Eat Breathe Thrive London

16/04/2020

“If you’re struggling with your weight and image in a moment of new foods, less exercise, and general loss of control, just try to breathe and know it is only your responsibility to stay safe and protect others, not to be thin.” — Jameela Jamil

👏❤️

The Good Place star tells her followers to love their bodies “for what it does, not for how it looks,” and to simply “get your sweatpants on and survive.”

09/04/2020

We may not be the best at judging our own attractiveness, recent research suggests.

Researchers from the University of Barcelona examined the difference between how we believe we look, and how we view our own body from an outsider’s perspective.

What they found was that people rate their own body more negatively when embodied in it, compared to viewing their exact same body but as an outsider.

People rate their own bodies as more attractive when viewed from a third-person perspective: Frontiers in Robotics and AI

26/03/2020

Eat Breathe Thrive is releasing a new online yoga experience to support those in eating disorder recovery!

As many treatment centres close their doors to prevent the spread of coronavirus and countries go into lockdown, folks at home are seeking support in the virtual space. Panic buying and food scarcity has all of us a bit more anxious, and for those with an eating disorder history this pandemic has brought new challenges to staying in recovery.

Here at Eat Breathe Thrive, we've been working round the clock to develop online resources to support this community. We've always believed that yoga and face-to-face connection is key to recovery, and with that in mind we've developed a live and interactive course that includes yoga, meditation, and lots of interactive community support.

Sessions will be held each Thursday, April 2nd through April 23rd, 5pm-7pm UK time. This course is appropriate for all phases of recovery, and no prior yoga experience is needed.

Registration costs £100, but there are also scholarships available. (Link in the comments below.)

Yoga for Eating Disorder Recovery is a live and interactive online yoga course, designed to support your recovery. Discover how yoga can help you manage anxiety, connect with your body, and accept yourself.

16/03/2020

“Real talk: your food is not clean, or dirty. And neither are you. You aren’t what you eat. You are so much more than your menu.” 👏

When healthy eating becomes an unhealthy addiction

09/03/2020

“Anyone else find it depressing that it’s 2020 & we’re still glorifying women’s shrinking bodies in this way? How is it ok for professional adults to not only condone, but glorify self-starving?”

Lizzy Dening on the fetishisation of celebrity BMIs, its impact on disordered eating and why we need to change the narrative now

26/02/2020

21/02/2020

"Why is body love so hard to grasp? We spend all of our time fighting against ourselves that we forget to soldier up and fight for ourselves. Because in the end, all we truly have is ourselves, and that in itself should be enough to go to war. Our minds control our wakes and slumbers. Our limbs are the ones that roll us out of bed every day, and sometimes not at all. Our lungs shudder anxiety with every inhale yet exhale relief and satisfaction. And our hearts, oh.. Our hearts, keep beating even after every sh*t storm of a day.

It is sad that this concrete jungle we live in has made it socially acceptable to tell one another “I love you” without questioning the true definition but outrageous to tell someone to genuinely “love themselves.”

So with that said, I challenge, no.. I beg of you to love yourself. One day at a time, take the time, to love every little; curve, crevice, dimple, bone, muscle.. and so on. Thank your little toe for always being there for your big toe. Thank your ass for its never ending support and healthy bowel system. Thank your smile for always lighting up the sky and those around you. Just.. thank yourself for being you. There is only ONE of YOU. So take care; physically, spiritually but most of all mentally. Self hate is no way to live. It’s just a slower form of su***de."

(words by creativecleo on Tumblr; artwork by fionfairyland)

19/02/2020

“There is room for all of us at the table, and we shouldn’t value exclusion based on sizes and assumptions of personal experiences. Language is important, inclusion is important. You are not a before, you are not an after. Your body is and always will be YOUR body, YOUR vessel, one of strength and love and adversity.

You have legs that have carried you to where you are today, arms that have held other’s in their times of need, hands that have created wondrous and glorious touch and experiences, eyes that have seen love in so many multi-faceted ways, stomachs that have hardened and softened in times of heartache and tears and deep belly-rumbling laughs.

We do not owe anybody thin, we do not owe anybody thick, we do not owe anybody a single damn thing.”

One woman shares her story.

