Body Image Remix

Embrace Your Body and Unleash the Fierce, Confident Woman Within

Written by Summer Innanen

www.SummerInnanen.com

Copyright © 2015 Summer Innanen

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy.  Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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The information presented here is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. All content, including text, graphics, images and information, contained in or available through this material is for general information purposes only. Summer Innanen is not responsible nor liable for any advice, course of treatment, diagnosis or any other information services or products that you obtain through this material.

About This Book

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Welcome, fearless woman! (And fearless man! Men need to know this stuff too.)

Before we begin, let me tell you how ecstatic and grateful I am to have you here!

I created this book to help you get curious about what it really means to have good body image and to uncover the most important mindset shifts and actions you’ll need to take to foster radical unconditional self-love. I find many self-help books are written with a Kumbaya, hey-soul-sister tone and, frankly, they make me want to strangle a kitten. This is self-help for misfits and rebels. If you’re a woman who wants to dig deep, while not taking yourself too seriously (and you appreciate some raunchiness), then this is for you.   

Whether you’re ready to wholeheartedly abandon the idea that your life will be better 10 pounds from now or if you are simply body-posi-curious, I applaud your decision to explore a concept that is contrary to everything our culture shoves down your throat.

Rock on!

Summer Innanen, CNP, BBA

PS: If you dig what I’m saying, then take the next step by doing my free 10-Day Body Confidence Makeover. You’ll get an email every day for 10 days, each giving you a “mission” to put some of the theory outlined in this book into practice.

Table of Contents

About This Book

Intro: My Story

PART 1: Setting the Stage for Body Love

Chapter 1: Meet Your Future Badass Self

Chapter 2: Unraveling Where Our Body Image Comes From

Chapter 3: The Positive Body Image Formula

Chapter 4: The Stages of Body Love

PART 2: The Meat and Potatoes of How to Love Your Body

Chapter 5: Tame Your Inner Crazy

Chapter 6: Be Imperfect

Chapter 7: Be Unapologetic

Chapter 8: Buy Into a New Culture

Chapter 9: Unshackling Self-Worth From Your Jean Size

Chapter 10: Own Your Shit

Chapter 11: Be OK If They Don’t Like You

Chapter 12: Where Do We Go Now?

If You Take Away Nothing Else

The Next Step

Reviews Welcome

Appendix

References

Intro: My Story

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I’ve been in the game 10 years making rap tunes—ever since honeys was wearin’ Sassoon. No, wait—that was Tupac. It’s easy to get us confused. But, for real: I, Summer Innanen, was making myself batshit crazy in the dieting game for over 20 years. This is a brief summary of how I went from obsessing over my body, and every calorie I ingested and/or burned, to feeling like a rockstar in my body and eating whatever I damn well please.

I don’t remember a time when I felt comfortable in my body growing up. I was a self-conscious kid who consistently placed last in gym class, took more balls to the face than a pledge at a frat hazing party and would prefer to draw cartoons in the corner over doing anything remotely sporty. My older brother relentlessly called me fat. Note: There is nothing wrong with being fat, as we’ll discuss, but the way I internalized it was no good for me. Given, it was the ’80s and this was the insult du jour between siblings; I know now that he was only doing what any good sibling does—finding the Achilles’ heel of his younger sister and torturing her with it on a daily basis. There are, of course, many other times I was hurt by the judgment of others—some of which you’ll hear about throughout this book and others that are being saved for my epic 5-book memoir series, that will subsequently be turned into a Lifetime dramedy starring Reese Witherspoon as me. What you need to know is that—like many other women and maybe like you—I grew up hating my body and thinking it was something that needed to be fixed.

This body hatred prompted me to become a career dieter who would spend decades on the ultimate quest to “lose the weight once and for all!” My first major foray into dieting was prompted by an assignment we had to do in grade 9 biology where we had to track our calories and macronutrients for a week. This was the moment I realized I could stop eating certain things, create a caloric deficit, and lose weight. My mom was a pro at dieting and she told me that if I wanted to lose weight, I should only eat between 15–30 grams of fat a day. So that’s what I tried to do. Every time I lost a bit of weight, I would get the attention of other people. I would feel that sense of validation and pride that I craved so badly and chase after it by continually trying to tweak my body. Fast-forward 15 years later, and I had become an exercise addict and chronic restrictor and saboteur, who was still on the quest to “lose the weight once and for all!” At my worst, I was working out 7 times a week and doing the paleo diet with 1,100 calories—just about enough to sustain a sedentary, plump seagull that camps out near the poutine shack on the waterfront. I was at my thinnest but I felt completely uncomfortable in my own skin. I was obsessed with food, spending upwards of 30 minutes a day tracking every cherry tomato I ate, listening to every nutrition podcast on the Internet, and reading every fitness blog I could find to see if I could find the one nutrient that would help me “lose the weight once and for all!” I did cleanses on top of diligently engaging in “clean eating,” I practiced intermittent fasting (which is a glorified term for starvation), and I spent thousands of dollars on supplements. If only I could lose the weight, then I could be happy, “eat normal,” and start thinking about things other than transforming cauliflower into every alternative to the carbs I desperately craved.

I eventually channeled my obsession with “losing the weight once and for all” into a career as a nutritionist and became known within my circles as “health-and-fitness-freak.” People praised me on my militant willpower and self-discipline. When it became my identity, it was impossible for me to see that there was any problem with the situation—until my body began to revolt. I lost my period. My libido and moods were chaotic: I would cry if my husband forgot to buy almond butter. I couldn’t sleep well and I had lost my spark. I saw doctors who were puzzled because I had “too much body fat” to have lost my period due to undereating and because I was “so healthy.” I’d listened to enough podcasts to know that I wasn’t getting the answers I needed. Finally, I went to see a naturopath who told me that I had, at the ripe age of 31, the hormone levels of Sophia from “Golden Girls” and late-stage adrenal fatigue. She told me I needed to remove any stressors from my life—mainly, the intense daily workouts I was doing. In response, I cried. Not because she told me my body was shutting down, but because I couldn’t work out anymore. This was my wake-up call, or as some woo-woo practitioners might say, “the universe hitting me in the head.”

I realized I needed to make a radical change. I was DONE with my career as a dieter. I was done letting my quest to “lose the weight once and for all” dictate my happiness and confidence. I couldn’t do one more “eat strict for 30 days” torture challenge—not even if my life depended on it. Instead, I started to work on what was happening on the inside. I realized that life is too damn short for cauliflower pizza crust and punishing my sins with burpee penalties. I decided to start living the life I wanted that very day, in whatever body I had. I realized that if I could unconditionally love myself and cultivate a sense of self-worth outside of my appearance, I would free myself from the biggest emotional burden that had dictated more than half my life.

This process was not easy and required me to challenge many of the beliefs that were keeping me trapped in body shame. I had to develop and rewire new beliefs, new ways of thinking, and a new way of being that was completely contrary to the way I had been living. Let me tell you: It is SO worth it. I rarely think anything negative about my body anymore. I don’t compare myself to other women. I don’t let my body hold me back from wearing clothes that aren’t “flattering.” I no longer seek others’ approval to build my self-worth. I eat what I want, when I want it—and food is just food. I haven’t eaten anything constructed of cauliflower in years. My body is no longer something that I manipulate for my happiness. I am finally a whole human being.

If you’re ready to do the same and you enjoy colorful language, then let’s do this rockstar.

PART 1: Setting the Stage for Body Love

Chapter 1: Meet Your Future Badass Self

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I used to think that having the “perfect” body would make my life perfect. I wholeheartedly believed that if I fit the “ideal”—which would require building a Frankenstein’s monster version of myself with imported body parts from around the world—it would be my backstage pass to confidence and never-ending joy. I had this vision of my future self—Frankenparts and all—who would have zero inhibitions about wearing a white string bikini at the beach. She could eat a huge juicy cheeseburger and fries, chased by a gallon of sangria with her girlfriends without ever thinking twice about “burning it off.” My future self didn’t have any inhibitions about walking around the house naked, setting up her yoga mat at the front of class and LETTING HERSELF BE SEEN. For years, being my future badass self was always conditional on my body looking a certain way. After the universe smacked me upside the head, I decided it was time to be my future self—to leave my Frankenbod dreams behind me, and be that person now.

Why the fuck not? What if all the bullshit that I believed about being thin making me happier and confident was a big lie? Clearly, hating my body hadn’t helped me to accomplish any of my goals, so why not try the complete opposite? Rebelling against rules has always been a super power of mine, so I channeled it into rebelling against a society that puts thinness on a pedestal. Bit by bit, I started to challenge myself to be that badass woman I envisioned, and guess what? I could be her! I could be her at whatever weight I was at! The world didn’t end if I took my beautiful, pasty, cellulite-havin’ ass to the beach in a bikini. The only way I got more comfortable was by showing up to be seen, instead of hiding behind my self-loathing. And it was through this process that it became clear to me that loving your body is something you create for yourself from the inside out.

Let me repeat: Loving your body is something you create for yourself from the inside out. You might want to highlight that on your Kindle or Nook or whatever. Loving your body and being the woman you want to be is about your mindset, your actions, and most importantly, it’s about how you relate to yourself. Before we start to work on all this fun self-help stuff, I want you to do the most woo-woo thing we’re going to do on this adventure together: Using words, paint a picture of your future confident self. This is super important because if we can’t visualize or connect with what we really want, it’s pretty much impossible to achieve it. If we can’t create a clear picture of how our actions would be different if we weren’t trapped in body shame, it’s really difficult to let go of the crazy thoughts that rule our life. When we can connect to a vision of who we want to be and how we want to think and feel, we can start to take action to get there—in the body we have today. So, leave your creepy Frankenpart “dream body” at the door! In addition, start to focus on the positive notions you want to make happen in your life; if we continually focus on what we don’t want—e.g., “I don’t want to feel disgusting when I wake up every morning” or “I don’t want to hate my thighs”—we tend to bring about more of it.

I want you to take a few minutes to complete this exercise (we’ll call it a “mission” because that sounds more fun!) to help you paint a picture of who you want your future self to be. The first step is to create a list of 10 things that will flesh out your future badass self (FBS). Be SUPER specific! Close your eyes and picture her. Write it down.

Here are some prompts to get you started:

• What does your FBS do on a daily basis?

• How is her life different from yours?

• How does she feel when she wakes up in the morning?

• What does she think when she gets dressed?

• How does she interact with the people close to her?

• What is she thinking about when she’s around food?

• What is she thinking when she sees herself in the mirror?

• What does she make time for? Who does she make time for?

• How does she accept compliments?

• How does she think and feel in social situations?

• How does she think and feel in intimate situations?

Take note of the details, and really imagine what it’s like to be your FBS.

Here are a few ideas to get your juices flowing. My future badass self …

• Wears shorts to the gym, instead of sweltering in pants to cover her knee chub!

• Enjoys sex with the lights on

• Wakes up with a clear mind, feeling comfortable in her own skin

• Flirts with a kind/hot stranger at the grocery store

• Dances at a wedding

• Feels comfortable at social events, even while sober

• Looks forward to shopping for clothes

• Says no to things she doesn’t want to do

• Wears a brightly colored top

• Signs up for a 5K run and is OK with coming in last

• Accepts a compliment and believes the person meant it

• Winks at herself in the mirror, or is simply able to look at herself in the mirror with a sense of calm and peace

• Effortlessly gives a presentation at work

• Relaxes at home when her body needs rest

• Sets her mat up at the front of yoga class

• Posts a profile picture on Facebook that’s completely unfiltered

• Goes rock climbing

Three important notes: First, make sure you write about your FBS in the present tense. For example, write, “I wake up with a clear head and pause to breathe before getting out of bed.” By framing your FBS in the present, it takes waiting out of the equation.

