Embracing Body Positivity: Real Food Stories on Women’s Health and Midlife Challenges During Swimsuit Season

Are you tired of feeling overwhelmed by the pressures of bathing suit season? You’re not alone. In this heartfelt episode of Real Food Stories, host Heather Carey dives deep into the emotional challenges women face as summer approaches. Drawing from her own experiences and the societal expectations placed on women, Heather sheds light on the often unrealistic body image standards perpetuated by the media. She reflects on a thought-provoking New York Times article that reveals the anxiety many women encounter when shopping for swimsuits, highlighting a crucial truth: most women do not fit the idealized images we see in advertisements.

As a culinary nutritionist, Heather shares her struggles with body image, shaped by her upbringing and the relentless societal pressures surrounding weight and appearance. She encourages listeners to challenge the damaging belief that thinness equals happiness and invites them to explore their own body image issues. With a compassionate approach, Heather provides practical advice on cultivating a positive body image, emphasizing the importance of recognizing that many women share these common struggles.

Throughout this episode, Heather delves into the motivations behind weight loss and the impact of emotional eating, offering insights that resonate deeply with listeners. She advocates for self-acceptance and self-compassion, urging women to embrace their bodies as they are, rather than conforming to fleeting trends or societal standards. Heather also shares valuable resources to support listeners on their journey toward body acceptance, reinforcing that they are not alone in their experiences.

Join Heather as she promotes a shift in perspective, encouraging women to tune out critics and focus on self-love, acceptance and body positivity. This episode of Real Food Stories is not just about bathing suits; it’s about redefining beauty and embracing a healthy lifestyle that honors your unique body. Whether you’re navigating midlife transitions or simply seeking to enhance your self-esteem, this episode is packed with nutrition advice, embracing body positivity, healthy eating tips, and personal food stories that resonate with women everywhere. Tune in for a journey of empowerment and discover how to cultivate a positive relationship with your body, no matter the season.

Don’t miss this opportunity to transform your mindset and embrace the seven pillars of abundance that lead to a fulfilling life. Subscribe now to Real Food Stories for more insights into women’s health, mindful eating practices, and the emotional journeys we all share.

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Transcript:

