Changing your Body-Mindset

I'm pretty sure 99% of women have wanted to change something about our bodies at one point...But when does it become a problem? How can we break out of that mindset of wanting to be smaller versions of ourselves? And who decides how we should look...?

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  you have the power to slowly start to shape your mindset about your body.

Because you have the power to have the best experiences because I think the best experiences actually come from your mind, and they come from your ability to know that you can make whatever you want possible

  

  



 Welcome, welcome back to the show. I am kind of excited to talk about this topic today, but I'm also a little scared of a little hate I might get, so we'll just see what happens, shall we? So we had in Northern California on Monday, By the time this airs, this will be Monday of last week. We had a, a very warm day for early spring.

The sun was out, the birds were chirping. I swear the flowers were blooming as I spoke. And I actually got a sunburn out, took the kids to the park, and we were maybe at the park for an hour , and I got a sunburnt on my back. So it's wearing a tank top. It felt. Phenomenal to have the warm sunshine. I was like, oh, this is what's been missing for my life for the past few months.

This is amazing. And then of course, the rest of the week, it was down into the fifties. Again, cold. But you know what? I'm still basking in the memory of that warm summer sun, or should say spring sun on my back. But it got me thinking about my mindset, about my body. As soon as the warmer weather comes around, and I don't know how many of you feel this way, but I got several messages related to a reel I posted that talked about your feelings about your body image with the summer coming and with swimsuit season coming around the corner.

And does it give you anxiety thinking about putting on tank tops and shorts and little dresses? And why is that? Like what is it about revealing our bodies, taking off our summer coats and sweatpants and the sweaters and the boots, like taking all that off when the weather gets warmer and we feel insecure in our own skin because people can see what's underneath.

 Maybe we have some extra pounds. Especially, I mean, I don't know anybody who didn't gain a little bit of weight through covid or at least gain some unhealthy habits. Let's be real alcohol. Maybe we're worried about people seeing our cellulite or belly rolls or whatever, but I caught myself 

in a little mindset trap about, oh, the sun's coming. I need a diet. I need to show abs. I need to show tight muscles. Should I be doing this? And I actually thought, okay, if I started a diet or in my body building world, and we call it a cut, if I started a cut, is that possible? Is it feasible? And like, should I, so I even had a conversation with my coach.

I have a coach who does my own nutrition and strength training programming. She's also a, , body building prep coach. Cause that's what I, I, I have done in the past and I have recently decided that I'm going to get on the stage again next year. I haven't told my husband yet. So if Ethan, if you're listening to this, uh, this is happening next year by the.

Thank you. Yeah. Ready? , but if I had a conversation with her, because ideally if we're talking physique, you need to save your caloric deficits for where, for when they really matter. Because the more you diet, the less your body responds. To dieting phases. So if you have always been a chronic dieter, a yo-yo dieter on and off diets , your metabolism is gonna be essentially effed.

Okay? I'll just, I, I'll just , put it frankly, , your metabolism's gonna be f because you've trained it to be effed because of constant going in and out of diets. Any who Side tangent. I am not gonna be dieting this summer. I'm gonna be embracing being strong af. And getting stronger in the gym and working on my goal of getting 500 pounds on my hip thrust.

And my goal is to be above 200 pounds on my squats and my deadlifts, which I used to be a year and a half ago. Long story there. all this to say is I am embracing the season I am in, and yes, would it be nice to have more defined abs for the summer of. Would it be nice to like show more of my shoulder muscles?

Yes, but that is not gonna serve me for my future goals, which is to get on stage next year. So you know what I'm gonna put in the work now. I'm gonna suck up not having a six pack abs right now for the end goal, which is maybe getting on stage next year. And I think the same mindset can be applied to you.

You might not have abs right now, but you know what? You might be in the season that your sole focus is to get healthy, get strong. Maybe your season right now is to focus on your family so you know what? You're gonna be the best mom. You're gonna be the best wife. Maybe you're in a season that you wanna really excel at work.

You wanna get that next promotion. You want to get that next certification. You wanna pursue your side hustle, so maybe your physique goals are gonna be on the back burner for a few months, and that's totally fine. But I wanted to discuss a couple things from that reel I posted. I, I'll have to go back to see if I could find it again because it was a really good one.

But essentially there were a couple questions that this real posed. One of them, the most poignant one I think. Who made the rules of what your body should look like? And I want you to think about that because when you are feeling bad about your body, and if you wanna take a minute and just think in this very moment, if you were to put on some short shorts, a tank top, heck put on a crop top, like what does your mind do when I say that?

Like, do you cringe? Are you a little nervous or scared? Like why is. Who are we trying to impress with our bodies?  Whose perception of us are we so worried about? And I'm not here to give you all the answers, but just it's interesting questions , and maybe that can help frame a little bit of your mindset with the, the warmer months coming up.

And it's interesting, like when you think of the Dieter's mindset of wanting to be the smaller, thinner version of yourself, like why is that? Like what is being smaller and thinner? Why is that more socially acceptable?  I know for me personally, I don't always associate being smaller and thinner with being healthy.

I don't show me a 90 pound female who's like five foot three. I'm gonna, I'm gonna find some things that are not healthy with her. Now, is every single 90 pound female? Unhealthy? Probably not. ,  so I have some questions to pose for you. When you do get into that dieter's mindset of wanting to be smaller, thinner, when really you should be focusing on the healthiest version of yourself, because here, let me give you an example. So I'm 5 2, 5, 1, and three quarters on a very short day.

