Ep 5 | From Self-Criticism to Celebration: Your Summer Body Mindset Shift

Dishing out some tough love to those who are struggling with the same pattern or routine of gearing up for summer but you definitely are not enjoying your beach vacations or trips to the pool because you are too obsessed with how your body looks and how you feel about yourself. So buckle up for this episode, it's made form a place of love! You can do anything you want and be anyone you want to be. Love y'all Cueties!

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Transcript

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Hey Cueties, welcome back to the q the New You podcast where I'm your host Meritt. And today we are gonna go over three things we're doing this summer to feel our best. We're talking about being done with body obsession and here's how we're feeling good instead for the summer. Because if your summer body goals kind of sound like this, you need to fix your belly or have a flat stomach, hide your thighs, restrict your food, you have to lose weight. And you do this to yourself every summer. It's just a pattern because we kind of hide in the wintertime with jackets and sweaters, and then summer comes and it's warmer, and then you want to have less clothes on because it's hot, and then you don't feel your best because you haven't been. Preparing and then you get in panic mode and you're like, oh my gosh, if I go to the pool, I'm not gonna enjoy it because I'm just gonna be obsessing over how I look and how I feel in my bathing suit. And I'm gonna be so self-conscious that I'm not going to enjoy myself. and now you just want to feel free and not be so obsessed with that, and to be more present and not go over every little insecurity you have. While you're trying to hang out, be with friends, have fun. Then this episode is for you, like I, I don't know if it's with age or what. I actually don't know a lot about cellulite. I know surface level kind of what it is, but I actually wanna do a deep dive just for myself on cellulite and what it actually is. And can you actually. Get rid of it in a healthy way, or is it like, um, your body just retains a lot of water? I, I don't know. So I think that's just gonna be a little side project for me, is figuring out what cellulite is and doing some research on that. Because when I hit, actually, I don't know when my body changed y'all. In my mind I'm like. Still 28 years old and I'm not, I'm 35. Okay. And I guess I assume my 30 5-year-old body's gonna look like it did in my twenties. And thus, sometimes it does, but other times it definitely doesn't. And I remember a picture of me was posted on. The internet, the internet of a hurling tournament and I looked at myself and I was like, holy shit, whose legs are those? Because that did not look like my leg or what I thought my legs looked like. And that was kind of a humbling moment. Not that it was bad. It was just weird to see. I guess I realized I had cellulite then. And that was a couple of years ago. And like, I still have cellulite, but I have had a flat stomach in the past. Not in a healthy way, but also in a healthy way. And that was more when I was doing long distance running and just a lot of cardio and not a lot of weightlifting. And then I started lifting weights more consistently. And my body just got a little bit bigger and now I'm dealing with kind of like the lower belly pooch. And again, I don't know if that's like, um, age related or. Well, you know what? To be honest, it's probably'cause I'm eating a lot of carbs because over in Europe, I don't know, we just eat a lot of bread, potatoes. Oh my god. Spain's so obsessed with potatoes. I feel like I'm eating potatoes or chips or fries or bread every day. So, you know, genetics plays a huge role. I know what you eat, what you put in your body plays a huge role. So, but now I have a belly and y'all my closet. I went, I, I had to go out and get new clothes, I didn't have to, I wanted to, because waking up recently when we moved to Spain, we didn't bring that much. I was like, oh, but I love the shirt, and the shirt and the shirt, and I get over here and all I have are crop tops. Like how do in my closet get filled with so many crop tops? I don't know. And now it's like, I don't wanna wear a crop top. Why do I have crop tops? Why do I not have just a regular shirt? Y'all, I don't even own a pair of jeans that go down to my shoes. Like my, all my pants are cropped too. I don't know. It's weird. Anyways, I went to h and m and I just bought some oversized graphic tees because I'm also over the just plain shirt aesthetic. I always just got plain things, neutral things because it's like the classic easy wardrobe, but I kind of want some fun back into my life. So I went and bought some oversized t-shirts and now that's what I'm wearing, not because I'm like trying to hide my body, but goodness gracious, I, I went from crop tops to oversize overnight it's just funny how