I am SO EXCITED to share this with all of you!

For a long time, I’ve only had two options for you.  You could either take advantage of the free offerings on my site, the blog, the podcast and teleclasses, or you could become my client and work with me one on one.

And while I positively love providing both of those options, I’ve been dying to offer a program that would allow my clients to connect with and support one another, all the while getting support from me.  In other words, I’ve wanted to create a group program that would be accessible to more women and would allow for all of us to build a community of like-minded women who are dedicated to empowering one another and breaking the chains of body hatred for good.

I wanted to create a group program that would support you in healing from the pain and isolation of body hatred and food issues.  I wanted to create a community of women who were really committed to supporting themselves and one another in feeling great in their bodies and moving about their lives as the radiant and empowered women that they were born to be.

For over a year, I’ve been working on creating the curriculum for a program that would give its members the tools to really love their bodies, heal from food issues, and more.  And it is finally ready!

So without further ado, I would like to introduce you to The Empress Club.

The symbol of the Empress (in tarot decks and elsewhere) is usually depicted as a beautiful, powerful, plus sized woman.  She is an image representing abundance, power, Mother Earth, divine knowledge, sensuality, and much much more.

Because of this, the Empress is a fitting symbol of a group coaching program designed to support powerful plus-sized women in attaining their desires.

If you are ready to own your beauty, own your body, and own your health, then you are ready for the Empress Club.

Register here, or just keep reading…

Let me tell you a little bit about what you get as an Empress Club Member.  You will:

• Learn powerful tools to IMMEDIATELY change the way you relate to your body
• Get my unique process for healing from long held emotional eating patterns
• Get support from other women who know your struggles and will support you in moving forward
• Own your beauty like you never have before
• How to understand what cravings really mean and give your body the nutrition it needs
• Receive Health At Every Size based counseling — scientifically proven to positively influence health indicators more than diet programs
• Set healthy boundaries based upon your needs and desires
• Build your business or career by networking with other Empresses
• And so much more!

Now, you’re probably wondering how all of this works.  As in, “What exactly do I get as an Empress Club member?”  So here’s a breakdown of all that you get to participate in as an Empress Club member.

First, there are the calls.  You will get 12 food and body image group coaching sessions in a teleclass form.  Each session will be 60-90 minutes long. These classes will be in a workshop style, with a mixture of teaching and Q&A. These are calls where you’ll learn tools to support you in transforming your food and body image issues.  And, you’ll get my personal, in-depth coaching on your specific questions.  And you’ll learn a lot from the questions and successes of your peers!

Then, there’s membership in the exclusive Empress Club community site. You’ll be granted access to your own members-only protected site where you can get your questions answered by me and my team, share knowledge and inspiration with other members, and access the downloadable audios and other program resources. This is the place to share your experiences, get support, post pictures, network, and so much more!

Plus, we have the bonus Live Event, which I call the Empress Club Coronation.  This is a 2-day, private event, where you get your chance to meet the amazing women that you’ve connected with in the Empress Club in person.

Day 1 is a plus size shopping event, where we’ll head to Brooklyn to visit Re/Dress NYC and Lee Lee’s Valise — two wonderful stores dedicated to fabulous plus-size clothes.  There, trained stylists will help you create fantastic looks that look great on you.  Day 2 is our spa day, where you get to pamper yourself at Spa Castle, an amazing, multi-level spa.  We’ll talk body love as we relax and chat in jacuzzis, saunas and whirlpools.  Please note: Attendance at the Empress Club Coronation isn’t required, and no new material will be covered.  However, it is my personal wish that everyone be able to attend.

Plus, because I love my clients and love to over deliver, we’ll have some additional start up and follow up calls so that we can all connect and digest all that we learn.

Plus, now through September 7th September 30th, I’m offering a crazy amazing deal on this program.  So if you’re ready to sign up, or just want to learn more, just click the button below.  You’ll be taken to a link where you’ll get even more info about the program, and get the opportunity to sign up at this really low early bird rate!

I can’t wait for you to join me, Empress!

xoxo,
Golda
Body Love Coach
www.bodylovewellness.com

Golda Poretsky, HHC
www.bodylovewellness.com

Due to a very full weekend at the Ladies Rock Camp, I’ve decided to repost this Body Love Wellness favorite.

And, by the way, there’s still time to join me for my teleclass this Thursday — How To Feel Good In Your Skin — Free 60 Minute Teleclass And Group Meditation. Just click here to register!

