Today I had a client who wanted to lose weight, and she had been assigned to a dietician, a young skinny woman, for help. The dietician gave her some good advice but my client struggled to implement it because she also cooks for a fussy child and a hungry husband, and she has many other things going on in her life, and a long history of weight gain and all the emotional issues that go along with it. When she tried to express to the dietician that she was struggling, the dietician’s response was “well, are you serious about wanting to lose weight or not?”. My client did not feel seen or heard, and didn’t go back.

Is it not arrogant and inappropriate for a young, thin person to be giving weight loss advice to an older, non-skinny person?

I find most of the women I work with need to hear and appreciate hearing me say things like:

Looking after kids is already a full time job- then you do paid work as well? It’s a lot you are managing, no wonder you are tired/exhausted etc

Women’s work doesn’t tend to be recognised or acknowledged, so we feel we have to do more and more...but look at everything you are doing.....

As women, mothers and/or wives, we tend to look after all the details of the family life and schedule, often including our husband/partner’s details. There is so much detail to keep track of in today’s world!

It’s ok to take time out just for you- the family revolves around you being ok, so take time to take care of you!……..

78% of women of a healthy weight are dissatisfied with their physical appearance. Wow.

Imagine if all that energy that goes into self judgement and criticism, and trying to meet unrealistic goals of our appearance, instead went into creativity, self kindness, an ability to laugh and accept ourselves, into feeding our bodies good food and treating ourselves with deep respect. Into treating ourselves with the same love we would a friend or a child.

Here are some tips for maintaining some simplicity, peace, calm, health and joy around this time of year. You can end 2017 feeling energised instead of exhausted because after all, it is holiday time for most of us.