Secondly, write your FBS profile as things you will do, not things you won’t do. Keep it positive! For example, instead of thinking, “I won’t compare myself to other women,” go with, “In social situations, I feel comfortable about my presence and appreciate the other women around me.” By framing our statements as something we will do, we are able to clearly visualize what that might look like, versus focusing on what we don’t want.

Lastly, take anything related to dieting and “getting food or your body under control” out of the equation entirely! (More about why this is important later.)

If you are more of a visual or crafty sort, create a vision board, screensaver or Pinterest board with images that reflect your future badass self. Include pictures of activities you will try, poses you’ll strike, clothes you’ll wear, quotes with words that reflect beliefs you want to adopt, and whatever else gives your FBS more life. The more visual you can be with this, the better!

Next, choose three feelings or emotions that describe your FBS. Ask yourself how would it feel to be your FBS and write those words or phrases down. Here are some examples: fun, joy, playful, fierce, adventurous, inspired, blissful, bold, sassy, sensual, strong, peaceful, relaxed, calm, secure, empowered, content. Ultimately, what we want is to evoke the feeling of being our FBS versus the actual actions that we have associated with her (although we’ll be doing those too).

Every morning, using a journal, write down a daily intention to help you channel one of these words. For example, if one of your three words is “calm,” you might say, “My intention today is to create a sense of calm in my mind by remembering to breathe” or “My intention today is to connect to a sense of calm by surrendering to things I cannot control.”

Finally, try to connect back to points in time when you have experienced those particular feelings. For example, if your words are “free, relaxed and confident,” ask yourself, “Where or when was I most confident today?” Connect back with how those particular feelings actually felt for you to really anchor them in your DNA.

The picture we paint of our future self is really about the feelings we want to have in life. When we can start to feel those feelings on an everyday basis, we allow our body to become familiar with them and cultivate more growth. Happiness brings about more happiness. I suggest doing this exercise a few times a week for a month and then as you feel necessary. By doing so, you are rewiring your brain to be more familiar with these feelings. You’ll find your actions flow more easily and before you know it, you’ll be your FBS. She is already inside you—you just need to coax her out to play. Once you start to move towards being your FBS, you can look at how far you’ve come in a few weeks or months. It’s amazing how often clients of mine will come back to their FBS in a few months and realize they did everything on their list.

To recap:

Step 1: Make your FBS list of things you will do and write it in the present tense.

Step 2: Identify three feelings that describe how it feels to be your FBS.

Step 3: Write those three feelings down so you see them daily.

Step 4: Set a daily intention to channel one of those feelings.

Step 5: Reconnect with the feeling you experienced that day.

Repeat.

I promise this is as woo-woo/Super Soul Sunday as we’ll get, so now that you have this incredible picture of where you want to go, let’s get you there.

Chapter 2: Unraveling Where Our Body Image Comes From

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I was sitting on the edge of my bed with my mom sitting beside me. She pointed to my stomach rolls and said, “We need to do something about that.” I had already felt uncomfortable in my body for several years leading up to this point, but that moment stands out as one of the events that really instilled the belief that there was something wrong with me and weight loss was the solution. My mother—my protector—had just confirmed that. Although my mom likely has no recollection of this incident, it’s a memory that stands out for me. We all have events and moments that define the body image that we have today and inform the stories that we tell ourselves. Please understand, I love my mom. She is awesome, and I can look back now and know that she was doing her best to protect me. There is no blame. If you’re a mom, I apologize for terrifying you into thinking that you’ve perhaps said similar words to your child and scarred them for life! Don’t worry, you can use their education fund for therapy. Or doughnuts. Lots and lots of doughnuts cure almost everything. (I’m a nutritionist, so I should know.)

It’s important that we take a look at where our body image comes from so that we can unravel and reconcile the events that shaped our current beliefs. We can use this information to identify the thoughts that hold us back and take action to create new beliefs to move forward. Don’t worry, I’m not going to have you tap into your inner child or do any of that shrink stuff—you can tune in to Dr. Phil for that. I’m here to help you move forward, not look back.

Body image may seem like a “first-world problem” but it does impact our emotional and physical well-being. Poor body image leads to a greater risk of depression, low self-esteem, and eating disorders. Frankly, I’m sick of seeing women sit on the sidelines of their lives because they are fretting about their muffin top. For one, muffin tops are delicious and basically the whole point of the muffin, so let’s stop stigmatizing them. Secondly, I truly believe that if women didn’t struggle with body image issues, we would have invented a way of doing a pap smear that wasn’t so heinous. Or at least solved global hunger.

You are not born with a poor body image; that is something that is learned and developed over time. But, the issues start early: According to a study done by the British Psychological Society, more than half of girls and approximately a third of boys age 6 to 8 indicate their ideal bodies are thinner than their current body. Nearly a third of children age 5 to 6 choose an ideal body size that is thinner than their current perceived size. We were raised in a culture that instills the belief that the thinner, younger, and more “perfect” you are, the better your life will be. You’ll be more popular, more lovable, more accepted by society AND you’ll have better relationships, jobs, and success. In other words, your appearance dictates your social status. These beliefs get reinforced over time, compounding body shame later in life. Some women can remember a particular moment in time when they became aware that there was something “wrong” with their body. Other women can’t remember a time when they ever felt good in their body. Still other women feel like it was a gradual onset of discomfort. And yet some women don’t experience body shame at all. (Note to women in that last group: I eagerly await your new pap smear techniques!)

The great news is that we can change our body image. In order to do that, let’s start by looking at where our body image comes from so we can unravel its roots and build it back up in a positive direction. In our Kardashian-obsessed culture, we are surrounded with thousands of images every day depicting “perfect,” meticulously styled, and often digitally altered bodies that represent maybe 5 percent of the actual population. It is a fact that seeing these images creates poor body image and can even influence our mood. I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that! How many times have you walked by a vitamin store with posters of skinny, chiseled women and felt awesome about yourself?

Medium and fat women (later, I’ll elaborate on why I use the word “fat”) are absent from most mainstream media. When these shapes are represented in a movie or TV show, their bodies are often shamed or used as the butt of jokes. Actresses who are shaped like the majority of us rarely play the role of confident, sexual women. (There are some exceptions! Thank you to Lena Dunham of “Girls” for showing the world that you can be a sexual creature without being a size 0.) I remember growing up and watching “Growing Pains” religiously; Carol Seaver’s weight was the joke that often sparked the canned laughter track, and this perpetuated the stigma in my mind that fat is gross. It’s no wonder my older brother Mike Seaver’d me repeatedly.

But, the media is only one piece of the puzzle. Other influences in our life, such as our families and peers, likely modeled fat-phobic, body-shaming behavior. Most of the women I work with or coach have mothers that put themselves down and talked about weight loss and dieting; more than likely, you’ve also picked up on your family’s beliefs that thin is preferred and fat is shameful.

There are also the experiences we’ve all had that caused us to feel like there was something wrong with our body. Perhaps it was being made fun of at school or a random comment from a relative. Or maybe it was watching too much “Growing Pains” and absorbing the messages about fat being something to avoid. (I wasn’t the only one absorbing that message! For those of you who didn’t read People magazine or spend your Wednesday nights watching ABC in the ‘80s, the actress that played Carol Seaver, Tracey Gold, suffered from an eating disorder in real life.) 

It’s important to understand these influences because—let’s be honest—we live in a diet- and thin-obsessed culture and unless you move to another galaxy, you are going to be exposed to messages and people that make it harder for you to love your body. It’s going to take time to shake away that body hate, but the more you commit to ending this war with yourself, the faster it will happen. It takes a rebel to decide to stick it to society’s standards and say, “I’m going to love myself exactly as I am.” Are you ready to be a rebel with me? If you’ve read this far, you definitely are!

So, while we have old beliefs that come from these experiences and exposures, we can recognize that they are not beliefs we want to have, moving forward. We can make a conscious decision to adopt new beliefs and create a new story for ourselves.

Before we move on, let’s take a moment to forgive others (and ourselves) for any cruel words that have been slung at us in the past. Take a second to scream, “I FORGIVE YOU!!!” (Bonus points if you do this on public transit.) The past is the past and we can’t erase what’s happened to us. As I said before, we’re not here to pick at the scabs of yesteryears—rather, I’m all about moving the hell on. Offer forgiveness to whatever shaped your perception of your body and let’s create a badass blank slate.

Journal Questions:

What events may have shaped the beliefs you have about your body?

What beliefs do you currently have that are not serving you?

What new beliefs do you want to adopt that will better serve you?

What actions can you take to start living those beliefs?

Chapter 3: The Positive Body Image Formula

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As a teenager, there were a few things I did religiously: wear 9-hole Doc Martens with plaid shirts and men’s boxer shorts, make out with magazine images of Jason Priestley and Mark-Paul Gosselaar, and spend back-to-back hours with Oprah and Geraldo on a daily basis. I was boy-crazy and would date pretty much any blond guy that wanted to talk to me—as a result, I let them treat me like crap. I was THAT girl who would pine after a boy, page him repeatedly (Pagers: what kids used to “blow up” before there were cell phones!), despite never getting a callback, and be in tears at least 4 hours a day. Every relationship had more drama than Austin and Carrie on “Days of Our Lives.”

I got dumped on the regular. On one particular occasion, when my heart had been freshly snapped in half by one of my many Beastie-Boy-wannabe exes, I was drowning in tears on my bed. So I did what any 15-year-old girl in the mid-’90s did; I turned to Oprah for solace. Oprah was interviewing a love expert who said, “No one will love you more than you love yourself. To have true love, you have to love yourself first.”

Yeah, girl! This statement was my first introduction to the concept and importance self-love. It ignited my feminist fire and set me on the long roller coaster ride toward loving myself unconditionally. Let’s dig into what it really means to have positive body image and self-love.

A positive body image means having unconditional self-love and compassion for yourself.

Let’s explore a few of those words in more detail to see how they all play together.

Self-love

Self-love is a funny concept because when we combine “self” and “love,” we probably immediately picture Heidi Klum gushing over herself: “I’m so pretty; don’t you love me? Auf Wiedersehen! Kiss-kiss!” We misinterpret “self-love” as meaning we’ll wake up every day bursting with love for ourselves. This is SO not true—especially if you’re like me and look and act like a yeti emerging from the wintry tundra before you’ve had coffee.

What’s happening is that we’re confusing love with lust. I’m going to pull the definition of love from one of my heroes, Brené Brown, as written in The Gifts of Imperfection. It defines love perfectly for the purposes of this conversation:

“We cultivate love when we allow our most vulnerable and powerful selves to be deeply seen and known, and when we honor the spiritual connection that grows from that offering with trust, respect, kindness, and affection. Love is not something we give or get, it’s something we nurture and grow—a connection that can only be cultivated between two people when it exists within each one of them. We can only love others as much as we love ourselves. Shame, blame, disrespect, and betrayal damage the roots from which love grows. Love can only survive these injuries if they are acknowledged, healed, and rare.”

OK, maybe that was a long-winded explanation for a four-letter word that might only give you a few points in Scrabble, but if we apply this definition to self-love, it becomes crystal-clear that self-love is about knowing ourselves, showing up as ourselves, and treating ourselves with trust, respect, and kindness. It’s about knowing that we’re enough just as we are. It’s something we nurture and grow, not something that happens overnight. (Keep this in mind as you embark on this journey.) Shame, blame, disrespect, and betrayal damage self-love to its roots, so we must heal our body shame and stop punishing and disrespecting ourselves in order to cultivate it.