Speaker #0
Hi everybody and welcome back. I’m so glad you are here with me again today. I am your host, Heather Carey, nutritionist, chef, mom, and a woman who has been around the block with food. I want to open up about real food in relationship to health, weight, and our bodies so you can make peace with what you eat. If this is your first time listening and you are just getting to know me, you might want to circle back to listen to the first two podcasts where I talk about my story around food, my years of dieting, and how I finally made peace with my weight and how I choose to nourish myself today. Okay, so I thought today would be a really great idea to address an elephant in the room and that is bathing suit season because we are in it right now. We are just about to officially get into summer. And I happened to read an article in the New York Times the other day that had this title, The Existential Crossroads of Bathing Suit Shopping. And then there was a tagline that said something about the emotional toll. And I said, great. Finally, an article in a major newspaper that will squarely address a topic near and dear to my heart, which is the incredible stress and angst we women feel. during this time of year when we have to get into a bathing suit or a pair of shorts and expose our bodies again after a long, deep winter’s rest. Personally, for me, this is one of the more stressful times of the year, even after all I’ve been through to make peace with my body. But as I read on, I was totally perplexed with this article. Did I miss something here? I even had to go to the online version to make sure I didn’t miss something important in the print version. The author is an editor at the newspaper, and the article went on to interview other editors, her friends, I’m assuming, about the troubles of finding the perfect suit. Not getting into the perfect suit, but finding the perfect suit. For all the reasons that personally baffled me. Some of them talked about not wanting to look like a teenager. The problems of finding a bathing suit without all the ruffles and fanfare. Or, as one editor stated, she wanted to be able to cartwheel on the beach without the suit riding up like she used to when she was younger. Okay, really? That’s the least of my concerns, to tell you the truth. I’m not sure who she thought the audience was for this article, but it surely was not me, which is surprising because I naturally assume you that the women who read the New York Times are me, midlife, well-educated, and with lots of thoughts about their bodies and getting into a bathing suit every summer that are not necessarily talked about out in the open. I’m really not sure who they were speaking to, but on the other hand, the article said so much. I think the author, like all of social media, might have just assumed that whoever reads this article is a size four and unabashedly confident with their bodies. Never was there a word mentioned about feeling insecure. So much for the totally misleading title. I had a vision in my head of these ultra fit New York Times editors who all had a love of their bodies. I was a little dumbfounded. Well, nonetheless, the fact is, most women actually almost all women are not a size four, at least in this country. Most women do not Photoshop pictures of themselves onto the scrolls of Instagram and are in reality fighting fiercely against narrative on women that is almost impossible to compete with. We fight, we lose, and we pass these beliefs down to the next generations, our kids mostly. And that is the belief that your body is only enough if you are thin strong, and beautiful. Nothing else can compete with that. I also saw a quote by Emma Thompson, the 63-year-old actress who has a nude scene in her upcoming movie, and she said, quote, to be truly honest, I will never ever be happy with my body. It will never happen. I was brainwashed too early on. I cannot undo those neural pathways. I, of course, have my own story around body image and the vulnerable feelings that get generated around this time of the year are very real, even to this day. I’ve said in prior episodes that for me, growing up in a family that equated thinness with happiness, I was very scrutinized for the way my body looked. I was taught to be ashamed of bathing suit season. Having to go clothes shopping with my mother and my sister, who was tall, very thin, and could rock any bikini that she came across, just made everything worse. Because it was understood that I probably could and should lose a few pounds. If I wanted to be happy. I remember my mother looking on at me full of pity with a look that said, if you just lost a little weight, imagine how much better off you would be. I’m actually not sure if this would have even mattered considering the culture I was raised in. I had middle school to contend with, high school, the popular girls who appeared to be naturally thin. and the mindset of you are only as good as the number on your scale. It was and still is a brutal time for women. And like Emma said, the brainwashing begins at an early age and really never leaves you. And even to this day, as a woman in midlife, I still brush off winter and head into spring with feelings of shame, my body not being or feeling good enough. Once that belief is hardwired into your brain, I’m not sure it ever goes away. Being in midlife means my body is shifting, morphing, and redefining itself in many different ways. I mentioned in my second podcast that I had lost weight and kept it off in a long-lasting way, and I will speak about how that happened in an upcoming podcast. But trailing into menopause has dragged up So many old feelings about my body and my weight. And I’m not going to lie, it doesn’t feel good sometimes. Because I’ve had to contend with the seemingly ageless supermodel Christy Brinkley, for example, who posts pictures of herself in a string bikini at age 68, and who likely spends a mint on plastic surgery and trips to the dermatologist. I will never be that, and I struggle with being