EPISODE 282: How to Love and Accept Your Body While Still Wanting to Change It

Lisa [00:00:02]:
Welcome to the full frontal Living podcast. I'm Lisa Carpenter, master life coach to.

Lisa [00:00:06]:
Driven, ambitious humans who want more out of life without having to sacrifice themselves to achieve it.

Lisa [00:00:12]:
I'll share how it's possible to slow.

Lisa [00:00:14]:
Down, take better care of yourself, find.

Lisa [00:00:17]:
More peace and ease, create sustainable energy, stop procrastination and overwhelm and fall in.

Lisa [00:00:24]:
Love with your life, your business, and your body. This podcast is for you. If you're ready to learn what it takes to thrive as a high performer, do less but achieve more, make you.

Lisa [00:00:35]:
And your well being a top priority, and create your extraordinary life.

Lisa [00:00:40]:
I'm so glad you're here. Well, hey, hey. And thanks for joining me for another episode of the full frontal Living podcast. And this episode is another amazing repurposed episode from the archives. And maybe, maybe you missed it. Maybe you hadn't seen this episode or listened to this episode before it was originally committed. It was originally called called committing to something new. It was episode 111.

Lisa [00:01:07]:
And what I'm calling this episode this time around is how to love and accept your body while still wanting to change it. Because that is truly what this episode is about. Now, in this episode, I'm going to share with you a moment in time of actually when I was going through a build in 20, 1422, I believe, getting ready to go on stage for my show in 2023, I went through a massive build. Actually, maybe it was even earlier than that. Anyways, the time doesn't matter. What matters most, though, is that I was going through a period of having to eat a lot more, more than I was comfortable with and put on a significant amount of body fat in order to add lean mass to my tiny little frame. And if you've met me in person, you know, I am super tiny. Now, fast forward, here we are in 2024.

Lisa [00:02:07]:
And if you've been following my journey, I've been spending this year really traveling the globe. And all this travel is not super conducive to sticking to any type of workout routine or any type of specific nutrition plan. Now, I have been doing this for decades, meaning fueling my body properly and training. So I. I don't really have a.

Lisa [00:02:33]:
Lot of stress around it, to be honest.

Lisa [00:02:34]:
I know how to eat for my body. I know how to fuel my body. Um, and one of the biggest things I can get caught in is under eating. Not eating enough because of flights, because of meetings, because of travel, all the things because of where I am in the world and what I have access to. The bottom line is, though, that through all these iterations. I get to love and accept my body where it's at. And I was just having a conversation with a friend this morning about how I've had to look at the things that I'm still attached to. And after going through such a massive build, which I didn't put on that much muscle, if I'm being honest, I am a very hard gainer.

Lisa [00:03:19]:
While I haven't been training with the same intensity this year, and of course, being on top of my nutrition in the same way, I've had to be at peace with the fact that I've lost a significant amount of the gains that I made. And do you know what that means? Absolutely nothing. I can always begin again. My body is always going to be changing. It's always going to be in motion. And we don't need to be attached to our body being one way or another. Which is why this episode is called how to love and accept your body while still wanting to change it. There's nothing wrong with wanting to change your body.

Lisa [00:03:57]:
And so much of your relationship with your body and how it performs for you is whether or not you are being loving and accepting of it in whatever iteration it is. And so many people believe that they have to be hard on themselves in order to motivate themselves to change. And if you're anything like me, that. I mean, that was a game that I played with myself for years and years, and it doesn't actually work. So the way that I want you to look at this is, if you have children, there are some times where you maybe don't like the choices your kids are making, especially as they get older. They may be throwing tantrums if they're young and you love them, but you don't really love them in that moment, or you don't really love their behavior in that moment. We love and accept our kids through all their iterations, even though we know there's some things that we would love.

Lisa [00:04:53]:
To see be different.

Lisa [00:04:54]:
Maybe they would just sit down and do their homework. Maybe they would not argue with you about cleaning up your room, right? We all have these moments in our lives where we can love and accept them, and where they're at and still want new, better, different. And the same is true for your body. You do not have to hate your body in order to motivate yourself to want to change your body. You can be in a place of love and acceptance, of where your body's at, and say, and I'd love for this to be different. I'd love for this to be different. And the last thing that I will leave you with before I drop you into this phenomenal episode is, and I may have already said this because this is where your brain is after you're 50, your body is the least interesting thing about you. So it's the package you're walking around in.