Unconditional

Your body image should never be conditional on your appearance, how many calories you’ve burned, or how many compliments you’ve received. If you’re like me, you’ve probably spent a couple decades with your self-love hinging on something external—a pair of skinny jeans, the amount of cellulite on your thighs, or whether or not a construction worker yelled “Nice tittaaaaaayyssss” when you were walking down the street (no judging!). Healthy body image and self-love have to be things that you give yourself at any weight and under any circumstances. Because let’s face it, you are going to get old and things that stand at attention are going to fall victim to gravity. You’re going to have giant black hairs growing out of places that used to be hair-free and there is nothing you can do about that. You don’t have to like every part of yourself, but you have to know that you’re enough, regardless.

Compassion

My favorite C-word, second to “crumpets.” Compassion is about having kindness and forgiveness for yourself. It’s about recognizing that you are an imperfect human with strengths and weaknesses that don’t define your worthiness. It’s a word we’ll be using a lot because having positive body image is less about having confidence and more about having compassion. 

As you can see, embodying self-love is so much more than winking at your reflection in the mirror. It’s about knowing at your core that you are enough and worthy of the utmost kindness and respect from yourself and others—regardless of your appearance. When you start to tap into and express your unapologetic, authentic self, you’ll get comfortable with who you really are on a visceral level. There is a big emotional weight lifted when you no longer have to diet-and-size-two your way through life. Let’s dive into why this is all about your mindset.

It’s in your noggin!

When I ask women what they struggle with when it comes to body image, they always say things like, “My stomach looks like a stack of Denny’s pancakes!” or “My arms look like ham hocks!” And to that I say: Mmm, girl, you’re making me hungry.

Your body resembling delicious breakfast items is not what you struggle with in reality. What you struggle with is the negative voice in your head that is telling you there is something wrong with you. Changing your body is not going to make that go away. The feelings of pride that we get from losing weight are generally artificial and fleeting. While your self-loathing may dissipate momentarily with your body’s changes, it’s generally a false sense of validation that is not intrinsic or long-lasting. When I was at my thinnest, I would feel good for about 3 hours and then go back to feeling uncomfortable in my own skin. I’ve seen this happen over and over in myself and the women around me. Unless you deal with the shit going on inside your head, thinness is not going to be the catalyst to your self-love. This change needs to come from within, and you get there by changing your mindset.

Journal Questions:

What conditions have you put on loving your body?

What are the various things you have done to achieve a different appearance?

What beliefs do you want to have about loving yourself?

Chapter 4: The Stages of Body Love

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Back when I was working my corporate job, I had to work on a project with a woman who turned into the bane of my existence: we’ll call her Jane. Jane ripped apart a draft I’d made for a presentation we were giving together, and subsequently went to my supervisor and the client to say that I had done a poor job. Jane’s delivery of feedback was harsh and mean-spirited. Unfortunately, I had to continue to work with her for several months and it was in my best interests to make the best of the situation. It was either do that, or go to prison.

There was NO way I could have shifted into liking Jane, or even pretending to like her. I spent hours Googling her so I could find dirt to use against her, which resulted in me discovering that she had a giant collection of snow globes. After my teenage tantrum subsided, and revenge fantasies of spreading her snow-globe gossip around the office were out of my system, I made an effort to make it work. I accepted the reality of the situation. I didn’t like it, but I accepted it. I tried really hard to understand where Jane was coming from and I began to see that much of the debacle was due to miscommunication around expectations. I started to see things from her perspective and began to work more collaboratively than combatively with her. I figured out how to work with her and we ended up being a great team.

You might be thinking, This is not a book on navigating corporate relationships! Why are you telling me this? Because, girlfriend, this is exactly how the process of loving your body goes.

The idea of body love can seem farfetched and impossible when body shame overwhelms you. It would be silly to think that you could go from feeling utterly frustrated and saddened by your body to frolicking through the sand in a bikini, feeling free, in just a few weeks. Much like I could not love Jane as she threw me under the bus, you cannot love your body when you are stewing with hate. The process of moving from hate to love goes slowly and through various stages. By recognizing where you are, you can start to move along the spectrum without getting frustrated that you haven’t made the leap to love. You can celebrate your progress without letting perfection get in the way.

Stage 1: Accepting it

The first stage is acceptance; this helps to move you from complete negativity to neutrality, or at least ambivalence. Acceptance is about surrendering to your current reality. It’s a time for declaring your truth, bringing awareness to what is happening right now, and recognizing that this is “the way it is” in this moment. For example: “I hate snow-globe Jane and she is driving me insane, but I have to make this work!” When we refuse to accept where we are right now—our beliefs and feelings about our circumstances—we keep ourselves in a holding pattern. It is this resistance that can cause our suffering to persist and boil up inside.

Accepting your body (and your current situation!) as it is right now starts by leaning into how you feel in this moment. Bring awareness to the feelings you are holding in, so you can release them. It also serves as a way to see your body in a balanced and non-exaggerated way. You may not like certain parts of your body, which sour your entire perception of yourself. But, there are usually a few things that you do like. Instead of thinking, “My stomach is protruding and visible through my shirt. It makes me feel frustrated and ashamed,” try out, “My hair is straight and smooth. It makes me feel sexy and feminine.”

Grab your journal and make a list of all of your body parts (from your head down to your toes). Then describe each of those parts’ attributes and how you feel about them. Be OK with whatever pops into your head. You don’t need to pretend that you like every part of you. Write down whatever comes out.

For example:

Hair: Straight and brown. I love my hair. It makes me feel sexy.

Lips: Full and pink. I like them and don’t have any negative feelings about them.

Cheeks: Saggy and squishy. I don’t like them. They make me feel depressed.

Stomach: Round and gets in the way. I hate it and it makes me feel frustrated.

Fingers: Short. I’m OK with these and have no feelings about them.

And so on. Note: “Fat” is not a feeling, so don’t use this word in this context. For example, instead of saying, “My hips make me feel fat,” say “My hips make it difficult for me to find jeans that fit and that makes me feel sad.”

This exercise can be hard, but it can also be surprisingly enlightening because you may find you are neutral about a large percentage of your body. Let whatever feelings you might have come to the surface so you can release them. You’ll begin to move along the spectrum of body love. Congratulations, you’re learning body acceptance!

Stage 2: Embracing it

Once you’ve acknowledged your current situation and accepted it, you can start to move towards embracing it. The definition of “embrace” is “to take in or include as a part, item, or element of a more inclusive whole.” Proverbially embracing your body means that you start to see your body as part of every experience, rather than something you manipulate to change your experiences. Example: “I’m going to understand more about where Jane is coming from to really understand her side so I can work better with her.” Recognize that you are more than your body. Treating your corporeal form like it’s something that drags you down will never help you to live a joyful life. It is at this point that you’ll hopefully begin to see that you are enough in whatever body you have, and that it’s not a limitation on being your future badass self.

A crucial piece of embracing your body is offering forgiveness and kindness to yourself versus criticism. It requires a fundamental shift in your perception—rather than suppressing your negative thoughts or trying to mask them with a layer of positivity, you acknowledge and offer kindness to those thoughts and emotions. Embracing your body is all about relating to your uniqueness and recognizing that you are human. To put this into context, embracing your body consists of saying to yourself: “I’m OK with the fact that my thighs are jiggly and sometimes they make me feel ashamed. So many other women feel this way about themselves too. There is no such thing as a perfect woman and these attributes don’t define my character. My thighs do incredible things for me, like help me pick up my child or play on the beach, and I am grateful for that. My body shape is not something I can control and it doesn’t change my value or happiness as a person.”

That’s a mouthful, but you get the idea. We all have positive attributes and shortcomings. Embracing the positive and negative—finding gratitude for our current situation—is critical to allowing more positive thoughts to emerge and get you closer to actually loving your body.

Stage 3: Loving it

As I mentioned earlier, there is a misconception that loving your body means that you feel glorious and worship every ounce of yourself all the time. This is unrealistic! True body love is achieved by treating yourself with respect, kindness, and compassion—regardless of how you look or any other conditions you might put on yourself. Loving your body happens when you are able to see your body as a blessing and gift, and know that you are enough—regardless of how you actually perceive yourself in that moment. This happens as you foster more positive thoughts and feelings, which happens by recognizing and embracing the negative. In this stage, you are able to see yourself as a whole being, rather than as an entity separate from your body. You’re becoming more vulnerable by no longer using your body as a shield to deflect or protect you from emotional harm. It’s normal to resist and feel scared by this idea. Showing up to this party known as life as your true self takes serious guts and is the ultimate act of rebellion in a society that tells you who you “should” be. We’ll be talking about how move through this fear with a little pain as possible in upcoming chapters.

Ultimately, when you embody self-love, you don’t really think about your body anymore.

PART 2: The Meat and Potatoes of How to Love Your Body

Chapter 5: Tame Your Inner Crazy

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I used to weigh myself every time I went to the bathroom, before and after I did my bizness. The scale controlled what I ate and how I felt about myself; it dominated my thoughts. If I saw a higher number, my heart would start thumping and my stomach would fall into my thong. I was trying so hard to lose weight, but that number wouldn’t budge, so I would get angry and feel hopeless and cry out, “WHY OH WHY ME?!”

Conversely, I’d have those glorious moments, after a dehydrated night’s sleep, when I’d step on the scale and see a smaller-than-usual number, and suddenly everything was all rainbows, unicorns, and fairies. I realized later that the issue wasn’t that I was addicted to the scale, rather I was a slave to the negative thoughts in my head that were dominating my every action. My inner crazy—the negative chatter in my head—was operating at 100 gazillion decibels, telling me that I was gross and sucked at life, that I was destined to be a cat lady and should start getting excited about shopping for granny-panties and fleece muumuus. The only way I knew how to silence that voice was to control the number on the scale, which only ever gave me a few moments of peace between bathroom breaks. 

We say the most horrible things to ourselves. Sometimes we even utter slanderous things about ourselves out loud, within earshot of others. If you thought your vengeful neighbor (who is constantly critiquing your inability to compost) was your worst enemy, you were wrong. Your thoughts can be your worst enemy. And what do you think happens when you believe these things about yourself? You reinforce the crazy and let it dictate your actions. It’s time to stop pussyfooting around these thoughts and take the power back. The truth is, this is not your voice. As much as you think it’s your voice, it’s not.

I call it your doppelgänger and it’s super important that you create separation from it. There are so many different names for this voice: your inner critic, mean girl, evil roommate, gremlin, and the itty bitty shitty committee. Take your pick. I like “doppelgänger” because I use every opportunity I can to throw random German words into conversation. And, since this book is not on schnitzel, we’ll use “doppelgänger” as a cute name for your evil twin. Your doppelgänger is what holds you back from feeling hot-damn fearless. As I mentioned earlier, having good body image is all in your mind; thus, taming your doppelgänger is one of the most important steps you can take toward becoming the bold, fierce, and confident woman you desire to be.

Before you get angry at your doppelgänger, I want to make it clear that we’re not looking to eliminate these thoughts completely—that would require a lobotomy, and that’s beyond my pay grade. Instead, we want to turn our worst enemy into our ally by minimizing these thoughts, understanding why they show up, and no longer taking direction from them. This is something that all badass fearless women have in common: a doppelgänger (aka self-doubt), that negative voice that says you’re not good enough or that no one will ever find you attractive. Everyone has that negative voice, but just because it’s pervasive, it doesn’t mean that we need to listen to it. It’s there for a reason and it’s normal. Negative self-talk shows up in different ways and at various times in our life. As it relates to body image, it shows up as body perfectionism or hate, but all people have it in some form. As Tara Mohr (who uses the term “inner critic” to describe the negative voice) writes in her book Playing Big, “the inner critic is an expression of the safety instinct in us—the part of us that wants to stay safe from potential emotional risk—from hurt, failure, criticism, disappointment, or rejection by the tribe.” Even though the words that the inner critic hurls are cruel and hateful, their purpose is to protect you from emotional harm and risk. This changes the way we look at our doppelgänger—it’s actually trying to protect us.

