A funny story about a bootleg cassette tape from 1994 Russia provides the backdrop to discuss two hot button concepts which have been reduced to trigger words: ‘wellness’ and ‘body image’. The two are intertwined in ways that matter a LOT.

Coach MK’s brain has been en fuego since she emerged from a year of chronic pain spent almost entirely in bed and started the long journey back to reclaiming her body as well as her identity. What does a healthy body look like, what does it feel like? What IS health anyway and who gets to decide who is healthy and who is not? Can you love a body that doesn’t function the way you want it to, a body that doesn’t look the way you want it to? A body that is in constant pain? What kinds of bodies are we REALLY allowed to celebrate and love, and what does 'loving yourself' look like?

These issues are thorny and tough to unpack, but the intersection of ‘wellness’ and ‘body image’ seems like a good place to launch a conversation we are calling Brainfire of the Vanities...because caring about your appearance is VAIN and you shouldn’t do that, unless you’re ugly then CARE MORE DAMMIT LOVE YOURSELF and lose some weight unless someone thinks you are too skinny then EAT MORE DAMMIT AND DON’T EXERCISE SO MUCH LOVE YOURSELF unless your BMI is high then REDUCE IT AT ALL COSTS BECAUSE OMG MATH YA’ALL LOVE YOURSELF...it never ends. You cannot win.

The messages from society are conflicting, but we hope that the coaches’ message is clear: you are easy to love. There are two places a person can be in any given moment: “where I want to be,” and “not there YET”. It’s okay to be okay, and it’s okay to NOT be okay. You are in the right place, a safe place, where you will be #coachedandloved until you see that you have been #winningatlife all along.

(We don’t need to know anything about you to love you...unless you can’t find your size in our threadless shop, we need to know that! We'd never intentionally leave you out! Tell us which size you need and we’ll keep bugging our suppliers. Currently, we can offer the unisex shirts up to 5x, and plan to offer up to 8x in multiple fits and cuts in 2020).

Complete show Notes including references over on the blog: https://www.coachedandloved.com/blog/the-fitness-protection-podcast-brainfire-of-the-vanities-part-1-wellness-and-body-image

These are NOT affiliate links. We don’t do those.

Wellness, the $4.2 trillion dollar industry: https://globalwellnessinstitute.org/press-room/press-releases/wellness-now-a-4-2-trillion-global-industry/

Shrill, by Lindy West: https://www.amazon.com/Shrill-Lindy-West/dp/0316348465

Shrill, on Hulu (based on the book of the same name): https://www.hulu.com/series/shrill-54eab813-3a9b-496d-9d7e-908597ad8d1a

This American Life: Where Lindy Confronts her troll: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/545/if-you-dont-have-anything-nice-to-say-say-it-in-all-caps

This American Life, Tell Me I’m Fat: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/589/tell-me-im-fat

Transcript to the podcast above, if you find yourself crying too hard to listen closely like Coach MK did: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/589/transcript

Nadia Bolz-Weber, comparing forgiveness to bolt-cutters: https://www.makers.com/videos/5b0dd9e77cce6e349079ac04

Still Processing: processing-gwyneth-paltrow-goop.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/16/podcasts/still-processing-gwyneth-paltrow-goop.html

Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s article about Gwenyth Paltrow: business-gwyneth-paltrow-wellness.html?module=inline">https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/25/magazine/big-business-gwyneth-paltrow-wellness.html?module=inline

You Are What You Eat by Gillian McKeith (The book Coach MK’s nutritionist used as the basis of their work in 2007-2008 following her Celiac diagnosis): https://www.amazon.com/You-Are-What-Eat-Change/dp/0452287170

Quote from from Slate’s Care and Feeding: weight-body-positivity-teenage-girls-advice.html">https://slate.com/human-interest/2019/06/discussing-weight-body-positivity-teenage-girls-advice.html

That AMAZING Instagram post: https://www.instagram.com/p/BytWEGyHQ4R/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

We also put it on FB: https://www.facebook.com/coachedandloved/photos/a.732704553783285/846227215764351