I’ve done repeatedly. And I almost wonder like if we had a whole room of, especially women entrepreneurs and we said like, you know, the whole scene from Mean Girls, if you’ve been personally victimized by Regina George, I’m like, if you have been personally victimized by this voice that pops up and goes, fuck it, burn it down. [Yeah] Like, I think a lot of us do have that sometimes.

Stephanie: Absolutely. I, I think it’s toxic positivity, especially on social media and business to think it’s not there. But that to me is not the kind of people I want to be with. Like, it’s not the kind of business I wanna do. For me, business is a container for my own development. [Yeah] Right. So every launch and every or every whatever I do, and there’s a failure, it’s an opportunity for me to develop or deepen my relationship with myself. It’s like truly what it is. [Yeah] So when I launch something and it fails and I’m with rejection, what happens for me is with, every time I feel this way, the window of feeling terrible and rejected, just shorten. It’s never gonna go away but instead of being three weeks, It’s three days.

Vanessa: Days, yes. And it’s like that way of building the tolerance in your nervous system for that. [Yes] So it is this, you do get to a point where it is kind of less intense or less, [Yes] it goes for, yeah, it’s less strong, I guess.

Stephanie: And then I can get curious and then I can learn, okay, what’s the problem? Like, was it not enough on this or too much on this? Did I not talk about the right thing? Or like, what is it? But I don’t want to get there too fast. I want to be with the drama and as you said in the beginning, the unmanaged mind, I wanna be with it.

Vanessa: Yes. It’s funny you say drama because I’ve always felt like I have this dramatic part of me, and it’s the part, especially in your mentorship program, that I really started to be like, she is not too much and she is not too loud and she is not taking up too much space.

Vanessa: And so I let that dramatic part of me just join the party for a minute. Right. Like some way, whether it’s just, yeah, just being really dramatic about it, kind of just really sitting with all the messiness of it. But the other thing that I noticed, Stephanie, is the perfectionist tendencies.

Stephanie: Tell me, how did it show up?

Vanessa: They showed up where just everything like being, anything from even I noticed I’m mistaken in an email that went out. [Okay] Right. So I started to kind of notice and these like high unrelenting standards on myself. So it’s almost like I went, you know how we say like healing is like an onion and you kind of, [Yes] ]it’s like I hit and move through the next layer of the kind of perfectionist side. And I think one of the things that helped with that is definitely the compassion, but one of the frameworks that I use in the therapy space kind of talks about that part, that part developing to help us cope.

Vanessa: And so this perfectionist part of me, it’s developed to try to protect me from rejection or possible judgment or possible failure. So it’s almost like the perfectionist part is like, if I ridicule her enough, she’ll stop doing this thing and we can feel safe again. You know what I’m saying? [Mm-hmm. Yeah.]

Vanessa: And so it’s almost like through, through this, that perfectionist part, I’m like trying to almost just approach that part with compassion and curiosity of what are you trying to protect? What do you need to know from me? Well, it’s safe, and this is a launch of a program. If this doesn’t go well, we can reassess. It’s okay to make mistakes better done than perfect. All of these kind of like, how do I kind of reassure, that part of me, and that’s been really important to the whole evolution of the business.

Stephanie: I just wanna say, ask you this, if you didn’t reassure that part of you, if you didn’t know how to reassure it or didn’t believe in reassuring that part of you, if you step back three years to where you are now, would you be where you are today and have launched this product in this website, in this online program and all of that?

Vanessa: No, I don’t think so. I think, no. I think, one of the things that got really clear to me, and this is where sometimes the deeper, making sure as a professional, you’re doing your own work [mm-hmm] on yourself kind of continuously, right? [Mm-hmm] Because what sits under that perfectionist part for me is kind of just some younger child kind of part that learned really early. If you’re perfect and quiet and submissive, you’re safe.

Stephanie: You’re safe from harm.

Vanessa: From harm. You’re safe from harm. So it’s this teaching that part of me, actually you’re safe now. And I see those parts of people come up in the business space, [Yeah] right.

Stephanie: Yeah. So, and I’m not a therapist, but allow me to just give an analogy to people. I obvious say you’re thinking in your business as a grown ass adult today, as a 10 year olds. Like you’re using the 10 year old part of your brain to make decision as a 35 year old in your business. Like even if people don’t like what you do today at 35, it will not be dangerous, like when you attend.

Vanessa: No. And that there’s this whole thing that unfolds in therapy, and it’s honestly one of the most rewarding parts. But I’ve done this myself too, is, you know how you said that 10 year old. It’s yeah] you’re like,no, but you’re like a 30 something year old adult, strong, resilient woman.

Vanessa: It’s these, this reassurance and the showing up for that 10 year old part of us of being like, do you know what 10 year old part, I’m safe now. We’re safe, we’re actually running this. Like, it’s kind of time orienting that part.

Stephanie: Brilliant way of looking at it.

Vanessa: Yes. So the parts work has helped so much and when I’ve wanted to like burn it down.

Stephanie: Tell me when did that happen? Give me an example of what made you want to burn it all down.

Vanessa: I think, maybe like two things come to mind, and this is kind of a little bit of thought work, I suppose [mm-hmm] is I’ve always walked around. I’ve said it in your program for six months. I’m tech challenged. [Okay] That’s the thing I keep saying like, I’m tech challenged. And so I’m going, okay, how do we break that apart a little bit? Like, well, no, I’m not, I’m Vanessa and I’m kind of going, okay, I’m someone who’s learning to get better with technology. Right. So it’s kind of doing that thought work that you teach. [Mm-hmm]

Vanessa: But that definitely came up. So anytime, as I’m working with my BA anytime, it’s like, hey, can you jump into Cajabi and like, just tweak these few things, or I just need you to add this part here. Or I jump on Camba and I’m like to do something. And Stephanie, it happened so quick, but it’s gotten better. But it’s like, if I can’t figure it out in two seconds, I’m done. [You’re too bad.] I’m done. [Quit] Yeah, I’m done. So, so the tech stuff has been a real thing.

Vanessa: The other part is trying to find my voice and how I teach body image and putting it into this 12 week program. [Mm-hmm] Doing that, sometimes I felt this like overwhelm where I would be like, I’m done. Sometimes I would have all the, like the paperwork laid out of what’s happening in each module. My partner’s a psychologist, so I would be like, can you just fix this for me please? And he is like, I actually can’t do that. He’s like, I can like listen to,

Stephanie: I can listen to you, nicki feel better, therapeutic you, but I can’t fix this thing.

Vanessa: Yes, yes. Buthe’s been brilliant through all of this too becausewhen I have walked upstairs and been like, I couldn’t get something to work on Kajabi, I couldn’t get something to work in Canva, something I did failed, I feel like I’m behind on something. Oh my gosh, now I only have this amount of time to do this. The deadline’s approaching, kind of that anxious vibe. I’ll be like, babe, I think I’m done.

Vanessa: He’s like, and he’ll say, he always says something like, let’s just revisit this in about

Stephanie: therapy

Vanessa: I’m like, I’m like, so he is like, you totally like, that’s fine. We can be done, but like, let’s just see where you’re at with it in a few days. And then in a few days I’m like, I love this. It’s gonna be fabulous. I can’t wait to find these women to, so it’s just, so do you Stephanie, when I describe that, do you hear that as like unmanaged, I don’t know, mind, or do you view it as like that’s the phases,

Stephanie: that’s human nature. [Yes] That’s human nature, the illusion. So this is a great question because when people hear the word unmanaged mine and managed mine, they think one is better than the other. Like one is, manage is like, yes, you’re there, iManage your bad. But it’s not the truth. The truth is being a human is both. It’s the black and the white, [Yes] right.

Stephanie: If you study Buddhism, like it’s it, the circle is half black and half white, and that’s what makes being a human. So being a human is having an unmanaged mind and being aware that it’s unmanaged. When I have my drama of rejection, I’m like in it and I’m aware that I’m in it.

Vanessa: Yes.

Stephanie: Like I believe it, but I don’t believe it. But I’m like, yes, it’s true, it sucks, but it’s just an un management. Oh, right.

Vanessa: I love that how you just said that. Yes. It’s like that happens because we’re human, but I, there’s this kind of deeper knowing, observing self, isn’t there? Yes. That’s like, oh, you’re doing that thing.

Stephanie: Yeah, you’re having that. Let’s have that moment together. Let’s make it like all the way to the extreme. So like for me it’s like, okay, let’s be rejected and all the way. Like, let’s feel it in every cell of my body and then this, do I wanna continue? Like this is where the personal work comes in because now I have a choice. [Yeah] Do I want to continue to feel like this? Like I’m not outta control. Oh my God, I like, it’s the end of the world. Like, I’m doom. This is who I am. It’s like, okay, this is happening to me. I feel rejected. People don’t wanna buy my stuff, but I have a choice.

Vanessa: Yes, yes.

Stephanie: This is where personal work, taught work. Nervous system regulation. The gift that it gave me. It’s having a choice.

Vanessa: And that’s the magic. That is another like core kind of value that really strengthened for me through the mentorship program and beyond was autonomy. [Yes.] Especially when we’re yes, like the honoring of choice.

Stephanie: Yeah. You can say, I’m like, you can send rejection. You can like be in your pit of sorrow for the next week if you want to, for the next month forever. Like, you can be there. Do you want, No, fuck that sucks. [Yeah. Yeah.] Like, okay, weve been there for today. Like, let’s move on to something else now.

Vanessa: Yes. Yes. And the last thing when I think about like this evolution right, is, and I, when I do therapy with therapist or with coaches, it comes up every time is, which the thought that, I should know better because I’m a professional. Like I shouldn’t be feeling this, I shouldn’t be thinking this. I should be further along. And this is where it’s kind of normalizing what you just said is actually the importance of the skills you learn, the awareness you develop. And just because we’re therapists and coaches doesn’t mean we’re immune to human normal experience, but it’s kind of what we do with it.

Vanessa: [Yes.] So that was a voice I noticed where I was like, oh my gosh, here I am. I’ve taught the, my group program live three times. I’ve taught workshops and I’m saying I’m teaching women like you are worthy of being seen in your now body. And here I am, like at a photo shoot being like, where’s my headshot?

Vanessa: But it’s just kind of having that compassion [Yes] and that like, just because you’re a professional doesn’t mean you’re gonna magically perfect this. It’s

Stephanie: Let me ask you this. [Yeah] Why do you think that is? Why do you think, to me, it’s a misunderstanding of the human nature that leads certain professional to think it shouldn’t be happening. Why do you think it’s happening? Why do you think they think that? Is it a misunderstanding?

Vanessa: Well, if I can speak from like a therapist perspective for a minute, and maybe there’s like a version of this in the coaching community too. I think there’s this thing that develops really early in university and training and then beyond of it’s kind of us versus them.

Vanessa: We are the experts. We are the healers andthey, the clients are the one with the problem and the issue. So it becomes this kind of, in a way, like a dehumanizing us, we’re the experts and it’s them. Where I don’t view it like that. I kind of go, I view it in like a humanistic way where it’s like, we’re all kind of doing this messy thing called life and we all have our wos or hurts or pain.

Vanessa: We all have our goals and dreams and values, and so I think that might be part of it is even in trainings. As a therapist sometimes it’s like, you can see we role play a lot. So we did this, I did a eating disorder training this year, and they always do it. It’s therapist, client, and then observer. And you can see the discomfort for professionals to get out of their experty space and be the human. And I’m not saying this to criticize anybody. I totally get where it comes from. But it’s funny because when I did the role play, I was the client and I was a teenager and I was dealing with an eating disorder. And afterwards they were like, gosh, you’re like a really great actress. They’re like, you can tell you’ve really worked with a lot of clients. In my head I was like, honey, I just channeled my n Inner teenage Vanessa.

Stephanie: That was my real story.

Vanessa: So I think that might be part of it, is this idea that like, no, no, no,you’re the expert.

Stephanie: As you’re saying now, but the imagery that came up to me in my head is a pedestal, right? Yes. And it’s like an armor that socialization the current system or in for leadership, because I’ve, my corporate background comes in here where they teach you to like position yourself above to show leadership in authority and wear this like, armor to distance yourself and create a persona for credibility that people will buy, that you are perfect, you’re stronger, and probably that’s what’s happening.

Vanessa: Yes. They’re kind of in that part of them, and then it’s like, it’s hard to kind of, resign themselves. [Yeah.] Like, well, how do I make, if I’m that and I’m armored up and I’m in that, how do I kind of admit to myself that actually there’s this healing and these vulnerabilities that I need to be addressing?

Stephanie: Yeah. And for me, I don’t know in therapy, but for me, the way I teach coaching, the way I coach, it’s my humanity. It’s my unmanaged mind. It’s my lived experience that makes me greater at helping other people.

Vanessa: Yes. And it’s, that’s the magic in addressing what’s there because there’s magic in it, in the experience and in the pain or the emotions when you really start to work through it, there is magic because of what you said.

Vanessa: You kind of have this lived experience that you understand, [mm-hmm] that you’re aware of, that you’re taking steps to continue to heal.

Stephanie: And it doesn’t require me to be on a pedestal with an armor. I don’t need to create this persona. I can be who I am and be in that whatever mess and know that people I’m in a mess and totally be okay. I don’t need to be looking perfect on that armor.

Vanessa: Yeah. When I have a client come in and even in the group work, I just kind of spell that out of, yes, I have knowledge. Yes, I have skills and training. Yes, I’m going to be teaching some things, but your lived experience matters. And I kind of view like, we’re walking together in this. It’s not me above you. This is like, we’re walking together and I’ve had clients be like, Vanessa, I don’t wanna work on that. And I’ll go, you don’t have to work on that part. [Mm-hmm] and then all of a sudden the resistance goes down and it does open up something. As soon as you’re not kind of pushing, it’s the autonomy. [Yes] As soon as someone knows they have autonomy with you and you trust them, the resistance to change goes down.

Stephanie: And the change goes, the transformation potential is greater. [Yes. Yeah] But as you’re saying that is because when you walk side by side with your client, when you’re in the position of pedestal and authority, the performance of the person you work with is of the significance to your greatness. But when you’re coaching, at least for me, side by side, it’s not about what the client does or the transformation they have. Like, I’m solid in who I am and my potential and my greatness, and I just landed to you. But what you do with it does not make me greater or less thereof.

Vanessa: Yes. Stephanie, that has been, it’s a process of like detaching your worth [yes] from everything. And what are we doing in body image work? We are detaching our worth from being in a specific beauty body ideal. [Yeah] we’re detaching our worth from the outcome of our launch. We’re detaching our worth from our clients transformation. Do we want all that to go well? Of course we do. [Yes.] Are we cheerleading for our clients to make change? Absolutely. But I get what you’re saying. It’s not like my worth is not dependent on that. That is like a hardcore intentional belief. I did a thought ladder in your program about this. I remember sitting with you going like, I don’t know the core belief,

Vanessa: But now I’m like, my worth is not dependent on anything. And I might have a scared part of me that doubts that sometimes, but like, I had a client say to me, I feel like when I come here, it’s like initially you’re like walking beside me in my brain and I’m being like, these are all the things, this is the thing that my parents left me, this is the legacy from then. And she said, and it’s like you’re sitting there really going like, wow, you live like this, this society. She’s like, I’m just kind of showing you the lay of the land. This is what’s going on. But yeah, I think, I don’t know if I went on a tangent, but I said all that to be like professionals, it’s okay to do your own healing. [Yes.] And it’s okay if you’re not this perfectly manicured like perfect human. It’s just no such thing.

Stephanie: No am and I was gonna say am. The more messy you are and the more you move yourself through that, coach yourself, theorize yourself through this, the greater coach or therapist you’re gonna be for your people.

Vanessa: Yes, and I don’t say this with any judgment, but a lot of therapy training, for example, require you to do your own work and a lot actually don’t. I can tell the therapists who haven’t done anything. [Yes.] And honestly, so can the clients. And so it’s if you want your client to walk the walk, you better have done it too.

Stephanie: Yeah, and it’s interesting what I’ve observed now I’m at my eighth cohort that I’m launching [Wow] of professional. And so I’ve now seen a variety of backgrounds and people, and I have to say that the people with the most traumatic pasts that have moved themself through it, coach themself through it, heal themself through it, are the most potential, the coach with the most potency for their clients. Then they don’t, most of them don’t have a degree on the back wall. They have the degree of lived experience and doing their work and, fuck, they’re so powerful for coaches. [Yes.] Once you give them a structure to coach like, they come with all this live experience and all this trauma work they’ve done and now giving them a structure to coach other people days, like the result they get is brilliant.

Vanessa: Yes, absolutely. That’s what I, when I say like, the magic of it, that’s the magic of it. And I think we’re conditioned to attach our worth to those qualifications on the wall. [Mm-hmm] And that’s part of, you know how you said like that, like expert armored, that’s part of it. Like fix the business suit jacket and like look at my qualifications on the wall. And I’m not saying that stuff, there’s a place for that stuff. But the lived experience in your own work [yeah] helps your client transform, I think.

Stephanie: And so this is where I’m seeing the people who now three and a half years into it, and those that are still in business three and a half years later are the one, I’m gonna say something here, but they’re the one who are still in business today. Those who graduated three and a half years ago to now, those that are still in business today are the one that do their personal work every day in the circumstance of their business.

Vanessa: Yeah. I’ve said to my partner a number of times in the last 12 months, I’m like, whew, this is not for the fainthearted.

Vanessa: [No.]

Vanessa: Yeah. Yeah. But it’s certainly been an interesting evolution.

Stephanie: So where are you going next? Are you still on the path of training therapists?

Vanessa: Yes.Yes. That’s where I feel the calling of the body image program that’s launched now. I see that being a key part of training [yeah] for their body image providers. What I’m seeing in the therapy or in the coaching space as well [Yeah] and I’m sure you see this too as like, I think trauma informed has become like a cool hashtag.

Stephanie: I’m gonna do some breath work and I’m gonna call myself a trauma informed coach. [Yes.] We’ll leave it at that.

Vanessa: Yes, yes, yes. So I’m like the passion that where next is working with professionals who are teaching body image in some capacity and really giving them skills to do that in a trauma informed way. And Stephanie, I’m seeing a real need for that too in the eating disorder space.

Stephanie: Oh, yes.

Vanessa: There’s a lot happening in the eating disorder space that doesn’t actually value client autonomy at all and doesn’t acknowledge that. And this is relevant for the clients your coaches are working with when it comes to chronic dieting. There’s no acknowledgement of the food behaviors are serving a deeper need. If we are not addressing that, at least in some way in eating disorder treatment, it kind of turns into like a power struggle. [Yeah.] So, yes, when you say like, what’s next, I wanna keep running this body image program for women. I have put like my blood, sweat, tears lived experience, clinical experience, all the feedback from the times I’ve run it. [Yeah.] And it’s like, I’m actually really proud of it, so I’ll keep running that. But yeah, I’m thinking professionals, it’s where my heart is calling me.

Stephanie: So I have two things for you. I’m preparing a workshop right now on binge strict cycle and I was reading a study yesterday [yeah] on, I wanted to bring the view of science on binge eating and they had like, wanted the solution to binge eating was a weight loss program. And it just made me cringe to the deepest part of my D n a. I’m like, this is one of the top study on binge eating disorder is recommending a weight loss program on a low calorie diet. I’m like, that’s the state of the eating disorder research.

Vanessa: Yes. And it’s very weight central. [Oh, wow.] The fat phobia is sewn into the very fabric of the treatment space. And I actually, it’s interesting you say that because two days ago I had a psychologist send me an email that went around to her clinic. Stephanie, this is a huge clinic, 20 clinicians maybe. And they were excited because they were partnering with a university here, and they were doing a study, the quote, weight loss injections, right, [Oh] and this is disgusting. And it was, we want to line up kind of therapeutic care for the vulnerable people with anxiety eating disorders and body dysmorphia to support them in their weight loss goals.

Vanessa: So this is the stuff, Stephanie, like you, it makes my blood oil. So I’m like, when I think about what’s next, we have to [that’s your field] interrogate that. We have to absolutely interrogate that.

Stephanie: And this is where the degree on the wall comes in, in that [I know] this is not my place. Right. So I did a talk recently at a university who hired me to talk about body image and every statement I had to make, I positioned from, I’m not a researcher like you, I’m in the application world. That was the only way for me to get through to them because I don’t have the diploma on the wall and I don’t have the fancy degree. But this is where, for you, you need to step into that role because you have the credibility, you have the background, and you can impact.

Vanessa: Yeah, and I’m excited about it. But also, I have to say, the people that I’ve learned from the most are not the people with the qualifications on the wall. They are people with lived experience. I mean, truly, I’m serious. They,that’s kind of where I’ve learned, but I do know what you mean. It’s, it’s a bit of a game.

Stephanie: You gotta play the game. Yeah.

Vanessa: Gotta play the game. So I’m, [the politics] yes. And so remember when we first started working together, my perfectionist part would drive me to get like 25 qualities degree.

Stephanie: Well, when you started with me, you were finishing your nutritionist degree.

Vanessa: The most horrendous experience I’ve ever had because it was just like rampant diet culture. But for the reason that you just said, I’ve started, like I’m almost done with a, like an eating disorder accreditation specific to Australia. But because of what you just said, it’s like playing the game because I wanna get into that space and just

Stephanie: Revolutionize it [down] Butit’s sad. Like people who don’t understand the politics of things, like I’ve played politics in the corporate world for 15 years, so I totally get it. You just gotta play the politics. But you play the politics with all your awareness. You’re like, I’m just gonna do your thing. You’re gonna give me the degree thing, but I’m not gonna do any of it, practice, by the way. I’m just like throwing it out. But now I have the past to go in your world and revolutionize your world.

Vanessa: Yes, yes. And so training professionals is part of revolutionizing that because there’s lots of therapists, psychologists, clinicians, et cetera, who are operating with a weight centric diet culture perspective and they’re causing harm. Make no mistake, that’s causing harm. [Yep.] And some of them don’t realize that.

Stephanie: No, I had a, somebody in one of my program, a professional, I can’t remember which one, but she was shopping for therapists because like I teach all of them like you, you shop for a coach, you shop for therapists, [Yes,] like shop. Interview them, ask them for their live experience and all of that. She’s like, I thought one was good. And I got into my first session and she talked to me six time about a meal plan and exercise. And not one time she talked to me about emotion. Fired. Like because those therapists, those professional are entrenched in diet culture, they don’t match with you. [ Yes.] That’s what you need to go and change.

Vanessa: Yes. And there’s this outdated, oh, Stephanie, I could go on a rabbit hole of who’s doing the research and what politics and powers and not. But there’s this outdated thought too of like if there’s trauma, you just kind of put it to the side and we’re gonna focus on just the food behaviors. And I’m kind of going, there needs to be this integrated approach. We need to be able to go to the source of what’s driving the food behavior. [Yeah.] So yes, I’m ready step,

Stephanie: but that’s very medical, like to see everything in isolation. Right. You’ve got a problem with your foot. I’m gonna go to the foot doctor. I’m not gonna go to the knee doctor. Even though they talk to each other, which is gonna treat that separately.

Vanessa: Yes. And then the more work that happens with clients coming in with eating disorders and chronic dieting and the body shame, lots of body dysmorphia. The more those clients come in, they’ve all been harmed in some way by a professional, to be completely honest.

Stephanie: And this is why the my program, the non diet certification has all these things in it. Yeah. Because you can’t just do food. You don’t need to be the expert in any of it, but you need to understand how they talk to each other. And then if we need an expertise in one field, we’re gonna go and get that expertise in that one thing. But you need to understand how they all play together.

Vanessa: Yeah. And for coaches too, like the relationship, you know how we were talking about walking beside and honoring your clients’ capacity and trust and autonomy and partnering with them and you’re not another source of authority, you are helping them tune in to their own, that relationship is transformational. [Yes.] So, no, you don’t have to be like expert in all of these different things, but that is core.

Stephanie: Yeah. And that’s what coaching is.

Vanessa: Yes. Yeah.

Stephanie: Right. And that’s the difference with coaching and specialty work like your other side of you, which is therapy and nutritionist, if they have a food thing, if they like you, resource out. But you’re the one who holds the space for the human. [Yes, exactly. Yeah.]

