My Inner Girl Power Online Program was inspired by my own diet story and fueled my passion to empower other women to spark their own Inner Girl Power.
Recently, someone asked me the significance of the name of my online course, The Inner Girl Power Online Program. In my experience, when one person asks, then there is the possibility that other people may have the same question.
I thought I would share a bit about my connection to the idea of Inner Girl Power and why it inspired me to use it as the name of my course, one that has helped hundreds of women heal their relationship with food and their bodies.
I hope it resonates with you and gives you a bit of insight about the course itself…
At a very young age, I came to believe that my body was wrong. My diet roller coaster began at the age of nine. Thirty years later, I found my Inner Girl Power and made peace with food and my body. This is how it all started…
When I was little, I internalized and took to heart messages I received from peers, family members, and my favorite magazines that taught me that my body didn’t meet certain expectations of the female form.
I began restricting food on my first diet at the age of nine and continued to do so through numerous iterations of restricting food, one way or another, for 30 years.
As a result, my body was to be altered, denied, restricted, and judged in the pursuit of the Thin Ideal and the promise of all that comes with having the “perfect” body.
I was consistently disappointed and frustrated because nothing worked. I believed that I wasn’t attaining the Thin Ideal because I was doing something wrong – I was sabotaging myself by giving into hunger, or eating too much, or not exercising enough, or eating the wrong things, or not participating in disordered eating behaviors – all which fell under the idea of “willpower.”
Willpower is diet culture’s way of blaming the dieter for the failures of the diet.
This feeling of failure strengthens the inner critic – the Inner Mean Girl – and increases self-deprecating thoughts and body dissatisfaction.
My Inner Mean Girl was fueled by 30 years of diet rules, weight cycling, and hopping on and off “the wagon.” To look at a picture of my 9-year-old self, brought on shame and hatred for a body that didn’t do what I tried desperately to make it do.
Until one day, when I got a peek at the wizard behind the curtain…
The exact moment is a blur, but let’s just say that I found the Health At Every Size philosophy while on the Internet and a light inside of me flickered and sparked.
I realized that – Diet culture had lied to me.
I followed the rules. I was a really good dieter. I believed that if I restricted, ate this food not that, and exercised even when I didn’t feel like it, that I would look the way the diet/beauty/fitness industry promised I would.
It never happened. And on the few occasions, I got close, it wasn’t sustainable.
If I reached a target, it was fleeting (I mean it lasted one day) and the anxiety that came along with knowing that the only place to go was back to where I started fueled my Inner Mean Girl.
But when the light flickered on…
I learned that it wasn’t willpower I needed, it was compassion for myself.
If shame worked to change our bodies, every dieter would have met their goal. There would be no such thing as yo-yo dieting. What I understood in that moment was that I had been duped to believe in the Seduction of the Thin Promise (link to blog post), and the dogma that anything other than the Thin Ideal is not only unacceptable but my own fault.
I called BS!
And that’s when my Inner Girl Power was born.
By strengthening the voice of the girl I once was.
The girl …
before the diet mindset dug in its heels,
before I became self-conscious,
before I thought that there was something inherently wrong with me because of the shape and size of my body,
before I knew an “ideal” existed.
My Inner Girl Power helped me reclaim myself again. And I did!
I realized it was possible, that I could reclaim my Inner Girl, and with her, power; power to end the madness and end the war with my body.
My Inner Girl Power began to build when I checked out of the diet game and began to nurture the ideals that would build me up. Ideas that would strengthen my resolve to know that my worth is not tied to my dress size, the number on a scale, or anybody else’s idea of what I should look like.
My Inner Girl Power strengthened when I created boundaries to protect myself against the endless messages about how, what, when, and how much I should eat.
My Inner Girl Power intensified as I learned to look inward for my own innate wisdom for hunger and fullness cues.
Eventually, My Inner Girl Power went to battle with my Inner Mean Girl and reclaimed the space within me that allowed me to accept my body in any form and eat all foods without fear so that I could finally be at peace in my skin.
My Inner Girl Power WON!
I created my online course, called the Inner Girl Power, with one goal in mind: To share the techniques and tools I myself used to build myself up and no longer tear myself down and live my life to its fullest without ever being held back by the notion that I was not enough as I was.
The Inner Girl Power Online Course encompasses everything I share with my private clients, including all of the science-y stuff, homework assignments and worksheets, and the resources and support for anyone looking to strengthen their own Inner Girl Power at their own pace and on their own time.
My mission is to see that women realize that the Seduction of the Thin Promise is a farce. That all women develop the confidence to walk away from it and begin to build their own Inner Girl Power.
To use their own Inner Girl Power to successfully ditch dieting, find self-compassion, and make peace with food and their body just as they are today.
My hope is that when you read about my experience, that same light flickers, begins to spark, and triggers an inferno that fuels your own Inner Girl Power.
It is hard to do, trust me, I enlisted the help of others on my journey, and I am a Nutrition Expert, a Dietitian. But this journey is a tough one. To kick back all those ingrained thoughts and beliefs that have brought you where you are today.
So many of us have been where you are, I have. I get it. And I know the value in getting help, and that truly is why I developed this course. To offer women a way to build their own Inner Girl Power, with guidance, expertise, and resources from a professional like me, but at a cost that does not break the bank.
I know not everyone can afford to take the time or money to work one on one with a Dietitian. This program is the alternative for you.
You pick the time and place and go at your own pace. With all the resources that clients who work with me individually get, except the one-one time. Well, actually, you do get some of that too. ???? I do offer a 30-minute one-one session, for anyone signing up.
Sooo… if you are like some of the other women who have asked me – Why do you call it the Inner Girl Power Program? That is your answer because I believe we all have that power within to stand up and fight for ourselves, to tell Diet Culture to stop the BS. To stop listening to other people and instead, begin listening to ourselves. To harness our Inner Girl Power.