Our doppelgänger doesn’t want us to be our FBS, because our FBS is vulnerable. I imagine many of the things on your FBS list are things that push you outside your comfort zone and bring you joy. There is nothing your doppelgänger hates more than when you step outside your comfort zone, put yourself in a vulnerable position, or seek out joy that could be taken away. Your doppelgänger doesn’t like emotional discomfort and will do everything in its power to help you avoid it. It’s really important to know this because any time that we step outside of our bubble, we will hear from our doppelgängers—and let’s face it, overcoming body image issues and showing up as your true self in this world means you’re going to step outside of your comfort zone. So rather than trying to eliminate our doppelgänger, we want to learn to work with it and not follow its direction. Its power will certainly diminish—especially as it relates to your body (I rarely get those thoughts anymore). The most important thing to do is to learn how to not listen to it and to not let it define us. Your doppelgänger is standing in the way of the life you desire to have.

The first thing we need to do is to stop feeding this monster. Starve the beast. Purge the negative influences that are cramping your style. Hit the delete button and say goodbye to various people, objects, and thoughts that feed your doppelgänger. Here are 3 things you need to cleanse and detox in order to tame your doppelgänger. (This is the only cleansing or detoxing I will ever recommend, by the way.) Know that as you take these steps, your doppelgänger is probably going to get really fired up and order you to stop. This is your first challenge. Do not take direction from it.

3 Actions to Cut Off Your Doppelgänger’s Food Supply: Destroy your scale, measuring tape, or any other weapon of weight control.

Before you slam this book shut or bolt away like a woman who’s just seen the cast of “Magic Mike” (or “The Other Woman,” if that’s your thing) outside her house, let me explain. Removing a scale from your life may fill you with sheer terror because you are afraid that without it, you will eat all the things and blow up like a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade float. You have to remember that your scale is controlling the way you feel about yourself and keeping you stuck in conditional love with yourself. If you want to love yourself unconditionally, the scale has to go. I know how scary it is. But, when people ask me about one of the lightbulb moments in my journey to feeling fabulous, I tell them it was when I destroyed a scale with a sledgehammer. We were shooting the photos for my website and, while I had stopped weighing myself, I had never actually destroyed my scale. Smashing that thing to pieces was so therapeutic. It solidified my decision to love myself unconditionally.

If you are feeling apprehensive about doing this, let me tell you: Sister, I feel you! But, that piece of shit—that hunk of plastic and metal and glass—tells you nothing about how amazing you are. You must get rid of it. You can do it!

Purge harmful media and other sources of doppelgänger fuel.

While the Internet can be our friend on our way to body love, it can also be one of your doppelgänger’s biggest weapons. It’s so easy to get sucked into the vortex of comparing yourself to others. You probably don’t even realize how often you do it! You compare yourself to people in magazines or your friends on Facebook who appear to be able to juggle a full-time job, three kids, and an effortless six-pack with no bags under their eyes. We curse God/Allah/Madonna/The Ghost of Christmas Past for giving us a broken metabolism and a penchant for white wine. You see health gurus posting militant messages like, “Sugar is as addictive as cocaine!” or “Stop making excuses!” You think, “Why did I skip the gym to watch House Hunters and eat Oreos yesterday?! I’m a total failure!” These thoughts make you feel like you are not good enough, that you’re flawed. They make you criticize yourself worse than Star magazine criticizes every inch of celebullite (“celebrity” + “cellulite”). It’s a self-sabotage nightmare and complete waste of mental space that could be used to help you start being your FBS. Get rid of any media that are depleting your ability to feel good in your body. Destroy, get rid of, defriend, and unfollow anything or anyone that gives you the slightest pang of insecurity, anything that makes you feel like diet and exercise are the answer. Anything that makes you feel you need to improve your body’s appearance. This list expands beyond the World Wide Web and may include things like:

• Magazines

• TV shows that bash the way people look

• Health and diet gurus. In fact, if you tend to overthink your food decisions or have ever felt guilty eating something, then I’d like you to get rid of all of health and nutrition people in your email box or newsfeed. (Except me, obviously.)

• Forums and blogs of the same nature

• Any tracking systems like MyFitnessPal, Fitbit, etc.

• Anyone who posts “fitspo” quotes or images

• Internet friends who make you feel insecure. (You don’t need to defriend them—just hide them for now.)

• Real-life family or friends who make comments that make you feel ashamed

• Self-help books that are collecting dust

You get the idea. Purge, and be set free!

Exorcise the demons from your closet.

Getting dressed can be a dreadful experience filled with hissy fits when you open your closet and see all the clothes that don’t fit you. I would have rather plucked each of my eyelashes out individually with chopsticks while listening to Yanni at 112 decibels than go shopping for jeans. I remember a time when opening my closet felt like some kind of daily torture. I had stopped my excessive dieting and exercise, and started to work on making peace with my body. I had gained some weight since I’d begun to feed myself like a grown-ass woman, which meant that none of my clothes fit. I kept hanging onto them, in the hopes that I would return to my skinny self, but the process of opening my closet only threw me into temper tantrums and drove me to return to my obsessive, unhealthy ways. One day, I cranked up Twister Sister and said, “Fuck this noise.” I purged everything! Every $300 pair of designer jeans that didn’t fit over my thighs. Every BCBG dress that wouldn’t squeeze over my hips. My prized Michael Kors boots that wouldn’t zip over my calves. While I hated to get rid of things that I busted my ass in a corporate job to buy, I felt so free and liberated. It was like demolishing the last of the demons that haunted my mind. I went out and bought myself some new clothes that fit and that I felt good in (despite what Marie Claire was telling me to wear for my shape). I stopped shopping by size or choosing clothes that covered up my muffin top, and I started to buy what made me feel like a rockstar.

Now it’s your turn! Go through your wardrobe and get rid of anything that doesn’t fit you or make you feel freakin’ fabulous. If you have something special that you don’t want to part with, simply pack it away—but get it out of sight!

Buy yourself some new clothes. It’s amazing how far $100 can go toward feeling good in the body you have right now. You don’t have to spend a fortune to do this, either; you can:

• Plan a clothing swap with your friends

• Shop at a consignment store (sell your old stuff and get new stuff)

• Look for sales online

• Or just buy one really good outfit! Quality is better than quantity.

If you are afraid of hitting the stores, shop with a friend or ask a friendly salesperson for help. Buy what you actually like. Get a few pieces that allow for some give—leggings and dresses are my favorite. Screw those magazines that tell you what you need to buy to fit your “insert fruit analogy here” body. It’s amazing what some great clothes can do for your confidence. You can always get items tailored if your body changes. There is no reason to buy things for what you may or may not look like in the future.

Mourn the loss of your ideal body.

It is at this point where we usually feel the most sadness, anger or anxiety about letting go of the control measures that have kept us trapped in conditional love. If you’re terrified to eliminate your scale or MyFitnessPal, know that you are not alone. Loving yourself unconditionally also means letting go of your desire to have your “ideal body,” giving up your strict rules, and settling into the body that you have right now can feel downright terrifying.

When women begin their body-image work with me, it’s common for them to go through a period of mourning. It can be sad to let go of your ideal body because it’s provided you with a lot of hopes and dreams. The process of letting go is not unlike the stages of grief. You start by feeling denial: “I don’t have body image issues! I actually just need to lose weight!” This generally progresses into anger: “It’s not fair that [insert a million things that are not fair, including, but not limited to, your best friend who can eat like a teenage football player and never gain a pound]!” Then bargaining comes into play: “I should have stuck with the diet. If only I could get my food under control, this wouldn’t be a problem.” Then you’ll get hit with the wave of sadness as you come to realize that it’s not the ideal body that you’re grieving—it’s the expectations of a better life that you intertwined it with.

I want you to challenge any bullshit assumptions that say your body dictates your happiness in life. Once you can do that, you can start to see that your ideal body was really just assassinating your freedom. The dream of finally reaching perfection has likely been the reason you’ve spent hours upon hours thinking or saying negative things to yourself, obsessing over whether you ate too much peanut butter, and dragging yourself to the gym instead of enjoying a luxurious sleep-in day. So, as you finish feeding your doppelgänger, I want you to ask yourself this one question: How has your ideal body been serving you?

Make a list of reasons why it hasn’t been serving you. When you’re writing down how it hasn’t been serving you, think of all the time and money you’ve spent chasing this ideal body. What activities or experiences have you missed? What emotions have you wasted? You’ll start to realize that the tools you were seeking happiness with—dieting, restricting, tweaking, obsessing—were really the main source of your misery. You’ll get a clear picture of how this pursuit prevented you from living in the moment and enjoying the little things in life.

The good news is that loving yourself unconditionally waits for you on the other side of this.

Actions and Journal Questions:

Get rid of your scale, social media that doesn’t make you feel good about yourself, and clothes that don’t fit or make you feel good.

How did it feel to get rid of these things?

How has your promise of an ideal body not been serving you?

What time, resources and energy have you spent chasing your ideal body?

What can you do with this time and energy now?

Chapter 6: Be Imperfect

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As a teenager, I dreamed of being Kelly Taylor from “Beverly Hills 90210.” She had a perfect body, was popular, could have any guy she wanted, and eventually went on to marry my obsession dream man, Brandon (Jason Priestley). Between make-out sessions with Brandon (OK, I was drooling all over my pillow), I spent hours laying on my bed in my super-uncool, enormous red-frame glasses, and headgear with my legs straight up in the air, wishing that they could look like that when I was standing. Later, I fantasized about being Alicia Silverstone, then Reese Witherspoon, then Gwen Stefani, and then Jessica Simpson in her “Dukes of Hazzard” days (I have a thing for blondes, clearly). Eventually I became fixated on wanting to not only look thin, but also ripped and thin, which led to my CrossFit addiction. Our female beauty ideals are always straining to new ridiculous standards that keep us trapped on the hamster wheel of perfection. As Tina Fey said in Bossypants, “Now every girl is expected to have Caucasian blue eyes, full Spanish lips, a classic button nose, hairless Asian skin with a California tan, a Jamaican dance hall ass, long Swedish legs, small Japanese feet, the abs of a lesbian gym owner, the hips of a nine-year-old boy, the arms of Michelle Obama, and doll tits.”

I’ll add to that and say that it’s not only conventional beauty standards that are fucking over our self-love, but also the added pressure of other feminine ideals. We also need to be extremely successful (without being bossy—or if we’re bossy, we must have a gray streak in our hair), be a health freak, be a perfect mom and wife, and do it while maintaining a perfectly calm and pristine exterior with doll tits and a shellac mani, and we must become completely self-actualized while discovering the joy of tidying up. 

It’s insane to think that we can live up to these ideals. Even if we do somehow manage to have flatter stomachs, we’re going to find another piece of ourselves to pick apart—we’ll shame ourselves for being a hoarder because we have a drawer in our bathroom that contains mascara from way back when the only Cyrus you knew of was Billy Ray. It’s this quest for perfection and corresponding shame that throws us into the NEVER-ENDING weight-loss and diet insanity spiral. This desire to be “perfect” fuels us to never feel good enough. We hold ourselves up to ridiculous standards where “good” is still not enough; imperfection is unacceptable. And when the reality of our imperfect life doesn’t match the crazy ideals we’ve put upon ourselves, we feel shame. This shame often rears its head as body shame.

Logically, we all know that there is no such thing as perfection. Intellectually, we can say we are going to stop chasing this elusive Loch Ness monster of flawlessness and start to move towards unconditional love and acceptance of ourselves, but often we don’t. That’s because there is more to the story than simply rejecting perfection. As Jesse Pinkman would say: Science, bitches!

