Each week Grazia Magazine has a topic debate and here’s my take on it below! Is it hypocritical to preach self-acceptance while carefully regulating what goes into our mouths?
Being a feminist doesn’t come from eating donuts and not giving a hoot about your expanding derrière, weak immune system, libido or energy, when you are secretly at war with food. Eating crap and pretending it’s OK, will lead to an unhealthy body, life, career and relationships. That lovely ones is pure anti-feminist.
Having a great diet doesn’t have to be an obsession with being thin and hot, but rather being healthy, sexy and empowered. It’s about looking and feeling good, taking responsibility for your health, receiving pleasure and having the stamina to enjoy a juicy life.
Let me decipher ‘diet’. Diet is a way of living that can foster a nourishing relationship with food and your body. A diet can be an empowering, self loving and sensual experience, a ritual of sorts to encourage a feminine approach to vital health devoid of calorie counting and strict discipline! If you want equality you need to know how to feed your body with a diet that’s right for you. We are kidding ourselves to believe that unconscious eating will further build upon a feminist crusade. Rather our food ignorance will perpetuate sickness. It already is. 
A diet can be a direct pathway to being a feminist – a woman who knows how to eat, what to eat and has no shame, guilt or fear around food. Having a ‘diet’ and ‘dieting’ are two opposed ways of relating to food. Dieting espouses a masculine approach that spikes fear, control, struggle and pain. Who wants that? I never hop on the scales to weight myself. I don’t need to see a number to determine whether or not I’m the ‘right’ weight or if I need to lose weight. The Bodylove Diet is all about learning to trust your body. When you trust your body and yourself you learn how to nourish your body intuitively. The scales drive me bonkers! I strongly suggest you throw them away to avoid the highs and lows that so many women experience! I have a ‘diet’ I am not ‘dieting’. My diet has freed me from such torment and given me a holistic lifestyle of taking great care of my body. I eat like a horse, fully enjoy every mouthful and my metabolism is on fire! After all, I am a feminist. We must be mindful of what and how we eat, to cultivate our individual brand of feminism, freedom and happiness!
I would love to hear your thoughts so please post them on Facebook @Bodylove Diet or right below this posting! Please share by clicking on the FB link below!
Much Bodylove,
Ingrid Arna xoxo
By Ingrid Arna – Weight loss and happiness counselor, www.bodylovediet.com
Bodylove Daily Blessing for you to chant! –
I am JUICY! I LOVE and APPROVE of myself! I am releasing what no longer brings me love, joy and radiant health!
When we feel the love from within it extends outwards. Life is our mirror reflecting what we think, believe and have stored in our cells. When we live with a great big dose of SELF-LOVE the feeling can be like you’re on a high but it’s the natural drug of LOVE that you’ve tapped into. Love has the power to heal all things. Natural ecstasy made by your divine body comes from pure love. We open to pure love when we have the courage and awareness to let go of the pain, the past and come home to the present.
Much Bodylove, Beauty and Bliss,
Ingrid Arna xo
If you want to rock your life, it’s important to appreciate what you’ve learned along the way. When you acknowledge your life lessons, it makes them easier to absorb and integrate. Some of your lessons might have stretched you beyond what you’ve experienced before. Perhaps, they’ve even brought you to your knees in pain. I know that my biggest lessons, growth and illumination have come with a truckload of pain. It’s important to realize that we can have great expansion, ground breaking ‘ah-hahs’ and breakthroughs without crisis, but the reality is sometimes life throws us challenging curve balls to wake us up. And that often comes with a bit of pain. Here’s a secret: The less you resist, the easier the lessons become. As we become better at riding the wave of life with all of its challenges, we can not only appreciate the gifts and heed the limitless lessons, but we can also view them as a great opportunity for growth. In order to see the gift and learn the lesson, we have to be willing to take responsibility for our lives and what we are creating. You have to be conscious of the fact that you are actively designing your life right now.
One of the things I ask and intend (to creator, the universe and myself), is to increase my chance of evolving and becoming the more sassy and savvy me, is “Please give me the sight and wisdom to see, hear and learn the lessons I need to learn to heal and prosper.” You can do the same. Close your eyes and ask away! I say this to myself every day to send a clear message to myself and life. Why? Because I want my life to constantly get more beautiful, love-filled, rich and juicy. Who wants to repeat that same crap over and over again? Certainly, not I. I’m sure you don’t want to hit the replay button either. We all want to grow and in order to do so we must take responsibility for our lives.
I’m now much better at celebrating the growth periods with a new found awareness and a fully developed resilience muscle, strengthened only by my ability to ride the wave of life with a great dose of faith, love, joy and intuition.
Here some of my LOVELY LESSONS from the past few years!
• Loving yourself is the greatest healer there is. It’s not ego but our birthright.
• I’m enough right now. You’re enough right now. STOP doubting – START doing and see your insecurity take a hike!
• Waiting for your relationships with family and loved ones to become peaceful and loving before you can be whole is a huge mistake. Be whole now. Don’t wait for others to heal. Heal solo without their permission or involvement.
• The separation and inequality between men and women is an illusion. We are part of one another. We are different but equally divine.
• Loneliness is a modern day beast. Isolation can be good for the soul in small doses but it can undo us. We need each other more than we know.
• When people show you who they are, believe them.
• Other people’s opinions of you carry no weight or importance unless we give them meaning and power. Don’t. Even the good stuff whilst nice is best to come from yourself. Self – definition validates and creates self- love not ego.
• Stop doubting and start doing!
• Expecting someone to be someone they don’t have the spiritual and emotional ability to be is both futile and unfair.
• Sex is fabulous and important for health. I sometimes get so driven by my work that I deny my cravings and use the creative energy in my work. I need more sex.
• Visionaries need to master these three key traits to realize their potential – focus, self belief and the ability to follow through all the way. Create one thing and move onto the next. Scattered energy leads to a form of madness, fuels fear and crushes creative ideas in their infancy.
• Focus is imperative to achieve anything.
• Too many women underestimate their power.
• Too many women allow others to lead them and deny their own voices in the process. This creates mental, spiritual and physical pain and illness.
• Rest is essential to healing. Most women feel guilty about resting. This is a modern day epidemic. You can’t heal if you can’t relax.
• We know little about how powerful the mind- body connection is. It doesn’t matter… keep working as if the two are one entity.
• Validate yourself. Don’t wait for approval.
Much Bodylove,
Ingrid Arna xo
If you like this post please share by clicking on the link below. Have a great start to 2012. Love to hear some of your lessons so post on FB @Bodylove
