How do you feel when you look in the mirror? Do you have a positive body image? Are you accepting of what you see? In today’s episode, I sat with Lucy Hutchings, RD and we talked about body love, body image and how both of these things affect us while on our health journey. We also talk about why accepting our body, the way that it is, will help us be successful on our weight loss journey. Today’s episode will hopefully enlighten you and Rock your Wellness!
Disclaimer: This podcast does not constitute medical advice. You should always speak to your doctor before changing your nutrition or exercise habits.
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Body Image with Lucy Hutchings, RD – Episode Transcript
Lucy Hutchings 0:05
Welcome back to The Healthy Mama Podcast friends! I am so excited to have a very special guest on today to talk about body image. She is actually somebody that I’ve had on in the past. I don’t know how long it’s been. It could even be almost a year ago and I am just really excited to have her back.
Lucy Hutchings 0:22
This is Lauren Chante. She is a wellness strategist. She’s also host of the Rock Your Wellness with Lauren Chante podcast, which I absolutely love. So I have been following Lauren for a long time. I love her message. I really align with her message and I just love her energy. So thank you for being here Lauren. Welcome!
Lauren Chante 0:42
Oh, thank you for having me. I’m really excited for this conversation on body image. It’s gonna be a juicy one!
Lucy Hutchings 0:49
I am excited too because, the reason why I had Lauren come on today is because, it’s almost Valentine’s Day. It’s right around the corner from when we’re recording this and I feel like a lot of us talk about love at Valentine’s Day. That’s just you know, the time of year we’re talking about a lot of love. What I’m noticing, as I’m working with the women in my practice, is I am noticing a lot of unlove. For themselves and for their own body and they don’t have a positive body image.
Lucy Hutchings 0:50
So what I want to talk about today is the idea of body love & body image. And how our body image can affect us. How it affects our journey, our health journey, our weight loss journey, whatever type of health journey you’re on. I think this is really important. So Lauren, the first thing I want to do, is ask you to introduce yourself and give a little bit of background on who you are and where you’ve come from.
Lauren Chante 1:16
My name is Lauren Chante. I am a wellness strategist. I’m really passionate about that title because so much of what goes into being well has nothing to do with your food and your exercise. It has to do with everything else!
Lauren Chante 2:02
As a wellness strategist, I help intellectual Wonder Women figure out how they can have chaos proof custom wellness strategies. How they can have that in the midst of all the stuff that doesn’t have to do with the food and exercise. I am so passionate about that because I really struggled with my own wellness.
Lauren Chante 2:30
I mentioned on our last podcast episode, after having my oldest child, I almost developed an eating disorder. The baby weight wasn’t coming off and I was hating my body and I made myself throw up. I had this big binge & I didn’t want it to mess with my progress. I just really was not in a good headspace and didn’t have a great body image. So, in that moment, I knew that that was not the person I wanted to be. I knew it wasn’t the life that I was meant to have. But I also knew that I deserved to feel great in my skin. So, ultimately, that’s how I arrived here. After over 10 years of research and hard work and working with clients and working on myself at what I teach now as a wellness strategist.
Lucy Hutchings 3:03
Awesome, yes! And like I said, I love your your energy. I love your message. I love listening to your podcast.
Lauren Chante 3:11
Thank you!
Lucy Hutchings 3:13
I have been talking to a lot of women and feeling they’ve been very frustrated with their bodies and have a negative body image. They are really basically hating their bodies. This may be going on for their entire lives. And they’re at this point where they are just so frustrated. They want to lose weight. They want to feel good when they look at themselves in the mirror. And it’s so not easy and I wanted to see how are you seeing your clients showing up? Or are you finding the same thing in your practice?
Lauren Chante 3:50
You know, it’s definitely something that I know is a problem with a lot of women. I’d say I have probably half of my clients who are very much in that boat. They just cannot stand the way they feel in their bodies or the way that they look. They have a negative body image. So that’s why they’ve arrived at coaching.
Lauren Chante 4:03
I also have a select few women who really could give two craps about their weight, about their size or about any of that. They don’t have a negative body image. They’re wanting to feel more energetic or stronger. They want to create better habits because they’re attached to a different outcome in their life. It’s pretty cool to see how vast and different the experience can be. Also to learn from my students who are not really obsessed with their weight or their body. To see the journey that they went on to get there and what it is about them that allows them to detach from that physical stress that so many of us do feel.
Lucy Hutchings 4:40
Yeah, so I love that you’re saying that the those women that don’t care, they are attached to a different outcome. I definitely think we should be talking about that a little more. So tell me more about what that outcome is that they’re attached to.