When I ask women why they want to look like the cover of Oxygen magazine, they usually say it’s because they want to be more confident, meet their dream partner, and wear different clothes. We imagine that if we get leaner, we’ll feel invincible and irresistible, we’ll marry Brandon Walsh, and life will be so much easier. This fantasy turns into a pursuit of happiness that we chase by trying new diets, continually tweaking our habits, our exercise or supplement regimes, or employing other tactics to alter our appearance and way of being. This is where things get tricky in our brain. The desire for this ideal body lights up the same place in our brain that is responsible for our other cravings and desires. Like the craving we have for peanut-butter brownies after a stressful day or a greasy pizza slice with garlic dipping sauce after too many margaritas. Like the desire that we have for winning the lottery and being on a perma-vacation. Our brain is thirsty for these fantasies. It’s the anticipation of a better life, more attention, and greater popularity that light up that happy place in our brain, not the reality of actually having those things. In the same way that walking by a bakery with freshly baked peanut-butter brownies makes us drool, our fantasies about the life we’ll have with a different body keep us hooked on chasing perfection.

When I was at my thinnest, I was rarely content in my own skin. When I would hit a “goal weight,” I would be satisfied for 3 seconds before wanting more. Much like the brownie, when you actually obtain the sought-after reward (a smaller body), the pleasure may last for a short period of time, but then you are back to wanting more. This is because the pleasure is obtained through the wanting and not the having. We become fixated on the anticipation, the promise of something more exceptional. It’s the same reason we go crazy inside outlet malls and buy everything that seems like a steal, and then get home and wonder why the hell we needed three beige Michael Kors bags. It’s the rush of wanting. We mistake this feeling of want for happiness and fulfillment. The promise of a better life is so powerful that we continue to do things to ourselves—like restrict and deprive and tweak and obsess—to distract us from actually living in the moment and appreciating what’s already in front of us. This wanting doesn’t have an end. This is why you can become so hooked on tweaking your diet or exercise, buying new clothes, or styling your hair differently, while still feeling unsatisfied. You look for the next new thing to try and satisfy this desire that is impossible to fulfill.

This is not to say that wanting is bad. It can be a very healthy way to feel inspired or motivated. However, it’s important to differentiate and identify if you are hooked on the wanting more than the having. Now that you have the vision of your FBS, you can see that it will afford you many freedoms to do the things you desire to do. But, you can easily become hooked on the fantasy of your FBS without taking action to get there, or even appreciating having it. In addition, your FBS will still need to pay the bills, deal with an asshole boss, get dumped on dates, have raging hormones, and need to skip yoga to tend to her child’s lice problem (or in my case, clean my pug’s bum). It is not a one-way ticket to feeling exceptional 24-7. We don’t need to be remarkable to feel like we’re enough.

In order to get off the perfectionism hamster wheel and embrace our imperfections, we need to appreciate and have gratitude for what we already have. Have you ever met someone and thought, “This creature is perfect in every way possible, every second of the day”? Possibly not (unless you’ve met my pug-child). So why would we expect this level of flawlessness of ourselves? It’s ridiculous. Embracing your imperfections means you recognize you’re made up of good, meh, and not-so-good—and that this is what makes you human!

It’s here that we can drop the “WE’RE ALL BEAUTIFUL!” bullshit, because you don’t need to buy into that to have good body image. Sometimes I feel beautiful and sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I like the way my legs look and sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I think I’m charming and funny, and other times I think I’m an impatient, stubborn nut who belongs in a padded cell with Hannibal Lecter. None of these feelings dictate whether I love myself. It bears repeating: we’re made up of an evolving tapestry of good, meh, and not-so-good – being cool with that is imperative to having good body image.

Journal Questions:

What feminine ideals do I hold myself up to?

Is it realistic for me to be all those things?

How have these ideals contributed to shame?

What are the good, meh and not-so-good parts of myself that I will begin to accept?

Chapter 7: Be Unapologetic

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I’m a chameleon; I can easily conform and adapt to any situation. I went through so many different identities and phases: I’ve been the angry grunge girl; the hippie chick who had Grateful Dead patches on her MEC backpack and mourned the death of Jerry without ever knowing a Dead song; the skater girl who never actually skated; the Club Monaco “Friends” girl; the surfer chick who never surfed; the raver and club girl who did actually rave and club (a bit too much); the health-and-fitness freak who took it way too far. Through all of these identities, I would wear the uniform, drink the Kool-Aid, and speak the language to be cool, to fit in. Little did I know, this pattern of behavior and desire to “fit in” is one of the reasons I remained trapped in body shame.

Perfectionism isn’t simply our quest for the ideal. Perfectionism, at its core, is about our desire to please and be accepted by others. It’s the reason I had to buy a completely new wardrobe every time I decided to take on a new identity. Fitting in and being accepted is “safe”—it protects us from being an outcast and reliving the pain of our childhood when we were called last to be on a team or not invited to scrapbook fuzzy stickers with Heather-Anne at recess. We put so much value on what other people think of us—in order to protect ourselves from judgment—that we can lose ourselves in the process. The reality is, we cannot control what other people think—not of us, and not of anything—and this mindset locks us in the cycle of self-criticism, always chasing others’ approval, never feeling good enough. When our self-worth and self-image ride on what other people think—something we, again, cannot control—we’ll never be content with who we are, we’ll never be the truest expression of ourselves. Letting go of what others think and showing our real selves to the world breaks the chains of perfection. It took me a long time to realize I’d rather be someone’s cotton candy ice cream than everyone’s vanilla.

First, let’s talk about what it means to be real. Being real is more than posting a no-makeup selfie on social media or going to the grocery store with dirty hair and granny-panty lines in your yoga pants (that’s just a typical Wednesday afternoon for me). Being real is about staying true to who you are—your voice, story, and struggles—in the face of possible judgment and rejection. It’s about being unapologetic about who you are. When we fear judgment, vulnerability, and rejection, we put up a wall that prevents us from showing up as our real, authentic selves—something I like to call “your imperfect, uncool, broken self.” When we’re so focused on winning the praise of others and looking like we have it all figured out, we don’t allow ourselves to really be seen. It’s impossible to be who you really are when all your concerns are tied up in what other people will think. While it may feel comforting and safe to hide behind fitting in, it can prevent us from making true connections with other people and ourselves.

This urge to control our weight in order to control how people feel about us often leads to chronic dieting and disordered eating. I’m going to sound like a broken record here, but it bears repeating: You cannot control what people think. Having a positive body image is a really good way to weed out the people who truly love you and connect with you. You cannot win over people that don’t really connect with you, and people who love you conditionally are not worthy of your time.

It’s time for you to take a look at your FBS list. I imagine many of the things on your list push you outside of your comfort zone. In order to be that woman, your FBS, you may put yourself in a vulnerable position where you are open to rejection, judgment, or possible emotional discomfort. Many women stall on becoming their FBS because they are paralyzed by the fear of dropping their perfectionist shield. There is this big cloud of the scary unknown waiting on the other side. This is the healthy kind of fear that will ignite radical changes in how we feel about ourselves. In order to get comfortable in our own skin, we have to lean into this particular type of fear and discomfort. Remember, anytime you push your own buttons like this, your doppelgänger is not going to be happy! But, the more you realize it’s actually OK on the other side, the easier it becomes to do the things you’ve been putting on hold. For example, let’s say you want to wear a bathing suit on your vacation but your doppelgänger is telling you not to. The first day you hit the beach, your doppelgänger is going to be screaming at you, telling you to stay inside at the resort casino in an ankle-length kaftan, drowning your sorrows in mai tais. Although that’s also a valid life choice, if you really want to get in the water, you’ll decide to lean into this fear, and just go ahead and do it. Afterward, you realize that no one cared about your bathing suit and the world did not end! Success! The next day, when you go back out for a swim, your doppelgänger will advise you again to hit the slots, but its voice won’t be as loud. With each subsequent trip to the beach, the voice gets a little quieter, until you no longer have your doppelgänger slinging horrible words at you. The only way to get there, however, is to lean into the fear and start to be the woman you desire to be. Put on that bathing suit. Go swimming.

We are on the verge of a cultural revolution that is not widely accepted or understood. You have to be willing to be a rebel to challenge standards and break rules. Not everyone is going to like you, but the people who truly love you are going to love you, regardless of your appearance. Your body will not limit you from being lovable; only your hatred of yourself will limit you from being lovable.

Journal Questions:

What beliefs do you have that prevent you from being true to yourself?

What beliefs could you adopt that would help you to be more real and authentic?

What is more important to you than receiving approval and praise from others?

What actions can you take to be more unapologetic?

What is one thing you can do right now that your future self would do? (Do it!)

Chapter 8: Buy Into a New Culture

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One of the craziest diets I went on was my self-proclaimed “broccoli diet,” in preparation for a girls’ trip to Ibiza. (I was 25 years old, OK?) The diet consisted of me swapping out as many delicious carbohydrates as I could for broccoli and hitting the elliptical for at least one viewing of “The Young and the Restless” every day. I thought that my trip would be so much better if you could see rib definition, so I drove myself into the ground to get there. I was a hungry, miserable mess and—despite my hardcore broccoli-fication—I was uncomfortable in my body the whole time. I got into a fight with my friend because I felt she didn’t appreciate how hard I had worked to get myself into a body that I clearly assumed she thought was gross. This is what I thought in that moment! Writing it out makes me realize that a) I sound like an ungrateful, privileged toddler and b) I was so invested in being thin that all of my mature judgment capabilities disappeared. Perhaps you can relate to how crazy we can become when body shame occupies the majority of our waking moments. Honestly, I ended up having the best time of my life, but I still wish I could slap my former self into being cool in whatever body she had and eating any damn carbs she wanted.

Let me ask you this: If you woke up to a zombie apocalypse and you were the last human on earth, would you care about your weight? Your appearance? No. Do you not watch “The Walking Dead”? There is no Pilates montage on the show, and no one pursues the latest in eyebrow shaping. Body image would no longer be a concern in the absence of a culture that puts appearance on a pedestal. In the culture we live in, however, we are surrounded by messages and images that create a correlation between our body shape and confidence. We believe that if we fit these crazy ideals, we’ll feel sexy, be loved, get more attention, and be happy. Our life will look like a Ralph Lauren ad—intense stares and yachts, included. We intertwine our emotions with “fat” and “thin,” neither of which are actual feelings. Saying “I feel fat” is never about being fat—what we’re really saying is that we feel a certain way or feel there is something wrong with us. As it says in the book When Women Stop Hating Their Bodies by Jane Hirschmann and Carol Munter, “We turn our bodies into metaphors for all of our bad feelings—and we find confirmation for doing so everywhere we look.”

“Fat” and “thin” are descriptors, much like “short” and “tall” and “hairy.” We would never wake up in the morning and think, “I feel so hairy armpit today.”

When we correlate our emotions with our body shape, we immediately become invested in seeing a body type as “good” and anything else as “bad.” We see “thinness” as being superior and our ticket to a multitude of positive emotions; thus, we see anything else as inferior and to be avoided at all costs. In order to change that mentality, we have to challenge our own beliefs and stereotypes about what it means to be “fat” or “thin.” We have to stop correlating our feelings with body sizes.

Note: I put “fat” and “thin” in quotation marks because they are based on your own perception, and are not an absolute. In fact, just to elaborate on “fat” being relative, let’s address big components of poor body image: fat phobia and sizeism. I can imagine that many of you are eyeing the door right about now. Don’t be afraid, my fine feminist friends! Our culture has caused us to mentally entangle the concept of “fat” with being lazy, unlovable, unsexy, unhealthy, not good enough, and invisible—as well as choice phrases like “eats too much,” “doesn’t look after herself,” and “let herself go.” Harsh words, right? These are quotes from women I work with, when I ask them what it means to be fat. It’s no wonder we can’t accept our bodies or loosen the reins when it comes to dieting. We are afraid of the shameful stereotypes that we associate with being fat and the judgments that other people may have.

