I believe dieting is a violent act. I don’t feel neutral, or calm, or indifferent about dieting. I feel quite clearly that dieting is a violent act that (predominantly) women are encouraged to perform against themselves. I find diets to be physically violent, often leading to exhaustive cycles of weight loss and gain and sometimes insufficient calories (i.e. energy) and nutrition. I find diets to be psychologically violent, often leading to mental obsession, increased stressed, shame, disempowerment, disembodiment, and a general sense of failure when the diet inevitably results not in weight loss, but weight gain. I find diets spiritually violent, often severing the most sacred of ties between ourselves and the wisdom of our body. I can think of few things as holy as the…

You are not the bad guy in the story of your life. If you read a novel and the main character made all the same, moment by moment, choices that you have, in the context of a life identical to yours, the result, I’m sure, would be compassion and empathy for that character—not judgement. At every turn of your life from the day you were born you have first acted to keep yourself safe and soothed. This is primal. This makes sense. You make sense.  We don’t always have access to resources within ourselves that might steer us toward less harmful actions. Sometimes our actions hurt ourselves or others. And still this doesn’t make us the bad guy. If you are carrying around a thousand pound boulder…

Sometimes I find fatshion blogs to be fun and inspirational. And sometimes, well, not. I often recommend that clients look at more body positive blogs, especially ones with images of fat people. It’s a way to recalibrate your brain so that fatter bodies seem more like what they are – normal. (I’m not a big fan of the idea of normal, but often realizing that your body is normal rather than gross, weird, and abnormal is an important step in your body love journey.) After practicing serious, radical body love for about 7 years now, I rarely see an image that makes me feel bad about my body. But loving your body is often like peeling an onion, and though I’ve peeled away nearly all of the …