Eat Without Guilt » Body Image

Book Review: Beautiful You — and a Giveaway!

Dinneen — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 01:03:46 +0000

Have you ever started reading a book, only to find you can’t put it down? Before you know it, you’ve read a ton of pages. It’s late at night, so you tell yourself, “just 5 more minutes…” as you’ve got to get up early the next day. Yet 30 minutes go by and you’re still reading? That was me when I picked up a copy of “Beautiful You: A Daily Guide to Radical Self-Acceptance” by Rosie Molinary. Beautiful you is just like it’s title, beautifully written. It’s like sitting down with a best friend who only has the best advice, says the most insightful things, and gives you a whole new outlook and perspective of you, your life, and your body. Unlike most body image type books I’ve read before, Beautiful You is unique. Unique in the way it’s presented, written, outlined, and organized. The voice of the book is… Read more

Ending Fat Talk in a Weight Obsessed World

Dinneen — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 20:09:24 +0000

In case you haven’t heard, this week is Fat Talk Free Week, a national campaign to help raise awareness of the dangers of ‘fat talk’ so many girls and women participate in. You know, all those things we say to ourselves, like, “do I look fat in this” or “gee, you look wonderful — did you lose some weight?” to the talk in our own mirror “argh, I just hate my thighs! I’ve got to go on a diet.” The motto of the campaign is “friends don’t let friends talk fat.” And I’m on board. I’ve got to admit, it does feel good to tell someone they’ve lost weight. Or that they look good in their ‘skinny jeans.’ And let’s face it — I used to like hearing people tell me those things. But here’s the deal: By doing so, we are putting our bodies above our brains. Above our… Read more

Stop ‘Weighting’ and Start Living

Dinneen — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 14:55:16 +0000

(I originally wrote this article for The Beauty Message Challenge website, but wanted to share it all with you too. I hope you find some insights & inspiration from it. Enjoy!) For the past couple of years I have had the chance to help women around the world with find peace with food and their body. They come to me out of frustration, stuck, and wanting to have a better relationship with food…and with themselves. Many of the women I work with email me or tell me their stories and asking for help and guidance in trying to be and feel better around food and with their weight. All of them at some point have dieted – most of them dieting for years. Going on and off diets so many times they’ve lost track. Or maybe they’ve tried every diet and self-help book out there, yet can’t lose those last… Read more

Why Waiting to be Skinny Could be Hazardous to Your Health

Dinneen — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 22:38:36 +0000

Over the past couple of years I’ve had the opportunity to talk to women around the country, and around the world. I’ve spoken to women in living rooms, at conferences, at talks I give and workshops I hold. I’ll even add that I’ve “spoken” to women on social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. and of course, working with my clients — both in person and over the phone — I’ve spoken to hundreds, if not thousands, of women. And one thing I see over and over again are women putting their life on hold – waiting until they hit some magic number (whether it be a pants size or the bathroom scale) to find happiness. Whether a woman is from the Birmingham Alabama or Birmingham in the U.K., San Jose California or San Jose in Costa Rica….there is a mindset that is holding many of us back from living… Read more

When Food Becomes the Enemy

Dinneen — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 20:11:11 +0000

Note: This article I originally wrote for the blog of Miz Fit Online as a guest post last year (you can read the original post here). But it’s message and usefulness has not changed, so I wanted to share it with you this week. -Dinneen As a weight loss coach and mentor, I help many women lose weight, look better AND feel better, and I’m constantly meeting women who struggle with food and their weight. And I get it, as I’ve been there myself. For years I struggled to lose weight, and even when I was finally “thin,” I spent many more years eating low-fat, low-calorie, and low-tasting foods. Food and eating was not an enjoyment for me. Any food I ate that was remotely decadent or a “bad” food, left me feeling guilty and eventually lead me to overeat. And so started a vicious cycle of dieting, losing weight,… Read more

What Does Valentine’s Day have to do with Weight-Loss?