Lisa [00:05:46]:
I want you to love it. I want you to feel good in it. And at the end of the day, it's not the thing that you're going to be remembered on this earth for. It's how you made other people feel. It's the impact that you had in other people's lives. It's how you showed up to serve. So enjoy this episode. You may want to have pen and paper out to take some notes, especially if you've been struggling with your body image.

Lisa [00:06:10]:
And for many of my clients, it's been an ongoing struggle for most of their lives. If you are interested in getting support around how you can love and accept your body, how you can change your relationship with your body, we will put the link in the show notes that will direct you towards a program called weight loss from within really has nothing to do with weight loss. It has everything to do with learning how to love and accept your body and really diving deep into the relationship that you are having with your body and also with food, because many of you have a very dysfunctional relationship with food as well. So the more you let go, the more you can find peace and ease within your body. And ironically, the results that you're looking for are going to be on the other side of that. So have a fantastic day. Please make sure you are continuing to follow along on Instagram because that's where I'm sharing all my travel details. I'm just home from Australia right now, which was, I'm going to have to debrief that trip in a whole episode when I am back at work.

Lisa [00:07:13]:
And then I am off now to Amsterdam and Tanzania for a once in a lifetime safari with my entire family. Well, not true. Not my big boys, they're not. They're not coming along on this trip anyways. So enjoy that. And I look forward to catching you on the next episode.

Lisa [00:07:36]:
So today we're going to talk about how you feel about your body. Now, if you've signed up for the weight loss from within the first three days, so you can head over and grab that the link is in the show notes, you can actually receive the first three days of weight loss from within. And on day two, I ask my people how they want to feel about their body. So I'm going to ask you now, how do you want to feel about your body? So you may want to write down how do you feel about your body, but how do you want to feel about your body? So you might want to hit pause on this recording and go write those things down. I'll wait. You can come back. So if you've written that list, if you hit pause, you've written that list, and now you've come back to go, okay, Lisa, I know how I want to feel about my body. Here's the thing.

Lisa [00:08:32]:
You can feel that way about your body right now. In fact, nothing needs to change in your life before you can feel that way about your body. So how you think and feel about your body has absolutely nothing to do with your circumstances. Let me say that again. How you choose to think and feel about your body has nothing to do with the circumstances. The number on the scale does not need to change before you get to choose to feel better about your body. So if you want to feel more peaceful in your body, loving, sassy, energetic, vital, nurturing, sexy, fit, healthy, you can feel that way right now because the work around this work, right? What is the work I always talk about? Well, this is the work. It's choosing to be the woman who's committed to feeling like this today, because you become that woman by creating her today.

Lisa [00:09:37]:
As most of you know, if you've been listening for a while, I'm currently in a building phase, which means my job is to put on weight. Now, when you're trying to put on muscle, you're going to put on fat. And I've talked about this in previous episodes, and I heard my coach just today on her Instagram story talk about how, you know, when she went through her build, 80% of the weight she put on was fat. Only 20% was muscle. This is where I'm at, ladies who are tuning in. The other day, I had to kind of shimmy my jeans up because I think I need to just retire them. But this is where I'm at now. Imagine if that scale was dictating to me how I felt in my body.

Lisa [00:10:25]:
It is my job. Not just today, not just when I'm on a build, not just when I'm lean. It is my job to love, appreciate, and have gratitude for my body in all its iterations. I don't just get to feel sexy when I look a certain way. I get to choose to feel sexy. Now, how does feeling sexy like, what does that look like now with these extra curves? It's new, but I get to choose to feel that way right now. I get to feel fit. I get to feel healthy.

Lisa [00:10:58]:
I'm feeling very energetic, I'm feeling strong. But if I was handing my power over to that number on a scale I'd be losing. This would be impossible for me to build. And when you're handing your power over to the scale, and you're letting the scale dictate how you feel about your body, you're handing your power away to the scale. And what ends up happening is you're focusing on a problem that you don't really have. Your weight is nothing your problem. Your beliefs about your weight are the problem. The stories you're telling yourself about your body are part of the problem.

Lisa [00:11:42]:
So this podcast episode is a wake up call to help you release the attachment of the story that you have of when, you know, insert whatever. When I lose x number of pounds, then I'll get to feel. Insert how you want to feel. Because I can tell you, after doing this type of work with women for decades now, even when they reach that goal weight, they often don't allow themselves to feel the way they said that they would feel when they got to that weight. Or they feel it for a little bit, and then they're quick to sabotage themselves so that they don't get to feel that way. So consider that maybe the bigger problem is allowing ourselves to feel good about ourselves. We're so addicted to being hard on ourselves. We're so addicted to being in the struggle.