Stephanie: So, yeah. So now you’ve launched a fancy program. I not call it fancy, but it’s beautiful and then you’re gonna turn that into professional and you’re gonna go on the, remember we had a dream when you started, when you have goal was to do like retreats and speak in front of people, like you’re almost there. [Yeah.] Realize that.

Vanessa: Yeah. It is helpful to kind of reflect back and [yes] give yourself, give myself credit for the growth cuz it’s easy to stay focused on future goals. [Yes.] But it is nice to look back and be like, wow, I’ve come a long way.

Stephanie: Yeah. And your body of work is laid in now. You’re, you’re admit to methodology’s laid in. [Yeah.] Now you just need to like adapt it for professional, but that core won’t change.

Vanessa: Yes. That’s a good way to say it.

Stephanie: Right? You’re like said like me, they’re going to be on the food method. Is there, is just to who I’m teaching it will have different emphasis and like things I will mention and not mention, but your body of work is created. Congratulations.

Vanessa: Thank you. And I, every time I talk to you, I mean this and I say it, but I would not be here without you in the mentorship program. I truly mean that. Like even Stephanie, I don’t know if you realize this, but I’ve stayed in contact with so many women from that group and they have been like a key support to me. I got like a fabulous personal trainer. I’ve got a fabulous va, it’s just, that was like the, what’s the word for it? The catalyst [yes] for,

Stephanie: well, you’re a brilliant seat to show up in the world

Vanessa: So thank you, Stephanie.

Stephanie: But it’s, that’s what we do with client, right? When you work with your client one-on-one with body image, you’re not the solution. You facilitate them finding the solution and then their brilliant sea shows up and then they go on doing great things in the world.

Vanessa: And that’s, you know how I said I ground back into what’s my why. [Yeah.] That is the why when I, and I’m gonna give a quick tip because this worked so well, is if you ever have like a magic moment, inspirational moment, witness a client transformation. I just started keeping this word document where I would just type it in as soon as I could and you can come back and create such beautiful content from that.

Vanessa: But now also when I’m like, burn it down, I don’t know how much I can do. I can go back and be like, [yes] I’m just making up this name. But I can go back and be like, Katie, this is the why. She is not in her room depressed and isolated. She is out volunteering and working and she just looked a holiday and she is showing up honey and she is now connected to her purpose. So I’m like, that has been a really useful tool for me.

Stephanie: Brilliant. [Yes.] And that fuels your purpose. [Yes.] And that’s why when I say like, even if I wasn’t doing this, I’d still be doing this, that’s why.

Vanessa: I know. It’s like, what does quit even mean? When I’m being dramatic about that, I’m like, what does it actually mean? I’m gonna be doing this.

Stephanie: Yeah. Like, this is my destiny. [Yeah. Yeah.] Right. And one of the things that for me turned the ship around was looking at all that happened to me, all the trauma piece that happened to me because of my weight and food and all of that, and said, damn it, that shit happened for a reason.

Stephanie: Let’s make this purposeful. Let’s make all this shit that happened for 30 years, give it a meaning into the world. And every time I want to burn it down and I feel like I’m the worst person in the world, I’m like this, all this shit happened for a reason. Yeah, let’s give it a purpose.

Vanessa: I think like the grief that can come up in the body image space is big, but I think there’s this whole kind of stage of grief about meaning making. [Oh, there] It doesn’t, yes.

Stephanie: This is where I learned from Vanessa. Like I know, I’m just like, here’s what happened in my life and she makes all these fancy like therapy stuff. Oh, this is what’s happening. Tell me what’s happening.

Vanessa: But it’s, yes, there’s this like meaning making stage of grief and that’s how I view it sometimes is like the grief of the trauma or what happened to the little youth. [Yeah.] Or the weight stigma over the years or whatever the experience is connected to that body story, I do think there’s this beautiful place to get ofthe meaning making. Not that what happened was okay. Right. That [no] won’t be super clear about that. But that you’re going, part of the meaning making is I’m gonna reach women who have experienced similar harm and revolutionized the world in doing that.

Stephanie: So is that the end stage of grieving when you make a meaning out of it kind of stuff?

Vanessa: Yes. Yes. [See] And the thing about grief is sometimes you might cycle back to a little, you might revisit stages. [Sure] Yes.

Stephanie: Sure. But there, there was. I can tell you there was, yes, I’m not there,where I am now, like nine years later, I can honestly say that I don’t have that anymore, but it was there up to two years ago, [Yes] like I would revisit it. But now the other identity is so built into me that I don’t have it [yeah] anymore. Is that possible?

Vanessa: Yeah. And I think just like everything else of, I think when you do revisit it, a different stage of the grieving process, you revisit it with new awareness. [Yes. New perspective, perspective.] A new perspective, a new awareness, and you integrate it and kind of move, move forward. So that’s what I hear a lot with women doing amazing work in this, is they’ve gone through lived experience and their own grieving, and we’re seeing the meaning making of it.

Stephanie: I’ll share an experience because I started to do Facebook ads with video of me in full body. Obviously I’m fat in case you don’t know that. I’m fat. I’m very visibly fat. So I started to do video full body to like completely cold people, meaning like they’re not from the field of the non-AI space. Like they’re just Joe Blow on the street. And the comments on the video were just, as you can imagine, some of them horrifying, right? And then it was very interesting for me to witness me looking at those comments, delete block, and not have shame saying like, this is not me, the problem, it’s them. But two years ago it would’ve been me, the problem for like two to three weeks before it turned into them, where now automatically was like, Block and delete, block and delete without going through the cycle of shaming. So what do you make of that as a therapist?

Vanessa: The way I translate that is I truly believe weight stigma and fat phobia is a body trauma. I truly believe that. It absolutely threatens our,the sense of belonging, the sense of safety, the sense of is the way I report my experience going to be believed and kind of withstanding those assumptions and judgments about your body so that trauma can run deep.

Vanessa: So what I make of what you just said is that you’ve done lots of work to heal, and so you might, depending on where someone’s at in the healing process, that might activate a full trauma response [Yes] and we don’t want to shame that because there’s a lot physiologically going on that they, that’s not their fault. [Yeah] But the work that you’ve done, it’s kind of like,two years ago maybe it would’ve activated more of that trauma response being intense, but the work you’ve done, it’s like, it might activate a bit of emotion, but you can quickly move to this like empowered delete block, you don’t get any of my energy, regulate my nervous system, I’m safe, even if this troll has commented something.

Vanessa: So it to me, it’s like you’ve done the work to teach your body, you’re safe. And that’s how I translate that.

Stephanie: And I thank you for that because I want people to see that it’s a process. Just like building your business is a process, doing your own work is a process.

Vanessa: Yes. Yeah. And does, go ahead. Yes. I always tell my clients when I’m like, and in the groups of that, you know, that whole like, healing isn’t linear. [Hmm, Yeah] We want it to be this like perfect straight line up. And it is messy with curves and ups and downs, so normalizing that. So if a client, for example, did lots of body image work, they get those sort of trolling comments and it activates that response. We don’t wanna shame it, we wanna support them through, well, how do we regulate this? How do we respond to it from a place of compassion? So yeah, I’m sure you, I’m sure you hear that too, but fine. So be like, I took 10 steps back this week and I’m like, this is part of the healing. This is okay.

Stephanie: For me, it’s like the photo shoot we were talking earlier. It’s for me, these Facebook ads that I did was part of resiliency work. [Yes.] I was like, okay, I’m ready now. Let’s put myself into the world of like the terrible fat phobic people and let’s see how I deal with that. And I just blew my own mind of how [and was it like] I responded.

Vanessa: And was it worth it? It was like, totally, and I’m not talking financial, I’m talking about like, was it worth it to put yourself out there in

Stephanie: Totally, [yeah] yeah. It was a $2,000 experience of me, like, you know, a Facebook ad to like troll, but it was, it’s like going to therapy. I just have enough skills that I can jeopardize myself. [Yeah.] But it was like an intense therapy with a very skilled therapist. Now it was Facebook ads and me going to that platform and like feeling it, I’m like, block, delete. Have my own back. Like, this is why I do the work that I do, because there’s all these terrible, fat folic people.

Vanessa: Yes. And I think if I’m allowed to say this, [yeah] it’s a good reminder for all the coaches, nutritionist, dieticians, body image work, people that, and I don’t wanna ruffle feathers here, but for providers like me, sometimes I’m like, Stephanie, where am I on the body spectrum and body size spectrum? I had body dysmorphia for so long, but at the end of the day, I sit with a level of thin privilege. [Mm-hmm.] And I think this is an important kind of reminder that people seeing clients in larger bodies, you’ve gotta remember there is an exposure, a traumatic exposure to that weight stigma [Yeah true] that they need, that, they need support with that. If you’re kind of a thin provider, showing up like you did putting a Facebook ad and you’re not gonna face that [No] in that way.

Stephanie: No, you won’t. Oh, it totally makes sense. And I think this, when I said to you earlier, like, everything that happened to me, like I’m at that point where it happened for a reason, [yes] I’m like, let’s use that body. [ Yes] Like let’s use that body to change something in the field that I’m in and let’s put that fat body out there and let’s challenge people’s perception. They’re gonna be dickhead when they go into comment, but they now see somebody that talks about health in a fat body. I’m planting a seed. It may take 10 years to change, but I’m planting a seed to help them see that it’s possible.

Vanessa: Yes. And I don’t know how many photo shoots you’ve done, but you do look fiercely fabulous because I am loving how you like, the bold colors. [Yes.] How good is that? Because how often do you, I think you said this first of like, dress in the black outfit and hide. [Yes] You are like brilliant bright colors.

Stephanie: It’s where you use your business expense, has therapy with every photo shoot for me. Like I started, and again two years, like this is the next layer in of body image. I started to do photo shoot every three months and every one of them is a business expanse. But honestly you guys, it’s a therapy. [ Yeah.] I just know enough that I can coach myself through it, but it’s a form of therapy that I’m doing to myself by dressing bright colors and photo shoots and [yeah] like the one I did in Cabo in February was my first time at a bathing suit, photo shoot.

Stephanie: [How was that?]

Stephanie: It was, I went through all the spectrum, like [Yeah] I was not in my body before. Like, I was like anxious and I had anxiety and it wasn’t because I was afraid. Like I didn’t have the thought, I’m anxious of doing this. It was literally a traumatic, like it was trauma coming up. It wasn’t because I was thinking it, it was happening to me.

Vanessa: Yes. Do you know Stephanie, I literally remember in the mentorship program we were talking about like what comes first, the thought or the body sensation kind of thing. [Yeah.] And I’ve been, for some reason, thinking about that question for years and I’m going, what you just described, I’m like, I think it can be both. I think we can like have a thought that then, that kind of like then activates the emotion and the behavior. But I think when it comes the other way, it’s like the body is responding to something and then sometimes the thought is trying to make sense of it. So it’s like that.

Stephanie: Yeah, that’s, yeah. That, that’s exactly what it was. It was the anxi, like I wasn’t afraid of the baiting suit like cognitively. [Yes.] But my inner guts, my nervous system was fluttering. But again, I have the skill so I just sat with it and sat with it and sat with it and like just felt it and felt it and it just melted. That’s the best way I can explain it. It just melted.

Vanessa: How did you feel once you like saw the photos?

Stephanie: Well, it happened during the photo shoot. Like when I, it melted in the morning of it [Yeah] and then I hired a woman photographer because that makes, like, I knew this was gonna be better for me [Yeah] and then she, we connected right away.

Stephanie: And then when I put on the bathing suit,I just felt an expansion within me. Right. it’s physiological. Like it was just an expansion and I just went with it. And when I saw the photo, it wasn’t like, I didn’t trigger that same sensation in my body. It was just calm, neutral. [Yeah. That’s a amazing thing.]

Stephanie: What do you make of that complex trauma specialists?

Vanessa: Well, I think what we’ve been kind of talking about of, for so many years, especially for and for how many women, like [yes] being exposed in that way has led to, and we can’t guess on ourselves for some of, you know, has led to potential judgment, potential bullying, potential ridicule, potential rejection.

Vanessa: And so it’s kind of, to me that trauma response armors up out of protection and then, but you have the skills to regulate and breathe through it. And then you integrated that experience of, I did a photo shoot in my bathing suit and I integrated that experience like that was I, and I’m safe. And I came out the other side.

Stephanie: Yeah. The whole time, like the three days before was like, I am gonna teach my body that this is safe. Like I was seeing all that flutter inside of me. I was experiencing like, this is not me. This is my old me. [Yeah] So let’s like bundle it up with love and teach it that it’s safe and teach it that it’s safe.

Stephanie: And so this whole three days leading it was a, an experience for me to teach my nervous system how to respond going forward.

Vanessa: Yes. And I, one of my favorite questions with what you’re describing is you’re in tune and you notice that kind of with what I think is a trauma response. [Yeah.]One of my favorite questions is, what does this part of me need? So it doesn’t go to, I shouldn’t feel this. Well, I’ve, you know, that ridicule. It’s like, what does this part of me need? Well, it needs breath, it needs reassurance. It needs to know that I’m a 30 something year old badass woman choosing to do this. So it’s kind of, I love that question. What does that part of you need?

Stephanie: Yeah. And that’s, I did it and just cuddled it. [Yes.] Because it was that, to me it was that like 17 year old going on a trip with friend in ab bathing suit and like totally paralyzed by it and then I was cuddling that version of me. [Yes.] I was retraining myself to react differently.

Vanessa: Yes. And bringing a layer of like safety and compassion and soothing puddling attention acknowledgement to that wounded 17 year old.

Stephanie: Yeah. So, I dunno how we got here.

Vanessa: Girl. We’ve been everywhere. This always happens. I feel like we need a podcast together. This is so fun.

Stephanie: This is gonna be a two podcast by the way, because I, if you notice almost 90 minutes,

Stephanie: I think we’re gonna end it now, for now. We can do a part three and four later.

Stephanie: [Yes. That sounds good.]

Stephanie: Any parting words for people listening? We started to be here about business and the growth and the expansion you’re living through. Any tips on that for people listening?

Vanessa: I think just kind of summing up where parts of our conversation have gone is one, like even if you are a professional in this field, that it’s okay and the healing process isn’t linear. So really trying to meet yourself in those vulnerable moments with curiosity and compassion, I think too, running your business is like the ultimate, oh my gosh, exercise in nervous system resiliency. So kind of what I like to do is like create this list of what do I wanna do and start with the one, like I said, that feels, it’s uncomfortable but not unsafe and build. But yeah, just that you’re not alone, that you’re not the only one out there being like, okay, today I love it, and next week I’m having that burn it down moment. And I think we need to normalize that. It’s not bad. It can be part of the process, you know?

Stephanie: Yeah. Thank you very much for being so transparent, open and vulnerable.

Vanessa: Yes. Thank you for having me.

Stephanie: Thank you for doing therapy with me.

Vanessa: Also, can we just like congratulate 17 year old Stephanie? I’m serious. I’m like, honey, [thank you] yes.

Stephanie: Yes, she is. And you know what’s funny is I had a blue baiting suit, which is the photo of me, I use a lot on social media and a blue baiting suit before my first diet. And I realized after that I bought the, almost the same blue baiting suit for that photo shoot. [Oh, the repair.]

Vanessa: I know.

Stephanie: Thank you, Vanessa.

Vanessa: Thank you, Stephanie.

Being fat, fertile and safe being successful in business with Nicola Salmon. 

In this interview with Nicola Salmon, author of Fat and fertile and host of the podcast of the same name, we explore safety and its lack impacts all of us.

Being fat, fertile and safe

Nicola Salmon shares her origin story and why coaching fat people in their fertility journey is her life’s work.

And what she has done to create safety in the process of building her business.

What you’ll learn listening to this episode on being fat, fertile and safe:

• Nicole origin story that led her to discover her life’s work
• The role of safety in all aspects of life and business
• Being fat and successful as entrepreneur 

Mentioned in the show:

Non-Diet Coaching Certification

Free Resources 

Going Beyond The Food Show podcast Episode 226 – Too Fat to Get Pregnant, Really?

Connect with our guest:

Website – Nicola Salmon

Instagram – Nicola Salmon

Book – Nicola Salmon: Fat and Fertile

Podcast – Nicola Salmon: Fat and Fertile

Transcript:

Undiet Your Coaching Ep80-Being Fat, Fertile and Safe Being Successful In Business with Nicola Salmon

Welcome back to the podcast, my dear colleague. Today, I’ve got a treat. I’ve got a very powerful interview to share with you. My guest is Nicola Salmon. She is a feminist, fat positive fertility coach. And the breath of this interview, everything we went through has been very powerful for me, and I’m sure it will be for you as well. So I’m gonna stop talking and I’m just gonna have my team to roll in the interview right away. And I hope it inspires you as much that it inspired me.

Stephanie: Welcome to the podcast, Nicola.

Nicola: Thank you so much for having me.

Stephanie: I’m excited to have this conversation and we were just talking the last time we did a podcast together was actually a few years ago, and it was my first threesome podcast.

Nicola: And it was spectacular.

Stephanie: I know. It was actually a kind of a live coaching interview. It’s going to be on the food podcast feed. You guys should go and check that out and I’ll link it in the show note. But we actually were helping, someone who wanted to get pregnant in a fat body and helping them think about that differently, was one of our listener.

Stephanie: But today, it’s gonna be about you. And as I was preparing for this interview, we have been in the same circle for probably almost five years now, we’ve known of each other. I don’t even know your origin story. So please introduce yourself, tell us what you do, and then. Tell us how you came to do that.

Nicola: Yeah, absolutely. So, I’m Nicola Salmon. I’m a fat positive fertility coach. And it all really kind of started this journey to this very unique job that I do, when I was 16. So over 20 years ago now, I was diagnosed with a condition called P C O S or polycystic ovarian syndrome. And the doctor told me when they diagnosed me that I wouldn’t be able to get pregnant.

Nicola: So, given this kind of life altering diagnosis without any kind of counseling or support, nothing. In that 20 years ago, we didn’t have the internet, so I couldn’t go away and Google what it was, what it meant. I didn’t know anybody else who had it. So it felt like a really difficult thing to process, especially as a teenager, because I didn’t really have any coping processes. I didn’t have any tools in order to navigate that, what that meant for me. So yeah, I spent my teens, my twenties, thinking that I would never be able to become a parent, which is something that I really wanted to become. The only information that I was given by my doctor about P C O S was that I should go on the oral contraceptive pill because that would regulate my cycles, which I later found out wasn’t really true, and to diet because that would help me lose weight and then that would fix my P C O S. Again, later found out that was total rubbish and absolutely not true. But that’s what I thought. So I spent so much time, when I was an early adult, trying to lose weight, trying to make my body smaller in order to fix it, in order to fix my menstrual cycles, cause they were super irregular, and in order to become a parent, because that is what I wanted to be ultimately. In that time, kind of as I was navigating that, I went to uni, got a job, and then changed directions in my early twenties. I trained to be an acupuncturist because I found it really helpful for me. I went through like a traumatic incident and got a post-traumatic stress disorder. And I found it so supportive and so helpful that I immediately had to figure out exactly what it was, exactly how it worked. So I trained for four years as an acupuncturist. And because of my own fertility stuff, because of my own hormone stuff, I wanted to learn more about hormones and acupuncture. So I ended up specializing in fertility, which is how I kind of got into the fertility world. But all this time I was still very much, weight centric, weight focused, because that was my experience. That was what I was told would help me. And then, what happened was I got pregnant. I married my husband. We decided we wanted to get pregnant, and we did. And it was really quick. It was really easy [oh]. Even though I was like at my biggest way, even though I was expecting to go through this whole process of like a million diets again to get down to this weight to get pregnant, it just happened. And I spent that nine months of that pregnancy totally anxious about something was gonna happen. I thought everything was gonna go wrong, cuz that’s what we’re told, that everybody in bigger bodies’ experiences all these horrible symptoms, side effects, problems during pregnancy, but nothing happened. Totally unremarkable, boring, ordinary pregnancy. But I was so anxious through it, and it was not the joyful experience that I wanted pregnancy to be for me.

Nicola: But at the end of that pregnancy, I decided that I’d wanted to have a home birth. I wanted a waterbirth. I wanted all of these things for me, and I was told I couldn’t have them because of my bmi. And that was the very, very first time that I’ve ever thought, hang on a minute, like this isn’t right. Like I shouldn’t just listen to what the doctors are saying and just, just believe it and go along with what they’re saying. I did a lot more research into it around the risks, the real risks for people in bigger bodies and having home births and water births and found it was totally rubbish that people can have waterbirth, they can have home births, and they can be really safe and really, really helpful choices for people to make. And it was the real, the very first time I knew about what body autonomy was and that I could make decisions about my healthcare. And that blew my mind. I was like, I just couldn’t believe that I’d spent like nearly 30 years of my life just going along with what people had told me and not even questioning it. So I’d had that taster, I’d had that like idea of like, oh my goodness, like I can make decisions about my own body.

Nicola: And then my son was about six months old, I had this moment where I was in the kitchen and we were just, I was talking to my husband about going on your end of the diet or changing my body in some way. And I just had this epiphany of like, I don’t wanna talk about this around my son. I don’t want him to hear the words that I’m saying about food, about my body, about all of this stuff. Like I don’t want that for him. And that was the point for me where I was like, I’ve got to do something different. I have spent so much time, energy, money, trying to make my body smaller and nothing has helped, nothing has been the magic pill that’s gonna fix me and make me acceptable in the eyes of doctors.

Nicola: So, I’m just gonna spin it all. I’m not gonna lose weight, not gonna weigh myself anymore. I’m not gonna lose weight. I’m just gonna be and see what happens. And luckily around this time I was in Instagram and I found all these incredible people, including yourself who were just talking about this stuff, and people in big bodies who were just happy and not dieting and not trying to like find this elusive, thin goal. And I just was like, thank God for that. It felt like such a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders.

Nicola: And as I was doing like fertility, acupuncture, I’d also done a fertility coach training thing. So I was dipping my toe into like how I could support people online, like outside of acupuncture. And I realized how, kind of how much those two worlds collided, like how much talk about diets, weight loss, and how problematic the fertility industry was around food and bodies. And I just couldn’t find anybody that was talking about it. I couldn’t find people that were explaining, like how problematic it is that we tell people to go on keto diets or to lose weight, to get pregnant, and all these barriers that we have to healthcare.

Nicola: So I just had to start talking about it. I had to just say, like, this is not right. Like we should not be denying people healthcare based on this. We should not be denying them the opportunity to grow their families because of their body size and it’s so detrimental to their health that we are telling them to do this diet or out this food group and it’s just making everything so much worse. And then I just haven’t stopped talking about it since then.

Stephanie: It’s been how many years now?

Nicola: It’s been five years now. So it’s been a long time that I have just been talking about this, but it feel, you know, it is so important to me and it’s so critical for me just to keep talking about this because I know there are so many people out there that need it and that are affected so, so, you know, harshly by this and by the way that we treat people through fertility,

Stephanie: That is a powerful story with many trigger event. But what I take from this story is that this is your life’s work. [Mm-hmm.] Like this is your life’s work. It’s not just a gig, a job, a business. It is a business and it is a job, but it is your life work. That’s what fuels you.

Nicola: Yeah. Oh, absolutely. It was every single day. It was what gets me out. Yeah.

Stephanie: And that’s a beautiful place to be in as a person to be able to do your life’s work. That’s what I do. That’s what you do. And to pick a sacred cow like fertility, like that’s what it is, that’s why nobody talks about it because it’s still a sacred cow in our society that fat people should, it’s okay to tell fat people that they should be smaller, to have children. Nobody’s picked at it yet, and that’s what your life work is.

Nicola: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And it feels, especially at the very beginning, it felt very hard to have these conversations. [Mm-hmm. I’m sure.] I had a lot of pushback from other people in my world that I knew, but the more I research this, the more I speak to people about it, it just becomes more and more urgent to me to talk more about it and to share more about it.

Stephanie: And you have a podcast. Remind the people listening the name of your podcast.