the, how my mindset around my body has been throughout my life because I've been stuck where I was obsessing over everything that I ate, when, when I ate, what did I eat, how much I need to work out in order to burn the calories that I just ate. Things like that. And I never really enjoyed like going to the beach or. Hanging out with friends. I've done a lot of work and I feel like I am free of just. Bashing my body all the time. Now, do I wake up sometimes and it's like, oh my gosh, why does my belly look this big today? Yes. But it's probably one of the main reasons is because I forgot to take the, um, magnesium pill the night before. I, I am somebody who has to take magnesium, uh, for digestion issues. Do your own research on that. But I can tell when I don't take it. Especially if I, not that I drink a lot anymore, but when I do, like we, I had a squash tournament, so we went out and I was drinking with the ladies afterwards, and then like Sunday, we hung out at the park with our friend and we just stayed, literally stayed in the park with our friends and our kids for five hours. We were, sipping on wine, drinking a beer. Then the next day we went out to lunch. And with the menu dillas here, you often get a bottle of wine and so we were drinking wine. I can tell with lack of sleep and drinking a lot of alcohol affects my body. I know I say this all the time, but it's so true, but your body. Like with everything in life, it ebbs and flows. Some days you're gonna look great, some days you aren't. When you're starting your period, I always feel like a big, fat, fat blob, you know? Even though I know, I know I'm not, that's just how I feel in my body at the time. And then once my period's over is like, oh man, hey, who's that looking in the mirror? I feel good about myself. It's a weird cycle, but I don't. Obsess over every little thing anymore. So today we're gonna talk about reclaiming presence over performance. Celebrating your body, doing things. I wanna celebrate bodies doing things, you know, our bodies are with us. Every day. And it's magical what some of our bodies can do. Now, I know some people are restricted with their bodies, but we can all celebrate something about our bodies instead of judging how it looks, doing them like our bodies help us get from point A to point B. They walk. Our bodies are capable of laughing, are carrying things, capable of conceiving human We can swim, jump, kayak, ski, go to the grocery store, drive, and, you can't necessarily enjoy moments if you're so busy obsessing or managing or criticizing your body we need to celebrate, not criticize. I feel like it's worse when you go on vacation because you wanna take pictures, but then you're like, no, I don't feel my best today, or Look my best, so I'm not gonna be in any pictures or you're trying to hide or. You're just adjusting your clothes or your pose obsessively until you get like one good picture and instead you just wanna take the picture and enjoy it and look back and instead of being like, oh my God, that's such a bad picture, I look disgusting in it. You are like, oh, I remember that moment on that day. That was a great vacation because we did this and this and this. Instead of just always honing in on. What was wrong with your body in that picture? And we're gonna talk about wearing what feels good for you, not what hides you and body neutrality over body perfection. And I've talked a little bit about that before with doing a thought ladder, going from a negative thought to a positive thought and how you have to have a neutral thought to kind of bridge that gap. So we're going from a negative body image to a more positive body image with creating a neutral body image because, and again, it's not body perfection. We don't have to love everything about our bodies. To stop hiding, but we need to get to a neutral point where again, we're celebrating over criticizing, and we're going to shift our mental energy from obsessing over food and our bodies to obsessing over the life you want to live and how to be present because we don't need to track calories. We need to track how we feel in the moment because mental freedom from body obsession is a real transformation. a lot of times. People come to me and they aren't happy with their bodies and how they feel. And it's not necessarily about your body'cause you'll see people. A really good example of this is Alona Mar the one of the best female rugby rugby players. Ever. And I've watched her journey. All three kids, started rugby and I always show palona Mars clips to my kids. Because she loves herself so much and she celebrates her body, and she's proud of what her body has done for her and has helped her win to Gold Olympics and all of these other awards. And she's been playing the sport for a long time and her body's been healthy enough to be able to play those sports. Then she's rocking like her, swimsuit. Magazine covers and photo shoots and all of that, and she, I recently