If Not Dieting, Then What? Life After Diets Interview with Robyn Patton

If Not Dieting, Then What? Life After Diets Interview with Robyn Patton

Life After Dieting – interview with Robyn Patton Recently I had a lot of fun speaking with Robyn Patton from Intuitive Nourishment. Turns out we have quite a few things in common: we both like crazy hair, we both like to make real food, and we’ve both worked as weight loss counsellors back in the day. We’ve also both spent a ridiculous amount of years operating from a dieting mindset and trying to feel safe in our own bodies.   If Not Dieting, Then What? (It’s a book!) After following the dieting path for years trying to like her body and fit in, Robyn

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The Easiest Way to Exercise

The Easiest Way to Exercise

Easiest Way to Exercise? Just Move Your Body   I’m grateful to report that our family of four (including one fully fledged teenager and one on the cusp) managed to survive six nights away together at the Sunshine Coast. We had a wonderful time exploring the hinterland, enjoying the pool and walking along the beach. Unsurprisingly, the Sunshine Coast is abuzz with health enthusiasts. People of all ages, sizes and capabilities were busily huffing and puffing as they walked, ran, jogged and rode their bikes, or walked their dogs. Early in the morning, late in the afternoon and any time in-between,

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Is Self-Worth Found In the ‘Perfect’ Sized Jeans?

Is Self-Worth Found In the 'Perfect' Sized Jeans?

Is Self-Worth Found In the ‘Perfect’ Sized Jeans? During a little spring clean of my denim jeans drawer last week I was inspired to create a video for my YouTube Channel and bare my bedroom clean-out with all my social media subscribers. Apparently I was oblivious to just how many pairs of denim jeans I had accumulated and held onto over the last ten years – waiting for the day I was ‘thin enough’ to wear them again.  For some reason every time my Beloved would help me clean out my wardrobe (you know, with the approving nod or the toss-it-out shake) I

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Boost Your Body Confidence

Boost Your Body Confidence

Body Confidence Boost This weeks’ blog is for all those women and young girls who can’t stand to look at themselves in the mirror – without judgement. I know how challenged you feel at the mere thought of looking in the mirror and liking what you see – let alone asserting you actually love the disappointment who looks back at you. It’s hard to be a self-assured and secure woman in today’s society. Even on a good day one phrase, one word, one look can be all it takes to dent that hard won self-confidence of the woman in the mirror

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5 Reasons Why Your Diet Isn’t Working

5 Reasons Why Your Diet Isn’t Working

5 Reasons Why Your Diet Isn’t Working This week I was awarded a place in Diet-to-Go’s Top 100 Healthy Lifestyle Bloggers list for 2015!  Check the list (including me!) out here: http://diettogo.com/blog/top-100-diet-blogs I’m really honoured to be in such esteemed company when it comes to talking about dieting and self-care, because it increasingly disheartens me to see so many women (and men) of all ages continue to make misguided attempts to lose weight – effectively working against their bodies and taking on the shame of their “failure” when they put all the weight back on. I spent 18 years hating my body and blaming my weight. I

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Homemade Body Scrub and Face Mask

Homemade Body Scrub and Face Mask

Homemade Beauty: Body Scrub and Face Mask I am often complimented on my skin (which is lovely to hear as I age). When people ask what I use, they are often surprised to learn that I actually do not use expensive creams, masks or potions. Putting toxins and chemicals on my face isn’t as appealing as it used to be before I knew what was actually in those products and how they harm the body. Just my like my REAL FOOD Guidelines, I like to keep my beauty routine simple. Unfortunately I was fond of using harsh glycolic acid peals and lightening

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My Interview on HOT FM

My Interview on HOT FM

HOT FM Interview I love talking on the radio, especially going into the studio and sitting around all the equipment that I would have a ball playing around with! I wouldn’t know what I was doing but I know I’d have fun! This morning I spoke on the radio with Hamish and Tanya from HOT FM 100.7 in Toowoomba. The interview was by phone and is a quick chat on women, food, dieting and emotional eating. It’s nice and short at four minutes long so it won’t take a lot of time for you to listen in while you’re working or pottering

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Do you Love or Hate your Body?

Do you Love or Hate your Body?