Nicola: It’s called Fat and Fertile.

Stephanie: So, we’re not gonna get into the depth detail of fat infertility, but if we were to sum it up for people listening [mm-hmm] and you had like one to two message to get out to people about fatness and fertility, like two big lies, what would they be?

Nicola: So I guess the two biggest things are that. Just because you’re fat, that doesn’t mean you can’t get pregnant or you’re gonna have any fertility issues, like that is a big one that so many people believe, that their fatness will get in the way and it absolutely no reason to believe that it will.

Nicola: And the second one is that you absolutely deserve to get that any fertility care and support that you need. And so many people feel that they have to jump through that hoop of weight loss or dieting before they are worthy in quotes to get that care. And that is absolutely not true.

Stephanie: And it’s beyond, and again, just because I’ve been around you for so long, it’s not just self worthiness, it’s some country. The system will deny people at a certain weight to get fertility treatment. If you didn’t, you’re listening to this podcast and fertility is not your thing, know that it is a fact. People are being denied fertility care because of their weight today.

Nicola: Yeah. And it is still somehow socially acceptable for that to happen.

Stephanie: Yeah. Like we’re gonna re-listen to this podcast. We’re gonna watch your work 20 years from now. We’re gonna say, how could this be? [Mm-hmm.] It’s like segregation of people of color in this state in 1965. [Mm-hmm.] We’re looking back at this, we’re like, how in the hell did we think that was okay? And when I look back at fertility, the fact people will be the same logic. Like, how could we think? [My gosh.] Oh we’ll.

Nicola: That is my dream. That is the whole goal of my work is really just to be like, I don’t need to do this anymore. Like, I want people to have the access, the care, just the respect to be able to make those decisions for themselves.

Stephanie: Well, the same care respect, not more, just the same care and respect as people in quote unquote, body that fits the bmi. [Absolutely. Yeah.] Just equality, not more. [Mm-hmm.] Just equality.

Nicola: Yeah. It’s not too much to us.

Stephanie: We’re just, the work you’re doing is just to bring people back to basic equality, independent of their size. By the way, we call that sizeism, where we judge people based on their body size. And that’s what it is with fertility, we would draw their ability to get service even if they pay like insurance based service in the state, they’re still being denied.

Nicola: Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely.

Stephanie: So your podcast and you have a book is filled with all the details on how this is possible. Because I’m sure people are listening to this, you’re like, what? I’ve heard the opposite. Like go in the book, go in the podcast and get the details.

Stephanie: So how do you help people with that? Let’s move on to like, what does that look like, getting support and working with you infertility.

Nicola: So there’s lots of different kind of core ways that we do it [Okay] and most of it breaks down to safety. For fat people who are trying to navigate this, it feels so inherently unsafe because of experiences they’ve had with doctors in the past because of all the messages that we get around what it means to be a fat person navigating that. So the root core of it is really about bringing people into a feeling of safety, knowing that they can trust their bodies, knowing that they don’t have to lose weight or diet in order to feel safe, in order to be able to access that fertility within them.

Nicola: Like we’re told that you have to cut out food groups and massively restrict your diet, and that is just not true. What your body needs is enough nutrition, enough nourishment in order to feel safe so that it knows that when it gets pregnant, you are gonna have the resources available to take care of you and baby. So it’s about really reframing what that means to be healthy and to want to get pregnant in that way. And also we do a lot of work around advocacy. So specifically for fat people, it’s around being able to access that healthcare that you might need. Because whilst we want to change the systems, because those are the things that are at fault, they just don’t happen quick enough for people who want to get pregnant now. So we need to learn the tools of how to advocate for yourself. We need to learn like how we can figure out which doctors are gonna be the best ones to talk to, to refer to who can give you the treatment, and how to support yourself emotionally through that process. Because it is work that you should not have to do, but we’re in a world where we have to advocate for ourselves if we are gonna get the care that we need.

Nicola: So it’s all of these different ways that we are looking at being in a bigger body, how that impacts us, being in the culture that we’re in now, and also really retraining our brains to believe that we are worthy and capable of doing the work that we need to get there.

Stephanie: It’s funny because I interviewed a doctor on OEM PIC last week [Ooh] and we were talking about access to care for all people. And I was sharing with her how difficult it is for people in larger body or any disability form to advocate for themselves. And this is where, to me, coaching comes in because you have, through how society function, you’ve been judged, you’ve been criticized, and very little people have helped you create self-esteem and self confidence. And now you have to stand in front of a doctor. You have to stand in front of fertility clinic and advocate for yourself. [Yeah.] That’s like difficult when you don’t believe in yourself.

Nicola: Mm-hmm. Oh yeah. And it’s skills we’re just never taught, right? Like, and very intentionally so. Like, especially as women, we are not taught how to have that power, how to go about creating that change and to have that body autonomy to say, actually, I disagree and it is my lived experience and my voice that is the most important in this conversation. So, it’s really groundbreaking stuff.

Stephanie: Yeah. And like I said, like you can have a, in the beginning, my days as a coach, I used to give like a script to people, [Mm-hmm] Which is nice, right? [Yeah.] Here’s what you can’t say. But people would get in front of their doctor and their had no voice. Like, they couldn’t do, he couldn’t stand up for themselves and they had to build themself up. And again, like you said, it’s work we shouldn’t have to do [mm-hmm] but we have to.

Nicola: Yeah. And it just takes practice. Like most of us are never gonna go into that situation and know what to do off bat. Right. We need to be in a safe place to have those conversations. [For sure.] To practice them coming out of our mouths, saying those things, believing those things about ourselves, and know that we’ve got a support system to fall back on when that big scary thing happens.

Stephanie: I love your, the parallel you drew between activism as a society level and into the legal system, and we shouldn’t have to do this work. And that activism work needs to be done globally at the society level. [Yeah.] But then the work you’re doing is the activism at the individual level. [Mm-hmm.] Do you see it as that?

Nicola: I’ve never seen it quite in that way before, and I love the way that you share, you kind of painted that picture because, yeah, my work is really of two halves. Like it’s the work that I do with people and I love showing up for folks who are navigating this. They get such a lot of reward and benefit from the work that we do together, but, for me, I can’t do the individual work without also having the bigger picture work as well, because, I don’t want, as much as I love working with these people, I don’t want them to have to do this work. And I want to influence and make change in a bigger sense. And that looks like talking to clinics and educating them on the research that I’ve found around how problematic that their policies are and you know, helping them change their policies and, hopefully that will filter up into like, government level and making changes on a wider scale. But yeah, it’s big and it feels,

Stephanie: Well it’s 5, 10, 25 years up there [Mm-hmm.] like I’m pointing out to the sky, but the big machine. [Yeah.] But then there’s the person today [mm-hmm] that wants to have a child. [Yeah.] The work we’re doing in at the highest level ain’t gonna help this person today.

Nicola: No. The machine is slow.

Stephanie: But I love that the work you do does both the activism at the global level society level and teaching people how to advocate for themself, how to do their activism at the individual level.

Nicola: Hmm. Yeah. I think it’s, I think being, doing that is almost like sowing those seeds, right? You’re giving everybody a little seed packet to go away and then sow their own seeds, and hopefully over time we get enough momentum to really make a big difference.

Stephanie: Well, and it gives people the fuel that to get pregnant today, it gives that person the tool to maneuver the unjust system. [Yeah.] Because without those tool that she shouldn’t have to go get, but she has to go get in order to maneuver the current systematic issue that we have with fertility and healthcare and sizeism.

Nicola: Yeah. And these people make incredible parents. Like, ugh, they’re, [I’m sure] it is breaking generational trauma on so many levels because the tools that they’re learning now, they’re teaching to their kids and their kids are growing up knowing how to advocate for themselves, knowing that diet culture is rubbish. You know, it’s just, it’s just beautiful.

Stephanie: It must be very motivating to do the work at the individual level when you see the big picture like this.

Nicola: Yeah, I mean, it’s the individual level that really gives me the energy myself to go for the big stuff like the small wins, the being able to stand up to the doctor, the positive pregnancy test, that stuff is the fuel for me to go bigger and to make bigger, [to do the big work.]

Nicola: Absolutely. And I would not be able to do it without it

Stephanie: Because for people who’ve never done activism at a bigger level, that is energy draining. [Mm-hmm.] Right. Like that requires a lot of energy to work at that level. So getting the victory at the individual level and seeing like the ripple effect [mm-hmm] is what fuels the energy we have to spend on the bigger work.

Nicola: Yeah. Because it often feels like you’re just banging ahead against the brick wall. Like, you’ve gotta try so many doors before one will open and it just, yeah, it really is magical, you know? And these people should be getting this care already. They shouldn’t have to pay me to get it. But I feel so honored to be able to walk along that path with them for a short while.

Stephanie: And what’s the name of your program that helps them lauren at Bolt Safety and Advocacy level?

Nicola: So it’s called Supported. So it’s like a 12 month program where we go through all of the different tools and things that they need, and it’s a really beautiful community container so that they can access support both from me and from other people who are also navigating similar situations

Stephanie: Because when of the side effect of any discrimination or any injustice is isolation. [Mm-hmm. Yes.] You think you’re the only one. [Mm-hmm.] When in fact you’re not, but the way the system works is isolating you. [Yeah.] So being in community like that, just by doing that is healing.

Nicola: Yeah. It’s so powerful and it’s beyond magical because there’s so much more that people get from being in a container like that. And because of the very nature facility, that itself is isolating and because of then the added layer of the guilt and the shame that so many folks feel through this process. They don’t wanna talk to their friends, they don’t wanna talk to their family, they don’t wanna reach out. So it’s like this double layer of isolation. So it’s, yeah, it’s beautiful to watch.

Stephanie: So, I wanna get into, also for people listening to this, because there’s a lot of professionals and practitioner that listen to my podcast. I wanna talk a little bit about you as an individual creating a business like that. Like we’ve talked about, like activism and all of that. But how has been your journey of building that kind of business?

Nicola: Mm, it’s been…

Stephanie: Have you ever talked about this publicly before? This is your first, okay. We’re like revealing the curtain. We’re pulling the curtain people.

Nicola: Oh, it’s been amazing to run a business. Like it has been the quickest, like self acceptance, self exploratory process ever. Like it has been a whirlwind of delving deep into who I am, who I thought I was. And what it means to be a person doing this work. But yeah, I mean I have had many highs and lows. I have a billion different ways I’ve tried to run a business and different, different ways that I’ve used as measures of success and I’m coming to terms slowly with how my brain works now.

Nicola: I have a feeling that I may be autistic, I may have a D H D, and so really leaning into how my brain works and how I like to do things and what works for me over the past six months has been really powerful in helping me get to a point where my business feels not only sustainable, but exciting again, because for a long time, it’s been up and down and like things have gone really well and then I’ve crashed and then my energy levels are super low, and then I feel like I’m gonna have to go and get a job again. And then I feel okay again and then things go really well. And it’s just been this rollercoaster and I’ve been bringing up babies in the meantime. Like my business is as old as my oldest, oldest child now,nine years. So my business has never existed without me being a parent at the same time and navigating that identity and how kind of the patriarchy defines what the role of a mother should look like and how to navigate wanting to work on my business and what that means about me as a person when I’m also being dragged into parenthood. Like it’s been a real interesting ride for sure.

Stephanie: I love that you say it’s been a journey of self-discovery, [mm-hmm] of like uprooting things that you would’ve never otherwise uprooted and faced.

Nicola: I feel so honored and so lucky to have had the opportunity to do that. I feel very privileged and I am privileged to be able to be in a position now where my business doesn’t have to bring in the full money that my family and my household needs in order to run. And I want it to be there eventually. But because I have my husband and he works full-time and he has a stable job, like a proper salary job that gives us the flexibility for me to be able to be, yeah, to follow my dream, to really follow my instincts about what I want my business to look like and how I want it to work and how I want it to run. And that’s, yeah, I know it will come to fruition and be able to financially support me really soon.

Stephanie: You talked about the ups and downs. [Mm-hmm.] Can we dive into that a little bit in the sense like, it has happened to me, it has happened, it’s happening to many people, no matter which business you are in, like your own business. What you sell is irrelevant, but when you’re building your own business, you often have those ups and downs. If you look back, what is one thing that you’ve learned that creates those ups and downs or that exaggerate the ups and downs?

Nicola: I think the biggest thing for me was my expectations of what it should look like. So, [oh,] when I first started my business, I had no real concept of what running a business looked like. So I had the expectations around like revenue, like I should be making X dollars per month. And I didn’t have any real concept of the fact that most businesses, because I didn’t really take myself seriously, a business at first had like capital that was invested. [Mm-hmm] and had you know this like startup fund of thousands, millions of pounds and dollars, and I had no real concept of that.

Nicola: So when I wasn’t immediately out the gate making money, I thought it was a me problem. I thought there was something wrong with the how I was doing things. And it was like my expectation of what that should look like was really skewed because of what we see in this like little bubble of online business of how things should look.

Nicola: So, I think that really exaggerated the lows for me because I thought I should be so much further along than I was, and I was comparing my like chapter one business to people’s Chapter 20. So of course it wasn’t gonna look similar, but I didn’t see behind the scenes of their businesses. I didn’t know what was going on behind the like perfect picture Instagram photos. So it’s been an eye-opener to really understand that it’s okay that I’m not making millions, like I’ve been bootstrapping this from the very beginning. I’ve been resourceful. I’ve beeninvesting in myself. I have been creating this reality of now we’ve moved from the suburbs of London to this glorious house in the countryside, and that is my vision. That is my drive. I’ve created this reality for myself.

Nicola: And whilst my business isn’t where I’ve dreamed it to be yet, that it’s non-negotiable that it’s gonna get there. It’s just a matter of when. And knowing that it’s taken me nine years to get there, now is okay, because I didn’t have millions invested at the beginning. [Mm-hmm.] I have been investing all that time and I’m really proud of what I’ve created and the body of work that I have created because, it’s so much more than just being financially viable. Like I know that the work that I have done has touched thousands of people’s lives in a really positive way.

Stephanie: And it will continue [Mm-hmm. That’s it] because it exists as a body of work for people. Like Body of Work is when you create your own theory or your own methodology, your own processes, like that Body of Work, those podcast episode, that book is gonna help millions of people in years to come. [Mm-hmm. Just, yeah.]

Stephanie: The gap. And I just wanna, because I’m a coach at heart, I can’t stop coaching, but I just wanna point out, you talked about your glorious house [mm] in the suburb, in part, your business offered you that. [Mm-hmm.] Because would you have worked in a office in London, you would’ve not had the freedom to move to the countryside?

Stephanie: [Absolutely.] Can you see that? [ Yes. Oh yeah.] It may not be the traditional Chiche money, money. But it offered you the freedom.

Nicola: Yeah. And it also offered me the, I think the insight to be able to really explore what I wanted and not settle [Yes] for less.

Stephanie: Yes. To design the life that you want [Mm-hmm] In the way that you want.

Nicola: Yeah. Without business building, without going on this entrepreneur journey, that would not even have been on my radar.

Stephanie: No. And, and as you are exploring the current, where your brains are functioning, if you try to fit yourself in what I call like oppressive business culture, you’ll never fit in the mold, in the box. You creating your business and being aware of that and creating the business that fits your brain, fits the way you think, that’s a massive anxiety, stress release for yours to come, [oh] instead of trying to fit yourself into a system that is not made for you.

Nicola: Yeah. And it changes the system, right? Like the more people that, that come in and do things their way, we are changing how it works. [Yes.] And it gives permission for other people to do the same.

Stephanie: Yes, it does. I. I have one more question that I want to get into is the whole concept of coaching. [Mm-hmm.] So you did the acupuncture for four or five years, then you started the online business I’m an advocacy level. And then recently you came to me and you did a training with me on coaching. [Yes.] How has that impacted or has an impacted or changed the way you work with people in your relationship to your business?

Nicola: Yeah, in a huge way. I think the biggest gift it gave me was, whilst I could coach, I had no confidence in my coaching and I had no confidence in the work that I gave to the world. So the very beginning thing that we did was the self coaching, and that has just been transformational for me and for my business because it has given me the tools, which I never even knew that I needed to, to reflect on what’s working on what’s not working, to give me the capacity to be able to make decisions better in my business from a place of knowing, rather from a place of, well, that’s what that person did, or that’s what that person did.

Nicola: It’s just given me so much confidence in my own intuition around that and around what my getting my needs met and feeling safer in my business. And that foundation has just given me a springboard to be able to go and make really good decisions about what’s gonna be good for me, what’s gonna be good for my business and the people that I work with. You know, what’s good for me is good for them because I show up in a, from a place of feeling energized, from feeling confident, from providing that space to feel safe. So it’s just, yeah, it’s transformed how I feel about my business and how I show up in my business, and I know that is just gonna have a huge ripple effect on every other aspect of my business.

Stephanie: I just wanna highlight something again, and just because I’m a coach, you said that your program you’re offering to people is centered around safety [Mm-hmm] and advocacy. [Yeah. ] What you just said that coaching gave you was safety to do the way you wanted to do your business, to advocate through this oppressive online business structure to do it your way. [Mm-hmm.] Do you see the parallel?

Nicola: Oh, I love that. I love how that’s mirrored in that. I think that’s really magical.

Stephanie: it’s mirrored. And people like, I just want people to hear that, that it is your work or not. The people you work with, that you hire to give you something can only give you as much as they give themselves. [Mm-hmm.] Right. So if you were to look at a scale of one to 10, you were at a, I don’t know, five or six, in your ability to provide a safe container for people working through their fertility issue. [Mm-hmm.] But by you making yourself safer through your decision, your thoughts, your feeling, you will amp up the safety you are able to give to people. Can you see that?

Nicola: Yeah. And I didn’t even know that I needed that. Like I didn’t even recognize at the beginning that that was the issue. I thought it was, yeah, I thought I was doing a great job showing up but I was just being really hard on myself. So seeing how that can grow and seeing how that, it just spreads. It just feels really, yeah,

Stephanie: But you were showing up amazingly to the capacity you had two years ago? [Mm-hmm. Yeah.] Do you know you had a capacity of six and you were showing up at six?

Nicola: Hmm. But I didn’t even realize then that I only was at a six. Like I thought that was my 10.

Stephanie: But in the way it was your 10, it was your six outta six. It was your a hundred percent safe that [Yeah] you were able to give people. Absolutely.] You’re just grown your own safety and you will continue to grow your safety [mm-hmm] and that will grow the capacity for you to offer safety to other people even more and at a different level. [Mm-hmm] That’s what I find magical about human product, which mostly are call coaching, counseling, [hmm,] right. We’re not talking about water bottle here. We’re talking about like human product, of working with human being, is that when you do your work from a place of wanting to help other people, you have no choice but to upgrade yourself. [Mm-hmm.] Not because you were broken before, just because you want to be able to offer more to people, and the only way to offer more is for you to be more, not because you were deficient, just because you’re growing and expending yourself.

Nicola: Mm-hmm. And I love that that’s, I feel, for so long I thought I put everybody else’s needs above my own. And I love that putting my own needs first is the thing that will help everybody else, right. It’s that like, [yes,] I get to put my myself first in everything and that will overflow to help everybody else.

Stephanie: For people that are in that pattern right now [Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.] of people pleasing, [Mm-hmm] what is the one thing you would advise them? Like what is the one shift that you’re now able to talk about it this way, to put your needs first and not feel guilty or shame about it?

Nicola: Oh, that is a good question. [Yes.] I think for me, the very first shift that I did that really helped me get out of that people pleasing mode was to notice when I was saying, sorry. Now this sounds, it sounds really interesting, but for the longest time, anytime anything bad happened I would just be like, sorry, sorry, sorry, and assume blame for everything. And then at one point, and I can’t remember when it was, I decided that I didn’t need to be sorry for my existence all the time, and I switched it.

Nicola: So I started, first of all, I started noticing when I was saying it, and then I started to be more intentional about what I was saying. So rather than saying sorry automatically for everything, I started saying, well, if I needed to say anything at all, which half of the time I didn’t because I didn’t have anything to be sorry for, instead of saying, sorry for being late, I’d be saying like, thank you for being patient while I was a little bit late. And I just, it was that change in, instead of apologizing for my existence, it was acknowledging that I am human and that I don’t have to say sorry for everything and I don’t have to make everybody else feel more comfortable at my own expense. And I think that like, that tiny tweak of putting myself, and I know exactly what you’re gonna say, having your own back.

Stephanie: I know

Nicola: That was it. That was the very first time I was starting to have my own back.

Stephanie: And it’s, you know, I wanna highlight that or explain to people, having your own back means being, as an adult, right, when you’re a child, your back is your parent. That’s who are designed to protect you and teach you. But when you become an adult, you have to become your own parent, your own protector. And for so many of us, the more identity your layer on yourself, as a woman, as a fat person, as a person with that is queer, whatever your identity, the more identity you layer on, the more you need to be strong for yourself, for your own self-protection. Otherwise, your safety goes down the toilet and then you start like being a people pleaser to offset your existence. [Mm-hmm.] That’s brilliant. Can we talk about doing business in fat body?

Nicola: Yes.

Stephanie: Okay. So we were doing an exercise recently and I can’t remember what it was, but we’re talking about the possibility thing, we were talking about in terms of how can we see in the future and the possibility, and you said for you, you almost had this thought or this belief that fat women could not be successful in business. [Mm-hmm.]

Stephanie: Can you talk about that? And meanwhile, you’re trying to build your business for eight, nine years at that point. [Yeah.] And you were holding the belief that fat people or fat women could not be successful in business.

Nicola: I held on really tight to that belief for all that time because I think for me, I saw a lot of people around me having, perceived to be having things that I wanted. So people would have traditional book deals, for example, or appear to have really thriving businesses, and I felt like I was just paddling so hard into that water, and I made that belief that because I was fat, because I wasn’t typically the thin ideal of, thin, blonde, beautiful, [beauty] exactly. That, that, that was why, because I was sold that, right, we’re all sold that from a really young age that you get to be successful when you are thin, you get to have success.

Nicola: And I internalize that so hard and so deeply and it was only since that call, since we talked about that, that I really realized that it wasn’t the fact that I was fat that was holding me back, but the fact that I believed that fat people can’t have successful businesses and that was what’s holding me back. So I have been doing a lot of work on that very belief since then.

Stephanie: Yeah. And again, that is your fat or your own, any identities that are oppressed in society. It is more difficult for people with various identity in certain sector but it doesn’t mean that it’s gonna be your reality. [Mm-hmm.] You can think about it differently and make it easier for you.

Nicola: Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Like privilege is a very, very real thing. Like there’s no way to deny that. We know that fat people get paid less in their work. [Yeah.] We know that this happens, but what was happening for me is that that belief was leading me to make decisions that weren’t benefiting me. [Yes.] So rather than believing that reality, I choose to believe a different reality where fat people have really successful businesses and that helps me make different decisions in my day-to-day life.

Stephanie: Yeah. You were talking about paddling. [Mm-hmm]. A lot of us fall into that, that we have to offset where we’re not good enough because society tells us, because that’s what we believe about ourself. So we work, we we need the art, [Yeah] like really, really hard and we get exhausted. We go the high, the lows, because we’re trying to offset are not good enough for, wherever it comes from is irrelevant, but what it does is it prevents us from accessing success, whatever success looks like to you because we’re paddling too hard. [Yeah.] And I think that’s what you’re reestablishing in your business right now.

Nicola: Yeah. It so many times to me that yeah, that paddle, battle, battle, oh no, I feel like I’m gonna die now. I’m so tired. So yeah, I am making some big changes into how I show up now so that I have that energy sustainable because I wanna keep doing this work, and I can only do that if it’s sustainable, and I don’t want to go into these burnouts anymore, like that’s not enjoyable for me. And it doesn’t have to be like that because I can choose to show up and to do what I need to do and have a really successful business in my body that exists now, which is fat.

