Some confessions.
My name is Hayley and I am a Health Strategist.
But I don’t use activated charcoal, green tea powder, drink chaga mushroom lattes and I hate the term ‘superfoods’.
I hate fish (one of the ‘healthiest’ foods out there).
I sometimes use sauce from a jar because sometimes I’m fucking lazy.
I don’t always do my food prep on a Sunday.
Sometimes I’m running around on a Monday morning boiling emergency eggs and cursing myself for watching that extra Netflix episode.
The truth is I’m more Deliciously Stella than Deliciously Ella and I’m totally OK with that ♀️
Because I know that if I feel like I must be ‘perfect’ I’m just setting myself up for failure and I feel like shit before I’ve even tried.
Self-love is NOT about being perfect.
It’s not about 45 minute bubble baths and weekend trips to the spa.
And it’s certainly not about treating yourself to that whole box of chocolates as a ‘reward’ after the gym.
It’s about being absolutely fucking honest with yourself about where you are now and what you can do in any given moment to be just that little bit better to yourself and make a good choice.
And it’s also about asking difficult questions of yourself and being honest about the answers.
Taking personal responsibility.
Am I happy with where I am? If not, why not? What am I doing that keeps me here? And how actually did I get here??
Top tip – if you go through this exercise and end up apportioning the blame somewhere else, you’re not being honest with yourself. DO IT AGAIN.
With nutrition, self-love means finding what works for you. Don’t force yourself to eat foods you think you should be eating in a bid to be healthy. You need to ask yourself – could I eat this way forever?
Think about how you can do just a little bit better every day and don’t worry about things that don’t matter right now.
This is a (real life) example of a client I once had while I was living in Ibiza.
They were convinced that eating apples that had been packaged in a plastic bag was ‘introducing unnecessary toxins’ into their body.
If your diet is super clean and you don’t ingest any chemicals (food or otherwise) from the sterile environment you live in, then crack on with sweating the small stuff sunshine.
However, this client was also doing Jaegerbombs and copious amounts of cocaine at the weekends. I assured them that eating apples that came in a plastic bag probably wasn’t going to make matters worse.
Do the best you can in any given situation to keep plodding towards your goals. That’s self-love.
Sometimes my version of self-love is spending all day in the kitchen, trying out new recipes, cooking myself loads of healthy nutritious food. And sometimes it’s using sauce from a jar so I can spend more time with my friends on a Sunday.
It’s a sliding scale, and it’s the same approach I use with my clients for coaching. I’ll meet you wherever you are on that sliding scale and help you get towards the healthier end one step at a time.
If this sounds like something you can work with, get in touch.