“Fat” is a word that we need to neutralize. I also encourage you to drop words like “obesity” and “overweight” from your vocabulary—they are based on the flawed BMI system and have false pretenses to disease. Weight and BMI are poor predictors of disease and longevity. As Linda Bacon says in her book Health at Every Size, “The bulk of epidemiological evidence suggests that five pounds ‘underweight’ is more dangerous than 75 pounds ‘overweight.’” In addition, zillions of studies have shown time and time again that dieting simply does not work, and that there is an extremely slim chance of “obese” (the studies’ language, not mine) people getting down to the “normal” weight range. In addition, it’s also been shown that stigmatization of fat people can lead to stress and overeating. I encourage you to check out Health at Every Size for more on the correlation between health and weight. I also encourage you to drop the word “normal,” too. All bodies are normal. Fat is something we all have on our bodies; some people just have more than others.

In order to challenge fat stereotypes, you must ask yourself this: Is it really true that appearance defines a person’s health, happiness, sex appeal, lifestyle habits, or their worthiness of taking up space? Hell no! Thin and medium-size people can be unhealthy, unhappy, or any/all of those things too. Conversely, fat people can be happy, healthy, and sexually attractive. Sexual attraction is an individual thing. Our appearance does not dictate our health or happiness, but the stereotypes we’ve associated with body types do have a direct implication on whether we’re able to accept ourselves unconditionally. Also, just as others people’s bodies are not your business, it’s not anyone else’s business if you choose to be healthy or happy. Your body and your life is your business, and only your business.

I’m not saying that you’re going to gain or lose weight by accepting your body, but it’s safe to say you will be happier than you would be if you don’t. If we fear and stigmatize certain body types, we are more likely to have a distorted body image. All bodies are good bodies. Your body is a good body.

Another question you need to ask yourself is: Are these beliefs about fat coming from your fear of how others will perceive you? Most likely, they are. As we’ve discussed, you cannot control what other people think. Not everyone is going to like you. There are going to be ignorant assholes that don’t understand your decision to love yourself unconditionally, but I’d rather chow down on nachos at the beach with friends than keep myself locked up counting calories because of someone else’s idiocy and intolerance. We can take ownership of how we feel about ourselves and decide to live the lives we want today.

One of the reasons why we have these body stereotypes is because body diversity is absent in the media of our modern culture. Pick up a magazine and flip through to see if you can find women with a similar body or body parts to yours. Find a woman with your legs, stomach, arms or butt. Did you find any? If so, you’re in the minority. Now watch TV advertisements and see if you can find women with a body like yours. I’ll wait here. It’s nearly impossible. I think Simon Cowell might have the same earlobes as me, but that’s about it.

When we don’t see ourselves represented, we feel invisible. We feel body shame. We think that only women with visible abs and high heels can rock a bikini or crop top. We think that sexy lingerie is reserved for women with curvaceous bods, tiny waists, and permanent blowouts. We are convinced that we need to be a certain size to do badass inversions in yoga. We think we’ll be unhealthy if we don’t lose weight. The media infiltrates our minds with these ideas and we’ve been forced to buy into this crap. Beauty and health is not an absolute image. That means that you can (and should) take the power back and buck the system.

As part of starving your doppelgänger, you bought out of the culture that perpetuates these crazy female ideals, but it’s equally important to buy into a new culture. We can do this by exposing ourselves to images of women across all ages, races, and body shapes and sizes. It has been shown that looking at images of women larger than yourself can change your body image. I have personally experienced the benefits of this. We are exposed to hundreds of images a day that perpetuate the female ideal, so it’s no wonder this is programmed in our mind as something to strive for. Remember, we feel invisible if we don’t see ourselves represented in the culture around us. When you expose yourself (proverbially) to lots of women who are the same shape as you—or larger!—having fun and being fit, stylish, and happy, you buy into a new frame of mind. In the resources section in the back of the book, you’ll find a list of my favorite people to follow on social media that can give you that exposure. 

Lastly, as you can see, body image is a cultural issue; if we view it from inside an esoteric vacuum, we will struggle to succeed. To silence the negative thoughts in your head, you need to stop judging other women and start making an effort to celebrate all women. You don’t improve your body image only for yourself. You do it for every other woman out there who is struggling—and there are plenty.

I don’t want to gloss over the fact that there is absolutely oppression against fat people in our society; I personally have never had to deal with stigmatization. While I have certainly faced the pain of hating my body and criticism from other people about my weight, I recognize this is not the same as being denied a job or health insurance because of how much I weigh. This is a big issue in our society, and there are many fat activists doing good work to address the oppression of fat people. I’ve included links to them in the resources section.

Journal Questions:

What beliefs do you have about “fat” and “thin”?

What new beliefs do you want to adopt?

What actions can you take to buy in to a new definition of beauty?

Chapter 9: Unshackling Self-Worth From Your Jean Size

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I went to modeling camp when I was 13. (Exsqueeze me? Baking powder? I know, it’s shocking that I didn’t become a MTV teen mom.) We learned how to walk on the catwalk in high heels, put on makeup, and interview for auditions. The whole experience was fun because I was finally doing something that didn’t involve getting hit in the face with a ball during PE. That is, until my first audition, when I caught a proverbial softball right in the forehead.

Shortly after my modeling camp experience, I auditioned for the local mall runway show. I was so nervous. I remember thinking this was my ticket to Hollywood. I’d finally meet Jason Priestley and he would cast me in a “90210” new-generation spinoff show and fall in love with me. My dreams were crushed when I was not cast in the runway show because I was “too fat and needed to lose weight.” This experience resulted in two things. First, I realized I had the greatest best friend ever, Katie, because she went to the modeling agency and yelled at them for “making a huge mistake.” Secondly, and not so positively, it sparked an intense desire to lose weight so that I could protect myself from being hurt like that ever again, and gain the validation and acceptance I craved. I stayed trapped in this dangerous place for so many years. I would lose a bit of weight and people would compliment me. I would feel validated and that sense of pride and exceptionalness that I was seeking would well up in me. That feeling would last a few days and then I would want more, and the only way I knew how to get it was to change my body. Cue my dieting and weight loss obsession.

Most body image issues stem from this need to feel exceptional and validated. To feel like we are enough. As Brené Brown says, we “hustle for our worthiness” and look to other people to give this to us, which is artificial and conditional. This idea that we’ll feel like we’re enough when we achieve something else (i.e., “I’ll be enough when I lose 10 pounds”) means you are hinging your worth on something conditional that you cannot control. The reality is, our bodies are going to change over our lifetime because of genetics, our lifestyle, our environment, having babies, suffering injuries, and falling victim to major or minor illnesses. The fact that we don’t live in a bubble-wrap time capsule pretty much guarantees that our appearance will change. So, if your self-worth is conditional on your appearance, you are bound to be disappointed. If someone else’s love is conditional on your appearance, they are also bound to be disappointed. Our body image and self-worth have been muddled together to create a shitty cocktail of disappointment for everyone involved.

Your self-worth has to be based on your own love. No one else can give you that. Letting go of what other people think—which means letting go of being a perfectionist—is critical to cultivating self-worth. Also, you don’t need to feel exceptional all the time to have good self-worth; remember, you’ll need to embrace the good, the meh, and the not-so-good. We live in a society that values appearance, so, while I’m telling you to build your worth without factoring in your appearance, rest assured that L’Oreal, Special K, US Weekly, the billion-dollar diet industry, and a gazillion creepy Internet trolls are going to tell you otherwise. You have to be ready to go against cultural norms that tell you that your ass needs to be tight to feel good about yourself. We must cultivate a sense of worth outside of looking hot or giving strangers on the Internet a boner.

While we’re here, let’s talk about redefining success. We live in a world where we expect a concrete measurement of “success”—an end point. Whether it’s getting an A+ in Advanced Calculus (which I did, and I can tell you that my self-esteem was built entirely on this for some time) or hitting 10,000 steps a day, we often need some form of scoring to tell us that we are “succeeding.” When it comes to loving your body, our old way of thinking about success needs to go. You cannot measure body love by your body’s composition, points on a chart, or some fancy tracking software. Basing your body love “success” on a body type is fucked up, to say it plainly. You are more than your body! Go ahead and insert a quote here from an ayahuasca’d-out philosopher on your body being a vessel for your soul. I have faith that you understand this and want more out of life than a tombstone that says, “All she ever wanted was a tight ass.”

When body image defines success, it usually means your worthiness and happiness are tied to your appearance. You then measure your worth against your food and fitness: i.e., I went to spinning = I am good; I ate a box of Ferrero Roche with a chaser of Reddi-Wip = I am bad. Or you measure your worth based on what other people say or think about you. You love yourself conditionally, which is the complete opposite of loving yourself unconditionally (says Captain Obvious).

Seeing the number on the scale go down doesn’t mean you’ve done anything to promote sustainable emotional and physical well-being for yourself. Hell, I could eat raw collard green wraps with turkey slices and hot sauce, whilst doing a 100-day plank challenge and drop 10 pounds too! But anyone who’s been down that road with me knows that at some point (usually 4 days and 8 hours into it), I’ll crack and end up bathing in a pile of Nutella-drenched tears. You too? How did that work out for you, by the way? Poorly? Yeah, me too!

I propose that we redefine success using a totally different perspective and eliminating those bullshit tangible markers that are meaningless to your worth and what you really want out of life. I propose that we seek out deeper, more heart-centered measures of success, such as being your FBS and experiencing the feelings you want to feel.

Questions you can ask yourself are:

Who do you want to be? (Refer to your FBS list.)

What kind of life do you want?

What are your values and are you obeying them?

If you weren’t thinking about dieting and your body all the damn time, what would you be doing instead?

Discovering your worth outside of your appearance could be a book of its own, but here are the key components of cultivating self-worth.

Self-care

Self-care is simply the act of taking care of your emotional, physical, and spiritual needs so you can feel recharged and renewed. Self-care is about respecting and honoring yourself—the fundamental components of self-love. In other words, without self-care, there is no self-love. When you contribute to your self-care, you are making contributions to your self-worth. Self-care doesn’t need to be a daunting or time-consuming task; it can be as simple as putting on your favorite lotion in the morning, blasting your favorite song on your way to work or remembering to breathe before you rush out of bed.

Gratitude

Much of our sense of worthiness comes from knowing we’re enough right now. Gratitude facilitates this feeling of “enoughness.” Keeping a journal, using a gratitude app, or simply making a mental note of what you are grateful for and why each day will facilitate this.

Play

Play is a lost art that we seem to grow out of as we get older. We see play as a waste of time, but really it helps us to discover pieces of our identity that can make us feel more worthy. Think about what you did as a child, from laying in the grass and looking at clouds to going on an adventure in the woods. See if you can incorporate a few minutes of play into your week and let it grow from there.

Creativity

Having a creative outlet is a phenomenal way to disconnect from the negative chatter in your head and discover joy outside of obsessing over your body or food. Journaling, drawing, and coloring are a few of my favorite creative outlets.

Purposeful Work or Service

Serving a cause other than yourself either in your work, volunteerism, or another area of your life will give you a sense of purpose. If you feel called to do a certain kind of work, then find a way to incorporate this into your life. It doesn’t have to be a “big thing” that takes up a ton of time. Even devoting time to your friends or starting a blog dedicated to improving the lives of others can be a good way to practice serving. Doing body-image work is service-driven work as well, so next time you are overcoming a fear, do it in the name of service.