Body Love Heals Body Hate How many times have you looked at your physical reflection and zoned in on the body parts you’re not so fond of, only to begin a barrage of nasty name-calling and judgements in your mind towards it? Our body image is largely dependent on how we FEEL and THINK about our bodies. When we have negative feelings towards our bodies, our mind, mood, confidence, eating choices and behaviour all decline as we focus on those negative feelings. We start feeling overcome by them, and stop noticing anything good about ourselves. [Tweet “Your body is a beautiful complex machine. “] It keeps you upright, breathing

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Do You Love or Hate Your Body?

Do You Love or Hate Your Body?

Summer Body-Love/Hate It’s certainly been warming up in the great south east. Makes me think about humid days, cool dresses and wearing a bathing suit in public… Does that thought fill your head with dread? As a child I loved summer. The adolescent me however, was struck with fear about what it represented. If you wanted to swim in the local pool or frolic on the beach, it meant baring your body beautiful and being on display – something I was definitely not comfortable with back then. It was enough to make me stop eating or take up marathon running!

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This is my Beautiful 40 year old Body

This is my Beautiful 40 year old Body

My Beautiful 40 Year Old Body For those of you wondering how my knee is healing after surgery in June, it’s been slow, especially as a secondary injury was initially overlooked. Over the years my body has faced tremendous abuse; physical, emotional and self-inflicted. I’ve been hard on myself and pushed my body to breaking point many times with several broken bones, tears and surgeries. Throughout many stressful years my weight struggled to settle because of the severe restriction, starvation and binge/purge episodes I put it through for 18 years. My hormones, metabolism and digestion broke down several times. I

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How to Create Healthy Personal Boundaries

How to Create Healthy Personal Boundaries

Creating Healthy Boundaries Imagine you KNOW that you’re the most important person in your life…. You wake up with energy and can’t wait to get going! You look in the mirror and love what you see! You make time to calm your mind, move your body and feed your soul – every day. You love yourself – and it shows with every thought you think, word you speak, and food choice you make. If you don’t immediately and whole-heartedly believe YOU are the most worthy and deserving person in your life, then time to reassess why, and where the bulk of your

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Eat Food. Mostly Plants. Not Too Much.

Eat Food. Mostly Plants. Not Too Much.

Eat (Real) Food I love to tell people about food designers, because most people haven’t even heard of the term, let along know it’s actually a job title. Food designers are a food manufacturer’s secret weapon. Their job description is to create the perfect ratio of fat, sugar and salt in a food product that will create opiates in the brain to have you craving more! Big fast-food companies rely on these food designers to create great wealth in their business at an even greater cost to public health. People restricting themselves on one diet or another especially find these

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How My Late Mother Inspired My First Wellness Retreat

How My Late Mother Inspired My First Wellness Retreat

My First Self-Love & Wellness Retreat Take Time Out Before You Burn Out Many of you who have met me in person or follow my writings know that I lost my Mother to Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma when I was 24. Even though nearly 16 years have passed, her influence on my life still permeates each and every day. My mother was a most wonderfully warm woman, who never thought twice about helping anyone. She was generous and thoughtful, quick to laugh and smile and she was always ready with a helping hand or a soothing cuddle. As I meet more and more women throughout my work, I think of

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Eating Psychology Conference 2014

Eating Psychology Conference 2014

FREE Eating Psychology Online Conference Obesity, overeating, body image concerns, emotional challenges with food, and diet-related health issues have permeated our society, culture and mindsets. We’ve become the most unhealthy and unhappy we’ve ever been! Throughout my own recovery a huge A-ha! moment was realising that even though I was trying my hardest to watch what I ate and eat “healthy” food, my constant dogmatic, rigid and restrictive thinking was placing so much stress and imbalance within my body that it was impossible for me to find a healthy balance and weight. My digestive fire was just a glimmer of

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Transform your mind, body and life for wellness

Transform your mind, body and life for wellness

From Medication to Freedom! How my Achieving Your Wellness coaching program has helped my client move from medication to freedom. I have an intelligent, insightful and attractive young client who came to meet and work with me late last year in 2013. At only 18 she had spent years on anti-depressants suffering low moods, unhappiness, isolation and body image concerns that bordered on disordered eating. Her dreams of travel, true happiness, connection and vibrant health were being hindered by limiting beliefs and unhealthy habits and behaviours. She came to me with a desperate need to combat the life she had created for herself and turn

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