Coaches Blog
Do you always need an answer?
If you take pride in being a self-aware and highly-reflective person, you’re probably in the habit of trying to constantly pay close attention to your behaviors, thought patterns, and habits. You also probably ask yourself tons of questions. Why did I just do that? Where are the root causes of this trauma? Who was the person that brought up this topic for me for the first time? What can I do to make a lasting […]
The Darkest Hour Is Always Before the Dawn – the Gift of Total Despair
It’s amazing how a conversation with someone close to us, or a random text message can make our whole world come crushing down to the point that life no longer seems like an attractive option to entertain. I found myself in that space in summer 2013, after my then husband told me about his cancer diagnosis and then accidentally sent me a text message intended for somebody he was having an affair with. I was […]
Metamorphosis
Compassion with self is so important in the different changes we may go through in personal transformation. When I first gave up dieting (before I met the Institute for the Psychology of Eating, I had been on a diet for over 20 years) I felt more secure about my change in mindset. Sure, when I initially reached that “magical” number through a weight loss program I was on a temporary high. But I soon found […]
Loving Myself Is The Greatest Gift
I had always thought that I loved myself and then I truly fell in love with myself. About six years ago I was unhappy. Actually, I was pretty miserable and I didn’t realize it. I was going through a lot of things at the time. I was about 60 pounds heavier, had serious knee pain and was working constantly which included a lot of travel. I also wasn’t truly happy in my marriage. I didn’t […]
Chasing the perfect body? You’re not alone, and there’s a better way!
I wish it weren’t true… but we are indeed surrounded by conflicting messages about food, body image & health. I’ve personally lost precious time, energy and love chasing the perfect body. I’ve experienced anxiety and fear related to weight obsessing, striving to eat “healthy” food all the time, compulsive/binge eating, and emotional isolation. In other words, I empathize with those who can’t picture a life without worrying about food, stressing into resistance with food, and […]
Why liking food too much is not the problem — it’s the solution
I used to feel like enjoying food too much was a bad thing. Like if I let myself relish chocolate, or pizza, or pasta with abandon, I would lose control and not be able to stop eating. As you might imagine, this manifested in lots of challenging ways, from calorie counting to ever-present interest in the latest diet trends. I never suspected that allowing myself to actually feel JOY around food is what would, ironically, […]
My story of transformation in my mindset toward dieting
I am so grateful for the freedom I am experiencing in my relationship with food since I found the Institute for the Psychology of Eating. I discovered this work when I was deep in my struggle with food. I had spent 25 years looking for the answer to which diet would bring me to that magical number. Introducing the Jenny Craig program…I got there but it was such a struggle to stay there. That feeling […]
How Surrender Fuels Me
I’ve been a professional counselor / healer for 19 years, and what fascinates me is that the concerns my clients present and the concepts I find useful for true transformation continue to mirror and shape my own relationship with food, my body and soul growth. There is a myth floating around that says once a person starts to work with a subject professionally, their own personal journey around that subject is completely “healed” or “over.” […]
Fad Diets: Where The World of Healthy Eating and Fashion Meet
We spend our entire lives searching. Searching for ourselves. Searching for the perfect mate. Searching for the best job. Searching for happiness. Searching for the perfect diet. Unfortunately, we rarely search within ourselves. From the moment we’re born, we fall prey to social conditioning. We start getting influenced by family and friends, by our environment, by the world. We are taught to believe certain things and think certain thoughts, and have certain opinions, and feel […]
You will probably always fail at dieting and that’s OK
Have you ever been on a strict diet, followed it religiously for months, and then suddenly some external circumstances prompted you to quit prematurely? How did that make you feel? Did you feel like a total failure? Did the voice in your head tell you that you suck, that your will is too weak, and that you’ll never reach your goal weight or your desired shape? Did you blame yourself for always coming up with […]
Listen to Your Gut
Several years ago, I started to develop pain in my joints. It wasn’t strong at first, but still alarming, as I had never had symptoms like this before. Something in my gut told me that there was an underlying issue going on with my health. Doing what most people would do, I went to my doctor and he said it sounded like rheumatoid arthritis. I couldn’t believe it because starting at a very young age, […]
Self-Love: The Missing Key
Something that I’ve run into a lot with my clients is that they feel lost. They know that something just isn’t right, but they can’t put their finger on it. A lot of these clients have issues with food but when they’ve gone to see someone to help them, they leave with a list of restrictions. They follow the lists and find that they have even more issues with food or they end up feeling […]
Are you a healthy eater or a suicide bomber?
