I don't want to be a health and wellness coach anymore. I'm over it. I've been feeling this way for about a year now and I've finally made the decision to close my doors.

Back in 2013, I was so happy to receive my certification after 4 long month of classes, an hour-long written test and a verbal assessment of my coaching skills with an experienced coach. I was ready to start helping people get healthy and lose weight. Back then, I thought those 2 things were one and the same.

Now I want to give it all up. And by 'it' I mean my association with the health and wellness industry. When I first started to get frustrated with health and wellness I thought it was because there had been some dramatic shift in the industry-that something had significantly changed since I hung out my shingle and started accepting clients.

After some reflection, I realize it's NOT the industry that’s changed, it's me. I'm the one who's different.

Dieting isn't just a thing that women do because it's fun.

We don't fear body fat and carbs because we enjoy being in constant conflict. 

We don't choose to become obsessed with the size of our thighs because we've got nothing better to do with our lives.

Nope.

Recently I wrote about why we need to change the way we talk about dieting. I made the argument that it's not just a 'thing' that women do, it's a culturally-encouraged practice that dishonor our humanity on a regular basis. 

I received a lot of positive feedback about it, which tells me that more people are finally awakening to the fact that diet culture take a big toll on our lives. 

It's beyond time for us to wake up to the fact that dieting dishonors our humanity over and over again.

Before we get started, let me be clear about what I mean by 'dieting': any attempt to control your body weight or size by controlling what you eat and how you exercise. Programs like Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, The Whole30, 21-Day Fix and countless others fall into this category.

Ok, here we go: