There are many ways to be well.

We get a lot of messages, often conflicting, about what we should do to be healthier and happier. Many of these messages have subtle, and not so subtle, messages of shame and guilt imbedded in them.

We can feel like wellness is something we are morally obligated to pursue to be worthy of existing. The truth is, we do not owe anyone wellness, and we certainly do not owe anyone conforming to their definition of wellness.

To create our own definition of wellness, we want to answer the following questions:

1. What are my wellness values? Do I know why I want to practice wellness and what I want “wellness” to look like for me?
2. What is my intention? Do I know what I hope to get out of practicing a specific wellness behavior?
3. What are my circumstances? Does this wellness practice realistically work with my current situation, schedule, temperament, and obligations?
4. What is my history with this aspect of my life?

Case Example: Kelli

Kelli knows that she values self-care and self-worth. She also wants to be physically stronger than she is right now and she is exploring how to pursue this in a way that is healthy for her.

She has this goal because she wants to be able to play with her children and lift them up more comfortably. When asked if there were any more reasons she wants to be strong, she said, a little surprised, “well, I’m afraid my partner is not attracted to me and a part of me is worried they will look elsewhere.”

Kelli also has a history of over-exercising when she was younger. She used to use aerobic machines for hours at the gym. Today, having two small children, she cannot spend “hours” at the gym, but she feels she can use hand-weights at home.  When Kelli used to workout, she felt that the more she exercised, the more people would like her, and her mom, especially, would approve.

At face value, Kelli’s goal of “increased strength” is neutral/positive. When we look at the bigger picture, we can see that there are aspects of this practice that may not be aligned with her higher goal of being true to herself and increasing her self-esteem. Her strength goal is tied up with a belief that she has to earn her worth in the eyes of others. Because this factor is in play in her partnership, she is at risk for overexercise, even if it is a different type of exercise and her time is more limited.

While Kelli’s circumstances make ‘hand-weights at home’ a healthy practice, there is some risk in her intention and history with this practice. By working with her therapist, or even journaling about her fears about her relationship, she can increase the degree to which this wellness practice aligns with her value around self-care and self-worth.

When we explore our wellness goals through this lens, we can make sure that our wellness practices are truly aligned with our values and truly serving us, rather than our wellness practice serving our fears.

Wellness Tip: 

Get out your journal and write on the question,

“How do I define Wellness?”

Notice any “outside” influences. Are you seeking wellness to gain approval, a sense of worthiness to others, or to avoid rejection and abandonment? Have you attached a moral reasoning to your definition of Wellness? If you defined it in a way that was just about you and for you, how does your definition change?

There are many reasons women seek dietitian services.

Increasingly, dietitians are embracing an “anti-diet approach.” These dietitians are moving away from a focus on weight loss and  thinness as an ideal, or even healthy, goal.

If this surprises you, you can thank Diet Culture.

What is Diet Culture?

Anti-diet dietitian and author, Christy Harrison, explains:

“[Diet culture] is Western society’s toxic system of beliefs that: Worships thinness and equates it to health and moral virtue, Promotes weight loss as a means of attaining higher status, demonizes certain foods while elevating others, and oppresses people who don’t match up with its supposed picture of “health.” 

Diet culture can show up in many ways:

• following food rules
• not eating gluten (without having celiac disease)
• not eating after a certain time of day
• completely cutting out sugar
• making fat people pay for two seats on an airplane
• having to track down special clothing stores in order to find your size
• labeling foods “guilt-free” or “sinful.”

Our culture’s deeply held belief that thinness and dieting are “healthy” is not based in science, but instead by the profound influence of diet culture in every aspect of our lives, even, and especially, our doctors’ offices. Diet culture results in so many of us disconnecting from our natural biological processes and even shames us for having them!

What is an anti-diet dietitian?

Anti-diet dietitians take an approach that recognizes that healthy bodies come in all shapes and sizes. Healthy nutrition means different things for different people and a dietitian can be instrumental in helping a person on their healing and wellness journey. An anti-diet dietitian is a dietitian, educated and trained, licensed and registered, but without a foundational belief that the primary goal of nutrition counseling is “successful dieting.”