Listen to the podcast here:

Since I find myself spouting heresies every week at the Body Love Wellness Blog, I want to give you one more to chew on.

You Are Not Broken.

I say this because you are not an agglomeration of problems to be fixed and you are not in a race to see how fast you can fix them. I say this because you are really okay, right here and now.

I know that most of us go through our day connecting with what we see as our chronic problems. For many of you reading this blog, you have lived your life under the the spectre of your “weight problem”. Your “weight problem” colors everything you do, the way you interact with the world, the products you buy, the way you expect your body to function, the way you choose everything from your clothes to your lovers. And you think if you could just fix the weight problem, if you could just solve for x, everything else would fall into place, and you and your life would no longer be broken.

For others it’s not a weight problem. It’s some other problem that we’ve identified as being ours. It could be anything from infertility to cancer to crow’s feet. We all have certain problems that we magnify and see as the source of further problems.

We get lots of support in seeing our problems as the focus of our lives. Whether it’s an advertisment on television or a doctor’s advice, we’re constantly told that we need to get our problems under control, fix them, mitigate them, etc. We get the message that it’s our duty to elminate the problem so that we can then be happy and make everyone else happy. We understand that we shouldn’t rest until the problem is appropriately counteracted.

When we live our lives constantly focused on problems, we end up identifying with the problems themselves. As a result, we make poor choices and miss out on much of the good of life. (I can feel the chronic dieters out there nodding their heads as they read this.)

Only people who see themselves as having a weight problem would ever sign up for a diet program. Only a person who saw their weight problem as a major issue that had to get solved would sign up for getting weighed in at a meeting every week, eating prepackaged food for three meals a day, drinking diet shakes, starving themselves, making themselves vomit, etc. etc. If you don’t think you have a weight problem, you don’t do those things to yourself.

In other words, if you don’t see yourself as having a weight problem, you might actually be able to eat relatively healthfully, regardless of your size. You would be able to hear that voice inside your body that says, “I would like to eat that” or “I would not like to eat that” or “I’m hungry” or “I’m full.” You might also be able to hear your intuition more when it tells you things like, “I’d like to go back to school” or “I’d like to break up with my boyfriend” or “yoga is fun” or whatever your particular consciousness most desires. When you’re stuck in the problem, it’s hard to hear anything other than “I need to get this fixed right now in order to be happy.”

So, I will write it again. You are not broken. You are not a problem to be solved. Solving your “problem”, whatever you perceive your problem or problems to be, is not the key to happiness.

This week, I want you to identify whatever you think your big problem is. (For most of you, you’ll know it instantly.) Live this week as if your big problem was not a problem. Live as if it were already solved or wasn’t a problem at all. Notice what feels different. Notice if you feel better. As always, let us know how it goes in the comments below.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Golda Poretsky, H.H.C. is a certified holistic health counselor who specializes in transforming your relationship with food and your body. Go to http://www.bodylovewellness.com/stay-in-touch/ to sign up for her newsletter and get your free download — Golda’s Top Ten Tips For Divine Dining!

Have you picked up Golda’s book yet? Get your copy of Stop Dieting Now: 25 Reasons To Stop, 25 Ways To Heal today!

© 2010 Golda Poretsky. All rights reserved.

by Golda Poretsky, H.H.C.
www.bodylovewellness.com

Listen to the podcast of this post here:

So, I try not to get too political in these posts, but I’ve noticed a particular turn of phrase that conservatives keep using to defend the Bush tax cuts.  They say the following:

“Everyone knows that you don’t raise tax cuts during a recession.”

It’s a nasty and brilliant little trick.  Because (a) everyone doesn’t know or certainly agree that raising taxes (particularly on the top 2% of earners) during a recession is a bad idea and (b) it’s an insidious way of saying that anyone who doesn’t know this or disagrees with it is not very smart.  In other words, statements that start with “everyone knows” have a veneer of truth and give you the feeling that you’re stupid for trying to think other wise.

It’s just the kind of nasty and brilliant trick that your inner critic loves to use.

Your inner critic is that voice that tells you, “No, don’t wear that, you’ll look stupid,” or “Why bother exercising if you’re still going to be fat?” or “How could you possibly think that so-and-so likes you?”  It’s that voice that keeps you from moving forward, making changes, and moving beyond what you’re accustomed to.  It gets louder at certain times in your life, and quieter at others, but it often strikes at those moments when you’re moving beyond your comfort zone and trying something new.