totally fine with it, and still sort of wanting it. So we women have a lot to contend with as we age, and burying our skin in a swimsuit in the summer can certainly be one of them. But I wanted to ask you a question, and I will be posting a free PDF in the show notes that you are welcome to download, just so you can ponder these as well. Does thin equal happiness for you? Are we, as women, happier when we are thin? Does thinness create happiness? Do we feel more accomplished, more powerful? And if you’ve struggled to lose weight or come to make peace with your body, no matter what the size, what beliefs do you have in your head about this? I remember when I lost about 25 pounds a number of years ago, and a few things came up for me. One was the feeling of accomplishment, because I had struggled to some extent with my body image for my entire life. And making the commitment not to just lose weight, but to respect myself and my body, to take care of my body in the most compassionate way, felt unbelievably powerful. Not because I had lost weight, but because I had made a promise to myself and I followed through. I befriended myself in a way that was an amazing feeling. Not so much the weight loss itself, but the relationship I found with myself. The second thing that came up for me was the overriding knowledge that weight loss does not equal that happiness that we might be searching for. I accomplished this goal and I still had all my life struggles to deal with. My autoimmune disease to manage, a bunch of really young kids to love and care for, my marriage, family issues, career concerns, all of it was still there. Losing weight was never the solution to all of our problems. all of my problems. So if you’re thinking of losing weight and you are doing it because you believe it will make you a happier person or take away your problems or more popular or more desirable to other people, think very closely about this again. My mindset and my self-compassion are the most important things I walked away with from my weight loss experience. And those skills have served me many, many times over throughout my life. You can also lose weight and feel really good about yourself too in so many unexpected ways. Let me clarify exactly what body image is so we’re all on the same page. The Office on Women’s Health defines having a healthy body image as, quote, feeling comfortable in your body and feeling good about the way you look. And I’ll tell you, I don’t think I have ever come across a single woman who has said this about themselves. I see a lot of women for coaching who contend with this very struggle. They want to lose weight because they think it will make them happier. They think it will make them a better person, more stand out in their community. But what I believe most women really want is to feel at peace with their bodies, no matter what the size, because they have never had the chance to. I still catch myself interrupting someone who might dare say to me, look great, that outfit looks so good on you, even from my own husband. I will typically say back something like, oh, I’m feeling really out of shape right now, or something of that nature, because what would it sound like to the world if I said, yes, thanks, I feel really good about my body right now and really okay about the way I look right now. Cultivating a healthy body image takes work, period. And this is a lifelong practice. Because we women are going through so many stages in our lives, and I have seen many, many women get triggered or re-triggered when they enter midlife, and their bodies are not doing what they have been doing. The mantra for my clients is, I just want my body back. And the reality is that it has not gone away, but you need to learn to make peace with the changes in what you have right here and now. This is a time that I see a lot of disordered eating come up and real stress, real true stress over losing weight and trying to reclaim something that they have lost. The bottom line is that there is no age limit to disordered eating or bad body image. This is not something you have when you’re younger and just grow out of. And as we get older, body image issues can come back with a vengeance. When we live in a youth-obsessed world, The thought of getting older and not fitting into the standards held for women can be really difficult and emotionally very painful. Reclaiming our bodies or losing weight is not, I repeat, not as simple as some media influencers want you to believe. Because maybe you were bullied as a child or told by your mother that you would need to be on a diet. Maybe you suffered and still struggle with an eating disorder. and the feeling of control over food has become its own addiction. A poor body image affects all women, regardless of race, financial status, or your weight, be it overweight or underweight. We can’t shame ourselves into submission, nor can we simply read some words on the internet that say just do it, or where’s your willpower? Get your willpower out. When I see women for coaching, we spend a lot of time readjusting their attitudes and beliefs around weight loss and the why behind it. There is no negotiating this. It must come from a place of love for yourself first. So I’m actually due to buy a new bathing suit this summer, and you might be too. And I’m feeling that old familiar feeling of dread as I have been so conditioned to listen to. That voice that says exposing ourselves is stressful. Maybe I should just not go to the beach this year. I’m not worthy of exposing my skin to the warmth and sun like other women who simply get to enjoy the moment. And I’ve really had to stop myself and pause, slow down, even just get out my journal and write a little bit about this. What is going on? And just do some exploring with myself about how I am worthy as anyone. Else, no matter what age I am at and what I look like right now. And I want you to as well, wherever you are at on your health journey, to simply accept yourself right now. Tune out the inner critics, tune