saw a clip where she said she doesn't necessarily prep, like she doesn't go on a weird diet before these photo shoots or anything because she wants to look back at herself and say, my body did that. What an amazing thing, what an amazing accomplishment that I did and my body helped me get there. And that's what, that's the mindset I want more women to focus on. Look at what my body helped me do in life. Because a body that changes isn't a body that's failed, it's a body that's lived, and learning to be present is way more powerful. Then being perfect or having the perfect body, and I struggled with this for a very long time where I just had such negative thoughts about myself and my body, and really shifting my mental energy from obsessing over food and my body. It just changed my life completely because it released so much pressure on myself and I was able, well, I am able to enjoy a lot more things now because I'm not obsessed with that. I love what my body can do for me, and I have the perfect body for what I need to do and what I want to do in life. Like I, I'm still an athlete at the age of 35, and I think I'm only getting better and better where my, I've had to shift my mindset around that because it's like I'm 35. How much longer can my body actually do this for? And so I'm so thankful for every season that I'm able to perform and perform well. It takes a lot of work because I still have to do play metrics and then warming up and cooling down is more important. The older, the, for me, the older I get but my body is still strong and is still capable of many years of athleticism. And that's what I love. That's what I love doing. Like I said now, I have cellulite, I have stretch marks. My stomach isn't flat but I'm still wearing the bikini. When we go to the beach, we're hopefully, I know we live right by the beach, but. School is almost out. I think we counted, we have 10 school days left and we have just a couple of sports things, the next couple of weekends. So as soon as we can, we're going to the beach and I'll be wearing my bikini I had to just completely shift my mindset and what really helped me was going from the negative to neutral. So I really had to learn how to put on a bathing suit and say three good things about myself. And I heard recently that if you're anxious. You can't be anxious and grateful at the same time. So if you're feeling anxious, tell yourself three things that you're grateful for. Whenever I, I wasn't feeling great, then I would automatically shift that to, okay, what are three things that I like about myself or I like about my body right now? It could be small, like I love my eyes. It could be little things like that or like, I love that I have long hair this summer and I could put it in a lot of braids. I love that I'm able to bend down. And pick up my kids. Like that was a big one. My family and I just went to this castle and excavated it and my knee's been hurting, for a couple months due to a little injury but I've been working on, slowing down my workouts, and trying to heal my knee and strengthen my knee and balance and all that. It didn't dawn on me until after we finished up yesterday that I could bend down without being in pain, that was a big win. Like, forget about cellulite, stretch marks. I was able to bend down and excavate the castle with my kids. Like that is something I will never, ever forget. Like I'm so proud that my body was able to do that, and going through this. Takes a lot of work, but you can manage your thoughts around what you eat and thoughts around your body. That's what I was focusing on in the first season of this podcast. So if you want to look at those episodes, feel free. It was all about not criticizing myself every day, every minute of every day, not obsessing about food and not restricting myself, The biggest shift for me was being grateful and celebrating and not criticizing. So if you criticize yourself, when you look in the mirror, tell yourself out loud one thing that you can celebrate about your body. Also comparing yourself to others is not gonna help you on your journey. I had to unfollow a bunch of people because anytime I looked at their page, it was like, why can I look like that? And again, everybody's body's different. We have different genetics, we have different lifestyles, different ages, and I don't need to compare myself to somebody else who has a different lifestyle. And their goal is different than mine. Like my goal was to not be obsessed about food all the time. How I did that was I learned about food and more about how to eat and how to actually fuel my body in a healthy way because I wanted to be healthy. So I asked, my audience if they had any questions for me, and I'm going to answer a few of those. How do I stop the negative thoughts when I put on a swimsuit? I don't think you can stop negative thoughts right off the bat when you put a swimsuit on. Like we are all judging people whether we admit it or not. And