Lauren Chante 4:56
Woo! I’m trying to kind of figure out where to start with this! So I’m really blessed because I have transitioned to working with the ‘intellectual Wonder Woman’ & they’re very much purpose driven in their lives. They’re attached to the impacts that they make through serving others and the impact oftentimes is bigger. They do some really amazing and beautiful work. So because of that, that’s really where they get their validation and their sense of identity. And their sense of authority is from the impact that they’re creating in the world.
Lauren Chante 5:01
I know for me, now that I’m an entrepreneur doing my work, I very much feel that way as well. I remember when I was a stay at home mom for 9 years and the only thing that you are attaching your value to was how well things are going on at home. It was a very different season. It was a very challenging period for me. Even now, I’m going through some struggles with my kids, even though I’m working.
Lauren Chante 5:54
When you’re a mom and your primary sense of value comes from your family and family life is not going well it can really leave you in a vulnerable position. One where you’re allowing, actually I don’t want to say allowing but, like I said you’re vulnerable. So your worth can be impacted by all these external factors that we would otherwise not allow to penetrate our emotional and mental skin, right? I think that, in general, it’s so important to acknowledge that as human beings we are social people.
Lauren Chante 6:29
That’s how we’re wired. That’s how our brains work. Part of being social beings means that we have to be sensitive to the culture of power in our social group. We have to understand the norms, understand what’s acceptable, what’s not acceptable, what’s desirable and what is not desirable. That creates or I guess I don’t want to say it creates but it has a really important role to keep us from having a completely chaotic society. Like, for the most part, we’re not going around murdering each other and plundering and doing all these awful things. We’re able to maintain some sense of order and structure right? Along with that comes this challenge of, if you are this social being and you’re always sensitive to the culture of power, you recognize when you are not meeting the standards of society.
Lauren Chante 7:18
This generation of women, we grew up in the 80s, early 90s,. This was the heyday of the Victoria’s Secret model. I think every women who’s listening remembers when the runway shows with Victoria’s Secret Angels were broadcast on TV. They would walk down the runway with their giant angel wings! There would be those specials leading up to it, “Behind the Scenes with the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show”, right?
Lauren Chante 7:41
That was also the heyday of heroin chic or cocaine chic. When the super skinny supermodels were really big and Kate Moss would say her things about like, how skinny tastes better than food ever would or whatever weird quote she made. That was our childhood, right? Like that was the cover of 17 Magazine and every fashion magazine that we ever saw was that right? So our brains perception of what is beautiful and what is desirable in our culture is rooted in that. I think it’s really important to understand, as you’re going on this journey, that was a narrative created within the media industry. In reality, even in the 80s and the 90s, that necessarily wasn’t truly everyone’s standard of beauty.
Lauren Chante 8:32
I love following, one of my business coaches, Nicole Walters who has been going through a dating experience post divorce. She talks about how there is a lid for every pot and how she really learned that through the dating experience. That for everyone, there is someone who thinks that you are beautiful. There’s someone who loves your body size, who loves your body type, who loves your looks. Someone who loves your dark skin or your light skin or your straight hair or your kinky hair.
Lauren Chante 8:59
There really is a lid for every pot. It’s hard at first to believe that and I really want to make space for that experience. Something that I’ve seen with the body positivity/self love movement is first we start feeling bad about our bodies. We decide we’re gonna love them and embrace them. Then we move on through this journey and we have a lot of trouble doing that. And now we’re feeling bad that we can’t love our bodies.
Lauren Chante 9:29
So we basically just went from feeling bad about one thing to feeling bad about another thing. Which is really not what we were trying to do, right? So it can almost become toxic if we don’t make room for the experience. We don’t make room for the fact that it’s going to take time to move from point A to point B. To let yourself have that experience. For me, I feel like it’s been decades of working on my body image. It’s literally been decades of working on loving my body, especially with the changes coming from having children and getting older.
Lucy Hutchings 10:03
Yes, for sure. And so, we had started talking about that a little bit before we started recording. You actually mentioned earlier about how people attach their self worth to certain things. Things like how their house looks or how their kids behave in public. Things like that. They’re also attaching their self worth to something like a number on the scale or a jean size. Or how they are appearing in their clothes.
Lucy Hutchins 10:27 Like I said, I’ve had my own struggles even though I’m not on specifically a weight loss journey. I still struggle with the same type of feelings. When I look in the mirror, do I love every single part of my body? Well, it’s really hard to say that I do. I have to admit that no, it’s not a perfect thing! So, yeah, I want to talk more about that, attaching that worth to that number or to that size.
