Breaking Free from the Scale: A Journey into Body Confidence and Self-Love

Questioning why you're held hostage by the number on the scale? Curious about how to truly appreciate your body for what it can do, rather than what it looks like? Let me, Life Coach Jen, be your guide. I've walked in your shoes, struggled with body image, and wrestled with the scale. My journey wasn't easy, but I emerged victorious, shifting my focus from body size to gratitude for its capabilities. I'll take you behind the scenes, sharing personal journal entries from my pregnancy at 27, and how I've grown to view the scale as just a neutral number.

As a mother, body confidence and self-love took on a whole new meaning. I knew I had to set a confident example for my kids, and this became a turning point in my journey. Join me, as we delve into body image attitudes in younger generations and how they're changing for the better. You're not alone on this journey, and I've gathered resources to help you navigate this path and create your own happily-ever-after story. So, forget about the scale, and let's embark on this path to self-love and body confidence. Follow me on social media and sign up for my emails for more empowering insights. Let's break free from the scale and celebrate the incredible capabilities of our bodies!

Please follow me on instagram and facebook @happilyevenaftercoach and if you want to see what coaching is all about I offer a free 30 min. clarity call via zoom.

Email me: hello@lifecoachjen.com for any comments or questions.

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My website is www.lifecoachjen.com

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:10

Hi friends, welcome to Happily. Even After I'm Life Coach Jen, a certified life coach that specializes in relationships. I'm a mom of four awesome kids and one amazing senna, a home decorator, a remodeler, a shopper, a scrabler and a snuggler. I want to help you with your relationships, mainly the relationship you have with yourself and your family and God. Thanks for listening and letting me share the tools I have learned that can help you live happily even after some of life's greatest challenges. Hey friends, welcome to today's podcast. This podcast is dedicated to we're getting ready to end the year and begin a new year, and I love this time of year because I always have goals and things I'm thinking about, and the thing I wanted to discuss is our body image, and I know it's like, oh, hopefully it's a different take on what you've heard or learned before, but really, when I found coaching, like five years ago, this was actually the first thing I started working on, even though at the time, my husband and I had been getting divorced and then putting our marriage back after he had lived with another woman and there was a lot. You would think that that's what I would want to focus on, but actually I had such low self-esteem and my body image was terrible and I felt like almost that I had this voice in my head that 24 seven was telling me how ugly I was, how fat I was, how like just horrible horrible things. Like I'm like I can't believe, like I lived that way for so many years and I think it really affected a lot of things. Right, I was in a very critical marriage that the person I was married to was very consumed with how you looked your body and so for me, like it kind of like backfired and made it worse and I just stopped caring. And you know, I had a lot of things with, like my brother dying and I'm going to have lots of compassion for myself. But honestly, like I had a terrible body image and I didn't have that most of my life. I never had issues with this, so it wasn't until in my 40s that I had this just such a terrible body image and so it was really draining. Like I felt like it was like the thing that I thought about the most, I was obsessed with and I hated that because I had daughters, I had sons. I didn't want to be thinking about my body and I didn't want to be consumed with it, but it felt all consuming.

Speaker 1: 3:06

So this, honestly, was the first thing that I was getting coached about was my body, and I remember my coach. She's like let's just try on some new thoughts, and I couldn't like they were a struggle, like I couldn't think of one good thing I liked about my body, but the thing I landed on was I have legs and I can walk, and that thought like literally got me out of this rut, and I know that sounds crazy, but it really did. I realized like, okay, I was so focused on the shape of my legs, the shape of like or the thickness they were too fat or whatever the size of them but instead I focused on what my body like I'm so grateful that my legs work and I can walk and that really was the stepping stone for me to get out of this horrible cycle of negative body image crap. And so I even sometimes still go back to it like I'm so grateful that I can walk. So I started just thinking of all the things my body does cause. I actually have a really healthy body. I don't have a lot of sicknesses, I'm super healthy. I can exercise, I can run, I can walk, I can, you know, do most anything, and so I just started focusing on that instead of the shape and size and what size my clothes were and what I looked like in certain situations, anyways. So that really was the key for me and I'm so grateful that I found coaching for many reasons, but that in particular really like, set the tone and it got me.

Speaker 1: 4:58

So I started, my self-esteem changed, I started loving my body because what I realized that my weight, the number on the scale, it was a neutral. That's my circumstance and it wasn't until I started thinking lots of thoughts about it did I create. Usually for me it was negative. I wasn't like, yay, this is how much I weigh, but it really is a neutral number because if you think about it, whatever you weigh, whatever the number says on your scale, there are a whole bunch of people in the world that would be ecstatic if that was the number they saw, and then there's also a whole bunch of people that would be like discouraged if that's the number they saw. So it has nothing to do with the number. And so be mindful of that, because also, what you have to realize whatever number, it's gonna change every day, and then that number you're letting control your life, and do you want a number on a scale to control your life? I'm guessing no. And so what we want to control our life are our thoughts and how we feel, and do we want to feel grateful for our body or angry and mad?

Speaker 1: 6:17

And it's so interesting because recently I've been going through all these papers and pictures, family pictures and stuff and I found this journal that I wrote. I was 27 years old and I was pregnant with my first child, and I wrote in there oh my gosh, today I went to the doctor and I weighed 132 pounds. I'm dying. I've never been this big before in my entire life. And I laughed because I was like, oh my gosh, like I would like love to weigh 132 pounds right now. In my mind I think that would be great. But I'm like here at that moment, at 27, I was consumed about that number right About and I was pregnant, and so it's just so interesting to pay attention to different thoughts.

Speaker 1: 7:15

You have about a number and you hear that saying like, oh, I would kill to weigh what I weighed at 27, pregnant now, but it really doesn't matter. No one knows your weight. No one knows what size of pants you wear. You have to learn and you're gonna show up so much better if you can learn to love who you are, exactly how you are. That doesn't mean you might wanna lose weight and that's okay, but just learning to love your body today and I guarantee you're gonna have other problems If you get to your ideal goal weight, whatever that is. There's gonna be other things you're worried about or upset about or you don't like about yourself. And so learning to love all of you, even the wrinkles, even the fat, even the whatever, whatever they're I have arthritis in my fingers and so anything that you think is deficient or not right, your height, anyways, just learning to love that and be grateful, find a reason to be grateful, I think is so empowering and do it for you.

Speaker 1: 8:29

And I think I mean, of course we are married and there's, you know, things we're more attracted to and not attracted to. But I think we get really fixated on how someone looks but as they age and change like that's not really true love. That's not. What love is about is our looks. We probably put a lot of emphasis, I think for sure, in our culture, in our society, a lot of emphasis on how we look. But we have to realize those people are airbrushed, they have a chef full time, they have trainers full time, like we can't compare other people to what we're doing because we don't know. It's not apples to apples.

Speaker 1: 9:09

And so really, I think, getting good at loving you and loving your body for where it is today, it takes lots of compassion, lots of curiosity, but I think if this is an issue for you, you can learn a lot about yourself and a lot about what you really find important and I think it's good. And it really gets boring, like who wants to talk and think about you know if they're fat today or not, or what they. It just it's a really boring. There's so many more exciting things to talk about than your weight or what you ate or didn't eat, and people I'm guessing your friends and family love you for you. They don't sit and think, oh, I don't really like her because you know she gained 10 pounds. No one is saying that and if they are, they're not your friend and they're not for you.