we look in the mirror, we're judging something about ourselves or when we look in a photograph, we're judging something about ourselves. So again, if you have a negative thought when you put a swimsuit on, immediately go to, it's okay to say that negative thought. If you're like, oh my gosh, I look terrible in this. I want to change immediately. Go to, how can I celebrate my body right now? What has it done for me today? Or what is it capable of doing for me today? And see how that feels. Would you rather celebrate your body or criticize it? How do I stay consistent with healthy habits without obsessing over my body? Building healthy habits will help you not obsess over your body because you learn how to establish a great morning routine. A nighttime routine. And also if you want to a workout routine. Routines can be life changing. You can have a routine about anything. You can have a routine about if I'm feeling anxious, what can I do? If I feel stressed, what can I do? And being able to look at a situation like that and having a plan to overcome that or to help you overcome that state of mind is the the most helpful thing you, you can do learn healthy coping mechanisms. So if you feel stressed out, you aren't going to binge eat. If you feel, if you're feeling rejected over something, you aren't going to sit down and watch Netflix instead of go for a walk. You need to look at your habits and what you're doing now to see what your patterns are. That was a big thing for me too. I had to figure out why was I avoiding feeling a certain way and what was I doing to avoid that feeling? So for me, when I felt like I wasn't good enough, I would stop eating. And when I stopped eating, my body I may have lost a little bit of weight, but as soon as something else happened and I was on the other side and I was feeling something else, then I would binge eat. That cycle continued and continued. When I figured out what my habits were and what I was doing. I could see the pattern and then I could shift each habit. I had to get aware of what I was thinking, how I was feeling, why I was feeling that way. Were these thoughts true? And I had to challenge myself because we go through life on autopilot all the time, and we don't take the time to sit down and figure out. Why I am doing this, or why I'm not doing that, why I'm feeling this way, why can't I feel this way? it takes time and practice. And nobody ever told me that. Like nobody ever told me how to manage my emotions. I had to figure that out on my own because I was so tired. I was so tired of feeling the way that I was feeling. Sorry if the sound is weird, I gotta charge my computer. So I did my research. I read all the things and I tried so many, so many different things. And I finally stumbled upon the life coaching and, becoming aware and looking at your thoughts and that that changed my habits. And we just did, um, the segment on, Atomic Habits last episode. So go listen to the last episode because all of those are connected. So if you wanna stop obsessing over your body, figure out what your habits are and why you're obsessing over your body anyways, what do you wanna be obsessed over? You wanna be obsessed over how you look. And a bikini on vacation, or do you want to be obsessed over living your life and enjoying that vacation and being present? Okay. Sorry, that was a little rant. All right. What do I do when I feel insecure on vacation or in photos? Girl, take your pictures. Myra from Schitt's Creek said. The best advice I can give you is take as many nudes as you can right now because you're only young once and you're gonna look this good once. What is making you feel insecure? You have to get down to that root cause that root thought. Beliefs are thoughts we think over and over again. And we felt them so long that we've created these neural pathways in our brains, and we believe them to be true in our core. We believe them to be true. And in the moment when you feel insecure, insecure on vacation, remind yourself why you're there. Look around. I love doing the grounding, feeling.. If it's. At the beach. Feel the sand under your toes. Feel the water. I love doing the what are five things you're grateful for? Four things that you can see. Three things you can touch. You have to reroute your brain. If you feel insecure, I don't know. Do something. Crazy that you haven't done before. So your brain's like, wait, what? Wait, what? What? What's going on? Jump up and down. I don't know. I mean, I, I do know, but dude, I, I don't know what you should do. Like for the crazy thing or something that's different.'cause your brain needs to be refocused on something. Can I still pursue fitness goals and body freedom at the same time? I believe you can, but you have to really get specific vague goals. Like, I wanna lose 25 pounds, and love myself. That's not, that's not a specific goal, that's a vague goal. So you have to figure out your fitness goal and what you actually