For example, I’ve recently got into practicing yoga again, thanks to Abby Lentz’s wonderful DVD’s.  For nearly a week, I did the full hour Heavyweight Yoga 2 DVD every single day.  I hadn’t planned on keeping to that schedule, I just woke up every day and really wanted to practice yoga.  Around the 6th day, I had a particularly busy day, and I didn’t get to the DVD until pretty late at night.  I got through the stretching portion, which lasts about 20 minutes, and then decided that I had had enough for the night.  As I was resting for a moment on the mat, my inner critic voice piped up loud and clear, “You know that you’ve totally screwed up your schedule, right?” it said.  “You were on a roll and now that you think you can just do half the DVD, you’re never going to do the full DVD again.  You’re probably never going to use the DVD again at all.”  I tried to just acknowledge the voice and let it go, but it didn’t stop.  “You really screwed up,” it said.  “You can’t do 40 more minutes of yoga?  It’s not even a really hard yoga DVD.  It barely even counts as exercise.”

I know!  It was awful.  I had been feeling so good from all the yoga, I was ready to go to sleep, and here I was berating myself instead of congratulating myself on listening to what my body wanted by practicing yoga daily and then taking it easy when I was really tired.

But that’s the problem with your inner critic.  It knows just what to say to you to keep you in line, it knows how to shame you into keeping with the status quo, and it makes you feel wrong about your choices, actions and desires.  As a result, your inner critic can prevent you from taking important risks, making positive changes, and feeling good about all that you do.

But there are ways to deal with your inner critic.  So here are three tips to get you started!

1) Acknowledge It — Spend some time keeping a journal of what your inner critic tells you.  What does it say to you?  When does it get particularly loud?  What triggers it?  Does it sound like anyone you know?  After doing this for at least a week, let it go.  You’ve heard it, acknowledged it, and you’ve learned some of your triggers.  You don’t have to fear it because you’ve already heard it all.

2) Remind Yourself That Your Inner Critic Isn’t Always Right – Very often, when we start making changes in our life and having more positive thoughts about ourselves, that inner critic will come in and shut the process down.  For example, if you’re practicing the affirmation “I’m beautiful,” that negative voice may come in even louder and say things like, “That’s a joke!  Affirmations are stupid! You’re okay at the most, but definitely not beautiful.”  When this happens, we usually find ourselves agreeing with our inner critic.    But your inner critic isn’t right, it’s just been with you longer.  It’s a voice and an opinion that you’re used to.  So stop believing that the negative voice is telling the truth.  It’s not.  It’s just keeping you in your place.

3) Affirm, Affirm, Affirm –  Take some of your most negative thoughts and turn them around into affirmations.  For more help with working with and creating affirmations, check out this post.

We’ll be talking about dealing with your inner critic and more in my latest FREE Teleclass — How To Feel Good In Your Skin (coming up August 19th) ! For details and to register, click here. Can’t wait to “see” you there!

P.S.  I tried SO HARD to find an appropriate picture for this post.  So instead, I’m sharing with you the song “Downpressor Man” by Peter Tosh.  It’s not really about your inner critic (obviously) but it may have your inner critic on the run…

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Golda Poretsky, H.H.C. is a certified holistic health counselor who specializes in transforming your relationship with food and your body. Go to http://www.bodylovewellness.com/stay-in-touch/ to sign up for her newsletter and get your free download — Golda’s Top Ten Tips For Divine Dining!

Have you picked up Golda’s book yet? Get your copy of Stop Dieting Now: 25 Reasons To Stop, 25 Ways To Heal today!

© 2010 Golda Poretsky. All rights reserved.

This video gave me chills.

“Pretty” by Katie Makkai.

by Golda Poretsky, H.H.C.
www.bodylovewellness.com

Recently, this blog has gotten a lot of new readers who may be new to Fat Acceptance & Health At Every Size.

As a consequence, I’ve been fielding lots of comments of the “how can you be promoting fat?!” and “haven’t you heard of type II diabetes?!” variety.  So, rather than trying to respond to these commenters individually (and as a way to provide support to people who want to respond to these comments in their own lives and blogs), I’ve decided to write this post.  I’ve outlined 9 typical statements by commenters, together with an explanation of why each statement is wrong, wrong, wrong.