Lauren Chante 11:04
Okay, so let me take you through the list of all the things that I feel insecure about in my body. That sounds like a fun game, doesn’t it? Guys, if you haven’t physically seen me, I’m in great shape. I’m healthy. I’m gorgeous, in my opinion, but I also have a lot of insecurities. My nose is giant. I’m Puerto Rican and I got my grandmother’s Spanish nose. As I’ve gotten older, the skin around my jaw is getting loose. I’m starting to get a little bit of that grandma wobble under my chin. I’ve had three kids so I’ve got all this stretched out skin on my belly. I also usually only wear high waisted bathing suits and high waisted clothes. If I do that I look like I have an 19 year olds belly but if I wear low waisted you know the truth, right?
Lauren Chante 11:08
All the wrinkling! I have an umbilical hernia in my belly button from my second pregnancy and lots of vein issues from my legs. I actually had six surgeries a year and a half ago to correct vascular issues related to genetics and pregnancy. One of my surgeries has to be redone and I’m going back into the knife on March 9 for recurrence. So bottom line is I’ve got my stuff too, right! I have really had to work through the worth part, and my body image and this is something that I noticed.
Lauren Chante 12:17
First of all, when you have a negative body image, when you don’t love your body the way it is, and you don’t feel like you’re worth loving your body the way that it is, you’re not going to do all those things that traditionally make people feel beautiful. You’re not going to put on makeup or buy nice clothes that fit your body type. Or fit your body type the way that it is right now before you lose weight. Because listen guys, I know 99% of you here are probably guilty of this. You wear whatever clothes you have left in your closet that you don’t like or they don’t fit. It’s because you’re just going to lose weight so why would you spend clothes on the size you’re in now?
Lauren Chante 12:57
Listen, nobody at any size feels good in crappy clothes like that. It doesn’t matter if you are 100 pounds or 5 pounds from where you want to b. Dress your body in a way that you feel good in. Wear clothes that you love. I know the bigger that you are, the harder this can be . Not all brands are size inclusive right now. I love following Katie Sturino on Instagram. She does the supersize the look. She’ll take celebrity looks and she’ll supersize them. then she tell you where you can get the clothes to make the same look as the celebrities. So there’s a lot of options and a lot of inspiration out there.
Lauren Chante 13:33
You know, do your makeup, your hair, get your nails done. What happens when we do these things? When we feel our best, it changes our energy. The bottom line is that what’s really sexy and beautiful is your energy. That’s why when you look at people like Lizzo, who is this huge force right now in body positivity. People who think she’s sexy and again I know it’s not everybody because every lid has a pot. You might not be the pot for Lizzo’s lid . There are millions of people who are the pot or Lizzo’s lid! Part of it is because of the energy that she’s bringing to her body. She has the confidence to bring that energy.
Lauren Chante 14:11
That is what is sexy, gorgeous, desirable to people. It’s that energy of charisma and confidence and being yourself and sometimes, you know, you’re just born that way. Sometimes you’re just born charismatic. For most of us we have to peel back the layers. We have to give ourselves the tools to slowly show up in more confident energy. So if you’re not using tools that are available to you at the size that you’re at right now, then no wonder you feel cruddy.The interesting thing is, taking care of yourself by making yourself feel good at the size that you’re at, will actually make you more successful on your weight loss journey if that’s what you’re desiring.
Lauren Chante 14:57
I read a book that I love called Atomic Habits by James Clear. He gives this great example in the introduction about this guy he was working with who chewed his nails obsessively and he really wanted to stop biting his nails. The conversation in the book was about how our identity and who we believe we are is really tied into our ability to change our habits.
So this guy who chewed his nails, his job was to find a way to start identifying as someone who took care of his nails and his hands. So he started going to get manicures. While he was getting this manicure, getting rid of all the chewed up edges on his nails and stuff, the nail tech said “You have really nice hands and really nice fingers”. And in that moment, hearing the compliment from that nail tech caused him to switch and take pride in his hands. He never chewed his nails again because he was someone who had nice hands and he didn’t want to mess them up. Right?
Lauren Chante 15:56
So put yourself in that position with your body. If you are someone who feels like you have a nice body and you love your body and you’ll feel good in your clothes and you feel good about yourself, you’re not going to want to mess that up because that’s part of you’re identity. You’re going to want to do good things for your body and take care of your body. On a deep psychological level, it helps to shift you to success, but you have to get out of that mindset that you’re not worth feeling good, exactly where you are right now.