want, and does that fit your lifestyle. For instance, I've had a few friends that have done the, I, I forget what it's called, but the, fitness. People who go up on stage in bikinis, that's what they wanted to do and they did it. For example, they've all had kids and they looked amazing, but that was a goal that they had and so they worked for it and they. Had to be really strict on what they ate and what they put in their body, how many times they worked out. And from my point of view, it's not a sustainable lifestyle and I don't think they're gonna continue that they're for the rest of their entire lives. However, they had a specific goal and they were able to achieve that goal and then go back to kind of relax mode and. Still love their body and have body freedom even though they weren't chasing that specific fitness goal. So yes, I think, you can, but it's also about mindset and how you approach it, how you approach your fitness goal and your habits and what you think. How do I shut down the, I shouldn't eat that voice in my head. Oh my gosh. I had this, growing up, I heard it like this, like, today's my cheat day, or I've already ruined the day, so it doesn't matter what I eat for dinner now, because the day's already ruined. And it's like, no, you can literally say, I ate pizza last night, so I'm gonna wake up and I'm gonna have a fruit smoothie for breakfast. What really helped me with that, with the, I shouldn't eat that voice in my head reading a bunch of French books. As you know, I've always been obsessed with Europe, especially the French culture, and how Europeans raise kids. So I read all, all the French kind of lifestyle eating, why French women aren't fat books. I forget the specific ones because it's been a few years since I've read them, but I'll be happy to link them in the show notes. And it was, you know, everything in moderation. In Europe, people enjoy food. They enjoy being present at the meals. They aren't thinking about, oh God, I shouldn't eat this pasta, or I shouldn't eat this dessert because I haven't worked out today, or I've gained weight so I shouldn't eat this. It's all about being present at mealtime and enjoying yourself and enjoying your life. Being there with the people who you enjoy being with and talking and laughing and, because I'm sure, as you know, in Spain, they have very long lunches and dinners and it's, it's weird to get used to when we moved over here, it still sometimes is he's like, oh my gosh, we kind of have things to do. And we want to hurry this up, but they, they take the time to enjoy their food. And it's not big portions either. So if ask yourself why you shouldn't eat that, why should you, why do you not deserve to eat that? You know, if it's a piece of cake, why shouldn't you enjoy that? If you're out and you're eating pizza, why should you not enjoy eating pizza? And it's about how you feel in the moment about yourself as well, because whenever I said I don't deserve to eat this, or I'm gonna restrict myself and not eat it, then I would think about that thing all the time until I ate it. But then I would eat so much of it and it's like, see, this is why I can't eat this. But no, literally enjoy some of it. Get a small portion. Take a couple of bites, sit back and enjoy it. What did you enjoy about eating that? Because nobody deserves to not eat something. You have to reframe your brain at meal times and why? Why are you telling yourself that you shouldn't eat something? What do I say to myself when I feel like I let myself go? Why did you let yourself go? Were you stressed at work? Maybe there was a hiccup in your relationship so you kind of fell to. Overeating or, maybe it's just a busy season in life and you ate takeout more than you cooked at home. Ask yourself why you let yourself go. What has caused. This realization that you let yourself go, because when you get down to the cause, I mean maybe it's multiple causes, the saying is when you have a bad day, you don't have a bad life. When you have a time in your life where you think you've let yourself go, remember it's just a time in your life. It's a chapter. What can the next chapter look like? Become aware of why you've let yourself go from your point of view, from your minds, and then list out things that you want to accomplish that you want to do, and see what, what is out of alignment then start making a plan for achieving what you want to achieve. For your, your future self. All it takes is being aware. All it takes is a decision. You know that quote, it's either one day or day one, and you can start any time you need to decide to show up for yourself and do some hard things. And really reflect on your mindset and what's going on within in order to change the outside and the outcome. How do I show up when I don't love what I see in the mirror? You show up. You just show up, you look at yourself. I mean, I know for me, I show up my best when I feel my best, and I know what makes me feel my