1) Fat is unhealthy. Fat is not inherently unhealthy.  In fact, being underweight, in many ways, is more dangerous than being overweight, obese, or morbidly obese.  Furthermore, a great deal of evidence suggests that health problems linked to fat are actually a result of dieting, and the incredible strain that dieting puts on the body.  A recent study found that people who lost 15% or more of their body weight had an increased risk of death compared to people of the same size who didn’t lose weight. In addition, fat people live longer than thin people and are more likely to survive cardiac events and not suffer as much blood loss due to treatments such as angioplasty.  Fat has even been shown to protect against a variety of problems, including “infections, cancer, lung disease, heart disease, osteoporosis, anemia, high blood pressure, rheumatoid arthritis and type 2 diabetes.” Fat people also have lower rates of emphysema, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, hip fracture, tuberculosis, anemia, peptic ulcer and chronic bronchitis.

If you’re wondering why you’ve never heard any of this before, that’s because this information doesn’t make anyone money.  It doesn’t support the $60 billion a year diet industry nor the multi-billion dollar weight loss surgery industry nor the multi-bajillion dollar pharmaceutical industry.

2) Fat people all have eating disorders, eat poorly, and don’t exercise. No study has ever supported this conclusion.  And let’s just get clear on something.  You cannot tell anything about a person’s eating habits or fitness level or relative health from their size.  I have clients who are 300-pound clients who eat all organic, whole foods and train for triathalons, and I have 120-pound clients who are generally sedentary and have binge eating disorder.  People of all different sizes have all different habits, and a quick survey of your friends and relatives will show just that.

3) If fat people would eat properly and exercise, they wouldn’t be fat. Contrary to popular opinion, people come in all shapes and sizes.  Just like people are short and tall and in between, people are fat and thin and in between. It’s called diversity.  It’s called genetics. It’s called, in some instances, the result of constant dieting.

4) Weight loss is a healthy goal, deserving of promotion. Not true at all.  First of all, diets don’t work.  They really don’t.  The one or two people that you know that lost weight on a diet and kept it off for more than 5 years are statistical freaks.  Dieting wreaks havoc on the body, affecting everything from your immune system, to your cardiovascular system, to your stamina and mental health, to your body image.  Oh, and don’t get me started on the incredible dangerousness of weight loss surgeries.  If anyone tells you that their plan promises long term weight loss, they are lying to you.  If they promise weight loss and fail to mention whether it will be long term or not, they are deceiving you.

5) Promoting fat acceptance makes people fat. I haven’t seen a study that shows that approving and loving your body causes one to gain weight.  In fact, Health At Every Size practices, which include body acceptance, actually make people healthier.  When you can show me that shaming people about their bodies improves health, then we can talk.  And by the way, the way we shame fat people has led to an exponential rise in discrimination against people in the workplace, healthcare and education.

6) There’s an obesity crisis going on and obesity is on the rise. Actually, it’s not.  Also, see item 1, above.

7) Childhood obesity is a serious problem. Actually, it’s not. Childhood life expectancy continues to rise.  And every attempt to make kids thinner have failed.  And, you might want to follow the money behind Michelle Obama’s obesity initiative to see how corporations are benefiting from the b.s.  The real danger for fat children is the threat of bullying, and the toll that that takes.  Finally, access to healthy, organic food and safe places to play are important for all children, not just fat ones.

8) BMI is an appropriate and scientific way of determining health. If you consider the way BMI works for more than a minute, you realize that it so flawed as to be completely useless.

9) But all of this goes against the conventional wisdom that fat is bad and deadly! Your “conventional wisdom” has been paid for by the diet industry and pharmaceutical companies for decades and decades.  It’s time to get over it and start thinking critically.  I encourage you to read this blog and other fantastic fat acceptance blogs and begin the process of unraveling your internalized and externalized hatred.

Additional Recommended Reading:

• The Diet Myth: Why America’s Obsession With Weight Is Hazardous To Your Health, by Paul Campos
• Losing It: False Hopes & Fat Profits In The Diet Industry, by Laura Fraser
• Fat!So?: Because You Don’t Have To Apologize For Your Size, by Marilyn Wann
• Lessons From The Fat-O-Sphere:  Quit Dieting And Declare A Truce With Your Body, by Kate Harding & Marianne Kirby
• Health At Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight, by Linda Bacon, PhD
• Stop Dieting Now: 25 Reasons To Stop, 25 Ways To Heal, by Golda Poretsky, H.H.C.
  

P.S.  This post was inspired by Kate Harding‘s excellent post “But Don’t You Realize Fat Is Unhealthy?”

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© 2010 Golda Poretsky.  All rights reserved.