A few weeks ago my friend Patricia Moreno, author of The IntenSati Method: The Seven Secret Principles to Thinner Peace, and I decided to collaborate on something just for fun. We decided to keep it simple – a one hour tele-class where we could have an in depth conversation with one another about health and bodies and share it with our audiences. (Go right to the bottom of this post for details if you want to skip the story.) This is the best kind of collaboration: fun and easy.

I’ve known Patricia ever since I started taking her IntenSati class, a very intense and uplifting combination of cardio, martial arts, dance and affirmations, in New York City several years ago. I absolutely adore Patricia’s transparency and commitment to sharing her own challenges to help other people overcome their own.

As we sat together all post workout glowy two weeks ago in NYC we shared our own journey’s with our bodies. Neither Patricia or I have ever fit the cultural physical ideal for the female body. Loving what we were born with has definitely been an opportunity for growth for both of us. We’ve both read every diet and nutrition book out there and have tried most of the different plans ourselves with varying degrees of success.

I came to our meeting with bullet points that I could share about the science of hormonal health, blood sugar, emotions, and weight loss. I figured I would share the best of everything I’ve learned about how what we put in our mouth affects our bodies.

But here’s the thing: as I read them out loud to a very enthusiastic Patricia, something just didn’t feel right.

As we talked, Patricia and I realized that when its come to our own journeys with our bodies, all the nutrition knowledge in the world hasn’t been what’s really made us feel healthy and fabulous.

The key ingredient has been learning how to love our bodies. No amount of nutrition knowledge, shopping on the perimeter of the supermarket, adding more greens, or cutting refined sugar out of your diet will make you feel and look good sustainably if its done for the wrong reasons.

That morning in her IntenSati class Patricia reminded us:

“What you do doesn’t matter as much as how you do it.”

If we’re cleaning up our diet and moving our bodies from a place of self-loathing and wanting to reach some idealized version of perfection to make ourselves finally feel whole and lovable, it won’t work long term. Yeah, we might lose 10 or even 50 pounds. We might look amazing in our skinny jeans. But the most important part will still be missing and those outside results probably won’t stick.

As we brainstormed we realized that rather than teach science and what to eat, we wanted to instead teach how to actually love yourself when it comes to your body. We wanted to share practical, simple strategies for deeply accepting our amazing bodies, no matter what. Because we’ve both found that when we’re loving ourselves and embracing our bodies, we not only look better, we also make better food choices, and most importantly, we feel our best.

When it came to the course title one of us threw out the word “skinny.” Even right now as I write this I have a bit of an emotionally charged relationship with that word. But that’s how I knew it was the right one.

You see, our culture has one version of skinny and the version I see parading on runways and staring back at me in magazines is a version that is not me.

When we came up with the call title, Love Yourself Skinny, Patricia looked at me and said,

“Well I’m not skinny.”

And I replied, “Me neither. I’ve never been skinny and I’m never going to be.”

We were both referring to the idea of skinny, or of the ideal body type that our culture portrays.

But as we dove deeper we agreed that we wanted to stick with the word as an opportunity for ourselves and for listeners to reclaim it and redefine it for themselves.

My skinny comes from a place of moving my body daily in ways that feel really good, from winking at myself in the mirror, appreciating my health, and loving myself. I know what that feels like for me and though I may not be 100% on track  every day, it’s the true north I’m always steering for.

If the word skinny both compels and repels you, as it does me, this is the call for you.

Join Patricia and I for Love Yourself Skinny, a one-time only virtual event on Monday, October 15th from 9-10pm EST.

On this call you’ll learn:

• how to upgrade your thoughts and habits to shift from complaining about to loving your body
• how to take conscious, loving, smart actions towards health and a body you love
• 4 practical steps to start loving your body immediately

Plus there will be a guided meditation to assist you in getting in the optimal mindset and heart space for loving yourself.

REGISTER HERE

I’d love to hear your thoughts:

What practical tools do you use to love your body?

What do you think of the word skinny?

What do you struggle with most when it comes to loving your body?

What questions to have for Patricia and I?