Mission Statement
My mission as a body positive health coach is to assist individuals with lifestyles changes in accordance with personalized health-related goals and needs. Rather than focusing on weight loss, I work with the priniciples of Health at Every Size, Intuitive Eating, and mindfulness in order to focus on behavior modification and lifestyle interventions for enhanced health, wellbeing, and resilience to life's stressors. Additionally, I focus on a holistic approach to wellness, which considers health from a multi-faceted perspective, including physical, mental, and spiritual health.
What is body positivity?
Body positivity is an attitude and a liberating approach to living. The term body positivity stemmed from a treatment program for anorexia recovery in 1996, when "a psychotherapist and a woman who had personal experience with an eating disorder" founded thebodypositive.org (Prins, 2017).
There are 5 Core Competencies of the Body Positive Model (The Body Postiive, 2017b):
1. Reclaim Health
2. Practice Intuitive Self-Care
3. Cultivate Self-Love
4. Declare Your Own Authentic Beauty
5. Build Community
You can see these competencies in detail from The Body Positive by clicking this link.
What is Health at Every Size [HAES]?
Health at every size is an approach to health and wellness for people of all shapes and sizes which focuses on living a vital and healthful life without emphasis on weight or weight reduction. This concept has been thoroughly elucidated by Dr. Linda Bacon and Dr. Lucy Aphramor in their books Health at Every Size (2010) and Body Respect (2014). There are three primary tenants to Health at Every Size (Bacon & Aphramor, 2014):
Why coach from a body positive and HAES approach?
I choose to coach from this approach because (a) I believe in the inherent value in all people and each person's right to dignity, respect, autonomy, and compassion and because (b) HAES has been advocated for by the Centers for Disease Control (Dollar, Berman, & Adachi-Mejia, 2017) and the National Eating Disorders Association (Schwartz, 2016) (links can be found in the references section at the bottom of this page).
According to The Body Positive (2017a), "Negative body image is linked to poor overall life quality. It also leads to poor self-care, eating disorders, depression, anxiety, self-harming behaviors (e.g., cutting, suicide), substance abuse, weight cycling, and relationship violence." It is therefore my fervent belief that building up self-image with a body positive and HAES perspective is the most compassionate and sensical way to approach behavioral change, and to improve overall health and wellbeing. A body positive definition of health is one that "recognizes the interconnectedness of physical, psychological, and emotional needs in human beings" and honors "the experience and authority of the individual as the primary path to positive change" (The Body Positive, 2017a).
Stop Dieting... Forever.
That's right, I said forever. As in, never, ever do it again. Why? Dieting is harmful. It hurts our minds and bodies. There are multitudes of scientific studies indicating that weight loss is not sustainable for most people in the long term, and that weight cycling (i.e., yo-yo dieting, or repeatedly losing and re-gaining weight) can be detrimental to overall health (Strohacker, Carpenter, & McFarlin, 2009; Bacon, 2010; Bacon & Aphramor, 2014). The majority of people who lose weight will gain it back within 5 years, and the majority of those who regain the weight will put on more than they lost to begin with (Bacon & Aphramor, 2014), effectively putting them back at square one and risking damage to their overall health.
According to Strohacker et al., (2009), the long-term effects of weight cycling include: increased risk of developing hypertension, cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome, decreased levels of HDL cholesterol (a.k.a., the "good cholesterol"), and high levels of systemic inflammation, which is thought to both cause and exacerbate many chronic illnesses (Hunter, 2012). Not to mention, this cycle of loss and regain can take a psychological toll, leading to feelings of inadequacy, weakness, and personal failure. Essentially, if you're trying to lose weight by dieting, you are sabotaging your own efforts. This happens because of a process called adaptive thermogenesis (Rosenbaum & Leibel, 2010). Consequently, it is best to learn to eat healthfully and intuitively, manage stress effectively, and find ways to increase one's activity level on a daily basis in order to promote health, wellbeing, and longevity.
What is adaptive thermogenesis?
Adaptive thermogenesis is a fancy way of saying that the human body much prefers hanging on to adipose tissue (i.e., fat) and resists losing it - much in the same way we prefer to save money rather than give it away - and it will regulate a number of systems in your body to keep itself within a preferred weight range (i.e., your set point range), including your metabolism, energy levels, and appetite (Rosenbaum & Leibel, 2010).
You can liken your weight-regulating mechanisms to a thermostat that prefers to be within a certain temperature range (Bacon, 2010). When your home gets too warm in the summer, the thermostat will kick on and cool the house down. If it gets too cool in the winter, it will compensate by warming it up (2010). Your body, when tended to properly (i.e., by eating intuitively and listening to hunger and satiety cues), will regulate your weight on its own (Tribole & Resch, 2012). However, it is possible to "break" the thermostat by jiggling it too much (i.e., not paying attention to hunger and fullness cues, overeating or bingeing on a consistent basis, restricting calories or ignoring hunger cues). When you go below the lower threshold of your body's preferred weight range, it will affect your central nervous system, hypothalamus, metabolism, appetite, and energy levels in an attempt to get you to eat more (Bacon, 2010). Long story short: your body will resist weight loss longer and stronger than you can fight back against it.
Adaptive thermogensis is an evolutionary survival mechanism from the early days of human existence when famines were a constant threat. Your body is designed to hang on to fat to keep you alive, especially when it perceives you are at risk of starving (i.e., dieting through caloric restriction)(Bacon, 2010). Besides, anyone who has ever been on a diet knows that it is an absolutely miserable experience. It limits your social life and you dream about chocolate lava cake all day, everyday. So tell me: if you now know that dieting destroys your health and is likely to put you right back where you started, and on top of it all is a miserable experience, why on Earth would you continue to do it?! As the old adage goes: The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Isn't it time to try a new approach?
Here is a video by registered dietitian and co-author of the book Intuitive Eating (2012), Evelyn Tribole, on how dieiting leads to many unfavorable outcomes, including problems with binge eating:
References
Bacon, L. (2010). Health at every size: The surprising truth about your weight. Dallas, TX: BenBella Books, Inc.
Bacon, L., & Aphramor, L. (2014). Body respect: What conventional health books get wrong, leave out, and just plain fail to understand about weight. Dallas, TX: BenBella Books, Inc.
Dollar, E., Berman, M., & Adachi-Mejia, A.M. (2017). Do no harm: Moving beyond weight loss to emphasize physical activity at every size. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2017/17_0006.htm
Hunter, P. (2012). The inflammation theory of disease. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3492709/
Prins, K. (2017). Here’s why the definition of body positivity isn’t up for debate. Retrieved from http://everydayfeminism.com/2017/05/body-pos-definition-undebatable/
Rosenbaum, M., & Leibel, R. L. (2010). Adaptive thermogenesis in humans. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3673773/
Schwartz, D. (2016). What is health at every size? Retrieved from https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/what-health-every-size
Strohacker, K., Carpenter, K. C., & McFarlin, B. K. (2009). Consequences of weight cycling: An increase in disease risk? Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4241770/
The Body Positive. (2017a). The be body positive model. Retrieved from http://www.thebodypositive.org/model.
The Body Positive (2017b). The be body positive model: Core competencies. Retrieved from https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8YMMhy3aiHmUENUUlJBMGFTSjA/view
Tribole, E. & Resche, E. (2012). Intuitive eating: A revolutionary program that works. New York, NY: Saint Martin's Press.