Laura Connolly (a.k.a Lauroly) Opening: Welcome Rebecca Scritchfield to World Wise Beauty. I am honored and happy to share your new book ‘Body Kindness’. Finally someone wrote an intelligent book about how not to diet! I just had to select it as the WWB Summer Book Wise read. It’s a beautiful title and your tagline ‘Transform your Health from the Inside Out and Never Say Diet Again’ is a powerful proposition, as many people around the world are struggling with weight gain. I’m happy to report, you have written a comprehensive book that walks the talk of its title. I love how you organized the content by drilling into your four principles to achieve Body Kindness. To to get our Q&A started, I will share the four principles first:
BODY KINDNESS FOUR PRINCIPLES: What You Do, How You Feel, Who You Are, Where You Belong
You are a Registered Dietitian and Nutritionist and we need more professionals like you who see beyond rules and focus on the whole person inside and out. What you have asked your clients and your readers to do is is to connect to themselves with kindness and love. I focused on this very topic at my A+Life Retreat with a healthy epicurean theme last year and you would have been a perfect presenter! We focused on the pleasures of living well when we take care of ourselves, because so many women see healthy lifestyle as a drudgery vs a treat. I chuckled when I discovered you had a section in your book entitled “Am I in Food Jail”! I would love if you shared your basic philosophy first with us, especially when it comes to diet.
Body Kindness has three key pillars that guide the philosophy: Ultimately, nobody can tell you the “rules” of what body kindness is or is not – and that’s the beauty of it. You decide what it feels like to be good to yourself. Lauroly Q- Great philosophy! It seems most women need to connect with their ‘inner caregiver’. As a dedicated healthy epicurean I also appreciated Chapter 6 in your book “Make Room for More Fun”. I love how you say “if you are stuck in the middle of a fun famine, it’s time to find your way back to the land of plenty!” There are colorful illustrations for finding Zen in the Kitchen and using all our senses when we eat and cook. You mention Buddhist monks are convinced the mood in the kitchen even effects the health and digestion of food. Tell us more about ‘Zen in the Kitchen’ and how you find yours. I’m including an info-graphic you provided from Body Kindness right after your answer because it’s such a good refresher on how to really enjoy your food. For many people, the meal planning, shopping, food preparation, and clean up can feel like such a chore! Of course, you are likely to avoid things you aren’t looking forward to. You go to the dentist, but you don’t count down the days like the first day of vacation! Plus, the dentist is once or twice a year, not every day 3 times a day. For me, “zen” in the kitchen is easiest when I am entertaining or cooking for people I care about. I try to think about the moments of joy and connection with others. I also think about the benefits I value, such as nourishment, giving myself energy, and saving money by reducing expensive food delivery. I love playing fun music and sipping on a sparkling water with some citrus fruits while I’m cooking to boost the pleasure when I need a “pick me up” and my mind is saying “I don’t wanna cook!” Lauroly Q- So many books offer the quick fix solutions to diet. To truly transform we have to embrace a mindset and develop a new way of being. We can only be kind to ourselves, when we make peace with ourselves. You write about this process in the book. It is filled with so many what I call ‘wise bites’. Here is my favorite wise bite from your book. Here are a few of my favorite things you can do anytime, anywhere to build self-compassion and connect to your “inner caregiver”. Lauroly Closing: Thank you so much Rebecca for joining me for a WWB Q&A. I hope women around the world will read Body Kindness, and be inspired to put their health first, and be kind to themselves. Self-care and body kindness is an act of love. As Oscar Wilde once wrote ” To love oneself is the beginning of a life long romance”. The wonderful truth is you can start at any time and it’s never too late. Love is powerful and healing…
“The magic of transformation is in the process;
the highs, the lows, the failures and triumphs.”
Can you share just a few practices you find useful in the process to befriending ourselves and treating ourselves with kindness? I know there are many in the book.