The primary goal is to help clients:

• reconnect with their awareness of their body’s biological signals for food
• move past fear of food and various eating behaviors
• cultivate nourishing, healthy behaviors around eating, movement, and well-being
• without a primary focus on weight

For many people, after years or decades immersed in the beliefs of diet culture, this change can be surprisingly challenging. Anti-diet dietitians are here to help!

To learn more, or to find an anti-diet dietitian for yourself, check out the providers here.

Many of us where raised with guilt and shame as tactics for getting us to give adults the behavior they wanted from us.

No wonder I see so many people who speak so harshly to themselves in an effort to motivate themselves to change!

This is the thing: Shame and guilt don’t work.

Shame and guilt cause us to feel unsafe and when we feel unsafe we go into defensive states, like fight, flight, or freeze. In fight/flight/freeze, we “batten down the hatches” and try to protect ourselves. Hardly a state for expansive growth, learning, and healing.

We don’t have to talk to ourselves using the same ineffective and hurtful strategies of our childhoods. We can be to ourselves the parents we needed, right now, today.

Here are some effective ways to kindly motivate yourself:

1. Decide to see yourself with compassion and patience.
2. Validate the “Ungh, I don’t wanna” feeling.
3. Show yourself an image of how you will feel after you do the thing.
4. Speak kindly to yourself inside.

Here are some examples:

“Oh, I know you want to keep scrolling. Of course you do. We worked hard all day and these videos are funny. And, you deserve to get good sleep and take a break from the phone. Let’s put on a sleep meditation instead.”

“Oop! We just blew off taking our medication/supplements this morning. Come on, let’s go back and get that done. We will feel better knowing we did that.”

“Of course you don’t feel like getting up to brush our teeth. We are tired. And, remember that we committed to taking care of our teeth. It will build our self-trust if we do this. Come on, you can do it.”

It may feel uncomfortable or even really silly at first, but there is a part of all of us that just wants kindness and compassion rather than the emotional abuse that our inner critic likes to dole out.

In time, it will feel natural, you will trust yourself more, and you might even find that you are feeling more patient and compassionate with others.

Wellness Tip:

Don’t try to argue with your inner critic, or try to get her to change her tune.

She won’t.

It’s not her job.

She’s just trying to protect you in the way that she knows how.

Instead, let her know, “hey, I’ve heard what you have to say. Thank you for trying to help. Just for a moment, I’d like to hear from this other voice.”

Then, see if you get a little reprieve from the harsh criticism.

Wellness is holistic.

This means that wellness is practiced across domains (or aspects) of our lives. We can practice physical wellness, mental wellness, interpersonal wellness, financial wellness, work wellness, parenting wellness, etc. When we over-focus on one thing, we neglect the others and find ourselves off balance. 

We may also find it hard to stick to dramatic wellness goals when we have not really thought through our choices and made sure they are truly aligned with our values and not our fears. 

Wellness should be a way in which we deeply care for ourselves and create freedom in our lives. It should not be punishing or shame-based. 

Here are 10 ways to

set yourself up for success with your wellness goals: 

1. Set a kind intention toward yourself. Wellness is not a moral obligation, it is a gift we can give to ourselves if we want to.
2. Focus on how you feel when you practice wellness behaviors rather than a visible outcome. We cannot control the outcome of most wellness behaviors. We can control whether or not we practice the behavior, so focus on how it feels to care for yourself today, rather than only imagine some idealized outcome tomorrow.
3. Remember that you and your life are not one thing. You and your life are made of many things, all important, and all needing your time and attention. Take a holistic view of your life when setting wellness goals.
4. Be realistic. Pick goals that match who you are and how you live, not who you wish you were or how you wish you lived. If you are not a morning person, don’t decide that you are going to get up and run every morning at 4:00 AM. You probably won’t. Create wellness plans that work with who you are.
5. Find a buddy. We know that when it comes to behavior change, having some healthy peer support and encouragement vastly increases your odds of following through. There have been countless times when the difference between me blowing off a wellness task and getting up and doing it has been an encouraging text from a friend.
6. Set the bar low. By choosing a low standard of completion, you make it easier to do a behavior on even your worst day. Also, anything above the bar is extra and you will feel extra good about it. These wins help to reinforce your desire to keep doing the thing.
7. Stack your wellness behaviors. This means choosing behaviors across “domains” that reinforce each other. For example, “stacked” wellness behaviors can look like: getting good sleep, meditation, joyful movement, taking medications, budgeting practice, and spending regular time in nature. Each of these built upon each other to positive impact our mental health, heart health, self-development, functionality, and productivity.
8. Be fluid. I write about “wellness practice” because it is just that: a practice. This allows us to consider the ebb and flow of life. Obviously, the more consistently we do something, the more outcome we will get from it. But, when we are making these kinds of changes, we have to be able to pick it up whenever, no matter how long ago we dropped it. Remove the shame and failure language from your self-talk about wellness. It is always there for us to pick up, no matter what.
9. Be adaptable. Wellness means different things at different times in our lives. Sometimes, we might do a great job at protecting our sleep. Then, we might have a baby and getting sleep looks very different. It doesn’t mean we are failing. It does mean we have to change the agreement we make with ourselves about what “good sleep” means.
10. Know your “why.” Make sure it’s yours. If we practice wellness behaviors to try to please someone else or achieve some outward picture of wellness, we may struggle to be motivated because we are not truly connected to our “why.”

Wellness Tip: 

10 Suggestions for Wellness Practice 

1. Take your prescribed medications and supplements each day as directed.
2. Take care of your oral health with brushing and flossing – and regular dental visits!
3. Move your body several times per week in ways that feel good and fun to you
4. Eat five servings of fruits and vegetables each day – get creative with this (like smoothies!)
5. Download a free meditation app and listen to one each morning before you get out of bed.
6. Make your bed each day.
7. Read one chapter per day in books that teach you something new.
8. Keep a daily journal – even if it’s just a sentence.
9. Drink 64 oz of water each day – or however much your doctor recommends.
10. Make that doctor’s appointment you’ve been putting off. Go on. Do it today.

During the 80s and 90s, diets ruled.

Losing weight, no matter how, was considered a good thing. I did my first real diet when I was 18, the summer after high school. I lost 25 lbs, easily, and I finally looked like the dancer I wanted to be. I received all kinds of praise for the changes in my body, especially from the people who loved me. But, the dieting was a full-time job and took center stage in my mental and emotional energy. I didn’t understand why other people weren’t dieting. Afterall, it was easy. If all you did, and all you thought about, was food and exercise, you, too, could be really thin! I knew it was probably weird that I would walk to the grocery store and look at and touch all the food I wasn’t going to eat, but, hey, I looked great, so it must be ok, right?

What I now know is that every subsequent attempt to shrink and control my body shape and size was harder and harder. It was also sending messages to my metabolism. These messages said that there often isn’t enough food. So my body, all on it’s own and without my permission, raised my weight set point and lowered my metabolism, and sent me increasing messages of hunger and decreased messages of satiety.

Turns out, my obsession with food wasn’t some weird thing. It’s what happens when we fight our body’s natural signals for food. It drives us to pursue it all the time. Then we become at war with our selves and our biology. It is a war we will ultimately lose in one way or another.

Intuitive Eating is a well-established and well-researched way of returning to our natural relationship with food. The book, first published in 1994 (the year of my first diet), offers ten principles for intuitive eating. Each principle is designed to bring us back into alignment with a truly healthy  relationship with food.

I had to learn that healthy does not equal thin. We can be Healthy At Every Size and we can be unhealthy at every size. Weight is not a primary determinant of health. For many people, a return to intuitive eating means a change in body size and composition. It can mean a decrease in weight. It can mean an increase. Understandably, given the intractability of diet culture all around us, these changes can be difficult.

Five Tips for Coping with Weight Gain When We Stop Restricting:

