Skinny Jeans not fitting? Here's What to Do.

I know that there are two big reasons many of my followers follow me based on all of the messages coming through my DM inbox. Either you may be dealing with a thyroid issue as I have… or you might be struggling with dieting, restrictive/ disordered eating/ body image… like I did. Today we’re going to talk a little bit about the latter because I know it can be a big mental thing that gets in the way of you living your life.

In my online course, I dedicate an entire module to body image and how you can work through those challenging body image moments.

Whenever I talk to my clients who are struggling with body image, I know that their biggest fear (mine was too) was how to navigate the potential changes that may happen in their physical bodies as they begin to embrace intuitive eating. Whenever I have these conversations, I have this confused jumble of emotions for the woman I’m working with where on the one hand, I feel so resentful of diet culture and frustrated that women are made to feel like we should all look a certain way to be valued when all bodies are MADE to be different. And on the other hand, I feel so excited for them (and for you too!) that they chose me to guide them and help them because there is a way through.

Whenever I have a client tell me that she looked in the mirror and felt like she had to change because she was too uncomfortable to go to the beach in her bikini or that she cried when she saw a photo of herself on someone’s Facebook that she didn’t like, I get brought back to the moment when I was first embracing intuitive eating and I had the exact same setback. I was reading all of the books, working with a health coach, working with a therapist, and most importantly, giving myself permission to eat whatever I wanted after years of so many rules around what time I could eat, how much, which foods … you know the drill. I was taking rest days from my crazy cardio, I had gotten rid of my scale, and I got my period back which felt like a huge win. A total WIN, right?! I knew I was doing something right. It felt like real healing in my body and real expansion in my mind.

Then one Monday morning, I was getting ready for work and trying on a pair of skinny jeans that I just couldn’t zip or button anymore… and that was when I completely lost it. I sat in therapy crying. I called my mom crying. I hid in my closet and called out from work.. crying. No joke. I felt like I had failed. Everyone who had done this in the past that I saw on Instagram all claimed weight loss. I was so scared of my body changing, and my immediate reaction was, “ok, what diet can I do now to fix this.”

But then I took a deep breath. I came back to everything I had learned over the last few years. The books, the podcasts, the therapy, and the coaching sessions. All of which had made me realize how much I had absorbed diet culture and how it still had this pull on my mind. The only way I saw myself as valuable was through the way that I looked. The only way I knew how to deal with the uncomfortable emotions that came along with a body that wasn’t “perfect” (or any emotions that were uncomfortable tbh) was to diet, restrict, and try to make myself smaller. As you know, this is where that whole distraction thing comes in because the more obsessed I was with my weight, what I ate, when I exercised - the less I was present in my life with the people and things I loved. It was an endless, exhausting search for happiness outside of myself.

… I just wish I would have known earlier to look INWARD.

I thought that all of this work I was doing on myself meant at the end of it I was supposed to love the way my body looked (back to all of those Instagram women I saw who talked about their intuitive eating journeys 🙄). Loving your body doesn’t mean you love what you see every time you get in a bikini or take a photo. It’s about loving yourself from the inside out so that even if you have those bad body image moments, you can still make loving choices and act lovingly towards your body. To nourish it, give it the rest it deserves, reverse the negative self-talk in the moments that feel the hardest.

In the WBK health and hormones course, I teach you how to love and care for your body in the most challenging moments and how, when you do that, your hormones come back into balance.

If you’ve ever struggled with how you see your body or you’re wanting to embrace intuitive eating but are scared of the changes that may occur, I would love to offer you the emotional support and science-backed data around why this is such an important piece of your health journey to embrace. You CAN absolutely experience your body in a different way, one where it doesn’t distract you from enjoying your damn life. As a certified holistic health coach, I would love to support you in navigating your health and hormones. Head to this link to sign up for my free webinar and take the course!

X, K