Lucy Hutchings 16:26
Yes, exactly that changing your identity. That’s a huge one that I’ve talked before on here and I really want people to hear that. You really have to work on changing that identity to identify with the person that you actually want to be. If you want to be somebody that is energetic or sexy or charismatic or whatever it is or somebody that is more social or somebody that is healthy, then you know, what is it going to take to become that person, right? You have to start asking those questions and then figuring out how to how to make that happen. So I love that.
Lucy Hutchings 17:05
So my question is, there’s this whole body love movement and we recognize how difficult it is especially after babies or after we get to that age. I’ve had 3 naturally so I definately have had some body changes since doing that. So what I want to talk about now is like how do we handle this idea of this? You know, this body love movement is here. It’s been here and I love it. I love that we are working more on figuring out how to love our bodies, but how do we learn how to love where we’re at? But also, how do we accept that maybe there are things that we do need to change that we do need to work on? Because maybe there is a health reason why we need to lose weight or make a change. So how do we do both?
Lauren Chante 18:28
So something that I really love is just remembering that right now is the only moment that you have, right? We spend a lot of time thinking about the future and thinking about the past but the reality is right now this is the only moment you have. So you really just have to make the next right choice and doing kind things for your body is always the next right choice. And if you keep making that next right choice eventually it’s going to result in a health change.
Lauren Chante 18:57
Now at the same time, you can be kind and loving to who you are, in this moment at the same time that you’re striving to improve. I mean, think about your kids. Most of our kids, they go to school, they don’t know how to read. They don’t know how to do math, but you don’t make them feel bad about the fact that they don’t know how to read or do math while they’re learning right?
Lauren Chante 19:17
Why do we do that to ourselves when it comes to our wellness goals, right? You get to be a work in progress even if you need to lose weight for health reasons, even if there are changes that you need to make for the health of your family and the health of yourself. You get to be kind to yourself along the way. I think it’s also really important to acknowledge that not everyone is going to become well. Not everyone is going to reach their health goals and not everybody is going to lose weight. And I think that can sound a little brutal to say out loud but I think it’s important to acknowledge because you have to make the choice if this is something that you actually want or not.
Lauren Chante 19:54
If it’s something that deep down you actually don’t want or care about, you get to live whatever way you’re currently living. You get to have your health whatever way you have it and you get to still be worthy. If you choose that there are other things that are more important to you than caring about your health, then that gets to be your choice. And I think that there is something really important about saying that to people because many people are making the choice to try to be healthy out of shame and obligation.
When you hear somebody take away that shame and obligation and say listen, you’re worthy regardless of your weight, regardless of your health status, regardless of if you’re following your doctor’s orders. It gives you freedom to really explore what you really want. And there are very few people, who deep down, really don’t value their health. So once you make space for that, like it’s going to make the journey a lot more natural and a lot more organic and just rooted in the right place, if that makes sense.
Lucy Hutchings 20:52
Totally yes, it’s really up to the person. It’s up to them. They’re in control. I always say that to my clients, that they they are the one running the show. That’s it’s their choice. They are the leaders here. I’m just a guide that comes alongside and helps and provides that support and that motivation. So, I love that, I love that you’re saying that you can do both. You can love where you’re at or you can learn to love where you’re at. You can learn to love that body & learn to show your body love. While on your journey you can be kind to yourself and be loving to yourself as you’re learning to make those changes and reach your health goals.
Lauren Chante 21:41
I also want to say that the way that we feel about our bodies, it’s very real. Oftentimes it’s really rooted in our body in a physiological way. Almost like a form of trauma. So sometimes you need to pursue counseling or therapy. Or you can learn to use some of the somatic techniques to help you resolve the actual trauma in your body, about your body love or lack of it.
I love EFT tapping. It’s a really great tool that I just started using this year. You can go on YouTube and look up some videos on how to do tapping. Basically you go through different points on your body you tap. As you’re tapping, you say a statement about how I love and accept myself. Even though I don’t like my belly. I love and accept myself even though I’m not the weight that I want to be at. A huge part of this journey is getting that love and acceptance. To go from the place of logic and knowing that you need to do it to actually feeling like you love and accept yourself in your heart and on the inside.