best. That is getting enough sleep, drinking enough water, not drinking alcohol when I eat certain foods, I feel my best when I move my body, even if it's just walking. I feel my best when I connect with others. I feel my best when, somebody inspires me. Like they, they wear a cool outfit. I'm like, oh man, I want to try that. You know? When I show up as not my best, it's because I'm comparing to others or to my past life. To my past self, my younger self. It's because I didn't get enough sleep. It's because I'm not taking care. I'm basically self-sabotaging my relationship with and I don't love doing that. A lot of times it's pattern related, cycle related. I. Self sabotage when I am making progress in a goal because my mindset is still with old thoughts. Like, I don't deserve getting seen or noticed or people, I don't deserve people downloading this podcast because I'm not good And then that makes me feel bad and shame and. I don't like that feeling. So then I have to shift my mindset and it's like 10 people downloaded my podcast last week, and that's amazing. I love you for it. I love those 10 people who downloaded my podcast like, thank you so much. That makes me feel so good. Even if it's one person that makes me feel so good and I need to celebrate that, I'm not gonna criticize like, ugh, I wish more people. Why can't more people download my podcast? No. I am gonna celebrate that one person and those 10 people, and that helps me show up more. Because if this can help just one person, then that's my purpose and that's what I love. So if you show up and you don't love yourself in the mirror. You gotta ask yourself questions. You gotta be curious. Our brains love answering questions. Why do you not love yourself? I love making lists. Write down what you don't love about yourself. Why do you not like looking in the mirror? When did that start? How did that start? Is that true? What can you love about yourself? What do you want to love about yourself that you aren't feeling right now? In the future as your future self, what do you want to see? Who, who do you want to be in the future? What do you wanna look like? How do you want to show up in the future? You gotta answer. You gotta, you gotta do the work. It's not like standing there and doing this once is going to give you a transformation. It's showing up consistently for It's not. Self-sabotaging your relationship with yourself. You have to show up for yourself and you have to put work in. I mean, you just have to tough love, but if you want to change, you got to, you got to look within and then take action on that. I didn't mean for this to be like mean, you know? So I hope you didn't take it that way, sometimes we just need to hear things multiple times before it clicks or before it registers in our mind like, oh, that's what they're saying. Because I can give you a how too about everything. But it's you. You have to figure out what you want. And why you feel the way you feel and what you wanna do about it. I can give you all the downloadable how-tos. That doesn't mean that you're gonna change. You have to put in the work. I love you. I love you for listening. I love you being here and showing up for yourself. So thank you for being part of as always, tell me what's, what's DNE? What is the biggest thing that you struggle with? Or let me know if this podcast resonated with you in any way. Because I want to build this community and I want to help as many people as I can with a lot of different things. You know, you gotta find out what works for you, what you want. You can stop obsessing over your body. And you can feel great in whatever body size, whatever body type you have. You just have to change your mindset. You have to become aware of what you're thinking and why you're thinking that, okay, I'm gonna end it here. I'm hot as fuck underneath this blanket. My office is a little closet in our flat and I've gotta figure out this microphone situation, but I'm like. Hovered underneath the blanket and it's hot as fuck in this apartment. So I'm gonna go cool off and I hope you rock. Whatever outfit you want to wear, and I hope you rock being in a bathing suit this summer. Bikini tankini, high wasted bikini bottoms. Find what makes you happy. Wear what you wanna wear. And trust me when I say this, people aren't thinking about you as much as you think they are. Okay, enjoy. The pool. Enjoy being with friends and family. Enjoy being with your kids on vacation. Enjoy the beach. Go find seashells. Find bonus points if you find a shark's tooth, I will literally spend five hours on the beach looking for shark teeth. That's one of my favorite things to do. If you're worried about your body and how it looks on the beach, go look for shells. Find me a shark's tooth. Get your mind on something else other than. Going down the negativity rabbit hole. I spiraling out. Enjoy yourself. Okay. Because you deserve it. Okay, I'll talk to y'all next week. Okay, love y'all. Bye.