There was a small room in our old house that we never used in the three years we lived there.

I had every intention of a nightly, weekly or even a monthly steam, but that basement sauna didn't get used once. I'm taking zero, zilch, nada enchilada. I shouldn't be surprised because despite the couple that sold us the house ooohing and aahing about their fabulous sauna, it was clearly untouched. I thought for sure the distinct spicy warm cedarwood smell would lure me in for the best in at-home detoxification, improved circulation and relaxation, but not so much. 

Maybe I didn't want to slap on a swim suit or was too lazy to go downstairs even in the buck with a towel, but for whatever reason, I never made it happen. Maybe it was the fact that I almost passed out during a hot yoga class (yup, I'm a yoga teacher and don't love hot yoga) so even the thought of doing something remotely similar wasn't motivating. 

Lately, the sauna world is all a twitter about the weight loss...

Fresh off the island yesterday, we ended up with a 52 count on turtles we saw last week. 

While vacuuming way too much sand out of empty suitcases this morning, I was thinking about these turtles. 

Slow. 

Not rushed. 

Not afraid to hide when startled.  

Especially like to emerge after the rain. 

Love to eat fresh flowers. 

I wonder if we double counted some turtles, because, these babies are slow. But they do get places, because we never saw a turtle in the same spot every day. 

As you welcome Spring today, maybe you want to be more like the turtle, slow and on island time. No rush. Or maybe the last two years of the pandemic have felt like turtle time and you’re ready to toss your shell. 

Either way, know that you’re moving places, even if it feels like you’re standing still on turtle/island time. 

Rest assured things are happening inside your shell. 

If you need help emerging from...

I sat cuddled up with my daughter reading the ear worm of a book, Dr. Seuss's ABC's. Every page begins with Big A, little a (going through each letter of the alphabet) what begins with A? This question is followed by some ridiculous string of things that start with that particular letter. When we got to Big T, little t, what begins with T? Ten tired turtles on a tuttle tuttle tree, I started thinking about another meaning for Big T, little t which is the T that stands for trauma. 

Trauma is hard to ignore these days. The unspoken, and sometimes spoken, traumas that we all carry and have experienced over the last two years are very real and seem to be growing. The unthinkable trauma that the people of Ukraine are facing, the trauma related to an ongoing pandemic, the trauma from our past and even the trauma that years of dieting does to your body are just a handful of the traumas you and I have endured. 

What do we do with our Big and little T’s? Do we ignore...

Our boys are obsessed with numbers. 

Digital clocks, digital thermostats and phones don't stand a chance against their number hungry brains. 

They've taken their ability to read numbers competition to nutrition labels, too. 

"How much is your cereal?" one child will shout. 
"150!" gloats another child. 
"Oh, man, that's a LOT....yesssssss!" brags another. 

They go from cereal box labels, to bread, to granola bars, to gold fish packets to salad dressing. Each boy boasting the caloric contents to their brother and, of course, the higher the number the better. 

"Mom, what is a calorie anyways?" asked one of the boys. 

"Well, it's a measure that tells you how much energy a particular serving of food will give you. If you eat something with not very many calories and you're really hungry, you're probably going to be hungry again pretty quickly" I explained. 

"Oh, that's weird" he proclaimed as he ran off to build another tower in the living...

I hate it when people try to sell me on something when they’re really using a thin veil of lies to cover the real truth. Like when you get those calls about the warranty on your car. 

“I’m calling you about very important information regarding your car’s extended warranty” says robo-call in her monotonous voice. 

Except robo-call isn’t selling me a warranty. Oh no, she wants to pocket thousands so she can take her cash winnings to Vegas or go buy some Bitcoin or an NFT.

You know who else is deceiving you with their "product"? Every so-called weight loss expert out there.

Here's an example straight from a fellow life coach: "we will be learning how to embrace and love our bodies. To eat in a way that fuels our bodies because we love them. To reward our bodies for all the hard work they do with the kind of care our bodies crave". 

Oh, that’s a good one. Did you see what she did there? She wrapped her diet program promising...

Standing on tip toes to make sure Alexa could hear him, my son shouted, "Alexa! Please play "Stretchy Pants"! 

The girls, my mom and I laughed as we tossed together the final ingredients for our pumpkin bake. We all laughed and sang along with Carrie Underwood. 

Listen here, but you'll get the idea with this verse:

Just when I thought my days of belting out “Let It Go” from Disney’s Frozen were long gone, our one year old has fallen prey to this cult classic. Nearly everyone you know has at least part of, if not all of, this song memorized. Just in case you need a refresher….

Let it go, let it go
Can’t hold it back anymore
Let it go, let it go
Turn away and slam the door
I don’t care
What they’re going to say

Aaaaaand we’re back to 2013 just like that. It’s fitting to sing this song around this time of year and all year, really. Mind Body Monday's anti-diet journey in a nutshell is all about Letting. It. Go.
Letting go of society’s unrealistic ideals of beauty and thinness.
Letting go of trying to control your body size (we’re animals, after all).
Letting go of worrying about what other people think about your choices around food and body.
Letting go of trying to control your food. 

When you’ve been on this journey for a...

Ever since I can remember, I've been plagued with terrible motion sickness. Just like your favorite holiday movie title, I've been sick on Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Don't forget about boats. Forcing me to sit on a boat in the waves ranks high on my top nightmares list. 

Recently, my motion sickness has been EXTRA bad. Like run-out-of-my-barf-bags tucked-in-the-fetal-position-on-the-airplane-bad. As you can imagine, this isn't a very feasible scenario while trying to manage six kids. While I've dealt with this situation my whole life, I felt like I had crossed the line of "normal" and needed to find out what *might* be wrong with me. 

My doctor recommended a trip to an ENT. I also made an appointment with a neurologist. It felt good to be doing "something" towards solving this problem just having the appointments booked. 

I walked into the ENT with high hopes that she'd have the answer. ANY answer. 

After a quick conversation...

A friend of mine just sent me this text:

"I was thinking about you this week. Do you still work as a nutritionist? I would like to lose xx pounds, but more importantly learn how to eat and how to maintain my weight!"  

After getting over my cringe-worthy reaction to my past work as a nutritionist who solely focused on weight loss, I shot back this reply:

"Hi! Actually, I work as a diet recovery and weight neutral coach helping women who DON'T want to diet anymore. Diets really only work for a tiny fraction of people and they can often make health worse in both the short and long term. LMK if you want more info!"

My friend, like so many other women I've talked with replied with this: 
"Yes! I want to change my way of eating and not diet anymore!" 

Here's where things are starting to sound familiar, aren't they?

I pipe back in with:
"I really don't work with women who have an underlying goal of weight loss. Health and weight are very often falsely tied...