Stephanie: Exactly. I just wanna take a minute to talk to this, like at a global level and I’m becoming more and more aware of that. We’re talking about oppressive business culture, how we build businesses and there’s another way to do it, and we’re breaking the paradigm to do that. You’re talking about breaking the paradigm infertility, food or body image for me, like everywhere we’re talking about breaking paradigm and killing the sacred cow. I want people to think about what the circumstance you’re in, that you’re a lawyer, that you’re an accountant, that you’re a social worker, and I want you to think in term of, in the work you’re doing, which paradigm is present that causes you to have to paddle and work really, really hard.

Stephanie: It’s not just online business culture, I’m coaching a lawyer right now in one of my group, and it’s the lawyer culture, it’s the accountant culture. Like those paradigm are everywhere.

Nicola: Capitalism, just right. You can’t escape it.

Stephanie: But you can do it differently.

Nicola: Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

Stephanie: And it starts with you. [Mm-hmm.] Like yes, there’s a problem systemic, we need to address the systemic issue. [Mm-hmm.] But the way for you to have the strength, the capacity, the resilience to address the systemic issue in your environment is by first starting with you. [Mm-hmm.] And building that resilience and you to first like organize the way you’re doing your career, your work, so it’s safe for you to do it so you then you can go out and change the system or the culture of your industry. Why are you laughing?

Nicola: It’s just so exciting. Like in just imagining all these little people in their lawyer bubbles, [yes] fantasy bubbles, and we’re just all smashing it down on our own little bit. [Yes] We’re all doing it together and it’s just, yeah, it’s exciting.

Stephanie: To me, that’s what coaching is. Coaching is activism at the individual level. [Mm-hmm.] Right. If I can help people gain the resilience, the strength, the confidence, the mental capacity, then they’re gonna go in their own bubble and make changes. And all of us collectively, like you said, are going to blow up and make changes at the systemic level. But for the next five years, 10 years, it’s at the individual level. [Hmm.] A Beautiful conversation.

Nicola: Thank you so much for this. It’s just been, yeah, really nourishing and it really fills me up and makes me excited to do this work.

Stephanie: Is there anything that we didn’t talk about that you would like to bring up to, any words of wisdom or anything we skipped over?

Nicola: I think we covered a lot. [Yeah.] I guess the biggest thing for me is to just obviously work with you because this has been transformative. You know, the work that we’ve done together has been huge for me. But yeah, believing that you are worthyto invest in has just been the biggest and best lesson for me in my business.

Stephanie: In every angle. [Mm-hmm.] That you’re a fat person wanting to be pregnant, investing in yourself to go get the resource [Yeah] that I’m not available anywhere through you and to the people working on their way of thinking, their mindset, all of that, you are worthy to invest in yourself and yeah, you shouldn’t have to, but it is what it is. [Mm-hmm.] Like we need to make ourselves stronger individually, It’s from every angle possible.

Nicola: Yeah. You deserve it.

Stephanie: And what is the name of your podcast in your book? Just so people can grab the first layer of you, remind everyone the name of your podcast in your book.

Nicola: They’re both called Fat and Fertile. So you can grab the book on Amazon, and then the podcast is just wherever you listen to your podcast.

Stephanie: And then you start your journey there. And for many women listening to this, it’s referral. [Mm-hmm.] When you hear someone talking about their difficulty or hinting that they’re having difficulty with fertility, send them to those free resources of the podcast to get them started to know that there’s another way.

Nicola: Yeah. And they’re not alone.

Stephanie: But for many women, they think there’s no other, stuck doing that, and it’s not true. So let them make their way through your podcast and then see if they need some help. Thank you very much Nicola for your time today.

Nicola: Thank you.

Why I am a Life Coach & Nutritionist

Someone sent me a DM a few weeks back after I changed my Instagram bio to Stephanie Dodier, Life Coach and Nutritionist.

This person was curious why I call myself a life coach.

I grabbed my note app and started writing why… and then I sent her back a voice memo. She responded back that this was the most insightful perspective on health coaching.

So I thought if this is helpful to her… maybe for you too, it will be.

Why I am a Life Coach & Nutritionist 

In this podcast episode, I’m going to share with you 7 reasons why I’m a life coach and nutritionist.

It’s really 7 moments in my career that caused me to rethink the way I was delivering nutrition and health.

Ready? Let’s do this.

What you’ll learn listening to this episode on Why I am a Life Coach & Nutritionist:

• 7 moments in the last 10 years that lead me to coaching
• Why a client crying in a session triggered me to do some deep work
• That determined Why going beyond the food requires life coaching skills
• Being able to answer this question, “I don’t know why I just can’t do it. What’s wrong with me?” is everything now.

Mentioned in the show:

Going Beyond The Food Challenge

Non-Diet Coaching Certification

Free Resources 

Transcript:

Undiet Your Coaching 79: Why I Am a Life Coach & Nutritionist in 7 ways

Welcome back to the podcast, my dear colleague. I’m so happy to have you here. I hope you’re doing well. Today, I wanna answer a question that came to me by a social media, and it’s something that I’ve been wanting to explore for quite a while, but I’ve never put it on the podcast. So let’s do this.

Why am I a life coach and a nutritionist? And that question came from actually Instagram because I, a few months ago, change the name of my account, you know, right below your picture, you have a bunch of words that best describe what you do, and I added the word life coach and nutritionist. And I guess I got notice and somebody sent me that question, why do I call myself a life coach? And I asked myself that question before answering to the follower, and I went into my oath half of my phone, I’m like, why did I do that? And I went back about five years into my career, and I traced back seven moments in my career as a nutritionist who worked exclusively with the non diet approach as to what led me to become a coach to incorporate life coaching in my work with people.

And I wanna share these with you today because I think it’s going to help some of you find the answer to what is happening in your own career, in your own business, in your own work with your client. The struggling point may be the block you are facing with your client and what the answer could be. I’m gonna suggest some things that I have encountered myself and why I came to the conclusion and why do I practice life coaching and nutritional coaching both at the same time. And I wanna start back with Something that’s gonna help you understand where I came from, and I’ve shared this story a number of time on the podcast, so if you’ve been a witness to that story before, stick with me. It’s a client, her name is Carolyn. She was a client of mine, probably, which is today, almost eight to nine years ago, when I had a traditional clinical practice, as a nutritionist in Toronto, a physical location where I would see people, like any other practitioner for one hour appointment, one after the other with the secretary at the front, the whole traditional model. And Carolyn was working with me, which at the time was for weight loss, because that’s where I was in my personal journey, right. And she was a reflection of me and she really stumped me and made me realize so many things about myself, things that I didn’t wanna admit to myself, things that I was avoiding seeing our client, our teachers. That’s what I believe anyway, that our clients are a teacher, and she was one of the most powerful teacher I had because she guided me into the non approach for myself and then what it became for my client and it what it became today beyond the food, this business that I created over the last five years.

But Carolyn came into my office one day, think it was her fourth or fifth appointment. And as she turned the handle, pushed the door to my office, she saw me, she started crying, like bawling uncontrollably because of the shame she felt seeing me to have to tell me that she wasn’t able to comply to what I had prescribed to her as far as ways of eating and how much to eat and when to eat, and all the things that traditional nutrition counseling does. And I remember feelings all kinds of things in my own body, shame of me triggering her to have this crying session and pain that she was experiencing in the arm that I was causing her, which at the time I did understand, but now looking back, I can, and I didn’t know what to do with that. I didn’t have the answer. It wasn’t in all my books. All my hours and years of training had no resources for me to handle my client being human and crying and having emotion, and not being able to implement what I was telling them to do.

And that’s what pushed me to seek coaching and how to coach. And that’s when I came across this concept that what we’re trained to do as nutritionist or, and now I know fitness training is the same thing, any kind of technical training that relates to health, we are trying to be consultant. We are trying to tell people what to do, but we are not coach. However, we’re being asked to coach people into new behavior, yet we have zero training on how to coach. And that’s the first reason, like the seven life-changing moment that led me to life coaching, that’s one of them with Carolyn. And that’s when I realized I needed to learn how to coach because I was never trained in it, yet that’s what I had to do. And how to do it from a place of safety and no longer harming people in doing nutrition work and not being a source of trigger for people and not replicating diet culture in a non diet nutrition counseling, right. I was, fast forward two years, I had adopted the non-AI approach in my own practice, but I had no idea how to deliver it to people that wasn’t emulating diet culture, a k a, telling people what to do.

So I had to learn how to coach. And what I quickly is that, when you start learning how to coach, it becomes violently evident that the problem is not food, that the problem is not the body or the weight. The problem is beyond the food and the size of our pants. It’s beyond the food. And that’s when beyond the food was born.

After learning the basic of coaching, I had no choice but to see the truth. The problem is not the food, and I honestly did not need years of postgraduate training to learn to complicate food for people. What people needed was a different relationship to food, a different way of thinking about food, a different way of thinking about their body, a different way of thinking about health, because what they were getting was making them in a worse situation.

So that’s the second reason why I moved towards life coaching, is that I needed tools to coach beyond the food. I needed skills to deal with the reason why people were trying to control food, their relationship problem. Because when you start coaching beyond the food, people start unpacking the real reason why they wanna control food, the real reason why they think they need to be smaller, because of their their own intergenerational trauma from their mom, teaching them how to diet, and now they’re very difficult relationship they have with their mom and their need for more boundaries and the people pleasing behavior and their inability to have hard conversation, their difficulty in creating safety within themselves, how to change their habit without willpower.

These are all life skills that they, just like me, weren’t taught. I spent years in the educational system, learning all kinds of science stuff and maths and biochemistries and philosophy, but I never learned how to be a human, which is the third reason why I do like coaching now is because I had to learn to be a human and when you coach beyond the food, what you’re really doing is coaching how to be a human, how to process your own emotion, how to understand your thoughts, how to create new habits without having to result to willpower. There’s a way to do that, but we’re never thought that because all we’re thought is that you need more discipline and more willpower. You need a checklist, and you need this, then you need that, right, this whole toxic environment. But if you don’t do it this way, I have no idea how to teach goal setting or habit formation without the toxic stuff. These are all how to be a human 1 0 1, and what I realize is the clients after clients after clients, just like me, they had no idea how to be a human.

One of the tool that I teach, and I’ve been teaching that tool for well over six or seven years, called writing the wave of your emotion. It’s emotion processing 1 0 1, and we’re not talking about deep emotion and traumatic emotion. I’m just talking like basic 1 0 1, emotion, how to feel your emotion, how to process them, and how to release them. We should have been taught that in school. As far as I’m concerned, I should have been taught that in junior high. We was starting to get all the emotion at the age of 14, 15 years old, but no, I was deep knee in science and physics and chemistry. That was more valued by the system I lived in then learning how to process my emotions.

So now I’m in counseling, I’m a nutritionist, and when I ask people, let’s go beyond the food, poof. The reason why they’re binge eating is because they’re overwhelmed with their emotion and they don’t know what to do with it. So they binge to numb all the sensation in their body. What am I gonna do? I have to learn to do that for myself so I can teach them.

And then reason number four, I’m gonna expand on that, how to do that without causing more harm and how to do that, being able to detect when it’s something bigger, when it’s caused by a traumatic experience in their past, when it’s outta scope for me, when they need someone beyond life coaching, when they need therapy, when they need to be referred out. Because I made a few mistake along the way of learning how to be a coach and learning how to coach people and learning how to be a human and teachingthat to people and realize that, whoa, some people like, I’m teaching them how to process their emotion, but whoa, like they need way more than me. And I’m actually causing them more pain by teaching them how to process their emotions.

So how am I going to do this kind of coaching in what I now know, a trauma informed way? And that’s the fourth reason why I went to life coaching in a trauma informed way not just, what I realized is the standard life coaching is not deep enough or informed enough in the context of helping women releasing that culture for some of my client. What I went into, I went into studying a trauma informed process, not to be the one processing trauma with Kline because that’s how to scope. And quite honestly, that’s not my field of interests, how to recognize it and how to help through coaching people in a safe way.

And I came to realize that because of my own journey with body Image. I remember being in that program that was teaching how to unpack trauma for yourself. And I was doing work and I was going to a coaching call and I was sharing my experience. And unpacking my body image. And I remember the coach, through Zoom looking at me and says, the way you’re talking about your body image, the way you’re talking about you accepting your body feels almost like your body is a trauma in itself. And then it just, I had a wave in that moment where she said that, you know, when you’re told something and you know it’s true for you, like I had a wave of shiver to my whole body. I’m like, oh my God, that’s what it is. In my case, 25 years of me being dissatisfied with my body and shaming myself and my body, and being all about why my body is wrong, my body became a trauma. And here’s the where it like it’s, so powerful and not necessarily a positive way, but you know, you live with that trauma 24 7. How do I deal with that knowingly that it’s not just me. It’s a percentage of my client that relate to their body as a trauma. How do I build a process to help people from that perspective? And that is nowhere in all the years of training in science or nutrition, that’s not what we’re being taught. So I had to go to coaching for that. I had to learn how to do that, to do coaching, understand my limitation, how to see it, how to refer out, and how to approach body image in a way where the body was a source of trauma.

The fifth reason why I’m fully sitting and so grateful to have learned life coaching is that question that came over and over and over, and I’m sure you’re hearing that from your client as well, which is, I don’t know why, but I just can’t do it. Give you an example. I know I should be eating when I’m hungry and stop when full, but I just can’t do it. What’s wrong with me?

I’m sure you’ve heard that dozens, if not hundreds and hundreds of time. What do you do with that question slash statement in your session? How do you answer what’s wrong with me? Do you, in the beginning, eight years ago, I would change subject because I didn’t know how to handle that. And then I went through the first few coaching course I took, which was positive reinforcement. No, nothing is wrong with you. Right? And I realized that wasn’t working for me. That was, I felt like I was denying myself something and then I realized, it’s true. Some people just like me, believe that something is wrong with them, but it’s not their fault. It’s DI culture. It’s patriarchy. It’s racism. It’s the identities they live in. How do I incorporate that in my coaching with my client? How do I incorporate their identities, their oppression that they have encountered in that forms in part the reason why they’re binging, the reason why they overexercise. How do I become aware of that? How do I ask the right question to pull that out of them, show it to them, and how do we work through that? That’s another reason why I incorporated life coaching in a trauma informed way with the lands of intersectionality. And how do I, as a person with privilege, provide intersectional coaching to people that do not have the same privilege as me? How do I hold that safe space for them in their story and their oppression? I had to go and learn that because that comes in when you go beyond the food and you ask people, why do you binge? All these things comes out. That’s why I went to a trauma-informed intersectional lands life coaching.

The sixth reason why, the moments that led me to fully own the identity of life coaching, is how do I inspire slash motivate people to do the work without taking responsibility for them, while holding the space for them to do their work and lending them the belief that they can do it? How do I hold that space for people to find their own potential? And that’s really life coaching, like that’s life coaching. But how do I do that traditional life coaching in a trauma form with an intersectional lands for people.

And the seventh reason why, and that is very recently, probably in the last two years, two to three years, and I realized that the real solution, like the fundamental shift that we need to do as people self-identified as women, to really move out of DI culture and really own our power is self-trust. How do I facilitate coaching in a way that will build up women and their ability to trust themselves? And I realize that for me, when I trust myself, when I know I have my own back, no matter what, I can do anything. And in order for us, let’s go back to the basic, to eat intuitively, we need to trust our eating cues. In order for us to trust ourselves with our health promoting habit, we need to trust our body. Right? And especially when you go into the world of body image, we need to facilitate confidence. Confidence comes from our ability to trust ourselves. So how do I help create an environment, how do I provide coaching in a way that will help people build their self trusts. That’s why I fully own life coaching and I believe, I’m gonna go as far as to say I believe that any graduate from any nutrition program, any health program that is actually gonna go into the real world, an application, we’re not talking perhaps on researcher, but people who are gonna go work with people, with other human, in delivering any kind of health methodology, mental health, physical health, nutrition, need to know how to coach.

We need to know how to coach other human and facilitate these elements and specifically if you’re gonna coach a woman. If you’re gonna coach a woman, you need to be able to help this, these element grow within your client, and you need to be aware of them, and you need to know how to facilitate them. I know today that coaching in the context of food specifically for women is a thousand time more powerful than any consulting intervention, anyone can do. Learning how to facilitate an environment for women to learn how to have their own relationship to food and how to bring nutrition in their own body, how to work out in a way that’s good for them, how to do movement in a way that’s good for them, how to care for their mental health in a way that’s good for them, how to facilitate an environment where people can develop that for themselves, is a thousand times more powerful than telling people what to do.

And I wanna give you a bonus reason why I believe to that level in life coaching in combination with health coaching. It’s because it changed my life. The process of intuitive eating in itself took me so far. It only clicked in when I layered in coaching. And I was able to explore the reason why I was binging, not just you’re allowed to eat all the food. That gave me some relief, but that did not solve for the binging. Telling me I need to love my body, why I just need to be neutral about my body, didn’t stop what I felt in my gut when I saw myself in the mirror. Coaching did that. Learning how to process my emotion did that. Learning how to unha myself did that. It changed my life. And because I believe in building businesses, building processes, ways of working with people in integrity, in alignment to my value, I had with great pleasure to integrate coaching, integrate life coaching in my work with people and my clients, professionals, and regular folk as well. I just could not live my life that way and not bring it into my work.

So this is why I brought life coaching into my title on Instagram and into my teaching because it changed my life. It changed the life of all my clients I have worked since then, and I firmly believe that it can only do good. It cannot harm people to learn to go beyond the food. It can only move them forward. It may not be the solution for everyone, but based on my own work over the last 10, eight years now, it is a great part of the solution for many, many, many, many women. So I wanted to share that with you today and perhaps if you’re, I don’t know when you’re listening to this, but if you came to the Going Beyond the food challenge, that’s what we’re gonna dive in. How to go beyond the food with food, how to go beyond the food with body image, how to go beyond the food and setting goals, which are client, because that’s what client pay you for, right? To achieve a goal, how to do that safely, how to go beyond the goal and how to apply that in a model of your business where the foundation of it is you trusting yourself.

So perhaps we’re in the middle of the challenge, perhaps you’re just registering for the challenge, but that is what I’m going to be teaching you and that’s what I teach also, obviously, in a non diet coaching certification. So if that kind of work calls you in, because that’s your lived experience or because just like me, you went into quote unquote regular practice and realized, holy moly, this is not working, come and work with me inside of the non diet coaching certification and I’ll teach you to go beyond the food. I love you and I’ll see you on the next podcast.

Integrating non-diet coaching in an already thriving wellness practice is possible to be accomplished with profound results.

The non-diet coaching is learning to coach clients in a new perspective. One that is not rooted in diet or wellness culture. Going Beyond The Food and finding what is really causing the problem our client wants to solve. 

Integrating non-diet coaching

Integrating the non-diet coaching framework means still talking about health and food but in a completely new way… in a way that will create self-trust in your clients.

Nadine Allaham from That Green Glow is our guest today and she’ll take you through what it looks like to integrate the non-diet coaching approach in an already thriving wellness practice.

What you’ll learn listening to this episode

• Why she was limited in the depth of work she could do with clients because of her personal story
• The parallels between diet culture and wellness culture in the suppression of symptoms
• How she incorporates non-diet coaching with clients and the results her clients experience because of this new approach.
• How her sessions have completely change with the non-diet coaching framework 

Mentioned in the show:

Non-Diet Coaching Certification

Free Resources 

Connect with our guest:

Website

Instagram

Transcript

Integrating Non-Diet Coaching in an Already Thriving Wellness Practice with Nadine Allah of That Green Glow

Stephanie: Welcome to the podcast, Nadine.

Nadine: Thank you for having me.

Stephanie: I’m excited. I’m excited to be talking about you be talking about a hormonal practice and how you are using the non-AI approach in your practice. I’m curious, so this episode is me being curious. So you guys are coming along with me on this journey of being curious. Nadine was studying with me six months ago, a year ago?

Nadine: Six months ago.

Stephanie: Yes. Six months ago. [Yeah.]

Stephanie: So it’s been four months after the training has ended. So I was curious to go back and see how the application of the non-AI approach worked out for you. But what I wanna do for people listening to this is set the tone, introduce yourself, what you do, and how you became interested or aware that you wanted to bring the non, that approach into your life and your practice. Can you set that picture for us?

Nadine: Yes. Okay. So I’m Nadine. I am a woman’s health and hormone nutritionist and I work with women primarily, when they feel that they have hormonal issues and whatnot. And so the reason why I wanted to get into the non diet approach was because very quickly I realized that giving someone a meal plan wasn’t working. Hmm. It just was not working. And I realized that whenever I would give someone recommendations, it was as if all of a sudden a wall went up and they didn’t want to.

Nadine: And so I was just getting curious. I was noticing these things and I was like, something is not right, right. And so I quickly realized that people assumed that healing was related to restriction and that’s not what I wanted to teach or to portray at all. And, I had made the realizations that diet culture has infiltrated the health and wellness space, and so many recommendations have everything to do with like weight loss and not actual health and it was, I was just having a hard time conveying that to my clients.

Nadine: So that was part of it and the other part was, I heard you on a podcast, I believe, saying that as a coach, we can only take our clients as far as we’ve taken ourselves. And I have struggled with body image and I used food to try to control my health and my size, and I knew that I could only take them as far as I’ve taken myself. So part of me getting into the mentorship was person, personal level interest, and the other part was because I really wanted to make more impact and have like a ripple effect to the next generation. I’m a mom of three kids. My oldest is a daughter and she’s a big part of my why. So, that’s kind of

Stephanie: So threefold.

Nadine: Yes. Yes.

Stephanie: Threefold. By stopping the generational trauma of dieting, you didn’t want her to do what you did because your mom did it, yourself and your clients. I’m curious, when you heard me say like, you can only take your client as far as you’ve taken yourself. I’m just curious, did you take it as, oh my God, I’m doing something wrong. What it got you productively curious.

Nadine: I think at that moment, the way I interpreted it as I’m not a good enough coach. Okay. So I got like, but like not in a way that like, okay, that’s it, I failed. I just kind of got curious, like, how can I improve so I can better serve? Mm-hmm. Because I know that I have like lots to give, right?

Stephanie: You have a lot of value to share. So now that you look back, where do you see the truth in that statement from me? That you could only take your client as far as you’ve taken yourself. How did you see that unfold into a TR version for you?

Nadine: So I realized that I had a lot of shame around my body. And anytime the body came up in practice, right, because the first thing people think is like they gain weight, my hormones, right? And it’s not necessarily the case, but I couldn’t have the proper conversation because I was also triggered. Yes. Yeah. So there was a lot of work that had to be done, a lot of unraveling, a lot of sitting with my emotions, riding the wave. Mm-hmm. I remember the first time you told me, sit with your shame. I was like, what the f does that mean?

Stephanie: I remember that.

Nadine: I was like, how do I do that? Is there a right way? Is there a wrong way? My, my mind went,

Stephanie: where’s the protocol? yes, exactly.

Stephanie: Oh, and it’s such a simple thing now that you know, it’s like so simple.

Nadine: Yeah. Yeah.

Stephanie: But it was unknown. It was the unknown territories. Like when you tell people that you have hunger, but you’ve always controlled food from a portion perspective like hunger, what is that like? I understand technically, but how does it feel in my body?

Nadine: Yeah. And for me, the part of the mentorship of like, coming to terms with hunger satiation and pleasure, I was so disconnected. I never felt hungry and I never felt full. I was just like, I just ate because I knew I should. Yeah.

Nadine: That’s it, right? So now it’s like I can actually taste food and enjoy food and I love teaching that to clients as well and like giving them the permission to eat the things that they love and like stay connected with their culture cuz a lot of these health and wellness recommendations are quote, unquote, like white woman recommendations, and you become so disconnected from your culture.

Stephanie: Have you reconnected with your culture?

Nadine: I have. I have. Yeah. And it’s like all of the foods that are nostalgic,I can actually like eat and the community and like the gathering, I have a story to share.

Nadine: My husband surprised me for my birthday to a new restaurant downtown Toronto. It’s a Lebanese fine dining cuisine, and I was able to allow him to surprise me to pick the restaurant, to not know the menu, to also allow the owner to pick the food and like be completely comfortable and confident with that. And I was able to enjoy every bite and listen to my hunger and satisfaction and take the leftovers home and it was a great experience.

Stephanie: And it would’ve not been possible before.

