Body Positivity with Summer Innanen

Aren't we tired of the energy it takes to continually be thinking about our bodies and what other people think of them? Can you imagine what you could do with all the extra energy that you waste fretting about what size jeans you fit into? You would have more time for friends, for work, for actually being active, and you can bet your ass you'd be happier too.

But it’s not that easy. Especially for me. Designing a podcast episode around the subject of body positivity, body acceptance, and creating a more welcoming networking environment for our plus-sized colleagues and contemporaries wasn't something I could do alone because I haven't gotten there yet. At my heaviest, my weight pushed me into the category of clinically obese, and at my thinnest, I was so thin that I stopped getting my period at the age of 32.

I’m 44 and I still have times when I downright obsess about my weight.  This is why for this episode I have asked Body image Coach and Best-Selling author Summer Innanen to join us. When I discovered Summer’s website, with a picture of her taking a sledgehammer to a scale and then raising that sledgehammer in victory above her head, symbolizing a fiery, free and untamed life I knew she was the person to walk us through this conversation. In addition to being a best selling author and body positivity coach, she is the host of Eat The Rules, a podcast dedicated to empowering people to live life on their terms!

This conversation taught me a lot of lessons. One, that body positivity doesn't mean that you love the way your body looks every day; it means that you don't think about your body in negative terms, that you accept it the way it is. And two, that it would be a lot easier for people in large bodies to accept their bodies if there wasn't consistent messaging by the media, advertising, their family, and the general surroundings that told them what they looked like wasn't beautiful or athletic or acceptable.

Listen in for tips to feeling more positively for your body and learn how self-love can take you on that much-needed healing journey!

The Drink of the Week is The Yellow Bird, a super fun combination of white rum, Galiano (a golden, sweet vanilla-anise Italian liqueur), triple sec, and lime juice. It is served straight up as a martini. For today's drink, I took inspiration from something Summer said in the interview- You're going to have bad days, and you will have really good days, but for the most part, we want balance in how we look at ourselves, like how the wings of a bird balance it in flight.

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Relevant Links:

Summer Innanen

https://summerinnanen.com/about-me/ 

https://www.instagram.com/summerinnanen/?hl=en https://m.facebook.com/SummerInnanenCoach/

Julie Brown

https://juliebrownbd.com/ ​(Website)

https://www.instagram.com/juliebrown_bd/ ​(Instagram) https://www.linkedin.com/in/julie-brown-b6942817/​ (LinkedIn) https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIwWVdayM2mYXzR9JNLJ55Q​ (Youtube) https://www.facebook.com/juliebrownbd/​ (Facebook)