1. Know your Why. The most powerful way we can support ourselves through our intuitive eating healing journey is to know our “Why.” Why are we doing this? For many people, the answers lie in improvements to our mental health, our relationships, our daily living experience, and how we feel holistically. Revisiting this daily will help balance the feelings we may have about changes in our bodies.
2. Focus on how you feel. Identify all the ways in which you feel better physically and emotionally when you are well-nourished. Are you enjoying going out to eat with friends without worrying about sticking to your diet? Does it feel good to explore foods that used to be off-limits, especially traditional foods for holidays and celebrations? Is it exciting to have mental and emotional energy freed up from obsessing about food and weight? Focus on these benefits.
3. Buy clothes that fit. It is hard to feel good in our bodies when our clothes do not fit. Today, there are wonderful, stylish clothes available in a wide range of sizes. Enjoy styling yourself in ways that compliment your features that you like best!
4. Follow creators and influencers that send messages of body positivity and body neutrality. We need to counteract the influence of the bombardment of diet culture messages we receive from media, medical providers, and friends and family. Curating our social media and podcasts to include a healthy dose of body positive and body neutral messaging is a great way to change how we think and feel about our bodies.
5. Focus on what your body can do. Begin exploring movement that feels good to your body. Think of your body as a vehicle for relationship. What might that mean to you? What if your body belonged to you for your purposes and not for the purpose of being acceptable or consumed by others? How would you see your body differently?

Finally, be kind and gentle with yourself. We didn’t get here overnight and we won’t heal overnight. Find community where people understand what you are doing and why, but also how you feel when it’s hard. You deserve to feel healthy and whole. You deserve to be nourished and take up space. You deserve to belong to yourself.

Getting married and starting a family is tough.

It’s extra tough when it’s the second (or third) go around and one or both of you already have children and an ex- who comes along with the package. Each family is unique and there are few resources for navigating this sometimes treacherous terrain.

However, with A LOT of patience, listening, and compassion, families can successfully blend.

Here are five ways you can help your blended family become a family:

1. Slow down. Blended families become families in a slow-cooker, not a pressure cooker. Whatever your situation, it’s complex. There are several different people each with their own perception of what’s happening and their own feelings about it. Don’t expect that everyone will be excited about becoming a family. Children are often still grieving the loss of their first family. They may resent a new step-parent. They may fear the changes in routine and rules. Be aware of your own expectations for how things “should be.” Families grow and become over time, so it’s important to give each member time and space to have their feelings and grow into this new set of relationships.
2. Focus on relationship first. In all relationships, we just want to know: Can I trust you? Can I trust you to care about how I feel? Can I trust you to listen? Can I trust you to protect me? Can I trust you to understand? In marriage, this is the fundamental question, especially early on. However, our children want to know the same thing, especially when their family goes through such big changes. By focusing on communication and connection first, it is possible to turn down the volume on family member fear and anxiety and build up trust and openness. Check in with each other. A lot.
3. Make sure your current spouse knows and feels like they’re the priority. This can be especially tricky for men who feel that their spouse is the priority in their heart, but complicated dynamics with his ex-wife, and fear of separation from his children, may drive him to feel he has to appease his ex-wife, inadvertently making his current wife feel deprioritized. It is critical that spouses communicate regularly and thoroughly about these issues. Really try to understand what this is like for your spouse and what they need. When both of you feel heard and it’s all out on the table, then you can work as a team to decide how to meet each other’s needs – often hers to know her time and family is protected, and his to know that he is supported around making difficult choices to protect his relationship with his children.
4. Keep some old traditions and make new ones. Families become families over time due to shared experiences and traditions. Children will need to know that important things from their first family will still happen. It’s ok, especially in the beginning, to have special time between parent and child(ren) without the steps-. Create opportunities for time that is separate and together. New experiences will create new memories and shared meaning. This is about the long-game – investing in the family of the future now, even if everyone isn’t feeling like a family today.
5. Don’t wait to get help. If things are really tough, don’t wait to get help. Individual, couples, or family therapy can help. Sometimes one or more children are really hurt and angry and make sure everyone knows it. Sometimes the actions of an ex-spouse are very disruptive and sabotaging to a current marriage. Sometimes we want help for ourselves in learning how to best navigate the blended family situation. By proactively seeking help, families can better ensure their success and everyone’s well-being.

Remember: you don’t have to have all of the answers. It’s OK for things to be messy. How it is right now is not how it will always be. You won’t go wrong by focusing on relationship and connection over behavior.

It will get better.

Wellness Tip:

Find a therapist or support group that focuses on blended families from the beginning. It is important that you have someone in your corner and that you get to see that you are not alone.

Also, remember that children know when a parent is healthy and caring for them well. If they express all of their big feelings to you, then  you know that you are their safe harbor. As they grow up, they will gravitate toward the people who cared for and supported them.

Strive for a healthy process, not just an idealized outcome.