Nadine: It would’ve not have been, like maybe I would’ve eaten, but I would’ve felt uncomfortable the whole time and I would’ve felt so much guilt for eating off plan afterwards and all the things that come with that. Yeah.

Stephanie: A, As you were sharing, I had goosebumps everywhere. Like, this is a profound story for you to sh and I know for you to experience it, it’s profound as well. So do you, when you look back at why you felt uncomfortable coaching your client, you created, in fact, that stuckness with your client cuz you weren’t ready to deal with your own stuff.

Nadine: Yeah.

Stephanie: It was a self-defense mechanism in a way.

Nadine: Yeah. Yeah. You could say that.

Stephanie: I truly believe that, like, not just for you, for everybody. When we are in the profession of helping other, and we get stuck, we get stuck for our own safety. It’s because we can’t take people further than what we have taken ourself because that’s highly unsafe for us.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Stephanie: Right, until it’s safe for us to go there, we can’t take anybody there.

Nadine: That is 100% true. I can relate to that. Yeah.

Stephanie: Okay, so nutritionist, hormonal work with women, get stuck on certain topic with coaching with women, mm-hmm, what has changed today? Now that you have learned a non diet approach and you’ve integrated it within you and in your business, in your practice, I’m assuming, what has changed for you?

Nadine: What has changed is that I can hold so much more space and compassion for my clients and ask them questions that get them really curious and to see things in a different way, and to just like understand that their criticalness and their judgmental thoughts and their like unmanaged brain is such a huge stress that can be contributing to their hormonal imbalances and that we don’t need to restrict anything necessarily, right, but just like reconnect with their body and their food and their life and slow down. So many things, but like that’s the main thing.

Stephanie: Do you have a particular example of how you would’ve addressed something before and how you are addressing it now, like to make it concrete for people listening?

Nadine: I, yes. So previously I would have run some testing, so I do still do use testing. Yeah. or motor testing. Yeah. SoI use the Dutch test. ,I use an H T M A test. Those are my two favorite tests. Yeah. And I would have looked at the data, taken an intake, and then written a protocol and said like, do this.

Stephanie: And the protocol would’ve been what for people listening?

Nadine: it It would’ve been diet recommendations, lifestyle recommendations, supplement recommendations. Whereas now, we still do the testing and we still do the interpretation, but we connect to stress and we look at the relationship with food and body, and we work on those things because in order to like, receive the nutrition, let’s say, from our food, we have to fully be in our body to be able to like receive it and digest it and absorb it.

Nadine: And so if you’re like eating something, but you have like these thoughts around it, like you could be eating like the most nutrient dense thing, and it could be doing nothing for you because of your thoughts. And the other thing is like if you don’t feel safe in your body, again, your nervous system is gonna be dysregulated, and that’s gonna impact your healing journey as well. Right? So creating safety in the body and reconnecting with the body is a huge piece of my practice now.

Stephanie: So what I hear you say, when people say being safe in your body, for people listening, that mean literally being safe, being in your body, looking at your body as it is. Is that what you’re referring to?

Nadine: Yeah. Yeah. I think part of it is that especially as women, we have been disconnected and like our bodies have been medicalized and it needs to be outsourced. Like there’s always someone that knows better than you about your body. And so breaking all that down and coming back to like, you are the expert of your body and you know what you need and what you want, and taking that power back can be so powerful.

Stephanie: What kind of changes do you see in your client today from before, like how has the transformation that’s changed?

Nadine: I see my clients so much more confident in their body and around food, trusting their bodies more and just being able to do things from a place of acceptance and respect, rather than trying to fix and change themselves because of self-loathing essentially.

Nadine: Mm-hmm. So much more compassion. If I, if I had to choose one word, it’s compassion. So much more compassionate to themselves.

Stephanie: Hmm, that is like juicy, because that’s what we need. Yeah. No matter which illness or hormonal dysregulation we have, there is no way to come to a regulated state or healed state from a place of self-hatred and self-loading.

Nadine: Yeah.

Stephanie: It’s just not gonna happen. You have to have acceptance and compassion for what is in order to perhaps change it. And even if you don’t change it, if you’ve accepted it, then it’s okay.

Nadine: Yes, I think every single symptom in the body is your body trying to talk to you. And if we just go and suppress it again, it’s re reinforcing that disconnection. What is your body trying to tell you? And I truly believe that every symptom is related to an emotional sort of conflict.

Stephanie: Hmm, tell us more about that.

Nadine: So I’ve been, I’ve been researching a little bit, something called German New Medicine, and it was created by someone named Dr. Hammer. He’s since passed away, but there’s five biological laws and one of them is that based on your subjective perspective of an event, you have a conflict shock, essentially. And if it’s a small conflict, then it’s like a small symptom and it’s a, if it’s a massive conflict, then it’s like disease. Mm-hmm. And so right away it impacts your brain, your psyche, and an organ.

Nadine: And so he studied the brain scans of all his cancer patients and there were like rings essentially, and he could tell he connected where it would affect the organ. And so essentially the big takeaway is that nothing in the body’s happening by mistake and once we resolve the conflict, the symptoms naturally go away. Hmm. Connecting to the body and connecting to the emotions is so powerful. And then again, front in the wellness space, we’re always talking about prevention, prevention, prevention. We don’t know what’s gonna happen to us. You can’t necessarily prevent anything but understanding life from this perspective gives you so much power that like, okay, I need to address my thoughts around something that’s happened. Otherwise, there’s a good chance that this may arise or something may arise and we might not know what’s gonna arise but once a symptom arises, we can kind of refer back to what is that symptom in this place referring to the conflict. Can we connect the dots? Can we shift our perspective on it? So powerful.

Stephanie: Yeah, it is so powerful because I had a conversation last week with a chronic pain specialist, Dr. Andrea Moore, who deals with general chronic pain from knee pain to fibromyalgia, and she quickly realized there was no research sewing that pain was something bad. Pain is just a message from the body. It’s in alignment to what you’re saying. And I have a history of chronic pain because of scoliosis and different things in my spine. And what I was telling her is that what you’re explaining, it’s what I came to realize through creating the going to beyond the food method.

Stephanie: Yes, yes. I came to realize that she was working on their island over there and came to realize that and did a PhD on that. I’m like, oh, I figured that out over seven years. Mm-hmm. My pain has not gone away, but because I can think differently and I believe differently, I have a different relationship emotionally to that pain and the pain is less. It’s not gone away, but I live my life happily with the pain.

Nadine: Yes. So powerful.

Stephanie: And, and I wanna be careful to say like, it’s not because you changed your thought, you change your emotion, that your will be like, your disease will go away. You may continue to be sick, but the way you’re gonna live your life with that disease will be completely different.

Nadine: Yeah. Yeah. And just realizing what the it’s connected to. Mm-hmm. There is, in certain instances, the pain or the symptom may go away, cuz very often the symptom is the healing.

Stephanie: Can we talk about perimenopause and sleep?

Nadine: Perimenopause and sleep? Yeah, sure. Let’s talk

Stephanie: Because I’m into it. I’m into it. Mm-hmm. And when it started, I saw that as a problem. Mm-hmm. Yes. It was a problem that I would wake up at one and not go to bed till three. Mm-hmm. And I like made it the problem that I took all the supplements, I did all the thing, and I did the breath work, and I did the thing. And when I came around the corner to accept that my sleep pattern had changed, my sleep pattern got better.

Nadine: Yes. Yeah. I have a lot of women that struggle with sleep as well, and our thoughts about sleep are gonna impact the whole day and the trust in our body. So one thing I try to work on as an intentional thought is, I trust that I will get enough sleep, or enough that I trust that I’ll get the sleep that I need to function properly.

Stephanie: Yes.

Nadine: And so it creates so much more calmness and safety and it kind of dissipates on its own usually.

Stephanie: I, yeah, I still don’t sleep eight hours, like solid, like without interruption, I think. But what I’ve learned is that, as you get older, this ideology that you’re supposed to sleep eight hours from bottom to end doesn’t exist. It’s not like what’s supposed to happen anyway. You’re supposed to sleep interrupted, and that is as resting as eight hours in the row was.

Nadine: Yeah.

Stephanie: But the wellness brings that perfection thing. Mm-hmm. Like, just like everything’s gotta be perfect, gotta sleeps eight hours in a row interrupted. But what if it wasn’t?

Nadine: Yeah. And there’s lots of things from like the wellness space that like we can work on in conjunction, but we, the body is the boss, right? Yes. We have to listen to your body and we have to trust that it’s, whatever it’s going through is for a reason, and to be patient with it. So sometimes we have like this timeline, especially when you work with a professional, like, okay, I’m coming to you for sleep, and it needs to be fixed in three months. Otherwise, it’s a failure. What if we took away the timeline and trusted it’ll happen, and so

Stephanie: I’m gonna learn a whole bunch of stuff about you in the meantime.

Nadine: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s such a powerful shift for clients as well. Okay.

Stephanie: So you, I hear you talk about thoughts and emotion in the German medicine, which is all tied up to this. Before learning the non diet approach and the coaching framework, were you talking about thoughts and emotion before or that’s new over the last six months in your practice?

Nadine: No, that’s new. That’s completely new. That’s completely new. It was more of like, it’s interesting because the conventional world and the holistic world say that they’re very different, but they’re very similar in a sense that like one is suppressing symptoms with medication and the other one is suppressing symptoms with supplements.

Stephanie: Oh, that’s profound. Let’s all take a breather on that. It’s suppressing in either way.

Nadine: In either way. And neither one of, like, there are some practitioners that are trying to get to the root cause, for example, because that can really help with,how you help a client. But for the most part, it’s just, we’re just suppressing everything and it’s not getting to the root.

Stephanie: Mm-hmm. And it’s, you know, as you’re saying that it’s well powered on both way.

Nadine: Yes, yes.

Stephanie: Like if you look at habits, habit formation, habit formation, the traditional ways about using willpower and discipline. And when we give a meal plan to our client, guess what, it’s not far from willpower and discipline. Cause they’re not gonna eat in that meal plan for the rest of their life. They’re gonna do it and hope they don’t have to do it later. Yeah.

Nadine: And realistically speaking, like I’m working mainly with moms or pregnant women or like postpartum. Who has time to follow a meal plan, right?. And like, what if you don’t even like these foods, or it’s not part of your culture. I want to empower you to still be able to eat the things that you love, and make peace with food, and then eventually we talk about intentional nutrition.

Stephanie: So it’s really interesting because people think when you come to the non-AI approach, you stop talking about food and eating.

Nadine: Yeah.

Stephanie: It’s not true.

Nadine: No.

Stephanie: You talk about it as much, but in a completely different way.

Nadine: Yeah, in a more compassionate way. And trusting your body around food frees up so much mental space that you are then able to actually be present in your life.

Stephanie: And be present to your body

Nadine: And be present in your body. Yeah. Yeah.

Stephanie: What has it changed? You talked about your daughter earlier. It’s one daughter, two,

Nadine: Two sons.

Stephanie: Two sons.

Stephanie: Yeah. How did it change your motherhood or belief, your family units?

Nadine: My family units. So, for me,she’s 11 and a half now, it was about seven. She was seven years old and when I realized that there was a problem, it was snack time and I was pulling out dates and we dipped them in Tahini as a snack. And she had just started to learn how to read and she saw the box of dates and she saw sugar 27 grams. And she said, ah, mama, there’s 27 grams of sugar in that. And I said, yeah, but it’s natural sugar. And she had fear in her eyes. And that was like, I remember feeling like an adrenaline rush and like the blood almost sinked from my face. And I realized like, oh my gosh,I’ve done this. Like now we need to you know, unravel it all.

Nadine: And at the same time, I was in nutrition school and I had taken a food prep course and very nonchalantly, the instructor had said, what’s your relationship to food? And I was like, I feel really guilty when I eat at restaurants because I know I can make it healthier at home thinking it was like not an issue. And she was like, oh, you should really never feel guilty when you’re eating food. And it just got me curious. So that, and this kind of brought me to this like moment, this like rock bottom moment of like, okay, this needs to change something needs to change.

Nadine: Mm-hmm.So what did we end up doing from there? I started listening to podcasts and reading books and looking at different opinions. My social media feed, I started looking for different perspectives and one thing I think I heard maybe it was you or someone else, but it was on a podcast and it said to introduce all of these demonized foods in a playful way.

Stephanie: Oh yeah.

Nadine: and stop calling them good or bad. And so what we started doing is we started having a family movie night. And all the foods that we had restricted or demonized, we started bringing back in and like having them once a week, so that they could make peace with food, these things. Because for my daughter it was, she would, let’s say it was a chip, she would sit and nibble on it for like half an hour, just hoping for it not to end.

Nadine: Right. And whereas my son, he would scarf as much as he could. You know, it effects boys

Stephanie: if it’ll ever happen again, right.

Nadine: Because he doesn’t know the next time it’s gonna happen, right. And like I, I was doing the best that I could at the time, and I have complete like, compassion for myself, like, and it was a big lesson.

Stephanie: Well, you can only take your children as far as you’ve taken yourself.

Nadine: Exactly, exactly. That, that is 100% true. So as a family, we worked on our relationship with food and it’s like, now you know, they can go to a birthday party if they’ve just eaten food and they’re not hungry, they don’t care about the pizza. They don’t care about the cake. They can eat half of a piece of cake and leave it.

Nadine: Whereas, oftentimes when food is restricted or they’re shamed for eating, it’s like they’re going to eat that whole piece of cake even though it’s gonna make them feel bad,

Stephanie: And then they’re gonna have the sugar high. Right.

Nadine: Yeah. Which is a total like, I don’t know. That’s another podcast all about sugar.

Stephanie: Yeah. Well, that would be a whole different, that would be perfect for mom. But has that impacted your, because you work with women, mm-hmm, obviously, that have had or are having children, so that must be a whole new angle for you to coach and teach on.

Nadine: Yeah. So the topic, fear and stress around food for their children, comes up in conversation a lot because a lot of women or a lot of mothers stress about their kids. And that stress, again, is stress. It can impact your hormones too. Any stress can impact your hormones. And so oftentimes we talk about that and as they make peace with food, it impacts their family as well.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Nadine: As they start to unlearn all the wellness culture, diet infused information, the whole family benefits.

Stephanie: I know you do webinar, but that could be a great webinar for you. Have you thought about that?

Nadine: I actually haven’t thought, that is a good one.

Stephanie: Like ORs and like family or sugar thing? Yeah. For your family.

Nadine: Yes. Yes.

Stephanie: Yeah. Write this down. So, so now that we’re into business, we’re talking about webinar. Has learning about thoughts and feelings and trusting your body, has that created any change in the way you do or think or feel about business?

Nadine: Oh, that’s a good question. I definitely trust myself more, so much more. I remember you teaching about 10 steps to 10 K, and realizing how it was so infused with diet culture, and I’m like, that’s why I always resist it. Because every time I would see a post like that, I would get angry and I’d be like, no, F this. I’m not doing that. And I needed to do it my way. It has to be my way. I have a very different way of doing business. And at first I used to feel a lot of shame and guilt cuz I wasn’t following the rules. Yeah. Whereas now it’s like, no, this feels safe and I feel good. At the same time, I’m working on my thoughts and creating more safety so I can expose myself to certain things. But it makes so much sense now.

Stephanie: Yeah, well,when we don’t trust ourselves with food, why would we trust ourselves with business decision?

Nadine: Yes.

Stephanie: Right. We don’t trust ourself with food decision, that means we don’t have the skill to trust ourselves with business decision. Yeah.

Stephanie: Like it’s not two different world, fyi. They’re the same world. It’s self-trust.

Nadine: Self-trust, yeah. 100%. Before it was like, I’d make an investment and I’d second guess myself. I’d even like work with a client and then second guess myself. Mm-hmm. So there was so much like second guessing and like stressing and worrying, whereas now it’s like I feel confident in what I’m doing and how I’m doing it, and I trust that nothing is a failure, quote unquote, but it’s just a lesson learned and how can we grow from this?

Stephanie: Yeah, you’re gonna have your back no matter what, [yes] even if it doesn’t work. [Yeah.] Right. Because when we say having our back, the way we don’t have our back most of the time is in our mind. We beat the shit out of ourselves in our mind for days and days and days and days. [Yes.] Once you learn to manage your mind, that part is no longer there. So even if you make a mistake, but you don’t have the drama in your head as to how, why you’re so bad for making that mistake, that goes away, then you’re just left, okay. What can we learn from this?

Nadine: Yeah. And like for me, I’m not at the place where like I don’t ever have these thoughts, but I can meet them with compassion. [Yes.] I think for a long time, I thought that the goal was to never have any bad or critical or judgemental thoughts. And when I did, I was then judging those thoughts, but, [and forgetting more] and creating more. But you very compassionately reminded me that it’s all part of the human experience and [yeah] we can’t just erase it all.

Stephanie: No. And when I say we manage our mind, when I say we manage our mind, doesn’t mean we don’t have the thought. It’s just they’re just a string of words passing through our brain. [Mm-hmm.] We don’t attach to them. [Mm-hmm.] We don’t entertain them to create more. We’re just like, oh, we’re having a thought.

Nadine: It’s like a cloud passing by.

Stephanie: Exactly. So in a way, business became simpler.

Nadine: Yes. Much more simple and I’m not creating more drama and more hardness. Was like the success needed to be achieved by working really hard. [Yeah.] Whereas now it’s like a normalized, like getting paid in full by a client while I’m at the park with my kids. I know. You know, it’s like it can be that easy. And it’s just like,

Stephanie: and not be guilty about easy.

Nadine: Yes. And not be guilty about easy. Yeah.

Stephanie: Because that’s the thing is sometimes we finally get to the easy place, but now we guilt about how easy it is, we shame ourselves to it, so we’ll go right back to not having anything.

Nadine: Yeah. Yeah. So much.

Stephanie: Anything else you want to, that comes out to your mind that has changed in your life business practice that you want to highlight, [I think] you wanna proud of.

Nadine: Yeah, I think one thing that I struggled with and that I feel like a lot of people coming into this non-diet space might struggle with as well. I came from a very restrictive, critical background and then I swung the pendulum completely the other way to like intuitive eating and like body love, quote unquote. And it doesn’t have to be black or white. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. Find your gray and have your back. That’s what I would wanna give out.

Stephanie: Yeah. And that’s what you did also in your practice, [yeah] right. So often I see professional come into the Dai approach and they take their beautiful work they were doing, they’re like, no, I have to teach intuitive eating now. No. Be an hormone specialist, be a therapist, but do it in a different way.

Nadine: Mm-hmm. Yes.

Stephanie: Continue to put your magic in the world. Don’t stop it, to everybody becomes an intuitive eating coach. No. Be the place where we can go for Armon and not be served, wellness culture and diet culture.

Nadine: Yeah, because it goes so much beyond the food. Like I’ve recommended the mentorship to a few friends that have nothing to do withtherapy or psychology or nutrition or anything, but they work with women and I’m like, [yes] this is at the root of everything.

Stephanie: Yes. [Yeah.] If you’re a woman in a North American modern culture, guaranteed your work is impacted by di culture and patriarchy, guaranteed. Yes. Yeah. Any type of leadership, it’s impacted by that.

Nadine: Yeah, I agree. Yep.

Stephanie: Thank you very much for being with us today.

Nadine: Thank you for having me. This was lovely.

Stephanie: We’ll put your website and your Instagram in the show now, but can you tell us where we can find you in, or how people work with you, how you help people?

Nadine: Yes, so I hang out on Instagram a lot. My handle is, mm-hmm, at that green glow. If you send me a message, I will respond. And I work with clients in a very intimate, one-to-one container over the course of six months. And we do some functional testing and we help you improve your relationship with food and your body. And the goal is for you, again, to feel confident and safe in your body and have less of these types of symptoms, and for it to ripple. As a mother if you understand your hormones and how your body functions, imagine the gift that you can give to your daughter, to trust her body and to know the changes that she’s going through are not necessarily problematic. 99% of the time, it’s just part of being a woman and certain symptoms, how can we support the body so that they kind of go.

Stephanie: Yeah. And again, there’s not a lot of resources for people who want to be, I’m not gonna use the word treated, but helped without being served DI culture and wellness culture, you are one of those person who can help with hormones without serving up wellness culture and DI culture. So, we’ll go and see you.

Nadine: Thank you. Yes.

Stephanie: Thank you, Nadine.

Nadine: Thank you so much.

Non-Diet Life Coaching Certification explained 

The Non-Diet Coaching Certification explained – In this podcast I’m taking you behind the scene… curious? You’ve got to listen.

What you’ll learn listening to this episode:

• Why I refused to create a certification for years
• The “behind the scene” work that needed to be done first
• How I build the curriculum
• My dreams for this program…

Mentioned in the show:

Non-Diet Coaching Certification

Free Resources 

Transcript

Non-Diet Coaching Certification – The Behind The Scenes…

Welcome back to the podcast, my dear colleague. How you doing? I hope you’re doing well. I am doing very well. Today, I am rerecording this episode on April the 17th, and you’re going to hear it in your ears two days later. And I chose to record this episode the day after the launch of the non diet coaching certification for one reason: is I wanted to share the behind the scene story in the energy, the emotion, the thoughts that I was feeling after launching this program into the world. I wanted to be able to take you through the full behind the scene of this launch for me and for our business, and for our student as well, from a place of having lived it.

And this is what we’re gonna do today together. I’m gonna take you through the behind the scene of the creation and the launch of the non diet certification and just for you know, it’s a year and a half of work, and not in the sense of work that you probably thinking about. A whole different kind of work that had to happen in order for me to be able to share, this program with you. So it’s really gonna be a behind the scene. If you wanna know about the technical details of the non diet coaching certification, we’re gonna talk about it a little bit, about halfway through this podcast, but I would highly recommend that you go and visit the page, stephanie do.com/non coaching certification in order to get like the nitty gritty detail about the certification. We have an extensive frequently asked question as well. I gathered all the questions from the, consultation that I did over the year for this program, and I put it all out there.

Today is gonna be a lot about the mental, spiritual, and emotional work that needed to happen in me in order to be able to put this program out there. And be quite honest with you, I refuse to create a certification for years. And I was quite actually vocal about that on the podcast here in my group program, in conversation with my colleague, I was quite adamant that I would never create a certification for my methodology. Crazy. And here we are today and I’ve just launched a certification and I help you understand why I did that and how I did that. For those who’ve been listening to the podcast for years, you probably remember like episode 2, 3, 4 of this podcast, which is like three years ago where I was talking and teaching you about imposter syndrome and how to overcomeimposter syndrome. And,and the reason why I talk about imposter on so many episodes is because it’s the number one reason that you have given me as to why you’re not pursuing transitioning your business to the non-AI approach, or starting a business, helping other women in the non-AI approach. By like far, like 75% of the people who stay on the sideline is because of imposter syndrome. And I have been leading in a position of leadership since my early thirties, since the age of 28 years old in the retail industry and then in the health and coaching industry for the last 10 years. And it’s not just in our industry, that imposter syndrome is present. It was all over my prior career in the retail industry. I, I would want, I wanted, I was trying to promote women in my businesses and I couldn’t because women would, they felt that they weren’t quote unquote good enough to be promoted in the corporate world or to start a business in the coaching world. And I thought on that for years. And I always came back to, it’s not the piece of paper on the wall behind you that’s gonna create the confidence in you to get a promotion or to start a business.

And I got myself into this place of being mad at the system, di culture, patriarchy, the corporate culture, and the toxic business culture that taught my peers other women, that they needed that piece of paper. And then the piece of paper, the degree the certification would deliver. Confidence. I didn’t have a degree in business. I have a degree in nutrition, but I don’t, still don’t have a degree in entrepreneurship and in business and here I am teaching you about business and entrepreneurship. I know at the D n A level, you don’t need that piece of paper. And I got myself into that space where, I said, and I remember saying these words, I’ll never do a certification because I’m just co-opting that system of oppression that tell women they’re not good enough.

