As parents, we all strive to give our children the best, from instilling kindness to encouraging strong, healthy relationships—with others and, most importantly, with themselves. However, what we may not realize is how deeply our own self-perception can shape the way our children see themselves. Let’s explore this further.

 

Picture this: you’re getting ready for a night out, and your daughter is in the room with you. You try on several outfits, but each one seems to highlight a part of your body that you’re unhappy with.

 

“This dress makes my hips look too big,” you say.

 

“This skirt shows too much cellulite.”

 

You say these things out loud, without a second thought. A few days later, your daughter has an event to attend, and as she goes through her closet, she can’t find anything that feels right. She echoes the same words you used earlier, criticizing her appearance in the same way she saw you do.

 

Children are like sponges, soaking up everything around them—including how we talk about ourselves. Negative self-talk can quickly become internalized by them, leading to body image issues and a poor sense of self-worth. When children hear us being critical of our own bodies, they start to view their own in the same light, often mirroring those negative behaviors.

 

This is why it’s so important for us, as parents, to show love and gratitude toward our bodies. By appreciating the incredible things our bodies do for us—whether it’s carrying us through a long day, allowing us to embrace loved ones, or simply keeping us alive—we teach our children to value and respect their own bodies. When they see us practicing self-love, they’re more likely to develop a healthy, positive relationship with their own image.

 

It’s not just about words—it’s about modeling self-compassion, so that they, too, can grow up feeling confident in their own skin.

 

Here are 3 Steps to Ensure Your Child’s Future of Food Peace and Body Love:

 

1. Stop restricting.

 

Even if you think you are not restricting, you probably are. The diet mentality is very sneaky and shows up in ways you wouldn’t imagine. Be honest with yourself. Are you substituting zoodles for pasta? Are you choosing cauliflower pizza for regular pizza? Are you ordering 2 veggies instead of a potato and veggie at the restaurant? If yes to any of these questions, then you are restricting.

 

2. Watch your language.

 

Be very careful how you speak in the home, especially when your daughter is around. Do not be judgmental of food, such as this is a “good” food, and this is a “bad” food. Putting labels on food demonizes food and increases the fear of eating those foods.

 

3. Stop body checking.

 

When you get dressed and look in the mirror, be aware of your comments about yourself and your body. Be aware of your non-verbal behaviors as well. Looking in the mirror and wincing or grunting are all heard and seen by your daughter. Instead of instilling hatred for your body or body parts, teach what it means to have respect for your body.

 

The truth is, I recognize that this is all easier said than done. It takes time, patience, and fighting back against the messages you hear every day. But if you want to save your daughter(s) from going down the rabbit hole of dieting, food fear and body worry, then now’s the time.

 

Ready to work on your relationship with food and your body? Email me at bonnie@dietfreeradiantme.com to set up a quick complementary call.

You may not realize it, but after years of dieting, food has ruled your life. The dieting mindset has taught you that food is meant to be consumed under strict guidelines without enjoyment. However, hopefully, you are now realizing that this is just not true!

 

Remember back when you were a child, there were so many exciting experiences every day, and meals and snacks were just a part of the routine. Day-to-day life was not driven by whether you ate the “right” or “wrong” foods.

 

When you focus too much on eating and dieting, food begins to control your life rather than being a part of your day. You find yourself canceling your lunch date with your friends because you’re afraid there will be nothing on the menu that you “can” eat.

 

Or you spend hours looking over the menu trying to figure out which foods you can eat while staying on your diet. Following food rules to lose weight removes the pleasurable experiences from your life.

 

The good news is that when you finally give up dieting, you do not need to follow external food rules anymore. When you start the intuitive eating journey, you learn how to eat based on your body’s hunger and fullness cues. And, when you rely on your body’s signals, you enjoy every eating experience.

 

The concept of “Gentle Nutrition” can be confusing to beginners. In truth, if you are still dismantling diet culture messages that have flooded your mind, you may not be ready to learn how to incorporate nutrition into your journey in a gentle way. And that’s okay. Your time will come. But if you are ready, then here are some gentle ways for you to do so from a lens of self-care!

 

4 Tips to Incorporate Gentle Nutrition

 

1. Start Your Day with Breakfast

 

When you wake up in the morning, your body calls for fuel. If you ignore this call, you will likely overeat later in the day. Instead of focusing on food as a tool for weight loss, focus on it as a tool for fueling your body to get your day started. As a past dieter, you likely skipped breakfast because you either claimed you weren’t hungry or that it caused you to eat more throughout the day. On the contrary, when you skip breakfast, you set yourself up to be overly hungry which then leads to overeating. Enjoy a hearty nutritious breakfast such as oatmeal with fruit and nuts or a veggie omelet in a whole grain tortilla.  You will see how much energy you have to start your day and will find you are not “starving” by lunchtime.

 

2. Be Prepared – Bring Healthy Snacks with You

 

If you approach mealtime feeling ravenous, you may eat beyond comfortable fullness to the point that you feel stuffed and sick. When you begin to feel the first signals of hunger, the only way to answer that call is to eat, which you can only do if you have food with you. This is the reason why I always carry some snacks when I leave the house, and I recommend you do too. Having snacks on hand will prevent you from making a trip to the vending machine and can even save you some money.

 

3. Be Creative with Produce

 

If you’ve been a dieter, you have probably had your fill of fruits and veggies. Maybe so much so that you avoid them at this point (“carrot sticks, no thanks!”). Do a quick audit of the food you eat in a day. If you’re falling short on produce, then you are falling short on valuable nutrients and antioxidants for good health. Instead of reluctantly adding steamed broccoli to your menu, get creative. Make a spinach lasagna, stuffed peppers, or a roasted eggplant salad.

