3 Stories to Empower

Have you heard that new research suggests that 30 per cent of girls show signs of disordered eating?

Can you honestly say you’ve never been critical about your own body or judged someone else on theirs?

It might have started with well meaning comments from your mum, who heard it from her mum, who heard it from hers.

Our connection of our self-worth to how our bodies look is so pervasive and ingrained. It’s  constantly reinforced by unrealistic body standards and diet culture, media, social media and each other that it’s hard to break the cycle.

Imagine if we shifted the focus to how we feel, rather than how we look.

If we stopped being hard on ourselves, counting calories, workouts and limitation, to being kind to and respecting our amazing bodies, tuning into them to understand what we need to be healthy and happy.

Lyndi Cohen’s life-changing new book is a brilliant place to start liberating ourselves from food guilt and self-blame.

A highly qualified nutritionist who has lived the experience of disordered eating, Lyndi is on a mission to call out the BS in the beauty and diet industries and provide evidence-based strategies and tools for an alternative way to live.

What we weigh is not who we are, and as Lyndi says, “trying to ‘fix’ your weight by focussing on weight loss is like putting a bandage on your pinky toe to cure a headache.”

Your Weight is Not The Problem gives us the beginning of an antidote to the steady diet of misinformation and misrepresentation we have all been fed, along with an alternative framework to nurture and nourish ourselves, beyond what we eat.

I was lucky enough to work with Lyndi when I was at Murdoch Books and am a huge fan of her work, her message and the way she delivers it in such a positive and accessible way.

If enough of us get behind Lyndi’s message and this book, it can change lives and the way we all live.

Even if you don’t think it directly affects you, the statistics tell us that there is a strong chance it’s affecting someone you love, you just may not be aware of it.

You can also catch more of Lyndi’s soothing common sense in her feed @thenudenutritionist, her website https://www.lyndicohen.com  or her podcast, No Wellness Wankery.

Head and Heart: The Art of Modern Leadership

I had the pleasure of working with leadership expert Kirstin Ferguson on her previous book, Women Kind, Unlocking the Power of Women Supporting Women, so have been waiting eagerly for her new book on leadership.

I’ve only just started and already know I’m going to love it. More to come on this in our next newsletter but I couldn’t wait to put it on your radar straight away.

If you read my recent article for Women’s Agenda you know how passionate I am about breaking down taboos and advocating for a human centred approach in the workplace.

Although perimenopause and menopause are starting to be talked about more openly, the 85% of people who experience symptoms remain undersupported, both in and out of the workplace.

This eye-opening podcast from Susan Dominus of The New York Times is compelling listening.

Trigger warning, I was yelling out loud with anger as I listened to it, but came away even more informed and determined to keep talking about an issue that affects at least half the population.

The Daily: The Sunday Read: ‘Women Have Been Misled About Menopause’ on Apple Podcasts

Or you can read the original article instead.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/01/magazine/menopause-hot-flashes-hormone-therapy.html