And about a year ago I was teaching a class inside of the mentorship program, which is, by the way, if you’re new to the podcast, the non diet mentorship program is where I have tested over the last three years how to teach the going to be on the food methodology to professional over seven cohorts, that is now becoming the non diet coaching certification. So I was teaching a class about a year and a half ago, we’ll say, on marketing, and we were talking about messaging and copywriting and I was telling my student, be sure when you write your copy, when you write social media posts, you don’t use industry jargon and your. You need to make sure that you are being careful, carefully aware, deeply aware of who you’re talking to. These people, your future client haven’t done the work yet. They’re still stuck in diet culture. They’re still under the oppression of the weight loss industry in diet culture. So if you’re using the language from somebody who’s already gone to intuitive eating and made peace with their body, they, when they’re still stuck in dark culture, they won’t connect with you. And as I was saying these word, a wave of heat just came pouring down on me, literally in my body sensation, and in that fraction of a second, I realize that’s what I was doing when I was marketing my professional training program. I was upholding a message, a marketing message that you don’t need a certification to be confident to people, some of you listening who had not yet understood how we created confidence, you and perhaps your colleague are still stuck in thinking that the piece of paper on the wall is what’s gonna make you a great coach, a great practitioner. It’s gonna make you confident to launch your business.

And I realized that I was doing a disservice. I was not helping diet culture dismantling. I wasn’t helping getting more professional train in an anti-D diet culture approach by stubbornly and rebellious, refusing to call my program a certification. To give a piece of paper a certification, literally eight and a half by 11 piece of paper, I was so rebellious and I was so like stubborn, I was refusing to create that and create a logo for people to put on their website, and I needed to change that. And so in that moment, I will still remember that day I was teaching that class on copywriting and messaging, ending the class and like had to have a one-to-one conversation from me to me. So I grabbed my journal and I did a bunch of writing and self-awareness, thought download we call it in the cognitive behavioral coaching model, and realized that I was stuck in rebellious thinking. And I digged, and I digged, and I digged, and I work with my coach on this and the real reason why I was refusing to do a certification, it was because I was afraid. Yeah, I was hiding my fear with this rebellious line of thinking. And here we go again. I coach people on this over and over again. When we talk about rebellious eating, what we’re really talking about when we’re help people discovering why their rebell eat is because they’re afraid of claiming their authority over foods, right, or over their body. They’re afraid of being in charge of their own life. And for me, in the case of being stuck in rebellious thinking, the fear that I was not allowing myself to see, because the first thing you need to do is being aware of your thought and being aware of why you’re afraid was two things. It was cancel culture in our own industry, in the social activism circle, we have a big history of cancel culture in between each other, right? One of the reasons why our work is slowly climbing up the level of public awareness is because we sometimes self destr between each other, right? And so I was afraid of being canceled because who am I to create a certification for non coaching in my industry? And then two, was really another layer of me being worthy. And if you’ve been listening to this podcast, but primarily my other podcast going beyond the food over the last five years, I’ve done a lot of public sharing about one of the main belief that we share as women who have been oppressed by DI cultures that were not enough, and I’ve done a lot of work on that. Like I’m now enough with food, I’m enough with my body image, I’m enough with my health and with my exercise, but with my business, I needed to peel the next layer of enoughness, which is you are enough to create a certification. You are enough to stand on your soapbox and say, the going to be on the food method is the method to help women leaving diet culture behind, not only from a place of lived experience for you, Stephanie as a person, but for the thousand clients you work with or for the hundreds of professional you work with. It works for everyone. It’s time now for you to stand in your soap box to the world and be proud of what you’ve created and share that with authority in the world. And it was just another layer of my onion that needed to be peeled, and that’s why I refuse to do a certification.

So here’s my message to you. Take this for a learning. As you are looking back in your own life, where are you stuck in rebellious thinking? Where are you stuck in being adamant that your way is the right way and what is hiding behind dance.

So I worked over the last year and a half in peeling that layer of that onion and really sticking down in my thoughts and my belief and building up my belief about myself professionally in this industry and the belief that I have in the methodology they’re going to be on the food method beings so amazing and brilliant and powerful for professionals and for client, and being able to stand on my soapbox and share that with the world.

So about four months ago, I came to a place where I fully believed that creating that certification was the right thing to do then we started, Here’s the beautiful thing about the certification is it’s not from the ground up. As I mentioned earlier, I’ve been practicing teaching this over the last three years. Over what, three and a half years to be exact, seven different cohort I’ve passed through the non diet mentorship program. So the curriculum for the certification was like, it’s the same thing. It’s the same thing as the non diet mentorship program, and it’s been iterated, tested, iterated tested, iterated, tested, to find just the right approach of teaching, the right way of delivering this content, so it was super easy. So what really I had to work on in the last four months was really more the branding, the marketing, how it’s gonna show, how it’s going to pull people into that certification from a visual, from a messaging standpoint. And that’s what I worked on for the last four months. And that’s what you see now into the world since yesterday. It’s not e, well, it’s been 24 hours now into the world, and I wanted really a neutral, visual approach through the non diet certification. That’s why you’ll see a lot of black and white and really simple minimalists because the curriculum of the certification stand on its own. It doesn’t need to be sold with a lot of fancy graphic and fancy coloring. What makes this program, it’s the people in it, people coming together wanting to do their own personal work and learning how to help other women. This is a very narrow niche program for people identified as women who help other people self-identified as women, leaving diet culture behind in the most ethical, safe, in conscientious way.

So for those of you who have been looking at the mentorship program, it’s the same thing. The only difference is at the end you will have the option of sitting for exam to be certified. So you’ll have to, there’ll be a classic type exam to be done online and there will be evaluation of your coaching that will have to be done by us. And then you will receive a piece of paper, the thing that I was so rebelling against. You will get it. You will get piece of paper certifying that you’ve studied, they’re going to be on the food method and you are now a non-AI coach.

The beauty of the certification is that we will test you on four different area of coaching. You will become a cognitive behavioral coach. We’re gonna spend two months, which is more than a third of the time we’re studying together really deep diving in coaching. We’re not gonna even talk about food just like we’re doing right now with our cohort. We’re not talking about about food, we’re not talking about body image, we’re talking about the mind, we’re talking about the thoughts, the belief, nervous system regulation, emotional intelligence, because that’s where coaching happens. And as I was building this curriculum and the thing that, it was always the number one issue with my student is not knowing how to coach, yet they had a piece of paper on their wall. They were a health coach. They were a, body image coach from another certification somewhere, but they had no idea how to coach people. And for those who thought they knew how to coach, they quickly realized that they were coaching the wrong thing. They were coaching the behavior directly, but not the thought, the emotion behind the behavior. That’s why we’re teaching the cognitive behavioral model of coaching, emotional intelligence, trauma informed program. We have one of our past graduate, Vanessa Preston, who graduated from our program two years ago. She is now a, part of our teaching group. She has two class within our curriculum that is all about trauma and nervous system regulation.

Funny story about Vanessa, vanessa came to me two and a half years ago to studied in the non mentorship program and she’s been looking at my program for over a year, but she felt she wasn’t quote unquote good enough as a therapist. Vanessa is a complex trauma specialized therapist. She’s been doing therapy with folks that have complex trauma background for over 15 years, and she was looking at the mentorship program and she felt not good enough. And she went in to do her nutrition degree in a university in order to feel good enough to come and study with us. And then for the first three months I think of our mentorship, she was finishing her degree in nutrition while studying with me, and then she realized that everything, all that she had been taught about nutrition was actually useless because it was all about calories and macros and dieting. All of that studying, all that investment of time and resources, you remember this girl had a full-time job and she was at the university at night, she invested all these resources and didn’t use a thing. She sent me an email three months ago and she said, still to this day, I’m not using a thing that I learned in two years in university, because it’s pure DI culture.

So anyway, Vanessa now teaches our segments of nervous system regulation and trauma inform within the context of coaching. So we learn all the depth of coaching and you’re practicing on yourself and we learn a self-coaching approach, and then we coach you on how you coach yourself, cuz that’s the only way for you to become a great coach, is by mastering your own thoughts and your own emotion. And a lot of students do that on their own relationship to their body and to food, kind of finalize their own journey by being coached by someone else, us, the leader of the program. And then once we’ve mastered coaching, or at least the approach to coaching, we go in and we apply it to food, and then we apply it to health and to body image. And that’s what makes up, the non diet coaching certification. And at the end, you get to sit for an exam on each one of those elements so you can receive your certification and you can receive your titles as well.

So if you do the full certification, you will receive titles of non diet eating coach, non diet body image coach, and non diet life coach. Because one thing you will learn very quickly in the going beyond the food methodology, and it was never about food or about the body, it was about life. And that’s something that I was afraid to be honest with you. I was afraid to call my program a life coaching program, and I have an episode that’s gonna be coming up in a couple weeks that’s called, Beyond the Food Coaching versus Life Coaching. Because there’s a lot of stigma around life coaching, but over the years and the people that have gone through the mentorship program, I’ve seen people leave the nutrition world and call themself life coach over and over and over again.

Because when you start coaching at that level, the level of the thoughts and the belief and the level of going beyond the food, you quickly I real realized what I have realized seven years ago, that the problem is not the food. The problem is how the person was raised and, and their relationship and their thoughts about themselves.

And that’s my story. I thought I was the only one who was struggling with food because of self-acceptance and family trauma and all of that. And then I, no, no, it’s all my clients. And then I started teaching professional and everybody was telling me the same thing. I end up coaching on relationship and I end up coaching on career, and I end up coaching on emotions and that many of you who are not yet gone through my training will tell me, I get stuck in my coaching, I don’t know what to tell my client. They bring up all these big emotions to the session and, and they start crying and they start talking about their partner and their kids, and I don’t know how to coach them on that. But we need to know how to coach on that because that’s what’s standing behind the disturb relationship to food and the compulsive obsessive eating behavior in the self-hatred and the body dissatisfaction. The problem is not our body or the layer of fat on our body. It’s how we think about our body, because of how we were taught to think about our body because of all the septal message we were told everywhere. And it’s the same thing with food.

So really you become a life coach. Because you are learning our cognitive behavioral coaching methodology, you are able to coach on anything. The way we teach it to you, you can approach any problem. It’s a structure, it’s a framework. No matter what the circumstance that your client present, you just apply the methodology to it and you’re able to coach on anything. And that’s been so transformative for all the professionals that have gone through our program is being able to coach on anything. And recently, over the last year, have been taking in more and more a life coach, right? People who have graduated as a life coach from another program, and then they’re struggling with helping their client, their self-identified women client with confidence without using weight loss as a tool to create confidence. And they’re coming to us to learn how to do that. And the result they’re being getting with their client because they now can use a life coaching tool in a safe, ethical way to help people build self-esteem and better relationship and confidence without having to resort to shrinking their body. So all around, this is my dream for the non diet coaching certification. It disrupts the coaching industry. It disrupts the health coaching industry, which is so entrenched in diet culture and wellness culture, right now. I wanna disrupt the life coaching industry because it’s entrenched in weight loss. I can’t find a life coaching certification out there that is not entrenched in fat phobia, in DI culture, and weight loss. I wanna disrupt that industry as well. And I wanna give the tool to all of you out there who are doing work on intuitive eating and body image. I want to give you the tools that you need to make this work so much easier for your client and for you as a coach, so much easier when you know how to coach.

So I really, I want this program, that’s my dream, that it disrupt the coaching industry cuz the coaching industry was created by men for men. If you go through the ophthalmology and the history of the coaching industry, it was in the context of the business world. It was the Tony Robbins of this world that created a model of coaching that is made by men for men. It was never made for women. It was never comprehensive of how a woman is socialized and how a woman is conditioned. And even for the small segment of the coaching industry that is created by women, it’s unfortunately women that have the same conditioning as you and I from DI culture, from patriarchy in the have not yet done their work on internalized fat phobia. So when they’re teaching coaching, when they’re coaching other women, they’re coaching from an unaware of where, they’re carrying their own fear of fatness.

So I want this program, the non coaching certification to solve that, to give a place for women who understand that and want to do this work, not only learn the intellectual notion, but actually want and recognize that you need to embody this work for yourself first to be able to safely coach other women and how to build a business that is respectful of these values, that is ethical in its structure. Because that’s the other problem that I found when I was trying to, when a question that I know some of you will have, who are you, who is this program certified with, which organization is it associated with? It is not associated with any places. I can’t because how they’re coaching, life coaching or how they’re teaching life coaching, or how their program is associated with weight loss or how their association is upholding non-ethical business practices.

So, we belong nowhere yet. That’s gonna be my next project over the next two to three years is either fine an ethical coaching association that we can affiliate with or create my own, because right now we’re in an island on our own. So, it is a certification that at this point fits nowhere. But you know, for me it’s not a big deal because that’s what the non-AI approach, that’s what intuitive eating is, that’s what body neutrality is, counterculture.

So I know we’re just pioneer. We are disrupting, we’re leading a revolution. We’re years lights ahead of the industry, and I know our island’s gonna become bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger, and I know that at some point the shift will happen and there will be many other coaching organization that will fit our paradigm, that will fit our value system that we will be able to associate with and grow with and really impact at the next level.

So, I’m really excited for you to discover this program. To join us ,the next cohort, it’ll begin in July the third. The same structure as an indictment mentorship program was, it’s from July to December, it’s a six month live coaching container, small group coaching. We don’t take in a lot of students we’re doing the work, not just lecturing you, we’re actually coaching you on doing your personal work, so it has to remain small group coaching. And we’re starting July the third and ending December the 14th, and it’s every six months, we have a new cohort. So go and visit the sales page, Stephanie doze.com/non diet coaching certification. And I’m looking forward to sharing this container, this transformational container with many of you that are listening here in July.

If you have any question, there’s things that are not clear either on this podcast or on the page of the program, please send us an email at [email protected] and then we will take notes of where our gaps in communications are or where we need to give more information. You will really be helpful for us to hear from so we can really streamline our messaging and our communication. So feel free to send us an email info stephanie.com and I’ll see you on the next podcast next week.

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Non-Diet Health Coaching

On today’s episode, Non-Diet health coaching, we explore what helping your client with health looks like as a non-diet professional.

I answered a colleague’s question about the process of health coaching when aligned to a non-diet view on health.

What you’ll learn listening to this episode

• The true definition of health vs what you think it is
• The 4 bodies of health
• The influence of diet culture, wellness culture, and weight loss industry on healing
• What to focus on with your clients when it comes to health coaching

Mentioned in the show:

New Intake Forms – Non-Diet Client Assessment Tools

How to Teach Nutrition without co-opting diet culture webinar

Professional Training Certification Program 

Free Resources 

Sources and Quotes:

Stephanie’s articles on health

Research Health At Every Size approach

Research on weight neutral approach to health

Podcast on the failure of dieting – 286

Podcast on set point – 214

Podcast on BMI – 216

Podcast on Wellness Culture & Healthism – 228

Podcast Health Goals versus Weight Loss Goal – 264

Podcast on weight neutral approach to health – 208

Visual Determinant of health

Link between body dissatisfaction and health behaviors

Episode Transcript:

UYC76-Coaching Health The Non-Diet Way

Welcome back to the podcast my dear colleague. Today I have a very important episode to share with you today, and it was actually triggered by a question from one of, ingrid, from Sweden who sent me a question after attending our training on how to teach nutrition without co-opting diet culture. She had some very important question that I wanted to answer to her, but to all of you, because I know her question, I have been asked many times over and I wanted to record something to be able to refer people to in the future people that have the same question as you.

So I’m gonna read their email to all of you word for word of how it was sent to me. Then I’m gonna offer, it’s gonna be three part, I’m gonna offer some coaching for her brain, which is probably some of you’s brain if you have the same question. Then we’re gonna go into teaching, like teaching factual information. And then I’m gonna take that information and see how you can apply it in your practice with your client.

So let’s start with the email. Hey Stephanie. I listened to the webinar on how to teach nutrition without co-opting diet culture, but I still have a bunch of question. I’m totally with you that it’s highly unhealthy to diet, but many of my client have a lot of health issue that may be the result of inflammation, thyroid condition, hyperinsulinemia, high blood pressure, and some other consequence of Metabol syndrome. In that case, the only solution apart from medical intervention that I know of is to change what they eat, at least temporarily, to let their gut and body heal. So if I start to work accordingly to your program, would I actually be able to help them improve their physical health. Or do I need to approach this from two angle, some dietary change to address their current health issue, as well as working with the mental side to give the client the confidence to continue to UNT their health? By the way, we met in person a couple years ago in Myorca.

Thank you, Ingrid. I’m gonna keep her last name confidential. So just a footnote on business, I was in Mallorca actually six and a half years ago. So I met this lady six and a half years ago. She’s been on my email list since then and she now, six and a half years later, is showing interest in working with me. So I just want that to sit with you on how putting value into the world as your base philosophy of business is so powerful. I’ve put value into the world six and a half years ago, and it’s coming back to me today in her asking question about my program. So we’ll leave the business aspect of this aside and we’re gonna go into giving you, Ingrid, a little bit of coaching.

So what I can see is happening in her brain as a professional is she’s being introduced to the non-AI approach. I can see through the language and the sentence and the choice of words she’s using, she is fairly new to this new world and her brain is seeing this new approach as a bit unsafe. It’s saying, oh my God, this is all new, we’ve never done this before, does that mean I’m gonna be able to continue to help people be healthy? It’s putting in question all of her belief system around health, because we’re saying health doesn’t equal weight, health doesn’t equal restriction. And because it’s shaking her own belief system and her belief system as a professional at the core, there is then a response from the nervous system and from the brain of catastrophizing, of seeing things in black and white, of perhaps even exaggeration. Not because she wants to catastrophize, but because her nervous system feels really unsafe.

So I’m gonna go to your brain, Ingrid, and all of you who may be in that stage of your journey as a professional. It’s totally normal that you feel unsafe. As you enter the world of health, of food, of cognitive behavioral change in this brand new way, all of it is new to you. It’s like I’m putting a new pair of glasses. You’ve been wearing these glasses for decades, and all of a sudden I rip those glasses off your face and I put a new set of glasses and you don’t know how to look through life with them. You don’t know how to look through your profession, through them. So I want to normalize that fear response, that insecurity that you are feeling as you are starting to put your toes into the non-AI approach. Know that if you meet yourself with awareness that this discomfort, this insecurity is normal, and you bring yourself comfort, leadership, that you are going to hold yourself, you’re gonna have your back as you are learning to help your client in a different way, your nervous system will appease. Your nervous system will feel safer in this very new and unsafe environment.

I’m gonna try to hold that space for you as I’m answering this question. I’m gonna give you some intellectual and practical information. But no that’s just a phase of discomfort that you are in. If you don’t know how to coach yourself through nervous system regulation or through mindset, through cognitive behavioral coaching, this may be a sign for you to learn these things, to learn these approach in order for you to know how to create safety for yourself and comfort for yourself, and compassion for yourself, and then you can pass that wisdom on to your clients and patients.

And that’s what we do. There’s many podcasts on the feed that can help you with that, but that’s also what our program does. It helps you with cognitive behavioral coaching, mindset and emotional regulation. Now that we’ve appeased the brain a little bit, let’s go into more factual information around health. Because what I see in this question and what I see from many of your question when you enter this world, is I can see that your core belief around health are being disrupted. And you don’t know how to think about health if it’s not from a place of weight restriction, food restriction and protocol, you’re like if you take that away from me as a professional, what else do I have? I just want you to know there’s a whole other world of how we can help people with their health without being centric to wait, without being centric to restriction and protocol and all that wellness culture stuff.

I am not going to address in this podcast here the notion of how health and weight are not intertwined, that the layer of fat on the human body is not the cause of disease, because it’s such a big topic and I need to do a very detailed job at that in order to help you deconstruct and dismantle all your fat phobic medical training or health training you’ve received over the years. The longer you’ve been in that field, the longer of an explanation it takes from me to give your brain enough new factual information in order for you to potentially change your belief system around health and weight. What I have done though, is I have listed in the show note of this podcast episode around 10 resources I have already created that exist either on this podcast, the going to be on the food show podcast or article that I have written over the years that are on my websites. So go to the show note and there will be a number of resources for you to look at in order to help you dismantle the belief that health is intersected with weight.

Now let’s talk about health on its own. What is health? I think this is the baseline where we need to start. One of the most agreed definition of health is one from the World Health Organization, W H o, and it defines health as a state, a physical, emotional and social wellbeing, not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. Another definition of health that I really like is health is a state of adaptation. Health is a some of biochemistry physical system, it’s not just one system, it’s the intersection of so many system in your body to adapt the environment. That’s why health fluctuate true life. That’s why health fluctuate through what’s happening in your life, either in your relationship, in your financial situation, in where you are into the world, you will see health goes through hub and flow. For me, and the way the weight neutral approach to health sees health, it’s not a defined state that one needs to achieve, but instead a series of hub and flow.

And when you’re not locked in to the definition of health as a state to be achieved as a series of test resolve that needs to be at the optimum health, then it allows you for flexibility on how you approach health. Here’s another way for you to think about health. Health is not something that can be achieved. We are trained and socialize in society to see everything as a standard, as a scale of one to 10 to be achieved. And we shall always aim and pursue to achieve 10 out of 10. When we take this way of looking at life and we apply it to health, health become almost competitive. Health becomes something that we judge our words and our worthiness against. There’s a whole podcast in your resource in the show Note on Healthism. Healthism is very similar to fat phobia or di culture, let’s go to DI culture.

Di culture is a system of belief that judges people’s worth based on their weight. Healthism is a system of belief that judges people’s worth based on their health, right. When we apply standard society’s viewpoint that your worth is outside of you, that you’re not innately worthy, that you get tangled up into this world of health being outside of you and something you have to work hard and something you have to strive to achieve when in fact, health is a state of adaptation. It’s a continuum. It’s a continuum requires you to be in tune with yourself in order to support your body’s journey in that state of adaptation. So really, when you think about health, your question you need to ask yourself is, how can I support my body in the journey of keeping me alive and functioning to the best position or the best place available to me. Cuz here’s another misunderstanding of health, is we think that all human have optimum health accessible to them. And that’s not true and we’ll see why that is as we go through the rest of this episode. But some of us are born with genes, perhaps defect, that leads us in a state of the HEBs and flow of life being greater or perhaps the lower portion of health are more frequented because of our, how we’re built and how our body was born. And I was trapped in that for years. I was for probably a good 10 years trying to reach states of hell because I was into this healthism culture that health had to be a 10 outta 10. It was my fault if I wasn’t a 10 outta 10. And it led me to spend an enormous amount of my resources, time, money, mental health and emotional health, trying to achieve something that wasn’t accessible to me. Based on my genetic, based on some tissue formation in my body, that level of health on a scale of one to 10 wasn’t available, but I kept pursuing it because I thought that’s the only way that I’m gonna be worthy. Unpacking all of that with your client, understanding that first for you, and then two, unpacking all of that with your client is so powerful. When I found someone that was able to help me understand all of that and help me understand what true health was when it’s not intersected with the weight loss industry and DI culture and wellness culture just in its pure form, it was such a revelation for me. That’s something all of you can do for your clients.

So the understanding of health is critical. The other piece to understand is we cannot hate ourselves to better health status, whatever that means. Like we’re gonna forget the scale of one to 10, just better health. However, when we approach health from the diet culture paradigm, then we come to health and we’re like, okay, we have to work hard. We have to restrict, we have to be tough on ourselves in order for us to access better health. What it says is that you did something wrong to be at that lower health status, at that more challenging health status. You are wrong. You did something wrong to be there because Optimum Health is accessible to you. This is the same line of thinking as diet culture, right. That culture comes in and says everybody can be thin. Everybody has it within them to have a thin version of themselves. You just gotta work hard. You gotta restrict. No pain, no gain when you exercise. You’re just not hard working enough in all these things to reveal the 10 version of yourself. When we don’t clean up our thinking and our belief system, we come to health and we do the exact same thing. We are trying to reveal this healthier version of ourselves by working harder, by restricting more, by hating ourselves even more. And weight is a huge part to play in that, not necessarily weight in the body scale, but weight in relationship to our body image or body dissatisfaction. This is where if your clientele, your patients are women, people identified as women, they’ve been socialized as women, they’ve been under the influence of patriarchy and fat phobia and di culture, you have to explore with them their body image. Cuz I guarantee you for nine out of 10 clients, their body dissatisfaction plays a role and their current healths.