 

4. Approach Your Meal with Positivity

 

By making food a positive force in your life, you will end that unhappy relationship you’ve had with food and be on the road to optimal health and wellness. Approach each meal as an opportunity to show respect to your body. Keeping the intuitive eating principles in mind will ensure you have full satisfaction in your meals.

 

Embrace the concept of ‘Gentle Nutrition’ by prioritizing self-care. Start your day with a nourishing breakfast, keep healthy snacks on hand, get creative with fruits and vegetables, and approach meals with a positive mindset. This approach fosters a healthier, more balanced relationship with food, free from the constraints of diet culture. If you’re interested in learning how to make peace with food through gentle nutrition, feel free to reach out to me here.

Summer is in full swing! There’s less stress, no school carpools or tutors to schedule and it’s a time when you can take some much-needed time off.

 

In the days when I was dieting, I would often be apprehensive about an upcoming vacation. It would start with the thought of trying on all the summer clothes in my closet to see what “looked good” and have them piled high on my bed until I narrowed it down to what would make it into my suitcase.

 

Then of course it was the thought of what I would eat on vacation. Would the restaurants have food that was “on my diet”? What would happen to my weight if I ate out at a restaurant each evening? And what about the drinks? I don’t mean water, that I have no problem drinking. I mean the cocktails that I may want to enjoy at the pool or dinner. How many calories and how much sugar will it have and how will it affect the number on the scale?

 

Oh my, this is just so exhausting, so forget it! I’ll just enjoy my vacation and start my diet again when I get home.

 

Does this sound familiar to you? Have you done this, or thought these same things?

 

The above scenario depicts what I call the “Vacation Diet Mindset.” Yep, there’s a name for this. You are so good on your diet all week/month/year long, but vacation comes and all that “goodness” gets tossed out the window. Why?

 

Well, since you’ve been depriving yourself of the food you love while dieting, you figure that when you are away on vacation and enjoying yourself, you might as well enjoy yourself with food too. But the problem is it leads you to overeating and overindulging and quite honestly, not respecting your body.

 

Here’s the thing. If you were not restricting all week/month/year before your vacation, you’d be enjoying all the food you love all the time and you wouldn’t have to go into “Vacation Diet Mindset” when you went away.

 

So how do you shift out of this mindset? Here’s 3 Steps to avoid the Vacation Diet Mindset:

 

1. Commit to no longer dieting.

 

By dieting, I also mean your own self-designed diets and food rules you put into effect for yourself. I know that’s a tall order, but until you can give yourself unconditional permission to eat what you desire, you will restrict and deprive and fall into the Vacation Diet Mindset on your next vacation.

 

2. Take the Mindful Eating Pledge. 

 

This means promising yourself that you will be mindful of the food choices you make, and you will maintain an awareness so you can fully savor and enjoy the food you are eating. When you do this, you will find that it will be easier to recognize fullness and stop before you get overfull.

 

3. Ask for Support. 

 

The journey towards returning to being an intuitive eater and achieving WholeBody Trust™ of your mind, your hunger, and your food takes time and requires support. There is no reason you need to do this alone. Seek support from your loved ones, a registered dietitian nutritionist-certified intuitive eating counselor, and a community of like-minded women on the same journey as you. It’s powerful!

 

Are you struggling with your intuitive eating journey and want to take it to the next level? Come join my free FaceBook group.

Sometimes there are barriers to achieving the things we really want in life. If we let those barriers hold us back, then we will rarely achieve our goals. It’s important to do what is within our power to make what we want to happen.

 

Right now, the number one barrier to you creating a healthy relationship with food and your body is the slew of dieting ads and commercials that promise you the weight loss you so desire.

 

You may not see it this way. Perhaps you are reading these ads and thinking “this will be the diet that works for me.” And just like that, you hold yourself back from finally finding freedom from the battle with food and your body that you’ve been living with for years.

 

I promise you that dieting is not going to bring you any peace in your life. All that dieting will do is keep you on the roller coaster of restriction – binge eating – guilt – shame.

 

If dieting was the answer, it would have “worked” a long time ago.

 

So, how do you bust through this temptation to do “just one more diet”?

 

First and foremost, I want you to know that I understand the temptation to try that one last diet. I’ve been there before, so I do get it.

 

Here are 4 Steps Towards a Diet-Free Life:

 

1. Take A Break

 

Take a few minutes tonight and sit with yourself quietly. Be sure that you are relaxed, not hungry, and tell your family that you don’t want to be interrupted for at least 30 minutes. You’ll need to have a pad and pen handy.

 

2. Ask the Important Questions

 

Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and ask yourself the following questions:

• What has been the emotional cost of all my years of dieting? (examples – depression, anxiety, poor body image etc.)

 

• What has been the relationship cost of all my years of dieting? (examples – lost friendships, broken relationships, social anxiety etc.)

 

• What has been the health cost of all my years of dieting? (Example – blood sugar swings, elevated blood pressure, hair falling out, menstrual irregularities, GI trouble etc.)

 

After each question, open your eyes and begin writing. Don’t edit your words, just write.

 

3. Reflect on Your Answers

 

Read your responses to each question OUT LOUD (this part is crucial), and now ask yourself this last MOST IMPORTANT question:

 

If I don’t break this chronic dieting pattern, how will that affect my future and that of my daughters and sons who are watching me and learning from me?

 

4. Make the Commitment!

 

Declare “I am committed to never dieting again!” This statement may seem simple to say, but it carries a lot of weight. Just saying it out loud can help change your brain chemistry to move past dieting!

 

You don’t need to walk this journey alone, nor should you. We all need support along the way. If you are ready to take the next steps towards peace with food, come join my FaceBook group.