What does it mean to be a healthy eater? Is it all about what you eat? About the quality of the food that you consume? About what nutrients it contains? About its origins – whether it’s organic, whole, and unprocessed or it’s artificially manufactured, GMO, and has no actual nutritional value? Could it also be about how you feel about what you eat? Could it be about what you think about your eating behaviors? Whether […]
What to do if you’re an emotional eater?
If you’ve ever struggled with any eating disorder, you’re certainly no stranger to overwhelm. From the social stigma to the excruciating awkwardness of hearing friends and relatives discuss your weight, from the abundance of online and offline tips and tricks, instructing you what to do and not to do if you want to tame your beasts, to the impossibility of knowing all of your triggers, it’s a God damn jungle out there. And if you […]
The Magic Three: Mind, Body and Soul
I was always a skinny girl, however when I went to High School I stopped doing any sports, I was not conscious of what I was eating and I started to gain weight. After a certain time it started to bother me, and I went through all the different kind of diets. You don’t need much time to get into the habit to count calories all day long and then feel ashamed when you eat […]
Hey Kimberley Maxey- HappyBalance Coach….
As a woman who has been met with numerous health challenges over the years, from depression, to endometriosis, food intolerances and IBS, and then battling the struggles of life as a single parent, finding a balance in life to look after my health and wellness, hasn’t just been necessary…..it’s been the ‘absolute key ingredient’ that’s lead me to a HappyBalanced lifestyle whilst raising kids with ADHD and Autism. But getting there- sure has been an […]
How My Inner Resources Rescued Me
We are often too far away from our own inner self. Due to this, we tend to look for answers on the outside and this often leaves us disappointed and dejected. Our own inner resources are extremely rich inside but we still look outside of ourselves without trying to look inside ourselves. It’s very important to develop this skill of examining ourselves, the sooner we do it, the better. People sometimes name it a passion […]
It’s not a bug, it’s a feature
I’ve had a turbulent relationship with food since I was 12. Whenever I’d face a challenging situation in my life – I’d turn to food for consolation. Whenever I’d get stressed, overwhelmed, scared, insecure, or just hurt, I’d reach for food as it would always provide a “safe place.” Such compulsive behavior is what happens when you need the familiarity of something predictable. And even though food has actually made me feel worse about myself […]
Our Thoughts Can Hold Us Back or Set Us Free—We Hold that Power…
As Marc said Personal Power = Metabolic Power. So true. When we get out of our limiting thoughts and stop pushing and forcing our bodies and instead let our life’s purpose gently unfold we experience a harmony within us, one another, and the whole world. In harmony our bodies respond by giving us our true weight and metabolism. Now is the time to rid our minds of the distractions that prevent us from living our […]
Ending The Cycle Of Pain
I was a drug addict before I learned to walk. The nurse that took care of my twin sister and I drugged us so we wouldn’t cry. My voice was snuffed out from the very beginning. This was the inception of the perpetual sadness, and the belief that I don’t belong and that I had no voice, that would follow me for years. When you find something in the world that irks you and then […]
Thoughts, Don’t Kill My Vibe
I have a question for you. What role does judgment play in your day, or your life? Do you judge food, or other’s food, or your body, or clothes, or looks? What I have found, while working with people and being a woman with lots of female friends, is that judgment creeps in. Do you have any “shoulds” showing up in your thoughts or your words? I understand ambition. I understand wanting to be, do […]
Love Like a Mother
When I was a teen and looked at myself in the mirror, I was always disappointed. My hips were too big and completely covered in cellulite and stretch marks. My nose, huge; my chest, too small, my skin, too pale. I had no coordination nor grace. My mother was sick. My parents divorced. I worked super hard in school so my grades would give some numerical value to a life that I considered embarrassing. I […]
Self Care vs. Self Sabotage – How to know the difference between ‘Treat Yo Self’ and ‘Going Overboard’
I’m the Queen of “Everything in Moderation.” Since I used to personally struggle with binge eating, it’s still really important for me not to feel restricted around food in any way. If I start judging myself about what I’m eating, or tell myself to not eat something, I’ll be the first to admit that I’m definitely going to eat it. There are instances where I work with clients, and I feel like it would be […]
Imagine what you could create…
My mission and my passion is helping people transform their relationship with food, because I know that when they do, they have more energy, they are more present and productive in all aspects of their life, and they are able to step into a joyful experience. I know this because this is my story. You see, I used to have a very toxic relationship with food. I struggled through many years of dieting. I was […]
The Paradox of Change: why rushing to get there slows us down
The desire to change is natural – we grow up, mature, our circumstances change, we learn stuff and want to apply it to our lives, so we can live better and be happier. We make huge efforts to transform into better versions of ourselves. We envision how much better we’d feel if we accomplished certain results – if we had more money, if our bodies looked better, if we got that dream job. We condition […]