There’s a study that I’ve linked in the show note that is from actually the Journal of Obesity, right? A 2013 study that found no link between the actual body weight and the way women feel or felt about themselves. Meaning that no matter where the their body was big or thinner,it wasn’t relational to how they felt. So there was as many women who didn’t like their body when they were thin, and the same ratio when women in larger body. Yet the finding of that study showed a link between how women feel about themselves, independent of their weight, how women feel about themselves and the health promoting behavior they engage in. The way women feel about their body impacts how they engage with their health. Isn’t it profound? So if you help your client improve their body image, become body neutral, that’s the first step. Can we just all be body neutral and liberate ourselves from dissatisfaction and body hatred, then our mental and emotional resources can be spanned on creating new health promoting behavior. That is part of helping our client achieve better health for what is accessible to them. This is what we call weight neutral health, an approach to health that is not intertwined with weight. But I’m gonna say more than just weight neutral, an approach to health that is not rooted in di culture and wellness culture whereby there’s an optimum state that we can reach and we just gotta work hard and restrict and punish to get there. What is known in science as weight neutral approach to health, when we take off any conversation around body weight, B m I and we approach all other element that can impact health, that approach of weight neutral approach to health has resulted in decreased body dissatisfaction, obviously, right? We improve our body image when we neutralize our body image. Decreased disordered eating, decreased depression, increased sustainable health behavior, enjoyable self-care, sustainable self-care for long period. That particular study that I’m talking about, which is in the show note is two year study. That is so rare that we have behavioral study around health that are under a two year span. Because we know a weight neutral approach to health is fundamentally shifting the individual so the study led by Dr. Linda Bacon, who wrote the book Health at Every Size, looked at people for two year period and found tremendous change in people. And that is the main difference with a wellness culture approach to health or a body weight centric approach to health and weight neutral approach to health is that the behavioral change are sustainable. We’ll talk about that on application with the client.

So for you as a practitioner is continuing, for Ingrid, continuing researching, reading books and understanding that your current viewpoint of health was formed, was created via the philosophy, via the belief system of Dia culture, wellness, culture, and fatphobia. So it’s totally normal that a new way of looking and thinking at health comes in a kind of a clash with what you currently holding in your brain and into your body. So continuing your education, continuing to deepen your understanding of health without these paradigm, understanding nutrition without the paradigm of wellness culture, understanding nutrition without the paradigm of fat phobia. And for most practitioner, we have to start and teaching them the basic of behavioral modification.

What fascinates me now that I know what I know is that nearly all the training program I’ve encountered either personally or had student in my program coming from them, that it is college education, university education, master, have had the pleasure of teachingto dietician with master degree. I even had the pleasure of teaching to a PhD. And none of those people, the all health centric educational degree, none of them had received any training in behavioral modification. Even I have not yet encountered a health coaching training program that teaches student the future of Health Coach, C B T, cognitive behavioral modification, and how to apply C B T in a coaching centric container and how to help client from what we know is the most effective methodology to change behavior. Yet they’re out there teaching health promoting behavior, but they have no framework to understand how to help their client modify their behavior.

So that would be another thing that we need to bring on as a professional, a clear understanding of behavior modification using cognitive behavioral coaching or therapy, depending if you’re professional. And this is so essential if you work with women. I’m a specialist of female, self-identified women, transformation, and I’m sure if you were to talk to my counterpart who specialize in men behavioral modification, they will tell you the same thing. The vast majority of the behavioral challenges that our client have are rooted in very gender centric belief system, like in our case for women, patriarchy. DI culture with like nearly all the clients have body image struggle that impacts their health behavior. Women don’t see themselves as the owner of their body. They’re always looking outside of them for the guru, for the expert to tell them what to do. Part of our work in a non-AI way is to bring back the in our client, to help them trust themselves and trust their body so they can be the authority over their body and their health for the rest of their life and stop seeking outside of them all the time. And that’s a direct consequence of patriarchy.

We need to be able to coach at that level. If we wanna impact the behavior permanently, sustainably, for the rest of their life, I always say to my client, my professional, your job is to work yourself out of a job. You shouldn’t be working with a client for five years, cuz that means you’re not doing your job. You’re not teaching them how to be self su. That’s our job, and for that we need to coach at the belief in the system of oppression, the culture and patriarchy level. We need to help our client understand why they have the behavior they have today, so that they know how to change it going forward. Do the work on yourself first two, then take what you’ve now know and teach it in a simpler, more consumable way to your client. And we all should start with health. It’s your role in your relationship to your client to dispel the misconception of what health is and what health is not.

I, I’m very open.I had a short clinical experience. I had three years in clinical practice, but I can tell you at every single one of my patients had a belief that their weight was the cause of their health issue and that what they ate gave them or created the health issue they had. It was just a fact for them. Back in those days, I didn’t know what I know today, but now when I work with people and all my program are built with starting at that point, what is health and what it is not. And furthermore than this, health is more than physical. I have not yet talked about that yet, but this very linear approach to health, that health is only physical, is laughable. But it serves the purpose of the weight loss industry in DI culture to only focus on the body, on the physical body. I mean, that’s the whole purpose of the weight loss industry, right? That’s the focus on the physical body. And the same thing for DI culture, and almost the same thing for wellness culture as, right. All the product and the supplements and the protocol and the books all aim at changing physical health. You know what? Remember the World Health Organization definition of health, health is way more than just physical. It’s your mental health, it’s your emotional health, it’s your spiritual health. And yes, it’s physical, but not in the notion that we’re sold where the physical health equals weight and which you eats. That’s our job. You as a health advisor, whatever your role is, therapists, nurses, health coach, dietician, your job is to focus your health approach on mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual. You have to broaden the lands in your approach to include all of it. But yet, and I know as I’m saying that, you’re like, but I’m not trained. I only know how to create food protocol. I hear you. That’s a problematic in our industry that we’re trying to solve in my company. But you need to get trained on mental health and emotional health. You need to be able to help your client regulate their emotion and manage their thoughts and change their beliefs, change their behavior. Cognitive behavioral coaching is our solution to that.

The second or the third thing we need to do, we need to work on our own knowledge. We need to teach our client what health is and what it’s not, and then we need to validate or help them create an intention on working with their health from a place of love and not fear. I talked about that on how that culture and weight loss culture is all centric on punishment and restriction and harder and, like all that punishment and like no pain, no gain mindset, we need to walk away from that. We need to think about our health from a place of love, not fear in restriction and no pain, no gain and punishment is fear.

And don’t kid yourself. The protocol that Ingrid was talking about in her email, the restrictive protocol, that’s fear-based. That’s with the understanding that the individual, your client does not know how to feed themselves, that they must be controlled, that authority outside of them must come in and tell them what to eat, when to eat it, how much to eat it, that they don’t have disability for themself. It’s denying the individual and their authority over the. Our approach needs to be from a place of love. How can they love themselves more? How can we offer the body more support instead of restricting it? What is very interesting when you get deeper into this approach is that restriction protocol, restrictive protocol creates stress, massive amount of surf, like telling your client that they need to eliminate all these foods and they need to eat this way. They come back home and they’re stressed. How are they going to do that in a life that’s already too busy? And yet, we know that stress is recognized as one of the most powerful agent towards insulin inflammation, towards chronic health condition. And yet our approach causes more stress.

The fact that our client hate their physical body because they think of themselves as too old, too big, causes stress, which causes inflammation. We know that from science, and we don’t make one plus one in our approach. Our body isn’t broken and your client’s body isn’t broken. That’s not why they’re unhealthy. They’re quote unquote unhealthy, they’re currently sick because the head and flow of their health, that is the best way right now with everything coming at them. And that’s should be done through your assessment of them, like all the things coming at them mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically, the best way their body has found to survive that was through the disease pathway or the inflammation pathway. Throwing more stuff at them is not solving the problem. The problem is helping them defer everything that’s coming at them. That’s why we call, we finally came to the conclusion that the work in the non-AI approach was life coaching. It’s a branch of life coaching, but that’s what we do. We help our client navigate through life, so there’s less causes of distress for them and then we let the body do its magic. Cuz the body knows how to, like the heaven flow of health, the body knows. But we help them like eliminate the things in their life that causes this, the distress, that the body, the best way of dealing with it is through the pathway of inflammation of disease. And most of the people that I work with are not doctors or physicians. We need to stay within our lanes. Most of us have no qualification or shouldn’t be messing up with quote unquote treatments of people. That’s the job of physician and doctor and specialists. Our impact, and I’m tapping on my chest right now if you heard that, our role is behavioral, health promoting behavioral coaching, going out there with our client and trying to set up an environment where they can engage in health promoting behavior, but not taking the role of a physician with supplements and treatments and protocol and all of that. That’s not our role.

So how do we approach health then? One of our number one goals should be to reduce stress, mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. And restriction causes more stress so no, there’s no restriction. Give more, figure out with your client how they can give themselves more, how they can love themselves more. And I can tell you from experience when you’re trying to help a client engage in health promoting behavior from a place of love, a lot of the work is in their minds, the quality of their thoughts. Just like mine were 10 years ago, it’s like, oh yeah, yay, yay, yay, we gotta go in there and help them clean up the way they think about themselves, about their body, about health. So if you know anything about cognitive behavior coaching or behavioral modification, your thoughts creates your feeling, your feeling then creates your habits. So when you help your client clean up what’s happening in their brain, you then make them relieve in their emotion, and then they can have productive health promoting behavior. So yeah, Ingrid, it’s a twofold, then I wanna say a fourfold approach. Mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual. And the physical one is not about giving them more to do, it’s actually prioritizing the little bits and then cleaning up so there’s more space and resources for them to do more in the future. We have an expert in our program, her name is Bet Rosen, she’s a clinical dietician specializing in gut health. That’s all she does from a health at every size and intuitive eating approach, and her protocol is only six weeks. Six weeks, that’s it. And she only gets client to the protocol of gut health, whatever she does, once they first onboarded the basic of intuitive eating, that they eat when they’re hungry, fullness and satisfaction, and there’s no food rules, like she cleans all that up first. Once the client is at a state where they’re eating peacefully, then they engage into a only six weeks protocol. And the goal of the protocol is to eat more diverse food, it’s not to find a list of food to restrict. She teaches a class in our program, and she’s one of our referral practitioner because most of us don’t have the qualification to do that or the specialty to do that. So we do all the basic work with our client and then we refer to her for gut health specific condition that were diagnosed. And then she intervenes with a very short protocol, just to show you the difference between what most health certification and functional health train you to do versus what is actually needed. It’s phenomenal, the difference between the two.

The other thing that I haven’t talked about yet, but I wanna make sure that we cover here, it’s also in the show note, that’s called the Social Determinant of Health. What affects health in an individual versus what we are taught versus the truth is vastly different. I’m only gonna state one number for the purpose of this episode because it’s already long, but food and physical movement, fitness, only accounts for 17, one 7% of what actually impacts one’s health. Isn’t that bite blowing? It’s called the social determinant of health. You have the link in the show note, but I’m just gonna quote you other number. 7% of what an individual impacts their health is the environment, like the quality of hair. Access to medical care, 11% of what contributes to one’s health. Genetic 22%. And then here’s the banger, 24% of what impacts an individual’s health is social circumstance, like foods scarcity, people not having enough to eat, or people voluntarily not giving themselves enough to eat.

Think about that for a moment. Social connectness, education level, gender identity, sexual identity, that has a bigger impact on one’s health than actual the food they choose to put in their mouth. But the problem is we are never shown these statistics because we’re shown statistic, we’re since statistic that support the weight loss industry, that support diet culture, and that support wellness culture. Statistic that support a weight neutral approach to health in a fat phobic society or hidden, discarded, and not made public. It’s important for you to look at these research and these statistics and then talking about it with your clients so they put in perspective what really can improve their health. If I can say one thing when it comes to helping client, when it comes to their health, it’s shifting to this philosophy of self-care. You know, I was talking about approaching health from a place of love instead of fear. The way we teach you how to approach health is from a place of self care. There’s a list we give all our student of a hundred things between mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual health they can teach their client to do that has nothing to do with restricting food or losing any weight. And soft coaching and therapy is a huge part of that. Emotional regulation, right, is another big piece of that. These are things you can do to help your client improve their health, and it’s gonna have ripple effect, not just with their help but with everything else in their life. Again, why we chose to call the certification, we’re gonna be launching soon life coaching cuz it’s beyond the food. So this is how you can help your client in a non-AI approach to health.

So I’m gonna go back to the question that Ingrid was asking, cuz I’ve been talking now, I don’t know how long, but it seems very long to me. I wanna make sure I answered all the question. So she talks about Metabol syndrome. I’m not gonna go into the depth of that, but metabolite syndrome is a term most often co-opted by fat phobic medical approach. So, I would really question where this Metabol syndrome belief system is coming from for you and how intertwined it is with weight. Typically that’s what it is. It’s intertwined with having to lose weight to some degree. There’s many other reason why an individual could have high blood pressure or hyperinsulinemia, a lot of it to do with stress. And same thing with inflammation, right? There’s many other reason than just the Metabol syndrome, but most often individual are trained to associate that right away with Metabol Syndrome because that support a weight centric approach to health, a k a. Reduction of weight.

You’re talking about letting the gut heal. There is no sustainable evidence that the gut needs to be healed or the gut needs to have a restricted approach to food to be healed. That’s wellness culture. That’s just myths supporting wellness cultures and protocols and philosophy of eating and supplements, and that supports the industry of wellness culture. When you go to pure scientific evidence, there’s nothing of that. So, yeah, when you look at a non diet approach to health, you won’t be focused on quote unquote gut health, cuz you’ll be much more worried about mental health and the quality of thoughts and their acceptance of their body that you will be worried about doing a 12 week protocol to quote unquote reduce the inflammation in their guts. That is true. That is something that we don’t practice in the non-AI approach to health.

So if I started to work accordingly to your program, would I actually be able to help them improve their physical health? I just wanna look at the undertone of that question. Will your client be able to learn how to improve their health? That’s the thing, like in a non-AI approach, we look at the empowerment of the client. The client creates the result, not us. We’re not in that guru, I create the result for my client because I have a wisdom that they don’t have. How can I enable them to access health promoting behavior that will help them in their current health status? Yeah, you will. If you can’t help them regulate just their emotion, the first thing that comes to mind is you can help them regulate their emotion, like their health’s gonna improve phenomenally rapidly, because that’s probably a huge part of the reason why they’re struggling with their health is they’re overwhelmed with their emotion and they’re having physical symptoms from the overload of emotion in their. So, yeah, you’ll be able to help them improve their physical health, physical health right away.

Do I need to approach this from two angle, dietary change and mental health? Well, I wanna say you will learn how to approach that from four angle. Mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical, right? The four bodies of health. So, I would love to hear from you. You’re still with me at the end of this podcast episode here, and maybe I’ve left some gap in my explanation, perhaps I forgot to talk about something, or perhaps you’re listening to that and something else is being triggered, please shoot me an [email protected]. Go to the show note, click the resources. If you’re new to the world of the non-AI approach, click the resources, read this stuff, listen to the podcast, and then come back and ask me more question, and I will create another podcast episode, or perhaps I will see you in our training program. With that in mind, I love you and I’ll see you on the next podcast.

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Result Neutrality

Culturally we have been taught to celebrate the wins and questioning ourselves when we lose. 

Socially we have been trained to expect results based on the efforts and actions we have taken.

Result entitlement is the #1 business killer.

What if getting the result meant nothing about you, the kind of person you are, worthiness or abilities?

What if the universe didn’t owe you any result?

How about instead you 100% believe that the thoughts you think created the feelings you experience which produce the quality of actions you took toward the result?

What if simply your thoughts and feelings created the result – that’s it. and that if you want twice as much of the result, you need to believe twice as much.

That’s result neutrality. 

What you’ll learn listening to this episode:

• Why result dissonance is the #1 business killer.
• The way you think the outcome will directly impact your ability to create success
• The toxicity of result entitlement

Mentioned in the show:

New Intake Forms – Non-Diet Client Assessment Tools

Professional Training Certification Program 

Free Resources 

Episode Transcript:

Episode 75-Result Neutrality: The Solution to Creating Success

And welcome back, my dear colleague. We’re gonna talk about business today. We’re gonna talk about getting result in our business and what happens when we don’t get the result that we want in our business. And I want you to also think about that in the context of your client. When your client don’t get the result that they think they should get in working with you, either throughout the time that they’re working with you, either when you ask them, how’s it going halfway through the package or at the end of the program, and they are not getting the result that they think they should have.

And I call that I title this podcast episode Result Neutrality. And that’s the solution. The solution to not experience discomfort, not experience frustration, not experience resentment when you are not getting the result that you think you should have is approaching your result with neutrality. That’s the solution.

But before getting to the solution, I want to set the stage as to why this is happening, why we’re struggling with having a negative unproductive experience, when we’re not getting the result we think we should have. And I guarantee you that has already happened in your business and if you have not yet launched your business, guarantee that it will happen.

And the same thing is true also for your client’s results. If you haven’t had yet a client who told you that they are not happy with the result they’re getting in your program, it will happen to you. So I was triggered into writing this podcast because I was coaching this exact circumstance in the Inner Circle Mastermind, our group coaching program for people that are building their coaching business. And one of our student had plan and work hard, as she described it, very hard in a launch that she was doing, and the result that she experienced by the end of her launch wasn’t what she thought it should be.

She was experiencing what I call result dissonance, where when you think you should get X results, you’re getting Y results. And I have to say this dissonance in our results is the number one business killer that I’ve encountered thus far in coaching people who are building their business. When the result that people are experiencing in their business isn’t aligned to their opinion of what they think it should be, too often, unfortunately, people quit. People beat the shit out of themselves, like mentally and emotionally, terrible to themselves because they’re not getting the result. They haven’t created the result they think they should have, and they end up spiraling down in months of victim mindset and depression about their business because they’re frustrated. They have themselves convinced that they should have got a different result than they got, and it’s not fair. It’s this and it’s that. I’m sure you know exactly what I’m talking about, this entitlement to a result.

And you’re not getting the result, and then you’re asking why isn’t it working? You’re either throwing the blame at yourself, and I see that very frequently in female people identified as women, people who have been under the socialization of patriarchy, combined with DI culture, when they’re asking themselves, why isn’t it working, why am I not getting the result, often they will lay the blame deeply on themselves and how bad and how wrong they are. Sometimes the blame get laid outside. It’s someone else’s fault and it’s something that should have happened differently.

I also see that in circumstance where students will blame their mentor, their teacher, their guide for not getting the result they want. I see that a lot in context of group coaching program. And this is gonna be relevant to, if you build a group coaching program, if you get client that are saying, I’m not happy with the result that I’m getting, very often what happen is in group coaching program where you have a curriculum based program, you outline a number of things, like step one to five of things that needs to be done in order to get the result you promise. So, unfortunately, what happened is people will do step one to three and then they will Google step four and decide to alter step four, not doing exactly the way that the curriculum as outlined it, and then step five, did the decide not to do it at all because it’s too uncomfortable for. It’s requiring of them to do something they’ve never done before, something they’ve done before, they fail that, and they’re like, I’m not doing that. Instead of coaching themselves to do the thing that’s uncomfortable, the step five of the process, they will instead not do it at all.

And so they’re paying for a curriculum to get the step one to five to get the result, but they’re deciding to only do step one to 3.5 and letting go of 3.54 and five, because they’re in a fear of missing out. They’re in doubt that they can create the result with this simple step one to five. I hear that over and over and over again in the way we teach business. So we teach business in a very simple way, in a way that is an alignment with what we coach our client with, in a way where our value are aligned and that ends up giving us a business process that’s very simple, and when people go through my curriculum, the first comment is, well, that’s too simple. Okay, I’m like, okay, it’s too simple. Have you done the step one to five outlining? No. It’s just too simple. How about if we do this? How about if you do step one to five, you execute exactly how I’ve outlined step one to five, and then you come back to me and you tell me the kind of result you get. But their brain will say, well, it’s just too simple. Has to be more complicated. When your perspective at the end of the day is that the result that you have should be something else than what it is, and then you have a tantrum about the result that you think you should have versus what you actually have, what really is happening is a form of righteousness.

When you think it should be otherwise, then what it is and what reality is, you are acting towards your result righteously,The reality, the real issue, righteousness is a form of self-defense mechanism, right? It’s a pattern that the brain will use to keep you safe in the old version of yourself. In the old way, in the old set of circumstance, it will make you think righteous thoughts and create righteousness in your emotional body in order for you to stay in the old version of yourself and getting the old result you were getting because getting the new result is scary to your brain.

And when we buy into that, when we buy into the thoughts that our brain is offering us, and we create this righteousness, this entitlement to the result we think we should have, we are not willing to be honest with ourselves, you’re not willing to see the truth. Just like when I was telling you about group curriculum and you buy a group coaching program wanting the result X and the group leader, the curriculum builder, tells you exactly what you need to do, but you decide that you’re gonna do set one to 3.5, but 3.5 and four, you’re gonna do a little bit of it, but a little bit of another one, and you’re gonna skip five, you’re like, but I didn’t get the results.

Why are you not willing to be honest with yourself and say, well, actually I’d only did step one to 3.5. I didn’t really do four and I skipped five altogether. And the reason why we’re not willing to be honest with ourselves is because we don’t live in a state of self responsibility. And the same thing with your client. When you say, this is what you need to do to become an intuitive eater or to become neutral about your body, but they’re not willing to do part of it is because they’re likely not in a state of self responsibility.

Self responsibility is when you are able to look at the result you have in this case and look at the action you thought, and look at the thoughts you were thinking with pure neutrality and say, and evaluate these steps and be honest with yourself without attaching it to your self worth. Self responsibility is the opposite of blaming. Blaming is when you look at the results you, you got in the path you took to get the results you don’t want to get, and you look for a guilty party, you look for somebody to blame. You look for somebody to beat the shit out of, most often it’s you. For us as women, we end up looking for how we did things wrong and how we are wrong, so we can spend days, if not weeks and months in self-judgment, in self-criticism.

Whenever there’s self criticism or judgment present, know that you are in a state of blame. You’re not in a state of self responsibility, and the truth is it’s not your fault. How we do one thing is how we do everything. And how you as the coach, as the business builder, you have been raised in patriarchy and you are a woman, you have been raised to learn to blame yourself and take the blame and look at how you are wrong. Not at how other things could be improved to help you, it’s about you are wrong, you did something wrong and you’re a bad person. And the same thing with diet culture, Ithat’s the whole paradigm of dieting, right? Here’s the right way of eating, and if you do it perfectly, you’re gonna lose weight, one plus one equal two, when the fact is 95% of people will do a few pounds here and there, but regain it all and in often case some more. That is the truth. That’s Statistic of the process of dieting. But DIA culture is anchored in, if you follow the plan and do it perfectly, the key here, you will get the result. We have been socialized and done this pattern in the rest of our life to get result over and over and over and over again. It’s like deep groove and neuro pathways in our brain so it’s totally normal that when we come to the circumstance of building our business, we first unconsciously engage in the process of creating result in the same way. It’s totally normal.

It’s totally normal that we’re, we are entitled to think we should get the results in our business because another thing that our society teaches us is if you work hard, you will get the results right. No pain, no gains. So you’re like, well, I work 50 hours last week on this launch. I spent 15 hours creating those social media posts. I should get the result. People should book a consultation. I am entitled to it because we’ve been socially trained to think if we work hard, we’re gonna get the results. Let me ask you this. What if you weren’t entitled to nothing? What if the amount of hours you work in your business doesn’t make you entitled to nothing? What if the universe or God doesn’t owe you anything? What if instead, your thoughts and your feeling influenced the quality of your action towards your goal and created the results? What if in fact, your thoughts and your emotion, your mental body and your emotional body create the result that you have? And the reason why you have the result that you have is because, of the way you were thinking about the goal and the way you were feeling, taking the action towards the goal. What if you need to believe twice as much that you were believing when you didn’t get the result? What if in fact, that level of belief was only 50% what the level of beliefs that needed to be in order to create the result you want.

