You’re smart. You’re politically aware of beauty standards. You know diet culture is toxic. And yet.

In this episode of Talking with Emma, we explore one of the most uncomfortable contradictions: How can you be committed to body acceptance… and still long for a smaller body?

We talk about why this desire is not a personal failure — it’s a survival response in a world that rewards thinness and punishes fatness. I share the story of a client navigating this exact tension, and offer a self-coaching tool to help you understand where your weight loss desire really comes from — and what it’s trying to give you.

You’ll learn:

• Why wanting to lose weight doesn’t make you a fraud — it makes you human
  
  
• How grief often hides beneath the fantasy of “being smaller”
  
  
• The questions to ask when you feel stuck between your values and your body image
  
  
• A coaching practice to meet your desire with kindness, not control

Mentioned in this episode:
📥 Want to go deeper? Download the Midlife Body Image Assessment — it’s the next step in understanding what’s really going on beneath your food and body struggles so you can stop obsessing about food and start feeling more easy in your body.

Curious about working together?
I’m currently taking 1:1 clients. Book a no-cost consultation where we’ll talk about your goals and see if I’m the right coach to support you.

If this episode helped you feel seen…
Subscribe or follow the show so you don’t miss the next coaching episode.
And if someone you love is tired of always trying to “get it right,” send them this. It might change their story.

Let’s stay connected:
🌐 Emma's Website
📬 Join the Talking with Emma newsletter
📱 Follow on Instagram, and LinkedIn

Have you ever found yourself thinking, “I should have outgrown this by now” when it comes to your body?

You're not alone — and you're definitely not failing.

In this episode of Talking with Emma, we dive into the painful belief that midlife body struggles mean you haven’t done enough personal work. We unpack the real reason it still feels hard — not because you’re broken, but because you’ve been living in a culture that keeps moving the goalposts on what your body should be.

I share a practical coaching tool to help you trace where your body thoughts come from, question the lies you've internalised, and take a powerful first step towards feeling more at ease in your skin.

We cover:
– Why it’s totally normal to still feel stuck with food and body thoughts in midlife
– How diet culture and ageism combine to make this even harder as we get older
– What the “promise of looking better” really sells us — and why it doesn’t deliver
– How to separate your actual desires (like confidence and love) from what culture tells you will get them
– A simple but powerful coaching exercise to help you locate, question, and gently push back on the loud thoughts in your head

If you’ve been blaming yourself, this episode is a permission slip to stop. The struggle is not your fault — but there is something you can do about it.

Mentioned in this episode:
📥 Want to go deeper? Download the Midlife Body Image Assessment — it’s the next step in understanding what’s really going on beneath your food and body struggles so you can stop obsessing about food and start feeling more easy in your body.

Curious about working together?
I’m currently taking 1:1 clients. Book a no-cost consultation where we’ll talk about your goals and see if I’m the right coach to support you.

If this episode helped you feel seen…
Subscribe or follow the show so you don’t miss the next coaching episode.
And if someone you love is tired of always trying to “get it right,” send them this. It might change their story.

Description:
If you feel like you’re always striving — to get it right, to hold it together, to prove you’re good enough — and want to feel more confident instead, this episode is for you.

We talk about how perfectionism keeps you stuck in the cycle of “not enough,” even if you’ve done all the work to leave diet culture behind. You’ll learn why failure feels so personal, and how to build a different relationship with it — one that makes an easier relationship with yourself possible.

In this episode, I explain how perfectionism often stems from a nervous system response — not a personality flaw. We explore why failure feels unsafe, how diet culture taught us to internalise it, and how to begin softening those patterns with a powerful self-coaching tool.

You’ll learn:

• Why perfectionism is often a survival response, not a moral failing
• How diet culture links failure to personal worth
• Why success doesn’t solve the fear of “not being good enough”
• A self-coaching tool to help you feel safe with imperfection — and start living more fully

Mentioned in this episode:
📥 Want to go deeper? Download the Midlife Body Image Assessment — it’s the next step in understanding what’s really going on beneath your food and body struggles so you can stop obsessing about food and start feeling more easy in your body.

Curious about working together?
I’m currently taking 1:1 clients. Book a no-cost consultation where we’ll talk about your goals and see if I’m the right coach to support you.

If this episode helped you feel seen…
Subscribe or follow the show so you don’t miss the next coaching episode.
And if someone you love is tired of always trying to “get it right,” send them this. It might change their story.

Let’s stay connected:
🌐 Emma's Website
📬 Join the Talking with Emma newsletter
📱 Follow on Instagram, and LinkedIn