79 | BONUS: Fear, Body Image and Food - Dana Monsees Nutrition

This episode is a little change of pace from our regularly scheduled interview type episodes. I wanted to do a workshop-style episode on fear, body image and food with you guys with you guys so we can really dig deep into some of the topics we went into last week with Amy Smith from the Joy Junkie (so make sure you listen to Episode 78 first!). Even though a lot of the things we talked about weren’t directly about our relationship with food and our bodies, the topics have SO much crossover with food, dieting, body image, and our deep-seated beliefs about ourselves that drive us to these behaviors around eating, dieting and exercise that lead to these complicated relationship WITh food and our bodies. It’s really not about the food. It’s the beliefs we have about food and about our bodies and our worthiness that we need to start working on, not another diet change.

I’m going to be recording another Listener questions episode soon with Cristina so email or DM me with your questions you want me to answer! AND look for some break the diet cycle updates coming soon from us as well, so if you want to get in on the next round of the course, stay tuned (or email us!)

Questions from today’s episode:

What does your inner shit talker say to you?
What are your deep seated beliefs about worth? That you’ll never be BLANK enough? And WHY?
What was the messaging you received around body image growing up?
What was the messaging you received around food growing up? Were certain things always available, or were you not allowed to eat certain things? What is your relationship to those foods now? Were there people in your household growing up who were always dieting?
What is that fulfillment, that emotion that you’re looking for? What is your why behind chasing the perfect family, the perfect job, the perfect family, the perfect partner, the perfect body
What are you afraid of?
Where are you guilty of chronic people pleasing? And is it impacting your self-care?

Let’s stop saying I feel bad and I feel guilty when you feel you have done nothing wrong according to you!! Stop chronically apologizing. Stop allowing people to hurl guilt at you and internalizing it to the point where it’s taking over your life. Say it with me: “I’m not currently accepting any piles of shit so please don’t leave a message.”

If your worth is not created internally, you’ll always be searching for self-worth outside yourself – by attempting to control your food, body size, and other people’s perceptions of you. You’ll be stuck in the “I’ll be happy when’s” forever.