 Before I had my babies. The heaviest I was was about one a hundred thirty eight pounds. And I was like newly in my relationship. I was super happy dating Ethan. I didn't give a F about what I ate or I was in love. You know what? And sometimes it happens, right? When you're in love, all you wanna do is enjoy time with that other person and.

You forget about eating healthy. Cause all you're doing is you're going out on dates into restaurants and going to the movies and eating extra butter popcorn, right? Like, that was me. So I steadily gained weight when normally my walking around average weight was maybe like 120 pounds. , so for me personally, 138 pounds was heavy.

But today, ,  14 years later. I'm actually a hundred and thirty five, a hundred thirty six pounds, but my physique dramatically different. I have way more muscle. I probably have 12 pounds of muscle. , now that I did when I was in my twenties, which I'm super proud of by the way.

It takes a lot of time to do that. Not to toot my horn, but

 My point is the number on the scale is not an indication necessarily of your health status is what I'm trying to get at. I don't want this to be confused with the whole body positivity movement. I am a critic of, not because I don't believe that you should love your body in all its glories in all shapes and sizes, but I think the whole body positivity movement leads people to believe that they can be healthy at any size.

I disagree and I might get some hate on that, and I'm okay with that, but here's my, here's what I strongly. Show me a 400 or 500 pound woman. She's not healthy. Okay, here, here, here's the deal though. The great majority of chronic disease processes in this country are undiagnosed.

So yeah, you might have a 400 pound woman and you might say, oh, she doesn't have diabetes, or she doesn't have high blood pressure. She doesn't have sleep apnea. It's cuz she probably has not been diagnosed with it. So that's my problem with the whole Bos body positivity. I'm not saying you should not love your cellulite.

I got cellulite. I'm gonna embrace that. Okay. Like I'm embracing my scars. I'm trying to embrace all the things. Now am I perfect? Do I go out wearing a little thong bikini every day and and like, Woohoo. No. But should we love our bodies for what they do for us a hundred percent. But I also think we should put more of a value on the health of our bodies over the physical appearance, 

so when you start to slip into that dieter's mindset, I have a few questions for you. I want you to think about, one, what do you love about your body? And if that's hard for you. An exercise that I've seen people do is they sit in front of a mirror, ideally like a full length mirror, and they don't get to leave that spot until they can find a part of their body that they can say that they like.

Maybe if you can't jump right to the love part, start with like, I like the color of my eyes. And you do this exercise over and over and over again until you can start to identify more things about your body that you like. Some days, for example, I like that my hair is curly. Now, would I love to have straight hair all the time?

Sure. It's, it's kind of like all the curly-haired girls want straight hair and all the straight haired girls want curly hair, right? Like we, we want what we don't have. But question number two, what has your body done for you in your life? 

, if you've had children, that's a big one. And my body has blessed me with children, and I actually paused when I said that because I was thinking of my own body when I was 26, 27, 28 pleading. To the universe to give me children, and I couldn't get pregnant or stay pregnant. So now I have to remind myself that I am incredibly blessed to have my children.

But even if you haven't had children, like what has your body done for you? 

Like, has your body, you know, allowed you , to run a half marathon? Or does it allow you to go kayaking with your friends in the summer? Or  is your body able to be strong enough to take care of a, a sick relative? You know, tho these are just some amazing things that maybe we don't take time to really think about, but.

When it comes to being hard on our bodies, I think that's really the time to take a pause and think about the positive, wonderful things that your body is responsible for. Question number three. When you are stuck on that dieter's mindset of wanting to be smaller and thinner, what are you missing out on?

By fixating on what your body should look like. And I say should, because who's deciding what our body should look like, right?

, are you having all of these amazing summer plans coming up, but you're thinking about how you're gonna cover up your body because it's not exactly what you thought it would look like this year? Or are you gonna go whoop it? Wearing whatever cute swimsuit that you want because you don't wanna miss out on those experiences.

And, and can you envision somebody who is super self-conscious in their body and their body language, what that looks like? And they're probably covering themselves up. They have their shoulders slumped in. They're probably quiet, not making eye contact with people, probably not talking that much. Like they're probably not having a very good time, right?

Compared to somebody who's fully embracing the experience that they're having, and they're talking and they're joking, they're having fun. Like those are two incredibly different experiences that you are in complete control over. You have the power to have more fun in life by changing your thought process.

And my last tip is to just think about what season you're in and embrace that season. Like I mentioned, right now, I'm really focusing on my personal strength development and getting stronger. So what that means is I'm not gonna be in a caloric deficit. I'm not dieting because that doesn't align with my goals and my vision for myself for the next.

So just some food for thought, and I want you to know that it's okay to have these thoughts, but just to recognize them and see them for what they are and just question them, like, whoa, where's that coming from? And that you have the power to slowly start to shape your mindset about your body.

Because you have the power to have the best experiences because I think the best experiences actually come from your mind, and they come from your ability to know that you can make whatever you want possible. So I want you to have a kick ass spring. I want you to do all the things you wanna do. And I love you for tuning into this.

Thank you for  listening to my spiel, and have a wonderful blessed week y'all.