How to Strengthen the Mother-Daughter Dieting Cycle Relationship

How to end the Mother and Daughter Dieting Cycle while Strengthening Your Relationship and Bond with One Another

Mothers and daughters have a tenuous relationship.  It is challenging enough to move through the chapters of our daughters lives...from infancy to young adult.  They don't come with a manual, darn it!  

Here is a contract that you and your daughter/sister/mother can look at and agree to follow to build a better relationship with food, eating and your bodies.  Taking the time to build a common language can make a big difference in how you navigate conversations that come up between family and friends.  

• Agree to reject the diet mentality and the “ThinIdeal” for
  good.
  
  
• Agree to keep fashion magazines and social media feeds that support the “thin ideal” and dieting mentality out of the house and off phones and computers as much as possible
  
  
• Agree to educate yourself and each other on the physiological and psychological effects of dieting.  Solidifying your belief that diets don’t work
  
  
• Learn to trust yours and your children’s inner food compass.   Ask questions like: Are you hungry? What are you hungry for ...something hot, cold, soft, hard, salty, sweet, snack or a meal?
  
  
• Learn and Agree to Neutralize Foods.
  Educate each other on the different nutritional information about foods without placing Labels or judgment on them (such as good or bad, right or wrong, healthy or unhealthy)
  
  
• Agree to notice, listen and ask what does my body need.
  Encourage each other to tune into their own bodies physical and emotional wants and needs. Give yourself permission to eat or not to eat, and to notice what the body needs... Is it something other than hunger? And if so, what?
  (For more information on emotional eating or how to eat intuitively, email me at annie@shapingperspectives.com I can help!)
  
• Agree to serve a variety of foods to your children and to yourself.This offers independence of choice, develops autonomy and helps insure the body is getting the nutrients it needs.
  
  
• Agree to tune into how you talk to yourself( or others) when you are around your children or your parents.   It is just as devastating or triggering to a mother to hear her child say they “feel fat” or“I’m so fat”
  
  
• Agree to speak up if someone “fattalks” about themselves.vHelp change the conversation to something positive about them or say something like this “Don’t talk about my friend like that”

• Notice how you talk to yourself or act when you are with other members of your family or friends, your words and actions can easily be misinterpreted by others.

• Agree to seek to understand when you hear others talking about someone else’s weight, size or body shape. Strive to make the point that we never really know what is going on in someone else’s life that might have an effect on either weight loss or gain, and that we shouldn’t make assumptions. Some things which we know can impact weight and size include medications, sicknesses, stress, emotional trauma and disordered eating.

• Agree to disconnect exercise from weight loss, burning calories or altering body shape or size. Learn to appreciate your body for what it can today. Incorporate movement, play and exercise is fun and enjoyable, gets you or keeps you out of pain and improves your function and ability to do the things we want to do and value the most. Ie: Dancing, playing with a grandchild on the floor, walking the beach, flying to visit a friend, family member or loved one.

• Educate yourself about weight bias, weight diversity and weight inclusivity. It is the same as race, religion or cultural biases.

• Agree to adopt the philosophy and mindset that all bodies are special, unique and worthy bodies, no matter what size or shape they are.

• Agree to model self-compassion and self-kindness towards yourself.This includes your self-talk, your body image, behaviors and actions.)

• Take action steps to work on healing your own relationship with food, mind and body.

If you would like guidance or support with regards to transforming your relationship with food, mind, body and self, or help with your mother/daughter relationship in regards to food and eating, please contact me at annie@shapingperspectives.com, call me at 603.339.1212 or go to www.shapingperspectives.com I have inspired and empowered hundreds of women like you to achieve their health, wellness and lifestyle dreams and goals.

The Lucky One

I am the lucky one.  Blessed with 2 distinctly different daughters.  They are unique in their talents...they are smart, funny, sensitive and caring. 

I am not sure what I was thinking when I said I wanted to write about them.  I could use this blog to brag on them, embarrass them, reminisce and get all wishy washy, but I won't...

They are now 20 and 22.  I am not sure how...feels like just yesterday they were heading off to kindergarten.  Funny, our parents said the same thing to us when we FINALLY were old enough to head off on our own...

I loved being pregnant, I loved rocking them as babies and getting up in the middle of the night to sooth a bad dream.  When they turned 3 and 4, I was running ragged...tired with a never ending list of "to do's"  I thought these were some of the toughest years.  UNTIL, one had her heart broken.  That brought about a whole new level of hard.  

Interesting the level of pain you can feel in the presence of the pain of another.  The love of a child is like no other.  It feels like it morphs, flows and changes...but I am not so sure. 

I want to say thank you to my girls for not giving up on me and loving me despite my mistakes.  Looking back I would have done some things differently.  Yet, I know that I did the best that I could with what I knew.  I continue to learn and grow as a parent and I continue to do the best that I can...

I want them to know how much I love them, how proud I am of them both.  That I will be there for them when they need me, will love them unconditionally, will cheer loud for them, and cry hard with them...as many times as they need.

And...Yes Ashley and Alyssa, I now would have let you play in the "clean garbage cans" out front...

I am the lucky one...blessed to be a mom...

Just the way I am!

I am 12 years old wearing only a pair of underwear. My mother is making me stand in front of a mirror.  I am mortified.

She asks me what I see...I roll my eyes, pinch the skin on my belly and say ,"I see fat and frumpy,  Happy?"

She sees frail and fragile, hears my sarcasm and is frightened.

We are both looking at the same thing...my almost naked body, yet we see completely different things, have different emotions and think different thoughts

I am feeling awkward, angry, embarrassed and mixed up, while my mom is terrified and troubled.  She has been watching me slowly disappear in front of her eyes. Unsure if where to turn next.

Anorexia Nervosa was the diagnosis. Virtually unknown to most 1975.  

It took 3 years of counseling, a month in a hospital and lots of tears shed before the Poirier dinner table was not a war zone.

Food and exercise have been the coach and the quarterback throughout my life.  Calories counted, exercise logged, scale down=worthy and happy, scale up=depressed and ugly.

It has been only over the last few years that I have finally accepted and appreciated what my body has done for me.

It can throw like a boy, it played college sports, fought fires, climbed and repelled off ferris wheels, competed in body building shows, run marathons, delivered 2 babies naturally and twins via c-section, climbed mountains and swam in oceans....

What is on your BODY ACCOMPLISHMENT LIST?

My body has done amazing things...why have I hated it so much and treated it so poorly?  It is time for me to respect and love my body, JUST THE WAY IT IS! Perfect for me!