Lucy Hutchings 22:53
Yeah, yeah, that’s great. So I’ve heard of tapping before and so that’s definitely something that people can look into. And then you started to say that some of some of our issues are rooted in this trauma and a lot of it’s from childhood. I’ve talked to many people over the last year. I’ve found it’s like when they were a teenager their uncle came in and made a comment about their weight/ Or maybe it’s their mom was always obsessed with with restricting or with her own weight. And so then, you know, the child ended up, getting some of those those issues. You know, there’s all these things that may have happened in childhood that that they’re bringing with them into adulthood. And it’s just so difficult for so many people.
Lauren Chante 23:46
Yeah, there’s not a single person that hasn’t had something said about their body at one point. Even really positive statements. For example, I was a very thin, model like teenager. I would always hear all the time “You’re so pretty. You’re so thin. You’re like a model”. So even though it was all positive, it was like, if you want people to say nice things about you, then you need to stay pretty and thin and like a model, right? It’s even in the good times, people are showing you what’s important to them and it does create a lasting impact on your body image.
Lauren Chante 24:14
We really have to examine our narrative about where our body image ideas come from. Just know that you get to choose something different at any time. One of the best ways to do that is to make sure that you’re surrounding yourself with people who are choosing something different too. On your social media, make sure that you’re following people with a wide variety of body images and body types. It’s really easy to just end up with a bunch of very thin, white, blond fitness or influencers or regular influencers. Include people of different body types, skin tones, hair type, sizes, in what you’re seeing on a daily basis. You will find that you’re slowly starting to change your brains idea of what’s beautiful . Or what’s desirable and starting to silence those voices from your childhood and just expand a little bit.
Lucy Hutchings 25:04
Yeah, okay. So I’m hearing dig into some of those narratives. Where did they come from? Kind of work on that & figure out where they came from. And then, you can process through that. Follow and surround yourself by people that are more variety of looks and sizes. More inclusive instead of just this typical thing that we grew up with the 80s and the 90s. And what we’re used to seeing in the magazines, right, we don’t need to surround ourselves with that. You also mentioned tapping. Do you have any other tips that you can share of you know where to start or what to do with with this issue?
Lauren Chante 25:48
Yeah, I mean, I think the last important point is that body acceptance is easier to hit before body positivity. The difference between acceptance and positivity is that you might not be able to look in the mirror and say, “Wow, I really love my belly” and actually mean it. That is years off for many of us and I want to normalize that. What you will be able to get to faster is I accept myself as I am. I accept my belly, I accept my arms, I accept my weight, I accept myself.
Lauren Chante 26:22
I would encourage people who are doing this for the first time to focus on that and to use their tools, whether it’s therapy, tapping, working with a coach, journaling, whatever it might be to focus on that landmark first. Then once you reach acceptance, to start treating your body kindly, even if it doesn’t come naturally to you. Buy the nice clothes, put on the makeup, work with the dietician. Do all of those things and you’re going to find that love is going to follow.
Lucy Hutchings 26:53
I love that yes, finding the acceptance first. You know, so I look at the mirror I see my belly. It’s not where I want it to be. Just finding a way to accept that that belly gave me my three beautiful children. Everybody’s healthy and so that’s definitely a great place for me to start as well . To just treat yourself kindly. So pay attention to the words that you’re saying in your head , right. So if we’re berating ourselves for, you know, all the little things, then we’re not going to reach our health journey more successfully by hating it. You can’t hate yourself into good health right?
Lauren Chante 27:36
Or are you surrounding yourself by people who are doing that about other people too? I know for a while I had some people in my life who would pick apart people who walked by. They’d say “Wow, I really don’t like her outfit” or “Goodness, like she’s really big”. I had to let those people know when you talk critically about other people, it lets me know that you’re capable of talking critically about me and that affects my body image. And that, on my journey, on my body love journey makes me feel like I should be feeling bad about myself. So just knowing who you’re surrounding yourself with is also super important.
Lucy Hutchings 28:10
Yeah, I think that’s awesome. So I would love for you to share with the audience where they can find more information about you.
Lucy Hutchings 28:20
Yeah, you can head over to LaurenChante.com and there’s a bunch of ways to talk with me, meet with me and learn from me on there and I would love to have you guys over on my podcast, Rock Your Wellness with Lauren Chante. It’s on all the podcast platforms. So head over there and tap subscribe.
Lucy Hutchings 28:36
Awesome. This has been a really, really helpful conversation about body image and I mean, it could go on for hours, too, as everybody has just, you know, nobody’s gonna be perfect and this is a journey and it’s not an easy one by any means. There’s a lot to say about body image. So thank you so much for coming on and sharing your insight.
Lauren Chante 28:58
Thank you for having me and for talking about body image with me, Lucy.
Lucy Hutchings 28:59
Awesome. Thank you