Lisa [00:12:40]:
We're so addicted to being abusive to ourselves and believing that that abuse is going to move us forward. So the work is releasing all the stories you're telling yourself about what needs to happen before you can feel the way you want to feel. Because if you continue to hold your attention and your focus on what you don't want, you'll keep getting more of what you don't want. This kept me so stuck for so long with my money. I thought the more I focused on my debt that that was going to solve the problem. But the more I focused on my debt, the worse my debt got. Instead of focusing on gratitude for my debt, because it allowed me to do a lot of amazing things instead of looking at how many things were awesome in in my life and how much abundance I was already surrounded with. So if we bring this back to your body, your body may not look the way you want it to look right now.

Lisa [00:13:37]:
There's nothing wrong with wanting to lose weight, but that body, it allows you to get out of bed every day allows you to move, allows you to breathe, allows you to see the world, smell the air, hug your children. Your body may have very well created life, yet the number on the scale means that you don't get to love yourself right now, that it has to look a certain way. So go deeper with that and consider that you know what that is saying about the relationship that you are having with yourself. Because would you ever be that hard on somebody you love? The answer most likely is no. You wouldn't tolerate talking to somebody you love in that way. So why are you tolerating it in yourself? So it's not your weight or your body or food that's causing your problem. It's your addiction to your own suffering and struggle. And how many years, hours, days have you lost in worries about things that really don't matter? Because when you're lying on your deathbed, right, or you're dead and gone, nobody is going to stand up at the altar and say, God, you know, she would have just been so much more amazing if she'd lost 20 pounds.

Lisa [00:14:58]:
That's never happened, ever, I'm pretty sure. So you get to choose today. You get to choose to look in the mirror. You get to choose to see your body in a whole different light. And I understand that it may feel uncomfortable, but when have I ever, ever said in this podcast that transformation was comfortable? It's not. You're going to have to do things you've never done if you want to create an outcome you've never had, you're going to have to do things you've never done if you want to create an outcome you've never had, you're going to have to be the person in a relationship with your body that you've never been. You're going to have to be the woman who loves herself enough to accept exactly where she is today and not make it mean anything. You get to be the woman who chooses how she wants to feel, not just today, but every day.

Lisa [00:15:55]:
You get to be the woman who stands in her power and knows that she creates her reality by the thoughts that she thinks and the words that she expresses. So short and sweet. Today, you may want to go back and replay this one, because I know that many of the women who listen to me, you know, you're struggling with how you feel in your skin, and I understand that, and I know what it feels like to be almost in that desperate place of, oh my God, I need to fix this. I need to end my suffering. Not even recognizing that you can end that suffering with the snap of your fingers. By choosing to end it, by choosing to decide to feel a different way about your life, what interpretations could you make about your body that would support you feeling the way you want to feel? And please understand that you don't have to like everything about your body to love it and accept it. I don't like my kids all the time, but I always love them and I always accept them. So.

Lisa [00:17:01]:
But in doing, you know, in that place of acceptance, in that place of taking full responsibility for how you want to feel, in that place of looking at the interpretations that you're making about your body, the stories that you're telling yourself about it and saying, wow, these are all made up in my head. Like, do you understand that? Do you get that everything you are telling yourself about your body are just made up stories? They are only true because you are telling yourself they're true. That's it. You are powerful beyond what you even realize. And I'm here to support you shifting, because it's time that women stop focusing on what they think is the problem. And I am here for the women who are ready to take responsibility for the deeper problem. And it truly comes down to how little many of us value ourselves. I'm here to change that because I know that when women fully step into their power and take ownership and responsibility of who they are, we can change the world.

Lisa [00:18:15]:
But we can't do that if we're caught in our head trash around how we think our butt looks or you know what that extra 20 pounds or 30 pounds means. We can't change the world. We can't make an impact if we're caught in our stories. We need to clear that stuff so we can focus our energy and attention on the things that really matter in the world, so that we can live the lives we want to live, so that we can feel the way we want to feel every day by choice. So until the next episode, take good care of you. The world really needs us to show up. So much love and I'll see you on the next episode.