Wellness professionals feel this fear like whoa.
In fact, I feel this fear almost daily.
I'm a health coach who specializes in emotional eating, and while I know that "the answer" to emotional eating, binge-eating, etc. largely lies in how women feel about themselves, I regularly find myself tip-toeing around the issue of body image, because I've been told that women want to hear one thing, and one thing only on a sales call:
"I can make you thin."
...and any wellness professional that even thinks about telling you otherwise should just accept that they're not moving out of their studio apartment anytime soon, and should probably marry for money.
So, maybe what I'm about to do is really stupid...
But I'm gonna take a risk right now, and bet on women. I'm gonna bet that women are smarter than that. I'm gonna bet they want more than being thin. I'm going to honor and respect the intelligence of women everywhere by telling you the truth... a truth that's really, really hard for a wellness professional to admit:
I don't really want to make you thin... I want to help you fix your relationship with food.
I want you to stop avoiding restaurants, lest they don't accommodate your diet.
I want you to have sex with the lights on.
I want you to feel like you can eat a cookie without "falling off the wagon" ... and into a whole box.
I want you to discover interests outside of "health and nutrition."
I want you to be so excited by your dinner companion that you don't even notice the bread basket in front of you.
I want you to Google sentences that don't include the words "Paleo" or "cleanse."
I want you to cry when you're upset, rather than diet or binge-eat.
I want you to put down the stretchy pants, and go buy jeans that fit you.
I want you to start dating again.
I want you to stop hurting yourself with food (you know, like when you raid the cabinets so hard that you can't do anything but lie around in sweatpants 'til you digest).
I want you to listen to and trust your body's needs.
I want you to get a big old life outside of food.
That's what I'm really trying to do.
Some of you will lose weight when you start "eating like a normal person," and some of you won't. But that's not what I'm selling.
And that's the God's honest truth. I can only hope the "sales experts" are wrong -- because I'd really like to change the industry. But it takes two to Tango -- the client and the coach.
If you're with me, download my free guide, How To Not Eat Chocolate Cake...Really, Fast, Standing Up, When Nobody's Looking, or read more posts at www.isabelfoxenduke.com.
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