I am a straight up advocate for all things loving yourself. Last night I even had the pleasure of speaking at the Xtend Barre screening of the Embrace movie. Which is a powerful movie about loving and embracing the body you have. I, along with my friend Kaye are also screening this movie in June!

Anyways. I preach and practice self love. Key word PRACTICE. I'll get to that point in a moment though. But as a self love advocate, I have my moments of not loving myself so much.

Last week was Spring Break and on the Monday I decided to take my kids to the mall Waterpark. (Don't do that by the way. Spring break I mean). That morning I had a total melt down. I put on my bathing suit and just couldn't handle it.

I admit it. I couldn't. I'm human.

BUT I wasn't going to let it stop me from making memories with my kids.

So after teaching that morning we headed to the Waterpark. I put on my bathing suit and had a moment in the change room. BUT. BUT then I said to myself.

"You are going to wear that damn bathing suit anyways. You have two choices. You can hate every moment and try to cover and scower, OR you can rock the shit out of it."

I chose to hold my head in high regard and walk out there like Queen Bee herself.

In reality, we are going to go to the event, head to the beach, or whatever else it is anyways, so we may as well just love ourselves and keep going. Own our bodies like we actually love them.

Back to my point on the practice of self love though. So I head out and I have my head held high. Minutes later I maybe see someone that has a body I don't. I go to my "negative place". But I take a moment (and a breath) and realize I'm still the EXACT SAME person and body I was 5 minutes ago when I loved myself. I can CHOOSE to love myself still. This process happened maybe 20 times that day. It's a PRACTICE. A practice to CHOOSE to love ourselves.

I can CHOOSE to feel defeated or I can choose LOVE.

Let me tell you a little secret. Love feels WAAAAAAY better.

And you know what ladies? Each time we do this we are basically super heros saving the world. Each time we choose to love ourselves and express it in the world, we send that message out. We can feel it from each other. Encourage each other to love ourselves, in turn helping more women enjoy their bodies. The more "real" bodies we see and women loving them it send that message to other women telling them to EMBRACE theirs! Then it catches like WILDFIRE and the world changes.

YOU CAN BE A SUPER HERO!

Just WEAR THE DAMN BATHING SUIT ANYWAYS.

As my mom's friend gave her the advice. Choose the memory you want your child to have. Of you watching them play in the water or of you playing with them.

Love,

Jen The Bitchin' Housewife

I used to be so sick of hearing this. It's a lifestyle, not a diet. Blah blah blah. But you know what? It's true. Although it doesn't mean it changes overnight either. I had a great conversation with a dear old friend today. It was about her wanting to eat better, take better care of herself. For health, for esthetic, for trying to have a baby. She's struggled with eating well and exercsing. Motivation and execution. She told me "eating better" and getting healthy just seemed like such an overwhelming task. Too much to learn and know. Wished it could be as easy for her as it's been for me.

It never was just easy. Still isn't. I never learned overnight how to eat well and exercise and so on. It started with learning a little bit at a time, research, some trial and error and finding what I like and don't like.

But I get it. That feeling like no matter where you look there is advice and then just as fast someone telling you another way is the right way. Eat breakfast, don't eat breakfast. Run a lot; don't do cardio. Eat less, eat more, eat clean, eat whatever fits! No wonder so many of us give up before we start.

I'm no expert, but it's also no secret I love nutrition and exercise. I even plan to start schooling to become a Holistic Nutritionist next year. So here is the advice I shared with her.

We took her hardest hurdle. Breakfast. She never eats it. Now I will side with suggesting it should be eaten. So I told her to spend the next week focusing on breakfast. Pre-make smoothie packs and put in the freezer, then pop them out, blend with milk in the morning and go. Gave her a vague recipe to follow and told her to play with until she liked the taste. But to include carbs (fruit), protein (powder we bought together) and healthy fat (flaxseed). And a bit of spinach for micronutrients.

I know she has struggled so hard, but I know she will do this. Because we took away the perfection of it. I said, eat what you normally would each week. Burgers after ball practice, beers on Friday night, hangover pizza the next day. Whatever. Just focus on the smoothies for breakfast.

Why not give her a meal plan to follow and say "eat only this"? Because thats not changing her own opinion on foods, not helping her know the "why?". Removing the daunting task of changing her entire life. Thats just it. Changing your life overnight won't make it stick. Bit by bit, day by day, meal by meal is how you change how you view food.

Something she told me she struggled with was feeling guilty after eating a food. My response? "It's just food! You ate it, so what. Forgive yourself and move on. Doesn't mean the rest of your day, week, month is ruined and may as well restarting the diet on the proverbial Monday. Get right back on the horse the next meal, if not, the next one after that.

Pushing through a diet or new plan isn't the way to change how you are with food. Gradually learning things and applying them that suits your needs is. It's not a diet, it literally is a lifestyle.