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.

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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

Description:
If you feel like you spend too much time thinking about food — what you should eat, what you shouldn’t, whether you’ve already blown it — this episode is for you.

We talk about why you’re not addicted to food. You’re deprived.
And your body is trying to protect you.

In this episode, I explain how black-and-white thinking about food — inherited from diet culture, family messages, and years of restriction — sets you up to feel out of control. We look at why your brain fixates on food, even when you’re not dieting, and how to begin unhooking from that pattern using a powerful self-coaching practice.

You’ll learn:

• Why food obsession is a sign of deprivation, not addiction
• How diet culture trains your brain to think in black-and-white categories
• Why your food thoughts aren’t a moral failing — they’re a survival response
• A self-coaching tool that helps you notice, name, and soften the inherited food rules in your mind
  
  

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

How to Use the Midlife Body Image Self Assessments

If you’ve downloaded the Midlife Body Image Self Assessments — this episode is for you.

Inside the guide are three evidence-based tools to help you understand what’s really shaping your relationship with your body, your eating, and your inner dialogue.

In this episode, I walk you through how to use the assessments, what to expect, and how to interpret what comes up — especially if it brings unexpected emotion or clarity. You’ll also learn what to do next, depending on what your results reveal.

Finding your body hard to live is not a personal failing.
It’s coming from somewhere.
The self-assessments will help you find living in your body easier by stopping food obsession and finally finding your confidence.

📥 Download the Midlife Body Image Self-Assessments — it’s the next step in understanding what’s really going on beneath your food and body struggles.

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 the story.

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

You catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror… and your stomach drops. That familiar wave of self-criticism rolls in, fast and unforgiving.

If that moment feels like it defines your day, your mood, your worth — you’re not alone. The problem isn’t your reflection. It’s the meaning you’ve been taught to attach to it.

In this episode, we talk about why mirror moments feel so loaded, what they’re really showing us, and how to begin shifting the way we see ourselves — without forcing body love, toxic positivity, or fake affirmations.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why “hating your reflection” isn’t really about what you look like
• How body shame gets wired into our thinking from a young age
• Why neutrality is often more healing than forced confidence
• A self-coaching tool you can try right now: The Mirror Reframe

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

In this episode, we look at the deeply ingrained belief that if we just try harder — eat better food, be more disciplined, stick to the plan — we’ll finally feel better. But for most women in midlife, the real issue isn’t a lack of willpower or time management… it’s a culture that taught us to fight our bodies instead of working with them.

I share the story of a client who broke this cycle and introduce you to one of my core self-coaching tools: “Work with your body, not on it.” It’s a small but radical shift that can change everything.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why trying harder keeps you stuck (and exhausted)
• The real reason willpower always feels like it’s failing you
• What happens when we stop controlling and start collaborating with our bodies
• A practical self-coaching technique to begin today

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

Show Notes:
In this first episode of Talking with Emma, I’m diving into one of the most misunderstood topics in women’s wellbeing: emotional eating.

If you’ve ever found yourself eating in front of the fridge, standing up, not even hungry — and then feeling guilty about it — this episode is for you.

We’re going to unpack:

• What emotional eating really is (hint: it’s not a personal failure)
• Why trying to fix it with willpower or cutting out foods, never works
• What’s going on under the surface — and what to do instead

You’ll leave this episode with a clearer understanding of what’s driving your eating patterns, and a self-coaching tool to help you respond differently next time.

Emotional eating isn’t a flaw. It’s a signal. And you get to learn how to listen to it without fear or shame.

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 the story.

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