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Yesterday, Julie Norman, a registered dietician, yoga instructor and Health At Every Size Supporter, talked about how women can heal their body image and food issues.

Today, in part two of our interview, Norman offers insight into the biggest nutrition myths, how to eat mindfully and why yoga helps to heal a negative body image. She also lists some of her favorite yoga resources. (By the way, I’d like to add Anna’s Curvy Yoga to the list. She’s amazing!)

Check out Norman’s website to learn more about the great work she’s doing.

Weeks ago, I was browsing the excellent More of Me to Love blog and came across Julie Norman. As soon as I read her website, I knew that I had to interview her for Weightless.

Norman is a registered dietician, yoga teacher and Health At Every Size supporter. She helps women heal both their body image insecurities and negative relationships with food.

Below, Norman discusses how readers can improve how they experience their bodies, make peace with food and interpret nutritional info.

Stay tuned tomorrow for part two!

Every Monday features a tip, activity, inspiring quote or some other tidbit that helps boost your body image, whether directly or indirectly — and hopefully kick-starts the week on a positive note!

Got a tip for improving body image? Email me at mtartakovsky at gmail dot com, and I’ll be happy to feature it. I’d love to hear from you!

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Do you ever think that you have several different bodies? The one you’re in right now, and then your real body, the one that’s leaner, more muscular, has better skin?

Last week freelance writer and blogger Kate, who blogs at “Eat the Damn Cake,” wrote a brilliant post about these several bodies. Your real body, she writes:

… might be from the past or the future. It’s mysterious, but thoroughly detailed. The real body gets obscured by the obnoxious, floppy, hungry, unflattering  current one. The real body is like a place you really, really want to go. Where life makes more sense. Where it’s sunnier and you can wear a bathing suit without even thinking about it.

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Whenever I tell someone that diets don’t work, they follow up with, “OK, but then what does?” or “What should we eat?”

We’re so used to the idea of dieting that we yearn for rules, for barriers, for restrictions to keep us eating “right.” And when we don’t have any regulations, we get confused, uncomfortable and maybe even disappointed.

Years ago, I remember sitting with my furrowed brows, thinking, “So I can eat whatever I want? Really?” What do I do with that information? And, wait a minute, how do I keep myself in line?

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I haven’t worked out in weeks. I was hit with the flu and a few bad headaches, then the holidays happened and I went to NYC, and then my boyfriend got really sick. Yesterday morning was the first time that I’d gone to my Pilates class.

It was tough to go back. For days I contemplated going. Every morning I’d set my alarm. Then I’d inevitably ruminate about how excruciatingly hard each exercise will be since I was absent for so long. How exhausted I’ll be all day. How upset I’ll be getting into my already tighter workout gear.

And then yesterday, I finally went. I pushed aside my negative thoughts, and made it to the class. I was sick of feeling uneasy, sluggish and stressed.

Before the class, I was tired. I was grumpy. I was dragging my feet.

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It’s hard enough being an adult in today’s world, filled with weight-loss and diet commercials, airbrushed images, a relentless emphasis on appearance and an obsession with dieting and shame around eating.

Being a girl? Probably even more confusing and potentially damaging and demoralizing.

As I wrote in an older post on Weightless, tween and teen girls are just starting to form to their identities and figure out the world. They’re trying to make friends, yearning to belong and fit in, maybe even being bullied, dealing with a changing body, dealing with academic and other social pressures and trying to make sense of an often contradictory and damaging culture.

So what can parents and caregivers do to help girls grow up with a healthy sense of self?

Every Monday features a tip, activity, inspiring quote or some other tidbit that helps boost your body image, whether directly or indirectly — and hopefully kick-starts the week on a positive note!

Got a tip for improving body image? Email me at mtartakovsky at gmail dot com, and I’ll be happy to feature it. I’d love to hear from you!

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I can’t tell you how many times I’ve avoided wearing my prettiest clothes because I was saving them for a nicer occasion. Or avoided spraying my favorite perfume because I was just staying home or running an errand. Or avoided using any other nice products until some special moment arrived.

I’d let these items gather dust like fine china in a dining room cabinet. Because everyday occasions just didn’t make the special list.

I caught myself doing this last week when I contemplated putting on perfume. I’m just going to the store and will be spending the entire day at my parents’ house. I’d just be wasting it.

Today, I’m pleased to share this guest post about how one blogger chose to seek recovery from her eating disorder. Jen struggled with anorexia throughout her teens and early 20s. Her recovery from an eating disorder and journey into a life as a well-rounded woman inspired her to write her own blog, MsMorphosis, ”Fearless Thinking For the Modern Miss,” which encourages young women to develop themselves as authentic individuals rather than relying on the status quo.

Remember that eating disorders are complicated and serious illnesses. People don’t choose to have an eating disorder any more than they choose to have cancer or epilepsy. But you can choose to seek recovery. Jen’s post speaks to making this choice and slowly working to chip away at the eating disorder thoughts and diet mentality. These often manifest into a fervent focus on food and weight and an obsession with perfection.

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I have a big problem with both women’s magazines and health publications  because of their shaming and dangerous messages. But I have an even bigger problem with weight-loss and diet commercials — mainly because there’s no escape.

Yes, you can turn off the channel. But lately, these commercials are everywhere. Clearly, these companies have bought more airtime in the hopes of making big bucks over shaming viewers for the New Year, a time our society likes to equate with deprivation and restriction.

That’s why it’s critical to discuss and dissect them. Because instead of questioning ourselves — whether we’re thin enough, whether we need to go on a diet, whether we need to kick up our workouts for weight loss — we need to question these companies and the manipulative, detrimental messages they send.

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I know that we’ve talked a lot about New Year’s resolutions already. But I just came across a fantastic post by blogger and high school senior Fiona Lowenstein over at Rachel Simmons’s blog.

In it, Fiona suggests teen girls try out these 10 meaningful resolutions, instead of the usual appearance-based goals we typically see around this time.

In fact, if you’re a parent, why not talk to your kids about setting goals? You might set authentic resolutions as a family. And you might start a conversation with your child about what they’ve been reading or seeing about resolutions.

With the surge in weight-loss and diet commercials, ads and articles, this time of year is annoying at best and potentially harmful at worst. Kids soak up what they see in our shallow society and learn that beauty and thin are in — usually above all else.

But this time also presents a perfect opportunity for talking to your kids about our warped culture and body image and eating issues.