So you’re only 50% of the way there. What if you weren’t entitled to nothing? What would happen? What would happen if you walked in to setting a goal in your business, or if your client walked into setting a goal with you, with no expectation, with no entitlement, with full state of self responsibility to say the thoughts and the feeling I experience will create the quality of action I will take, and the sum of the quality of action I will take will create the result. Therefore, if I don’t get the result, it’s because of my thoughts and my emotion. What if you thought like that, what if you were completely neutral to the results? What would happen?

Here’s what I think would happen. Here’s what I see over and over what happened. Here’s what happened in my life, in my business when Michael Coach taught me to become neutral about my result that my meant nothing about me. That setting a goal was simply a container for me to learn about myself and become the next version of myself. What if setting a goal? Well, not what if for me, setting a goal is completely neutral and whatever the result is at the end is completely, it doesn’t mean anything about.

And I chose the title of this podcast to be Result Neutrality because it’s the same pattern with your body image. When you can detach yourself from the way your body looked the size of your body, you can then as a body neutral person, take action to support your body without attaching the way your body look to your self-worth or your self-esteem.

So if you were able to engage with your goals neutrally and your result neutrally, you’d have a lot less suffering, especially in the context of your business. The amount of suffering we impose ourselves because we attach a meaning about ourselves to the result we get is incredible. When we suffer less, we are able to increase our resilience, and then when we are more resilient, we are able and willing to try over and over and over again. We become more creative. We become failure resistant. We increase our failure capacity, and you are willing to believe more in yourself when the results are neutral.

The reason why we don’t have the result that we have in our business is because there is a dissonance between the expected result and the level of belief about ourselves getting the result we actually created. Scale of one to then, we believe as we enter the goal, we believe ourselves capable of getting the result, let’s say a five on a scale of 10. But in order to get the result we needed to believe, nine and a half outta 10. So we got the result that’s proportional to our capacity to believe in ourselves to get the result. We have to believe in ourselves to get the result before we actually get the results. It’s not the reverse. And that’s the problem.

When we’re not neutral about the result, we expect to get the results so that we can believe in ourselves more. Why do we feel entitled to our result? Why are we not neutral to our result? Simply because we don’t believe ourselves capable to get the result. So it’s a form of self-protection and it’s also why we are impatient about getting a result. I call that toxic goals. I call that diet culture goal. There’s a checklist when we set our goals for our business. I call that setting our massive goal for our business. I have a checklist of called toxic goal or dirty goals. And one of the thing I make sure the student have is no timeline on their goals. Because when we set a timeline to get a result is because we are impatient to get the result because we don’t believe we can get the results. So the whole process is very uncomfortable and we wanna get our out of that discomfort as fast as possible. So we set a deadline, we put pressure on ourselves. We blame ourselves, we beat ourselves. We work hard, hard, hard, hard and then we don’t get the result. We’re like, why was supposed to get 10 clients in six months? I didn’t get 10 clients. This business thing isn’t working, and yet we are selling coaching. We cannot coach ourselves through our own results. Think about that for a minute, like this is dissonance to the maximum.

So here’s my solution to you. What if setting a goal in your business was just a playground for you to learn to believe in yourself? What if, number two, you didn’t believe you were entitled to shit? Then the nothing. Not even the number of hours you work and then the results you’re gonna get and the amount of likes you’re gonna get on that post. You’re not entitled to nothing. You walk into all the action you’re taking with no expectation. What if you’re in a complete state of neutrality and you were engaging in your business goal from a place of self responsibility?

This is what we call evaluating, evaluating on the things that you can take responsibility for, and evaluating yourself with complete neutrality. You would build failure, resilience, which is an essential of any business owner and entrepreneur. You would build the skill of believing in yourself and creating emotion that create productive action. You increase your quality of thinking. You would increase the quality of your action. You would increase your skillfulness at coaching yourself. You would practice over and over and over and over the same thing until you nailed it with no attachment about what it means about you or any timeline. That’s how you create success. And if you can master that skillset of result neutrality in goal setting neutrality before starting your business, and you can start your business from that perspective, you’re gonna skyrocket your business. But what happens for most of us is this whole world of coaching comes in as a result of struggling in our business. And then so we have to go back and retrain ourselves to think differently about her, which to me as a coach is a gift. Cause your business becomes your playground at becoming a better coach, at mastering the skill of coaching from a place of lived experience. For me as a coach, creating my business and building my business has been my number one client. Coaching my own brain through the UPS and down the 50 50, 50% failure, 50% success of building my coaching business, has been the place where I’ve learned the most about coaching.

So I’m inviting you to bring neutrality to your result, any results. I’m inviting you to engage with your client’s result with neutrality so you can teach them how to be neutral to their result, which means also, just a quick tip here, which means also not over celebrating when they’re getting the result that they think they’re want. Because if you’re over celebrating them, getting the result that they think they should get, it has an unconscious acknowledgement that when they don’t get the result, it means that something is wrong.

So you as a coach, meeting your client’s result with neutrality is a way for you to teach them to be neutral with their result. And the only way you can meet your client’s result with neutrality is when you meet your own result with neutrality. Set lots of goals with yourself and master the skill of setting goals from a place of becoming neutral for your result. I hope this helps you and I’ll see you on the next podcast.

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In today’s episode, we will investigate the parallel between how we react to certain food and how we react to thoughts. We will also explore why the most approaches to food sensitivities lead to further disempower people from their agency. 

Food Sensitivities VS Thought Sensitivities

This podcast is a great follow-up to Undiet Your Coaching Podcast episode 73-The other reason for intuitive eating.

What you’ll learn listening to this episode on food Sensitivities vs thought sensitivities:

• The wellness culture approach to food sensitivity 
• The role of agency in food sensitivity
• The unique way each human reacts to thoughts 
• The intuitive eating approach to food sensitivity.

Mentioned in the show:

Register here for – How to teach nutrition without co-opting diet culture Live

New Intake Forms – Non-Diet Client Assessment Tools

Mentorship Program 

Free Resources 

Episode Transcript:

Undiet Your Coaching Ep74-Food Sensitivities VS Thought Sensitivities

Welcome back, my dear colleague.

We’re gonna talk about a parallel today between food intolerance, food sensitivity, and thought sensitivity. And in order for you to appreciate this podcast to the fullest, I recommend that you listen to podcast 73.

Because in podcast 73, I’m teaching you the other reason why intuitive eating is so important, and this podcast will show you a parallel or an analogy or an example of that and how it shows up in wellness culture or the way that mainstream is teaching about food, nutrition, health, and wellness.

And I wanna give you some background about this episode, this idea of putting food sensitivity against thought sensitivity came to me in a recent webinar that I was teaching for Undiet Your Life called Rebellious Eating Solution.

Rebellious Eating Solution is really focused on deconstructing the reason why people struggle with food, and that’s what we call rebellious eating behavior. And I have been doing this particular webinar for almost three years. When I say I’ve been doing it, I’ve been using the same structure, the same presentation, the same webinar. I’ve just been redoing it live, for three years and every time on the dot, the same thing happened, every time in the Q&A section. One of the first questions I get, I swear to you every time, is this one: but what about my food intolerance? Intuitive Eating’s gonna force me to eat everything. Something around that.

And I’m sure for those of you who are in the field and are running consultations with clients, which I used to do as well, this is one of the first objections that I used to get: but what about all my food intolerances?

And at the beginning, six, seven years ago, this objection used to infuriate me. And now that I know what I know, fast forward seven years later, I have the deepest compassion for people who ask me this because I understand why their brain is using this argument in order for them to continue being part of a structured way of eating, diet, culture, dieting, food restriction, wellness, culture, all the things.

And I wanna share the behind the scenes of the answer to that question, an. So the first thing I want you to understand, coach trained in behavioral coaching, you understand already why the brain is offering this objection to a pitch of intuitive eating, which is really what a webinar is, right? If we go into talking about business, webinar is a way of pitching your product, which is coaching with you, in this case with intuitive.

The brain is offering this argument because it wants to continue the current state of affairs. So to the brain, to the human brain, any change, transformation outside of the current reality we are experiencing is deemed dangerous. It’s deemed fear-based, avoidance, don’t want to go there. I understand it may be “good for you,” but the brain is like, I don’t know how to deal with this. We’ve never been an intuitive eater, so this thing is scary. I can’t promise results. I can’t manage it. Let’s stay a restrictive eater.

So that’s the first layer as to why the brain is offering that, and it’s anchoring on food sensitivity because when these smart people that attend my webinar understand, obviously I’m explaining it clearly enough that their brain’s like, holy crap, you mean I’m gonna have to make my own decision about food? You mean to tell me I won’t be able to follow a list of things that are “bad me.” I have to challenge each one of those things and figure out for ourselves what doesn’t work for us.

Whoa, we don’t know how to do that. I can’t trust my body, it’s scary. Way too much efforting, way too much risk. You have to understand that people who have been restricting and dieting for years have no notion of trusting their body anymore. It used to be there, but it got reprogrammed to think my body is wrong, my body is a problem. My body obviously can’t be trusted. Look at me physically, like I’ve gained weight, I’m fat, how can I trust my body?

So when you put them in front of a formula that will say, you trust yourself to make decisions with food, there will be a fire alarm in their brain. Beep me beep. Every single front of safety in the nervous system will react. All of that is unsafe because learning to trust the body is something that they haven’t done and they don’t know how to do.

This is where we’re building on the prior podcast 73, when I taught you the other reason why we all need to take an approach of intuitive eating when it comes to nutrition food is because we need to rebuild that into people. We need to rebuild their capacity of trusting themselves, their agency. Otherwise, they will forever be in the loop of looking outside of them with food, with their health, with their body, and everything else in their life for authority.

So with that in mind, what is the parallel between food sensitivity and what I call thought sensitivity?

I’m gonna first go into the world of food sensitivity because if you are here listening to this podcast, you coach health, wellness, nutrition to some degree. That you are a graduated experts from dietetics in a university, to a health coach, to a life coach, you understand, to some degree, food sensitivity.

So let me talk about food sensitivity for a moment. And I just wanna make this clear because we have people from all backgrounds here. Food sensitivity is not the same thing as food, okay. I’m gonna get my clinical nutritionist version of me out here. A food allergy is a reaction from your immune system to a molecule of food. If you have a sensitivity and intolerance, meaning the same thing, sensitivity or intolerance, it’s not your immune system reacting, it’s part of your digestive system reacting. That’s the simplest form of explanation. Food allergy is a life-threatening situation. People who have food allergy, they know they have food allergy because they’re probably carrying an EpiPen with them.

And here’s what I have observed. I’ve done my first three years after graduation from nutrition. I did hardcore clinical practice, nutrition client one after the other all day long. Those who know what I’m talking about, you know. Clinical practice, you see a lot of things in a lot of cases, a lot of patients. And I’m gonna tell you, all the patients I had that had food allergy, they had no desire, no craving to eat the food they were allergic to. Because the last time they did, they had a very, very, very, very bad experience.

And it’s a trauma. In every layer of their being, it’s a traumatic experience and they have no desire to repeat it. There’s no craving. So when people come to me or used to come to me and say, I’m intolerant to this food, I crave it all the time, a k a gluten. People weren’t celiac. I always, as we do diligently ask, have you been tested? Are you celiac? No. No, no. So tell me more about this intolerance thing. Well, I read so much about intolerance and I have arthritis in my knees, and then probably because of the gluten that I’m eating. So I’m intolerant to gluten because of the arthritis in my knee. Oh, interesting. So it’s self-diagnosis. Yeah. But I crave it all the time.

Ah, that is was my number one sign to know that these folks were not testing in themselves. They weren’t relying in their own wisdom to know what they were, “intolerant” to. They were relying upon external sources, and there was a reason why the brain was craving it. It’s because they weren’t really intolerant. It was just a story, a thought they were telling themselves in their brain. And because there’s no test. Now, there’s no test, and I’m saying that with a lot of caution. Today is March 15th, 2023. I am not up to date in all the research around food intolerance and food sensitivity. So if one of you is listening to this podcast and you are a research expert, and you know there’s new research coming out that proves that food intolerance and food sensitivity is a thing and it’s testable, please send me an email at [email protected] and let me know.

So what I’m about to say is from my limited knowledge. As of right now, there are no tests. Or the last time I talked to someone, I did an interview on this, on the going to be on the Food podcast, which, by the way, if you’re not listening to that podcast, you should. It’s a goldmine of information, but I did a podcast, podcast 283 with an expert in the field of digestive health who specializes in medical nutrition, and she does it from an intuitive eating and health at every size perspective. Her name is Beth Rosen. So if you want to know more, go listen to Podcast 283. She was telling me there was no test. She has a very specific way that she puts her client through to tests, food intolerance and sensitivity. And she doesn’t do it with any tests. She does it by teaching her client to connect to their inner world and feel what’s going on in their body with food. She has a protocol that she puts them through so her client can decide what they’re intolerant to or not. And that’s what food sensitivity is. It’s a reaction to food physically and beyond the physical body. That’s what I love so much about Beth as we, and as she looks at her practice way beyond just physical.

There is reaction to food that I have, I have food that I’m intolerant to. They’re very specific and I can tell you exactly what happens when I eat them. And it’s beyond just a physical sensation in my digestive system. Is the way that my brain gets all foggy and confused. It’s the anxiety I feel in my emotional body when I eat these foods.

So, if you are in that process or help people determine their food sensitivity, it’s not just physical, it’s mental, it’s emotional, and it’s physical. And that’s what the body wisdom, when you trust your body to tell you if a food works or doesn’t work for you, it’s more than just the physical body. I’m gonna give you the example of one food that for me it’s not working and it’s black beans. Don’t know why, but when I eat black beans, well number one, within two hours, I start to get bloated. I start to get cramps in my belly. It’s almost like I had food poisoning from the ribcage down to my hips. It’s very locally there, and then I can’t focus on anything.

I am so overwhelmed by what’s going on in my body that my brain can’t focus on anything. I gotta stop doing whatever I’m doing because my brain is not able to focus on anything and I get very anxious. Now, that doesn’t happen often cuz believe me, I don’t eat black beans often. If I eat it, I can’t remember the last time. The last time I had it is when I used to be a dieter and I made black keto, black beans brownie. Sure, some of you have made that. My god, I almost died. It’s the last time I ate black beans because I wanted to eat it. These days, if I eat black beans, it’s because, I don’t know, it’s in the recipe. I don’t know it’s in the food that I’m eating. It’s an accident because trust me, I do not desire black beans. I do not crave black beans.

Now, there’s another food that I’m intolerant to, which many of you probably are too, which is corn. Corn on a cup. There’s not good things that happens in my body when I eat it but I crave it once or twice a year.

When there’s fresh corn on a cub, I make the decision, because the consequence are not as severe as black beans. It’s probably like a two outta 10 versus black beans being a nine outta ten, five alarm fire. Corn on the cub is like a two or three outta 10. I consciously make the decision to eat the corn on a cub because usually it’s with a family gathering. We have corn on the cub festival in our family in the month of September, and I see all my aunts and uncles and cousin and I eat them corn, and I know what’s gonna happen for the next 24 hours. But it’s a conscious decision because I trust that the consequence won’t be that grave, that my body can handle it, and me and my body work together to process the corn on a cup.

Is that how you approach food sensitivity with your client? Is that how we talk about food sensitivity in mass media? It certainly is not in my world where I came from. I talk about it that way. My colleagues in the intuitive eating world talk about it in that way, but most people are not educated from that perspective. They’re not taught flexibility around food sensitivity because food sensitivity is just another concept that’s created to teach conformity outside authority, keep people out of their power. And that’s the beauty of intuitive eating is it dismantle all these concepts. It dismantle all these outside form of authority even the pretense around food sensitivity in food intolerance would say, yeah, they exist, but let’s test it on you. You test it on you and you decide what works for you and doesn’t work for you, not the lists. You figure out on your own. Through the concept of food sensitivity, we get people back in their power.

I’m gonna draw the line here and I’m gonna start talking about thought sensitivity. Thought sensitivity may be something that you’re not familiar with, and that’s totally normal if you’re not a coach. If you’re not familiar with cognitive behavioral therapy or coaching, it’s completely normal that thought sensitivity is foreign to you.

So let me explain to you what it is. Thought sensitivity is how you react to the thoughts in your brain. So for those that are very familiar with nutrition, I want you to think your thoughts are like a food going through your body. When you have a thought, it travels through your entire body.

So let me give you just a highlight of that. You have a thought about whatever circumstance you have a thought that thought within millisecond engages an electric signal, an electric current in your nervous system, central nervous system. So from the base of your neck all the way down your spine, that thought commands a reaction in your body. It commands a response, a behavior. And that information travels through your central nervous system to your nerves, and you feel the sensation in your body that actually can be measured and then you behave and you react a certain way. So one of the most basic example to a thought sensitivity that I have for you is when you have the thought, the fire is hot and you mistakenly put your hand around close or on the fire, your brain is like danger, danger, get your hand off the stove of the fire. And you react literally within a millisecond but it’s a thought in your brain that ignited the behavior. The thought travel through your central nervous system and through your nerve. Poof, you pulled your hand off the stove. That doesn’t just happen in case of emergency, it happens all day long.

It says that the brain produces up to 60,000 thoughts a day. Now, 95% of these thoughts are unconscious. They’re just thoughts. They’re to automate various functions in your body and fuel your perspective. But everything you outwardly behave in the world, reaction to the world, into the world, started with a thought.

Now every single individual has a different reactions to any specific thought, right? So here’s a great example of that. The thought, I am fat, for me, Stephanie, totally neutral, almost positive. But for another woman, when she thinks of herself as I am fat, the reaction, the consequence, the sensitivity that she experienced to it, is completely different than mine.

Why, right? Why is she having a different reaction? It is because of her past experience, because of her family. It’s because of the social conditioning of diet culture, the indoctrination to her gender, to her sexuality, to her race. All these social constructs alongside her past experience or trauma influence different reactions.

We cannot have a list of thoughts and assume that everybody will react the same way because it’s not true. But that’s the parallel with food sensitivity. Food sensitivity in wellness culture gives a list of all the food to be avoided because they’re dangerous and you’re reacting to it and you’re sensitive to it. The same thing happens with food as it happens with thought. Each one of us reacts differently based on so many factors. And that’s the work, that’s the journey of human being, is getting to understand ourselves, getting to understand our body, getting to understand our thoughts, our emotion, our reactions.

So when we coach people on food, we can’t separate just talking about food from thought sensitivity. We can’t coach health, we can’t coach food. We can’t coach any of those behavior if we don’t also coach the thinking process. Because the reaction, the behavior we’re trying to coach, let’s say you’re a health coach and you’re trying to coach self-care, that’s an outwardly behavior. The same thing if you coach binge eating.

Like I’m trying to go to all the different coaching specialty that typically listen to my podcast, but whatever you coach behavioral-wise, the reason why the behavior is present is in reaction to a thought. And even Alex tend to say that the reaction to certain food for certain people is also thought base. And there’s evidence to support that. If you look at the research around IBS. There’s a strong light of thinking, and probably by now it has been validated even stronger that the i b s symptoms that most people experience are a result of their emotional body in their thinking. Because physically emotion travels true the body causing sensations. And when you look at these piece of research around i b s, one of the most effective treatments for IBS is CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy, right?

What we do in my world is cognitive behavioral coaching. There’s a difference between therapy and coaching. Therapy is done with a licensed practitioner 1 0 1 most of the time, and they go deep in understanding why people think the way they do so they can correct the behavior. Cognitive behavioral coaching states just at the thought level. We don’t do trauma healing. We don’t do like past experience. We stay at the highest level possible and we teach people how to use a self-coaching framework. And we refer out if people need to go to therapists.

So food sensitivity and thought sensitivity, to me and my worlds, from my perspective and my belief system, are both or should be both approached in the same way. Right? Look at the individual in front of you. Help them understand why they are reacting to their thoughts, why they are reacting to food in a certain way. Coaching them that they have power over their thoughts, they have power over their body, over the food they eat. Never stripping them away from their agency over themselves, their life and their body.

That is when, for me, the work that we do at whatever level you’re doing, it comes in complete alignment. So if you feel disjointed, you just know something is wrong in the approach. When you coach women, globally, for women, whenever you coach them on , very often it comes down to this empowerment. And most often it’s intersected with body image and food because that’s the, funny women above 30, it’s just part of who they are.

So part of the work you need to do with these women is that work and claiming that their power and their, and for you as a practitioner, when part of your specialty, of your technique that you’re using in your practice, promote this empowerment and you are trying to empower people, but at the same time, you’re stripping away people from their power in this other part, that’s when it feels yuck. That’s when it feels like something is wrong , something is in misalignment. That’s why I do with professional, to bring people back in alignment, to talk about nutrition, to talk about help, but in the way that is aligned with their personal value and how they live their life and how they view the world. The word alignment for me is big and it’s becoming bigger and bigger and bigger in the way that I teach and the way that I coach people.

So that’s what I wanted to share with you around thought sensitivity and food sensitivity to help you contextualize empowerment coaching and how we talk about food and nutrition and to really bring it home for you. I would love to hear any questions you may have on that or any feedback. Reach out to me on social media or send us an email at [email protected]. With that in mind, I’ll see you on the next podcast episode and I love you. Bye.

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The OTHER reason for intuitive eating coaching

On today’s episode we are going to look at the other reason why coaching our client to eat intuitively is essential for their own liberation from diet culture.

Our role as coaches is to build up our client to achieve:

1. Empowerment coaching

• guide them to build their skills so they can find their own answer therefore power
• Coach them in  way that they can see their own power
• Ask question instead of telling them what to do
• Diet Culture has told them what to do

2. Reconnect with their Agency

• To claim their Autonomy using food
• DC use women’s body and food as way of disempowering them
• keep structure intact

3. Creating safety with food

• Build trust and power in themselves
• using their eating experience

4. Start with how we engage with them.

• We teach them tool and we trust them
• To we pretend to have all the answer for them or are we helping them find their own answer
  

What you’ll learn listening to this episode on the OTHER reason for intuitive eating: 

• The link between eating and empowerment
• Why coaching agency is essential to liberation from diet culture
• Two questions to practice with each eating choice to claim back your power
• The Going Beyond The Food way to coach intuitive eating.

Mentioned in the show:

Register here for – How to teach nutrition without co-opting diet culture Live

New Intake Forms – Non-Diet Client Assessment Tools

Mentorship Program 

Free Resources 

The free resource that I’m sharing with you is going to improve your client onboarding process. I’m sharing my Non-Diet Client Assessment Forms. This resource is something that will allow you to evaluate your client to get an inside look at their relationship with food and their body and give you clarity on where to spend your time coaching them. 

The Client Onboarding Process

The onboarding process we use always starts with a consultation. The purpose of a consultation is an exchange of value between you and the client. It’s a process of hearing from your client what their problem is, what they’ve tried and why it hasn’t worked. It’s then your turn to share your solution and how it will impact them if they do your program. 

Once the client has decided to work with you, you send them the contract, invoice and the Non-Diet Client Assessment form. 

The Non-Diet Client Assessment Form

We simplified the most commonly used body image assessment tool, which was nearly 32 pages long so that your clients will have a resource that is effective, simple and comprehensive. 

The assessment tool includes a total of 20 questions covering each aspect of the non-diet method; Mindset, Eating Profile and Body Image. By compartmentalizing the assessment into different aspects, you’ll understand where to begin coaching your client, allowing you to fast-track the process in helping your client achieve results. Your client will also be left with an awareness of their own relationship with food, their mind and their body.

Using this tool will require you to have experience with body image and mindset coaching. The best place to start with this new resource is to first use it for yourself, which will indicate if there are gaps in your coaching training. 

If you haven’t yet downloaded it, you can access it using the link below. 

What you’ll learn listening to this episode on Non-Diet Client Assessment form & process:

• The onboarding process we use in our business
• What the Non-Diet Client Assessment Form is, and why you should use it
• How to use the Non-Diet Client Assessment Form 

Mentioned in the show:

New Intake Forms – Non-Diet Client Assessment Tools

Mentorship Program 

Free Resources