13/02/2020

06/02/2020

When a friend starts criticizing their body in front of you, it’s hard to know what to say. Your instinct might be to tell them they’re crazy to even think that. Or maybe you feel inclined to jump in and start talking badly about your own body to make them feel less alone.

But these go-to responses, however well-intentioned, can actually do more harm than good. Here's how to handle it instead.

You may be tempted to talk negatively about your own body to make your friend feel better, but experts say that's a bad idea.

29/01/2020

We are thrilled to share this new book from our very own Nicole Schnackenberg, ‘Bodies Arising: Fall in Love with your Body and Remember your Divine Essence.’

Drawing on yogic philosophy and psychoanalytic concepts, ‘Bodies Arising’ offers a series of wisdom, meditations, and practices to support you on your journey of moving beyond food and body image struggles.

Learn more and pre-order your copy now via O-Books (linked below) and Amazon: amzn.to/2Rz8znr. If you have any questions, please email Nicole at nicole.schnackenberg@gmail.com.

Do you struggle with your body image? Are you walking beside someone who does? Are you suffering on account of dieting, disordered eating, over-exe...

20/01/2020

👉👉 “Body shaming is not trivial, unimportant, banter, or fun. A look at the stories shows this clearly. Shaming is deeply distressing, stays with you, and can be defining of who you are. Shaming who other people are is not OK, and this is what we seek to call out in the project.”

and why we should be ashamed to body shame.

15/01/2020

“We are steeped in a cultural narrative that relentlessly brings discussions of health back to systems of eating, and thus to deprivation, and thus to the shrinking of bodies. New Year's resolutions are just one of many ostensibly wellness-related phenomena that have become Trojan horses for body-shaming and fatphobia.”

I refuse to beat myself up this year

17/11/2019

“Workarounds and harm-reduction are also only one part of the solution. We also need to fundamentally overhaul (or tear down and rebuild entirely) the systems in which we live, so that we can be further enabled to work on the other kinds of care that we need.”

Self-care is thrown around a lot as a magic bullet to solve all of your problems. I think it’s a lot more complicated than that.

14/11/2019

“The different representations of the body that the brain relies on to anchor our sense of a physical self mostly operate under the hood, hidden from our mental life.”

Have you experienced a disconnect between how you look and how you measure up? How does your body identity affect how you act, think, or feel?

How we think we look and how we measure up are often not the same.

24/10/2019

Little by little,
I am unlearning
A lifetime’s practice
Of staying quiet to keep the peace;
Of always being the one to apologise;
Of shying away from tough conversations;
Of searching for my worth
(in exam scores and calories,
in hours of productivity,
or the number on the scale);
Of feeling like a burden;
Of loathing every inch of my skin.

Little by little,
I am learning
To stand tall and take up space;
To trust in my own capability;
To speak my truth and express my needs;
To take responsibility for what is mine to own
(and to let go of what is not);
To get clear on the things I am willing to accept,
and to get clear on the things I won’t;
To assert my boundaries with clarity and kindness;
To say no (and stick to it);
To say yes (and mean it).

This is life’s work, right here:
In the messiness and the clarity,
In the discomfort and the relief,
In the sticking with it, regardless.

Come, meet me there,
Deep in the process,
The practice,
Of learning and unlearning.

• • • • •

© 2019 Samantha Christodoulou

30/09/2019

“I know I'm strong
I know I've got this
'Cause I've had it all along
I'm phenomenal and I'm enough
I don't need you to tell me who to be
Don't fix me, don't try to change a thing…
I'm broken and it's beautiful.”

Kelly Clarkson's Broken & Beautiful (from the movie UglyDolls) is available now! Download/Stream: https://Atlantic.lnk.to/BrokenAndBeautifulID UglyDolls (Ori...

23/08/2019

“​We’re all so obsessed with our bodies, they become such a huge part of how we see our self-worth it’s ridiculous. I was in a motorbike accident a few weeks ago and I wish it didn’t take something catastrophic happening to hit the message home: your life is bigger than your pant size. We need to get to a place where you don’t need to be thinking about your body apart from how well it runs. It’s not something that has to form our entire identity.​”

Yoga instructor Jessamyn Stanley​ teaches all body shapes and abilities around the world without intention of promoting 'girl power' but to prove your identity should not be defined by your body.