Journal Questions:

Complete this sentence: I am worthy because …

What beliefs do you have about worthiness and appearance?

What new beliefs do you want to adopt?

What small steps can you take today to cultivate a sense of worth?

Chapter 10: Own Your Shit

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When I first started researching and learning about body image in my quest to feel comfortable in my skin, I came across an astounding piece of information that completely changed the way I look at body shame: Body shame is not really about our bodies. KA-BOOM! Mind explodes! The book When Women Stop Hating Their Bodies by Jane Hirschmann and Carol Munter says that bad body thoughts involve displacement: You are “attacking your body instead of allowing yourself to feel or think something else.” Essentially, we deflect emotional discomfort onto our body because it becomes something we think we can fix. It’s easier to cut calories and go nuts at Zumba than it is to own up to what we’re really feeling and put ourselves in a vulnerable position. Remember, our doppelgänger is trying to protect us. Making this distinction is critical to ending body shame, so let’s walk through how to manage it.

Last Christmas, my doppelgänger was being a gobshite and I was feeling terrible about my body. We’re talking “you are disgusting” levels of feeling shame that dominated my inner thoughts. Yeah, I preach and teach self-love and confidence, but I also have bad moments or days. Even though you are doing body image work and maybe even seeing radical improvements, you’re still going to have rough patches. It’s impossible to feel like an unstoppable sexy beast every single day—especially if body-hate is your go-to coping mechanism. It was after Christmas and, in my body, I was feeling like goose turd run over twice. When this happens, it’s our natural response to jump into problem-solving mode; thus, my initial reaction was “just eat really strict for 30 days.” Sneaky, sneaky! I’ve been down that road before and know that’s not the solution.

Instead of reacting and letting my problem-solver personality take over, I sat with it for a day or two. I asked myself why this was happening at that particular moment. Sure, I had been eating more of everything and drinking anything set in front of me, but ‘twas Christmas and that doesn’t phase me anymore. I knew I’d gained some weight, but I also trusted and knew that it would all balance out because that’s what my body naturally does now. (Your body can do that too, if you let it!) Instead of overreacting and cracking out on salted chocolate chip cookies in preparation for a 30-day clean-eating extravaganza to “fix my body,” I stepped out of my head to take a bird’s-eye view of the situation. I identified the real emotion and problem that I was diverting onto my body. After sitting with it for a couple days, I figured it out. I had been investing ALL of my resources into my annual Rock Your Body program to make it the biggest, most badass program EVER. I had been working with this amazing videographer to film videos for it (OMG, SO FUN), creating a new website, and I’d been writing new content for months. This was my baby and it was make or break. As you can imagine, I was SUPER anxious about it. What if it flops? What if I don’t get everything done? What if I have to go work at a rub-n-tug or Applebee’s because this is a royal failure? And it is that stress, fear, and anxiety that reared its head as body shame. I felt out of control and turned that panic toward my body to cope with it. When I made this connection, I sure as hell knew that eating strict paleo for a couple weeks wasn’t gonna fix it.

Here is my six-step process for overcoming body shame:

Step #1: Check yourself before you wreck yourself. DO NOT overreact or exaggerate the situation.

The initial feeling of body shame is when we usually go into OMFG feelings of terror and panic, and start planning our diets. Don’t do that! Look at the situation realistically and sanely, like so: “I’m feeling really ashamed about my body and my pants are a little tighter—no big deal. I trust these feelings will pass.” Breathe, put on comfy clothes, and give it a couple days if you need to.

Step #2: Own your shit. Figure out the real issue you’re struggling with.

Remember, it’s not your body that’s the problem. Knowing that your doppelgänger is only trying to protect you can help you ask yourself why it’s showing up so obnoxiously and so right-that-second. In the case of my panic before the Rock Your Body launch, I was clearly afraid of failure. I was afraid of putting my heart and soul into something only to risk being judged or rejected. My doppelgänger was protecting me from being vulnerable by keeping my mind busy with body hate. Often our doppelgänger is trying to protect us from some kind of fear—fear of rejection, judgment, having joy taken away, embarrassment, disconnection, and emotional discomfort.

Take some time to get curious about what’s really going on (without becoming obsessive). Usually it’s something that is beyond your control, another source of shame or stress in your life, or when something else is out of alignment (your relationship, work, etc.). Again, do not over-exaggerate! Simply accept and admit the reality of the situation. For me, it went like this: “It’s not my body, it’s … oh fuck-nards, I’m taking a big risk here and putting a lot on the line. I’m afraid of failure.”

Step #3: Emote. Feel the feels.

This is critical. We tend to get caught up in the circumstances (i.e., my jeans don’t fit!) instead of feeling what we’re really feeling (i.e., sadness or anxiety). You need to understand the feeling that’s actually happening and allow it to surface. It doesn’t have to be exact—simply acknowledging that you’re feeling something heavy can be sufficient. In my example, I was feeling fear and anxiety that was masquerading as frustration about my weight.

But wait! Just because you identified the emotion doesn’t mean you need to let that emotion overtake you. You get to choose how you want to deal with it. My approach is generally to observe it, be curious about it, and then move on to the next step.

Step #4: Share it. Talk about it. Don’t bottle that shit up!

Express the emotion to move through it. There are many ways to share what you’re thinking, including calling a trusted friend to hash it out. Perhaps there is a local support group or an online community (like my private Facebook community that you’ll find in the resources section) where you can go for support. Journaling is a great place to get your thoughts out if you don’t want to share with other people. I tend to do a B.U.C. (big ugly cry) to my husband and jot some feelings down in my journal. If you find it hard to find someone who offers you empathy and support, I suggest looking for a therapist or coach. Also, providing this kind of support is a therapist or coach’s job and they generally love to listen and help you work through it. Hiring a professional takes away any worry you might have that you are somehow burdening your friends or partner with your “body issues.”

Step #5: Be nice to yourself and relate to yourself.

Talk to yourself like you would a defenseless puppy or your best friend. This is not the time to be critical or unforgiving! My inner monologue sounded a bit like this: “It’s all good. Things are going to work out just fine. Every entrepreneur feels these kinds of nerves when they are approaching a launch. You are doing the best you can and the rest is out of your control. You’ve got this!” It may be helpful to spend some time reading motivational quotes here too. This is not a one-time talk with yourself, either; this is a continuous, “talking yourself off the ledge”-type discussion that needs to keep happening.

Step #6: Make yourself feel good. Engage in a coping mechanism that is not self-destructive.

Controlling food, exercise, and my weight has been my go-to coping mechanism for decades. We all have our destructive numbing mechanisms—alcohol, shopping, gambling, isolating ourselves, getting angry at the people we love—which never help the situation. When we feel those urges coming to the surface, know that this means you likely need to divert your self-care to something more useful.

Repeat these steps as needed. This process takes time to get accustomed to. You’ll become better at knowing your triggers and finding ways to manage them.

Journal Questions:

What things do you think your doppelgänger is trying to protect you from?

What are your most common body-shame triggers?

What changes can you make to approach body shame differently?

Chapter 11: Be OK If They Don’t Like You

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I’m not going to lie, when I first started dabbling with body acceptance, it was really hard. I had more meltdowns than all the players in the Real Basketball Rocker Housewives series combined. Shedding my identity as the health-and-fitness freak and abandoning diet obsession meant facing all the demons I had been ignoring with body shame. To remedy this discomfort, I chased more confidence. I thought that to become more comfortable in my skin, I just needed to be more self-assured, even if that meant employing liquid courage. After a couple drinks, I have no problem being in the middle of a dance floor, doing an air guitar solo and challenging all the dudes around me to a competition in which I would surely kick all their asses. I have been known to do that on the regular, including once when my girlfriends and I crashed a corporate event in a hotel and used a giant dildo as our guitar prop. (What? You don’t keep a massive sex toy handy in your purse at all times?) Liquid courage helped me to let go of the “What are other people thinking of me?” inhibition that I often grappled with in social situations. These days, I don’t need the liquid anymore. (And I will still kick your ass at air guitar, dildo or not.)

When I first started to accept my body, I adopted the “fake it ’til you make it” mentality and started to do the things that I previously held back from doing until I felt I adequately “loved my body.” For example, I challenged myself to wear shorts and set up my yoga mat at the front of class. My doppelgänger was firing on all cylinders, and after class I was in tears, plotting how I was going to cut out carbs and remained in a self-loathing spiral for days afterwards. Instead of doing that, however, I faked it. I acted like I was unaffected by what would otherwise put me in a tailspin, and I moved on. Faking it until I made it was one piece of the puzzle, for me. We don’t always need more confidence; what we really need more of is compassion.

Confidence is the courage to show up as the woman you want to be today. Compassion is the capacity to embrace imperfection and be OK with the outcome, no matter what happens. One of my favorite unattributed Pinterest quotes is: “Confidence is not ‘they will like me,’ it’s ‘I’ll be OK if they don’t.’” Where this quote falls short is that confidence doesn’t actually help you to be OK if they don’t—compassion does. Compassion helps us to forgive and be kind to ourselves and, as I like to say, move the hell on. Compassion is all about the ability to relate to yourself with kindness.

We tend to fall victim to the belief that being hard on ourselves will lead to self-improvement. We think that if we beat ourselves up, we’ll be motivated to do better. This is such bullshit! Beating yourself up and withholding compassion feeds chronic feelings of “not-enoughness.” Criticism will not motivate you and it sure as hell won’t make you love yourself. Can you think of anything in your life that you love more by criticizing it? Except for “The Bachelor” and possibly “The Bachelorette”? We tend to and foster the things we love. When we criticize ourselves and hold ourselves to ridiculous standards, we are fueling our feelings of inadequacy. Being hard on ourselves does not lead to positive change.

Compassion is all about how we relate to ourselves. If you’re relating to yourself in a harsh, disrespectful, or unkind way, it’s time to change that. Being gentle, kind, forgiving, and understanding to yourself via compassion is the most important skill you’ll master when you foster acceptance.

Dr. Kristin Neff, author of Self-Compassion, writes that there are three elements of self-compassion. The first element is self-kindness—the ability to be warm and understanding to our shortcomings versus being critical of them. Also, recognize that imperfection is a normal part of the human experience. Be able to recognize the good, meh, and not-so-good parts of ourselves while still feeling like we’re enough. The second element is common humanity—recognizing that all humans struggle, and that we are not isolated in our suffering. Know that suffering is what makes us human and is part of our shared experience in life. The final element is mindfulness—being able to hold our experiences in balanced awareness without exaggerating. In other words, check yourself before you wreck yourself. Don’t blow our initial perceptions and feelings over an event out of proportion. Using Dr. Neff’s model toward self-compassion is critical towards building better body image.

Compassionate self-talk, in the case of my experience at the front of the class in yoga, might go something like this: “You did something that took a lot of courage. You should be really proud of yourself. It’s OK to be sad about it—so many other women feel the same way and it takes a while to really overcome body shame. Be proud that you showed up and did it. You know diets aren’t going to take away this suffering. Trust that these feelings will pass and it will get easier each time you go back.”

Our voice of self-compassion is what I like to refer to as your inner heroine. Your inner heroine is like your super-cool new best friend. Thelma to your Louise. Oprah to your Gayle. Your inner heroine always has a giant dildo in her purse for spontaneous hilarity. This is the voice inside of you that you need to start taking direction from. You can build up this voice by making compassionate self-talk part of your daily existence. Talk to yourself as though you are speaking to a child, best friend, or fur child.