out the outer critics, unfollow the unrealistic, unattainable women on social media and lean into yourself because you are the best thing you’ve got. So I wanted to explore this a little deeper and give you some resources if you want to learn how to love your body and fight for a positive body image in a world that just says the opposite. Here are five things you can do and check out today to honor yourself and cultivate a better body image. Okay, number one, recognize the struggle that all women have. Whether women talk about this or not, there is no perfect body. And in fact, perfection, if you haven’t heard, is a total myth. So give up on it. Seriously, perfectionism is a battle you will never win. Instead, you can explore what it means to cultivate self-compassion within yourself, which honestly is the most important missing ingredient to our healthy journeys. Two great resources, and I will link them in the show notes, are The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown, which is kind of like my Bible, and the book Self-Compassion by Kristen Neff. Both take up… space on my bookshelf, and I have probably read them a couple of times each. They’re both really great introductions into forgiveness, compassion, and being kind to yourself. Okay, number two, if you are thinking about losing weight, I want you to really consider why you want to lose weight. And again, I can tell you from years of experience that losing weight because you think you can beat yourself into diet submission or because weight loss will solve all your problems will never stick. You might have had the experiences of going on diets and off diets, losing weight and gaining weight back because you might have likely been without a solid why behind it. So rather, why you want to lose weight might have more to do with honoring your body you Staying healthy for your children, being your healthiest for you. Maybe it’s you’re wanting more energy. You’re wanting just to feel good. Losing weight because you think you will look better in a bathing suit will probably be short-lived and incredibly frustrating if you go on a restrictive fad diet only to gain the weight back. So really give some consideration to why you want to lose weight. Number three of the tools that you can use right now to cultivate a better body image and make some peace with where you are at right now. Find people who are like-minded. Seek out people you admire and where body image really made no difference in their success. And if you’re walking into a store to buy a bathing suit this week, buy your size. Accept where you are right now. Do not try to suffer in clothes or a bathing suit that is not suited for your body type. Do not buy a size that is too small with the thought that you will fit into it one day. Be in the here and now. Things will change. Things can change. You will grow, but stay in the here and now for today. Number four of the things that you can do right now to cultivate a good body image. Make a list of what is in your control today. What do you have power over that can help to bring a sense of ease and which in turn can lower your stress? Okay, number four, make a list of what is in your control. What do you have power over that can help to bring a sense of ease today? Some of these might be. the food you choose to eat and nourish yourself with. It might mean leaning away from fad diets with big promises. You have control over the amount of sleep you get, knowing that sleep is one of the most important things you can do for yourself mentally and physically. You have control over dealing with stress, and this might mean learning how to meditate or journal, my own personal favorite. How about how much you move in your activity level? And again, adding this in because you know that exercise is so good for you mentally and physically. You also have your intuition, your trust, and faith in yourself. This is yours and no one else. And finally, number five, learning to be okay with what is not in your control. And that is going to mean social media, super unrealistic thin women. How tall we are, our genetics, these are things that are literally out of our control. And these are things that will just not change in our lives. And that’s okay. We have to learn to accept what is right now. I have a lot of tools, thoughts, and strategies for making peace with your body. And I think I will leave you with this for now and continue this conversation in the next episodes. I hope you have a great week. And if you love this podcast and have thoughts, do not hesitate to leave a note in the comments. And most important, please be sure to rate and review. It would mean the world to me. I will see you next time. Bye for now. I wanted to tell you about my upcoming Summer Inspired Recipe Club. Now, all of this talk on seasonal eating in my very last podcast before this one might sound fun, but if you don’t have a clue as to how to use fresh herbs or creative ways to cook things such as peaches, then I have something really fun for you. Beyond signing up for the Summer Inspired Recipe Club, this will take you almost no effort. I’m not asking you to put another task on your busy to-do list or have to go out and buy fancy things. Sign up and each week receive a packet of at least five recipes that highlight a vegetable, a fruit, or an herb that is in season that very week. There are recipes for breakfast, lunch, dinner, treats, and snacks. And if you have ever wondered, for example, if you can use tomatoes in a dessert, Sign up for the club to find out how. We have two optional Zoom meetings during the summer to ask questions and to talk to me live, plus lots of bonuses. I hope you will consider adding some fun and creativity to your summer by joining. And best of all, I have decided to make this recipe club totally free. It will be a great experience and a chance to really get seasonal with your eating. We begin on June. 29th and our zoom calls will be in july and august i hope i can see you in the summer inspired recipe club