Speaker 1: 10:06

So anyways, just I think it's really important. This is something really a lot of women I know men have this issue too, but for sure, with women, what do you value? And it's okay if you value working out and eating healthy, but when you become obsessed or when you your self-esteem, your mood is based on the weight on the scale. There's a problem there, something to look into. So in the holiday season, I think it's important because, of course, people are bringing treats, and I just think it's important if you want to maintain your weight, you know if that is important to you. Set a goal ahead of time and you get to be in control of what you eat and what you don't eat. And I think creating a plan at least 24 hours in advance is important. And so decide okay, I know my aunt May is making this amazing veg and I love it. Okay, I'm gonna have three pieces, or I'm gonna have one piece and then get rid of it, or whatever.

Speaker 1: 11:14

And it's okay to throw food away. I know I mean, it is hard. I have a hard time throwing food away or giving it to someone or going to take it to a shelter if that makes you feel better. But it is okay, because the problem is we think, oh, our neighbor made us these cookies. We need to eat them all. No, we don't need to eat them all. We can have a bite of it and throw them away. They're never gonna know. We can still be grateful that they gave us the cookies and that was so nice, but we don't need to eat them to make them worth it or whatever.

Speaker 1: 11:49

Be intentional to what you're doing, don't? I think it's hard when you are like no treats especially during the holidays right, you're gonna fail before you even start. So maybe say I'm gonna have one treat a day or I'm only gonna have this type of treat because, honestly, some people make things and you're, like you already know ahead of time like I don't like that, but then somehow we think we've gotta eat it or try it. So it's okay to not like something and it's okay to not eat it. And when you do eat it, enjoy it. Don't sit there and think I shouldn't eat this, I shouldn't eat this, this is so terrible. Oh my gosh, I can't believe I'm doing this. There's no point. You shouldn't have even eaten it then. But if you're gonna eat it and you wanna eat it, enjoy it and don't beat yourself up afterwards and say how awful you are Because, no, you chose ahead of time. I really love this pie that my mom makes every year. I'm gonna have a slice of it and I'm gonna enjoy it, and that's okay.

Speaker 1: 12:53

Be patient with yourself. If you are trying to lose weight or if you are trying to build muscle Whatever your goals are just be patient. It takes time. Quick results are never lasting results and so it just takes time to build muscle to. And it's okay to be working on your body. That doesn't mean you can work on yourself and not hate your body. At the same time, you don't have to hate your body and honestly loving your body. You're gonna have so much better results when you love your body because you're gonna want to do it from love instead of hate. It's just such a different energy, right? You just think about it. Your thoughts are different if you hate your body versus if you love your body and Want to create action and a result for yourself.

Speaker 1: 13:42

If you want to change your body or something about your body, just know and like your reasons for it. Don't do things because your husband wants you to do it. It's not gonna work If you're not behind it. If you're not doing it because you want it, it's never gonna work. If you're like, oh, I'm just doing this because my husband doesn't like this about me, you're gonna feel forced and quirk and it's just not gonna be a good result. So really get behind the reasons why you want to do something.

Speaker 1: 14:13

If you do want to change something about your body, so just make sure you're doing it for you and you like your reasons. So if this is an issue which I think for all of us it is, and it's gonna get better and worse at different times and our bodies are changing and but I think if you can teach and really ingrain in yourself to love your body, it's gonna be so great for your kids to see that and feel that and know that their mom loves their body. Because I think there's just kids I mean these days like they're, I think, so much more in tune to. I think there's a lot more body confidence Nowadays. I don't know, at least I've seen that in my own kids but it's not such a hang up for them. But I think for my generation it was much more prevalent as an issue.

Speaker 1: 15:12

But pay attention and you can change your thought and you can get out of a really negative rut Pretty quickly and for me it just took having a coach and having me become aware of what negative thoughts I was thinking and what I was feeling and creating in my own life and I was like I'm done with this and so if that sounds like you, I'd love to help you anyways. Thanks so much for listening everyone. Have an amazing holiday season and be sure to not eat all the chocolate. If you want to learn how to live happily even after, sign up for my email at life coach Jen with one end dot com, follow me on Instagram and Facebook at happily even after podcast. Let's work together to create your happily even after.