Things I Wish Every Woman Believed About Her Body and Her Health
This post was born from a personal milestone — my daughter turning 18. I wanted to mark it with something meaningful, so I wrote a series of emails to my community about the things I wish more women knew. From my years in this industry, my body, my hard-won lessons. Here they are, cataloged all in one place.
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This series was titled "18 Things I Wish Every Woman Knew About Her Body and Her Health", released over 8 days to honor the milestone "18." A clever little nod, but it evolved into more than that... we already know a lot. You're not lacking health information; you've probably been bombarded with it. But more information is pointless without solid ground to build on. Half of it isn't sustainable, and the other half is bullshit. I don't need you to "know" more things. This is instead what I hope every woman believes about her body and her health. Because I find that is the true intersection between doing, healing, growing, and succeeding.
What you eat is the least important part of your health.
I know. Bear with me.
What you eat is not nearly as important as your relationship with the food you're eating. In the grand scheme of life, a donut is of very little consequence. Even a weekly donut is of very little consequence. In the course of an overall healthy diet, it matters zero.
But how does it make you feel? Are you disgusted, ashamed, or certain that you just gained 10 lbs? Do you binge on all the other donuts because…might as well?
Whether you're a binger or a strict-a-tarian, you are in a prison of your own mind. And the unfortunate reality is that it's normal for women to be caught up in this web.
The healthiest version of you isn't obsessing over every bite. She's enjoying the sweet fruits of life.
Your body is always talking. The question is whether you're listening.
A couple of things happen when you turn down your inner volume.
First, your wires get crossed. Our bodies send internal and external signals that constantly communicate with us. Your internal signals get louder... bloating, fatigue, plateaus... causing confusion and frustration. You rely on external signals like bloodwork, only to be told everything is normal.
This is not to say you shouldn't seek help. You absolutely should. But the belief that all the answers can be found outside of yourself shuts down the healing power you already have within you.
Your body's wisdom has been broadcasting the whole time. The signal was never missing. You just couldn't hear it clearly.
Nourishment isn't the food on your plate.
You can plant the best seed in the world. But if the soil isn't healthy, nothing grows the way it should.
Most women are focused on the seed. The food, the plan, the protocol.
Nobody's talking about the soil.
A truly nourished, ready-to-grow woman is three things:
Fed — not with calories, or lack thereof. It's about whether or not you are truly filled up. When you're chronically giving more than you're receiving, your body keeps score. You can eat the perfect meal and still be starving.
Calm — most of the women I work with have a dysregulated nervous system as a baseline. A body in constant low-grade survival mode cannot receive nourishment the way a calm body can. It doesn't matter how clean you eat, how many steps you get, how hard you try. More effort just burns more energy you don't have.
Supported — not just by people, but within your own body and mind. Lack of support shows up as binging after a hard day. Restriction when you need to feel in control. Avoidance when the overwhelm gets too loud.
When you are fed, calm, and supported, something shifts that no protocol can touch. You stop white knuckling it.
Cravings aren't the enemy. They're clues.
The cravings themselves aren't the enemy. It's the messages you are sending yourself about them. The energy it takes to undo these stories is energy you could pour into your kids, your work, your life...the things that actually fill you up.
Here are three stories I truly wish women would tell themselves more often:
Food is just fuel. There is no moral value in food. We call food "guilty pleasures" and "cheat meals" like we're criminals for having a slice of birthday cake. We created that story, which means we can rewrite it if we choose.
Other people's opinions on what you eat are none of your business. The plan that works for the influencer with a personal chef, no kids, and a flexible schedule is not the reality for most of us. They don't have your schedule, your reality, your stress load, your budget, your relationship with food. It's time to end the story that these things don't matter, because they do.
The more you fight a craving, the louder it gets. This isn't weakness, it's neuroscience. Your brain has a filter for what it pays attention to. And your subconscious doesn't speak in negatives. So when you "stop" something, it backfires. It's like telling a secret to the one friend who cannot keep one. Tell your brain what you're not going to do, and all you'll hear is "hey, remember that thing you were gonna do?"
Habit change is more about the language you are speaking to your body and the language your body is speaking back. It makes things a lot harder if you're not speaking the same language.
