Welcome to another episode my Nourished Queens! It was such a pleasure to have Shelley (an Integrative Nutrition Health Coach) join me to talk about her personal struggles with body dysmorphia at a young age, how she slowly began to heal her relationship with food and her journey throughout her modelling/acting career. 
 
We discussed in this episode the food rules and restrictions we often place on ourselves (due to diet culture narratives and conditioning from society to view food as the enemy or punish ourselves when we enjoy something), whether this is mental or physical restriction and just how detrimental these things can be to our overall health and wellbeing. 
 
She reached a point in her restrictive phase where she finally said 'I can't do this anymore'. When her hair started to fall out, when she said 'no' to birthday cake at her own child's birthday,  she realized something had to change and she began to breakdown food rules one at a time which she says was incredibly important for her to move forward in her healing journey - looking back on these moments, she's able to give herself compassion as it's all she knew at the time, but knows now that those mental and physical restrictions were no longer okay.
 
Your journey towards food freedom may not be linear or 'feel easy' but it's incredibly important that we all start to break free and take our power back. A life spent consumed by food rules is no life at all. We also discuss what it's like navigating triggering emotions while raising children with a balanced outlook on health and nutrition, as a mom she is incredibly aware of how she raises her kids so they have a healthy balance with food and their body's.
 
Go follow Shelley on IG and TikTok @shelley.western - she has incredibly helpful and entertaining content around everything we talk about in this episode!