Dinneen — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 19:09:29 +0000

This is a post I wrote last year, but it’s message still holds true . Hoping you will find some wisdom and inspiration from it this year. For Valentine’s Day, instead of looking for love from others, this year do something different – decide to love yourself and give something wonderful to YOU. Don’t wait for someone else. Love you and all that you are, AS IS. Don’t wait until you are 100, 50, 25 or even 5 pounds lighter. Realize that who you are inside is what counts, not the number on the scale. That number is not a reflection of who you are, but rather of how you treat yourself. It’s great to want to eat better, get exercise, and lose some weight to be healthier and FEEL better so you can live a full life. But you can’t do that until you love yourself. You see, when you… Read more

Inner Beauty: How Do You Define It?

Dinneen — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 18:22:21 +0000

Through my work I help women with their outer beauty, but part of what I do is also help them with their inner beauty ~ as I truly believe that inner beauty and outer beauty go hand in hand. Society today is so hung up on outward appearances. But part of my mission in life is to help you see your INNER BEAUTY. I believe there is nothing better than seeing a woman who exudes beauty from the inside….and with that her outside beauty shines, flaws and all. Which reminds me of a quote from Sophia Loren, a woman who truly had both inner and outer beauty: “Beauty is how you feel inside, and it reflects in your eyes. It is not something physical” So tell me: How do YOU define inner beauty and what does it mean to you? What makes a woman beautiful on the inside? And how… Read more

Kelly Clarkson’s “Self” Magazine Cover: A Weighty Issue

Dinneen — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 16:49:04 +0000

It’s all the buzz today, and I just couldn’t help but discuss it. In case you haven’t heard, there’s a new controversy over the cover photo of Kelly Clarkson in September’s issue of SELF magazine. She’s looking slimmer than ever. But it’s not due to a new fad diet or hectic workout schedule, but because she’s been photoshopped. But noticeably photoshopped — she’s been dramatically and artificially slimmed down due to all the retouching. And it’s causing a big debate. The big debate is because Kelly looks a lot thinner on the magazine cover than she does in recent photos. At this point in her life she is not as thin as the cover photo portrays. And to make it even more interesting, the theme for the September issue is all about “Total Body Confidence.” Both the magazine and Kelly Clarkson admit the photo was retouched — and let’s be honest… Read more

The Missing Link to Keeping the Weight Off

Dinneen — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:28:08 +0000

Have you lost weight before, only to put it right back on within a few months or years? Well you’re not alone. Many “dieters” deal with the same issue, and even women like Oprah Winfrey and Kirsty Alley had it happen to them (and unfortunately in the spotlight too). But there IS a way to make sure those pounds you worked so hard to lose don’t find you again. Last year I worked with a client who dealt with that issue. Over the years she lost weight, only to put it back on within a few months. She knew how to eat right and exercise, and she surely had the willpower and the motivation. But it it wasn’t until she had a big shift was she able to finally keep it off. The Big Shift Working together I found that she didn’t like her body very much. She was constantly… Read more

Interview with Dara Chadwick, author of “You’d Be So Pretty If…”

Dinneen — Tue, 05 May 2009 12:15:17 +0000

I‘m so happy to share with you my interview with Dara Chadwick, author of You’d Be So Pretty If…: Teaching Our Daughters to Love Their Bodies — Even When We Don’t Love Our Own. In 2007 Dara was the Weight-Loss Diary columnist for Shape magazine, where more than a million readers followed her weight loss journey as she attempted to not only shed pounds, but also old attitudes. In one column Dara reflected how her body image had been shaped in part by her mother’s feelings about her own body. A mom herself, Dara realized the huge impact she could have on her own daughter’s body image. This led her to write her book where through numerous interviews with women and girls, as well as her own experiences with her daughter, Dara explains the powerful effect that a mother’s body image has on her daughter and how parents can break… Read more