Alignment beats the perfect plan. Every time.
Here's the hill I will die on: alignment is the actual mechanism behind every sustainable result.
It means not telling yourself you'll get up at 4 am to work out when you're already sleep-deprived. It means if you're neurodivergent and to-do lists are your kryptonite...why are you trying yet again to track every bite?
Autonomy and competence are key drivers of human motivation. You have to feel like you have agency and choice in your life. And you have to feel like you can master those choices. So if you do something you "should" because that's what "successful people do" — it won't be long before your motivation flops like a fish out of water. You've given up agency.
Alignment is simply stepping into your power and putting the right tools together for you.
So what happens when you're aligned? You stop wasting unnecessary time, money, and energy. The plan that works isn't the most optimized one. It's the one built around your actual life. It just fits. The protocols work better. And suddenly it's not just seeing the health shifts. It means you can't even remember the last time you fought negative thoughts about yourself. Your confidence, energy, and capacity increase. Life begins to feel free, possible, and exciting again.
You don't become aligned by changing who you are. You align the tools with you. It's like a door with a combination lock. You can push on that door all day, but it's not gonna open until the numbers align.
Building presence is the best gift you can give yourself.
Presence isn't just one thing. It's not just about putting your phone down at dinner or doing a five-minute meditation... although those are great practices. Presence is also the way you move through everything... your body, your life, your relationship with yourself.
When you are in the orbit of a fully present woman, you can feel it. You feel calmer, you feel seen, you feel comfortable. Think of your interactions with your coworkers, spouse, and kids. Do they leave you feeling a little calmer or a little more tense? This is co-regulation in action.
You cannot heal what you are not present enough to feel. Presence closes the gap between what your body experiences and what your brain registers. Without it, you are bound to autopilot. You'll revert to the same old patterns every single time.
Your gut knows the difference, too. Digestion is a rest-and-digest function. Sit down to the exact same meal in survival mode instead of presence mode, and stomach acid slows, gut sensitivity heightens, and your body conserves energy — because fight-or-flight prioritizes survival.
Healing is more than diet, exercise, and changing some health habits. It's a practice. It takes conscious effort. And it's brave! Many, many people will never do this.
But you get to choose.
The most important relationship you'll ever have is with yourself.
Your internal war bleeds into everything else.
I know it’s frustrating as hell to be on top of it one day and then, seemingly out of nowhere, you feel like you’ve been hit by a truck and can’t keep up. You do the right things. Eat healthy, get some exercise, and stay on a sleep schedule, and sometimes it can feel like “why the hell do I even try? It’s not helping.” So now you’re tired AND frustrated AND annoyed by the extra effort it’s going to take to get back to good. And you’re sick of everyone’s shit giving empty platitudes like “it’s all in your mindset” or “have you thought about keto?” Instead of consistency…crawling into bed and telling everyone to fuck all the way off sounds like a much better use of your time.
Two things worth remembering when you're trapped in the battle of the brain vs the bod:
The relationship you have with yourself sets the tone for every other relationship in your life, including the one you have with your body. Your body responds to the environment in which it lives. Making time to foster that relationship will take you far beyond the extra 15 minutes you think cramming into the treadmill will get you.
You cannot out-discipline, out-supplement, or out-protocol a broken relationship with yourself. This is the thing nobody in the wellness industry wants to say because it doesn't sell a product. You cannot hate yourself into a body you love. You cannot shame yourself into sustainable change.
We can continue the battle, or change the relationship. Make it about curiosity instead of criticism, safety instead of punishment, trust instead of control. This is building an environment for change and healing. This is where things shift without the extra hustle.
Do the work.
If you only take away one thing, I hope it’s this.
We have to do the work.
And I don’t mean piling more on your plate. Going harder, faster, more, more, more. I mean the real work. The internal work. The work that actually changes things.
Your battle might be with your body. Chronic illness, hormones, inflammation. Or it might be with your brain. Neurodivergence, executive dysfunction, or a mental load that only gets heavier. Maybe all of the above. There is no shortcut to building capacity and sustainability, or to getting results, without doing the work. There is only learning what works best FOR you.
I can help you with that. ;)
If this series landed somewhere for you, share it with a woman who needs it. And stay close — more is coming.