Welcome to the Rock Your Body Spotlight series! Where we meet three inspirational “Rockstars” and hear about their journey to food and body freedom. If you missed it, you can read the first spotlight, Celeste, here>>>
This week, we meet Erin – a busy mom of 5 – who worked with me in the latter part of 2014. You can hear her Erin tell her whole story on the Fearless Rebelle Radio podcast on iTunes here>>> Download here or scroll to the bottom for the in browser player.
Erin can remember the moment she started to feel bad about her body.
She was nine years old. Her aunt – a trusted and admired role model in her life – pinched her side and grabbed young Erin’s flesh.
“What,” the aunt asked with disdain, “is that?”
In that pivotal moment, Erin learned that fat was bad. And thus began a decades-long battle with body image.
The starve-binge cycle.
As she got a bit older, Erin learned that if you lack self-worth, it’s all too easy to find people to re-affirm your poor self-esteem. So for years Erin heard – and believed – that she wasn’t good enough.
Now in her thirties, Erin is a mom of five. Her husband is loving and supportive. (He was the one who encouraged her to work with me.) But while Erin loves her family with a passion, she has struggled to give herself the same unconditional love and support she generously gives others.
In particular, Erin had been in turmoil for years over what she calls her “mom-belly.”
Put simply: she hated it.
Cue a big helping of seriously disordered eating. We’re talking an 800 calories a day starvation diet. Nothing but diet foods like shakes and bars during the day; nothing but chicken breast and zucchini for dinner. And if she couldn’t eat the exact foods she was ‘supposed’ to eat that day, she’d eat nothing.
Hell-bent on eating “perfectly” all week long, Erin would feel overwhelmed and defeated by Friday, and collapse into a weekend-long binge, filling herself with forbidden foods like chicken alfredo.
Sunday night the cycle would start again.
Years of saying ‘no’.
Erin’s her body loathing was so bad, she wasn’t just saying ‘no’ to food. She was saying ‘no’ to friends who wanted to go out. She was saying ‘no’ to her own health. And most of all, she was saying ‘no’ to the girl inside who just wanted to be herself.
But something – maybe that girl inside dying to get out and play – drew her to me.
She looked at my programs and the promise of something better.
And then Erin did something out of character. She said ‘yes’.
The words she never expected to hear.
At the time, Erin thought she was going into yet another weight loss program.
Instead she got something completely unexpected.
From me, Erin heard six words she had never heard before in her life. Words she’d never said to herself — and certainly never expected to hear from what she thought was a diet program.
“You can eat whatever you want.”
This was a life-changing moment for Erin. She no longer had to eat based on rules of good or bad, wrong or right; no more meal plans; no more shakes and bars. She could eat what felt good. What tasted good. She could eat according to Erin.
Of course, as much as that freedom felt exciting, it also felt pretty freakin’ scary.
Erin was headed to Disneyland with her family and she’d been petrified of turning the holiday into a week-long binge. Churros, corn dogs, and Dole whip, oh my.
But then something even crazier happened.
Erin didn’t eat everything in sight.
With my voice in her head – “food is just food” – Erin relaxed. She didn’t obsess about the treats. She ate what she wanted, and left the rest. In fact, she learned it was only their forbidden nature that made many of the treats so appealing. And amazingly, she was so busy having fun with her family she didn’t even bother with the churros or corn dogs.
That was the turning point, but Erin’s journey didn’t end there.
“I realized I’d been told so many lies.”
Erin’s greatest change happened when she realized she didn’t have to hang on to the lies she’d been told – about food, about her body, about herself.
She didn’t have to lose weight. She didn’t have to be perfect. She didn’t have to hide her body, or her whole beautiful self, from the world.
Together with me, Erin discovered that she could put down her obsession with her body and with food. And start to live instead.
Today, Erin is doing things she’d never permit herself to do before. She’s having fun with her friends, taking beach vacations, and spending more joyful, relaxed time with her family.
She’s even thinking of going back to school to pursue a career she loves.
What does it look like to release yourself from body-hate?
Want to know what it looks like when you finally stop the food obsession, and give up a decades-long diet mentality?
For Erin, it looks something like this:
It looks like shopping with your sister, trying on dresses and feeling beautiful without worrying about the size.
It looks like making a simple meal with your husband on a whim, with no prescribed meal plan or grocery anxiety.
It feels like the warmth of the sun on your belly while you sit by the pool in a bikini, after years of keeping your stomach covered up.
And it’s the deep-down satisfaction of knowing you’re helping your kids – especially your daughters – because you’re showing them what self-love looks like.
Her words for you
Erin’s words of advice for other women speak volumes about what she’s learned for herself:
“You deserve to be happy. You deserve to feel good in your own skin. You deserve to be yourself.”
Erin is honest about the fact that her journey is still ongoing. She still struggles to love her whole self – including her “mom belly” – sometimes.
After all, she is human. She has some battle-scars.
But she is Erin. And Erin is free.
Ready to be set free? It’s not too late to join my free Rock Your Body class – When you sign-up, you’ll get access to 3 free training videos + 3 exciting ‘missions’ to help you learn what’s got you making such a big deal over every bite and be the woman that eats whatever she damn well pleases and feels fabulous.
And don’t forget that enrollment opens on Monday March 2nd and you can take advantage of early bird pricing! You’ll get your backstage pass to join the full 9-week Rock Your Body program beginning Monday March 16th.
You can hear her Erin tell her whole story on the Fearless Rebelle Radio podcast on iTunes here>>> Download here or listen here…
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Be Smashing!