When you’ve been flexing your self-deprecating muscles for most of your life, it can feel almost impossible to tap into the compassionate voice inside of you. It takes practice, but we have the capacity to build up our inner voice of compassion. We also owe it to ourselves to access the wisdom inside us that will have our back and guide us amid the chorus of negative voices. It’s like a new muscle for you to evoke this compassion, so it’s going to a while to strengthen it. I encourage you to take a moment each day to quiet the noise in your head, put your hand on your heart and tap into your inner heroine. You can ask her, “What advice do you have for me today?” Writing any messages from your inner heroine down will help to reinforce the information.

Think of the first time you tried a new activity. It initially felt awkward and clumsy, but it got easier the more you did it. Building up the voice of your inner heroine is the same. Keep it up and you’ll soon find her easily accessible.

Journal Questions:

How do you want to respond to yourself the next time you feel body shame?

Write yourself a letter in the voice of your inner heroine that you can reference when you feel body shame.

Chapter 12: Where Do We Go Now?

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“Where do we go now? / Where do we goooo-oh-oooooh ….”

—Axl Rose, obviously.

Now that you have all these gorgeous knowledge bombs, what next? Hopefully, you have bought into the idea of loving yourself unconditionally, because that is the fundamental first step. Buying into this idea is easy but embodying unconditional self-love takes some time. I wish loving your body was something we could all simply switch on and enjoy forever.

Self-love is a complex masterpiece and it requires patience. It is not a diet. There’s no immediate payoff. If you have been buying season tickets to the dieting shitshow, you might tend to expect big changes in short periods of time. You “eat clean” for 14 days and your smaller jeans fit again. As humans, we like instant rewards, which is one of the reasons why detoxes or “eat this for X days” crash diets are so popular. The input is food and the output is your body changing; your metric of success is contingent on how your body changes. Conversely, cultivating self-love consists of so many different layers, inputs, and outputs. There are huge rewards, believe me, but they are often less tangible and not always immediate. Patience is extremely important in this process.

This is why it’s so important to respect your pace. Because we are working with a complex masterpiece, everyone’s inputs are going to be different—therefore, everyone’s pace will be different. As Glennon Doyle Melton wrote in her post titled “Your Body Is Not Your Masterpiece” on her Momastery blog, “It is suggested to us a million times a day that our BODIES are PROJECTS. They aren’t. Our lives are. Our spirituality is. Our relationships are. Our work is.”

When you stop seeing your body as a “the answer” to your problems and start to connect with who you really are and what you truly want out of life on a deeper level, it can feel like you’ve peeled off a giant layer of an onion only to reveal other layers underneath that perhaps need some peeling. Everyone’s onion looks different, so it’s important to respect the makeup of yours. Your onion is constructed from different experiences, relationships, and perceptions than everyone else’s. When some women decide to unconditionally love themselves, it seems like a switch flips and they are suddenly on the right trajectory towards self-love. For other women, the process takes much longer. Instead of an on/off switch, some women have a Rube Goldberg device to construct and navigate on the way to self-love. Withholding comparison to others and respecting your own pace will serve you well.

The journey to self-love has many ups and downs. The path to accepting and loving yourself might look like Bambi learning to ice-skate through a labyrinth—it’s the furthest thing from linear and it’s definitely not the shortest distance between two points. Some days, you might feel like you’ve taken three steps forward and then five steps back. Sometimes, you might feel a euphoric sense of peace, and all seems right in the world. Then, in a few days, you are right back at square one, hating the woman staring back at you in the mirror. The beauty of this journey is that with each setback, you learn more about yourself. You appreciate how far you have come and become better equipped to surf the rough waves in the future.

In addition, you will need to accept that there is no “there.” I would be a complete fraud if I told you that you’ll hit a point where you love yourself every day, without effort or doubt. We are human and that means we have moments of suffering and self-flagellation. In those moments, remember to practice compassion! The truth is, your doppelgänger never goes away completely. If it’s not bitching about your body, it’ll be on your case about something else—your relationships, career choices, inability to discard your collection of wire hangers, etc. Our doppelgänger is part of ourselves that never goes away—remember, it’s protecting us and it’s going to show up if we’re pushing ourselves outside of the comfort zone. We want to learn to respond to it using our inner heroine and let her take the wheel so that it’s not holding us back from having the life we want.

It’s important to reflect back often to see how far you’ve come. Check your progress. Self-love breakthroughs are smaller and generally less noticeable until you start to pay attention to how far you’ve come. You might go on a vacation and realize afterwards that you didn’t stress about what you were eating or wearing a bikini. You might go shopping and buy cool zebra-print pants, later realizing you never would have done that before. You might take on a new hobby without noticing that it’s because you have so much more mental space, now that you aren’t stressing about scraping off the sugar on the pecans on your salad at lunch.

In my experience, optimism, a good community and support network, self-care, your ability to tap into your inner voice of compassion (your inner heroine), and your courage to be vulnerable and step outside of your comfort zone are the things that can lessen the bumps n the road.

Journal Questions:

What systems can you put in place to keep you inspired and offer you support on this journey?

What are some of the insights you want to keep top of mind?

What small action can you take today to move along the body love spectrum?

If You Take Away Nothing Else

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“If you retain nothing else, always remember the most important rule of beauty, which is: who cares?”

―Tina Fey, Bossypants

• A positive body image means having unconditional self-love and compassion for yourself.

• Loving your body happens from the inside out.

• Forgive yourself and others for all the negativity of your past.

• You are made of good, meh, and not-so-good parts—it’s what makes you human.

• It’s impossible to jump from hate to love, so celebrate every step you take along the way.

• The negative voice in your head doesn’t want you to step outside your comfort zone, so it’s going to get fired up anytime you lean into fear.

• Lean into fear.

• Build up the voice of your inner heroine. That’s the one to take direction from.

• Show up as your uncool, imperfect self.

• Not everyone will like you and that’s OK.

• “Fat” and “thin” are neutral descriptors.

• All bodies are good bodies.

• You are more than your jean size.

• Self-care, gratitude, play, and living with purpose help build self-worth.

• Get curious about your thoughts, feelings, and emotions, but don’t let them own you.

• Own your shit.

• Have the courage to be your future badass self now.

• Be unapologetically you.

The Next Step

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If you’d like to take the next step, I invite you to do my free 10-Day Body Confidence Makeover. You’ll get an email every day for 10 days, each giving you a “mission” to put some of the theory outlined in this book into practice. Plus, you’ll get an invite to join my exclusive private Facebook community of women just like you, who are ready to say, “I am fabulous just as I am!”

Reviews Welcome

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If you enjoyed this book, I would be so grateful if you took two minutes to leave me a glowing Amazon review. This act of service will help other women find this information and realize that they too, can embrace the body they have today.

About the Author

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Summer Innanen is a Certified Nutritional Practitioner and body image coach, specializing in helping women break free of chronic dieting. She helps women all over the world to ditch their diet demons, amp up their confidence, and break free of deprivation and guilt through her private and group coaching at summerinnanen.com.

She is the creator of the 21-Step Body Image Remix, a life-changing 21-day program that helps women embrace their body and unleash the fierce confident woman within. She is also the creator and host of “Fearless Rebelle Radio,” a podcast dedicated to empowering women to live life on their own terms.

She lives in beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, with her husband and fur-child.

Appendix

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Books

Body of Truth: How Science, History, and Culture Drive Our Obsession with Weight--and What We Can Do about It by Harriet Brown

Health At Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight by Linda Bacon

I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn't): Making the Journey from "What Will People Think?" to "I Am Enough" by Brene Brown

Playing Big: Find Your Voice, Your Mission, Your Message by Tara Mohr

The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are by Brene Brown

Things No One Will Tell Fat Girls: A Handbook for Unapologetic Living by Jes Baker

When Women Stop Hating Their Bodies: Freeing Yourself from Food and Weight Obsession by Jane R. Hirschmann and Carol H. Munter

Self-Compassion: Stop Beating Yourself Up and Leave Insecurity Behind by Kristin Neff

Websites

My Free Private Facebook Community: Break The Rules With Summer Innanen

Fat Activists

Jes Baker

Ragen Chastain – Dances With Fat

Virgie Tovar

Anti-Diet / Body Positive

A Beautiful Body Project

Alison Leipzig 

Anastasia Amour

Anne-Sophie Reinhardt

Beauty Redefined

Brittany Herself

Caroline Dooner – The Fuck It Diet

Everyday Feminism

Isabel Foxen Duke

Kaila Prins

Kelly Boaz

Lauren Fowler

Linda Bacon - Health At Every Size

Madelyn Moon

Marie Southard Ospina

Mara Glatzel

Sarah Vance

The Body Is Not An Apology

The Fat Chick

The Fat Nutritionist

Vivienne McMaster

References

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Bacon, L. 2008. Health at Every Size and ‘Health at Every Size Fact Sheet.’ Dallas: BenBella Books. https://www.sizediversityandhealth.org/content.asp?id=161

Boseley, S. 2015. ‘Obesity awareness may be causing overeating, finds international study.’ http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/aug/05/obesity-awareness-may-be-causing-overeating-finds-international-study

Boothroyd, L.G., Tovée, M.T. & Pollett, T. 2012. ‘Visual Diet versus Associative Learning as Mechanisms of Change in Body Size Preferences.’ PLoS ONE 7(11): e48691.

Brown, Brené. 2010. The Gifts Of Imperfection: Let Go Of Who You’re Supposed To Be and Embrace Who You Are. Minnesota: Hazelden.

Fey, Tina. 2011. Bossy Pants. New York City: Reagan Arthur / Back Bay Books, Little Brown and Company, Hachette Book Group.

Grabe, S., Ward, L. M., Hyde, J. S. 2008. ‘The role of the media in body image concerns among women: A meta-analysis of experimental and correlational studies.’ Psychological Bulletin, 134(3), 460–476.

Hayes, S. & Tantleff-Dunn, S. 2010. ‘Am I too fat to be a princess? Examining the effects of popular children’s media on young girls’ body image.’ British Journal of Developmental Psychology 28(2): 413–426.

Hirschmann, J, Munter C. 1995. When Women Stop Hating Their Bodies. New York City: Ballantine Books.

King's College London. ‘Low chance of obese people recovering normal body weight.’ ScienceDaily. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/07/150716180913

Lowes, J. & Tiggemann, M. 2003. ‘Body dissatisfaction, dieting awareness and the impact of parental influence in young children.’ British Journal of Health Psychology 8 (2): 135–147.

McGonigal, Kelly. 2013. The Willpower Instinct. New York City: Avery.

Neff, Kristin. 2011. Self-Compassion. New York City: William Morrow.

Melton, Glennon Doyle. 2014. ‘Your Body Is Not Your Masterpiece’. Blog. Momastery. http://momastery.com/blog/2014/07/06/body-masterpiece/

Mohr, Tara. 2014. Playing Big. New York City: Gotham Books.

Yamamiya, Y., Cash, T. , Melnyk, S., Posavac, H. & Posavac, S. 2005. ‘Women’s exposure to thin-and-beautiful media images: Body image effects of media-ideal internalization and impact-reduction interventions.’ Body Image 2(1): 74–80.

Table of Contents

Body Image Remix

About This Book

Intro: My Story

PART 1: Setting the Stage for Body Love

Chapter 1: Meet Your Future Badass Self

Chapter 2: Unraveling Where Our Body Image Comes From

Chapter 3: The Positive Body Image Formula

Chapter 4: The Stages of Body Love

PART 2: The Meat and Potatoes of How to Love Your Body

Chapter 5: Tame Your Inner Crazy

Chapter 6: Be Imperfect

Chapter 7: Be Unapologetic

Chapter 8: Buy Into a New Culture

Chapter 9: Unshackling Self-Worth From Your Jean Size

Chapter 10: Own Your Shit

Chapter 11: Be OK If They Don’t Like You

Chapter 12: Where Do We Go Now?

If You Take Away Nothing Else

The Next Step

Reviews Welcome

About the Author

Appendix

References