Break Free from Diet Culture: Tracy Astle’s W.H.O.L.E. Way

Break Free from Diet Culture: Tracy Astle’s W.H.O.L.E. Way

About Tracy Astle

Join us as Tracy Astle, founder of Nourishing Body and Soul, shares how her W.H.O.L.E. Method™ helps Christian women break free from diet culture, embrace peace with food, and find joy in their God-given worth: mind, body, and spirit.

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Introduction

Good, beautiful day, beautiful, beautiful souls! This is Charla Anderson, host of the Charla Anderson Show~Collector & Connector of Fascinating People (& EVERYONE is Fascinating!), especially you.

Today, you’re gonna meet Tracy Astle, founder of Nourishing Body and Soul, as she shares her W-H-O-L-E, that’s Whole method, which helps women break free from the diet culture… die with a cross at the end, is what I call it, the diet culture, embrace peace with food and find joy in their God-given worth. We’re gonna, let’s go now, okay?

…BUT FIRST…

We’re gonna do a 22-second mini vacation. We’re going have a deep, a little breathing session to calm our spirits, be still and know. So we’re gonna breathe in calm for seven seconds, hold for four seconds and breathe out gratitude for 11 seconds. So let’s go, here we go. Breathe in some calm. Oh, wow.

Welcome today, Tracy. I’m so grateful for you to be here with me and with us and share this bountiful wisdom you have and the stories that you have and how we’re going to help people and how we are helping people. But first, just tell me a little bit about who you are in this world and talk about what you do and how you serve and how to find you.

All right. Well, thanks, Charla. I really appreciate you and what you do. You have such an effervescence and a light about you, and it’s such a pleasure to spend time with you. So thanks so much for this chance to be with you and have this conversation. That’s one of my favorite things to do is talk with interesting people. And so I’m happy to be here, happy to do this. As you mentioned, my company name is Nourishing Body and Soul. So what I’m about is really claiming that life and creating that life that nourishes us on every level. How I came to do this was most of my adult life. I’m a mother and a wife and homeschooled my kids for several years and all of that kind of thing supported my husband was a contractor and so I supported him in our family business and all of those kind of things going to church and serving in the community and all of that and with a smile on my face and I’ve always been an optimist since the day I’ve been born and but still with all of that there’s kind of this underlying feeling of not, just not quite being good enough, that somehow God must have been disappointed in me because of all of my shortcomings and the way that, you know, we all have this, this is the ideal and we know that we live here.

And that gap really was something I struggled with for quite a while. And one of the big ways that showed up for me was that really no matter what size I was, what size my body was, there was always something to fix, always something to fix. And that’s something that we’re taught culturally. And I didn’t realize how much of that was culture and how much of that was lies until I really started doing this work. And I used to live thinking, as I went from diet to diet, thinking, I really just want to get to the point where, I mean, God created this body. I should be able to just eat whatever I want, whenever I want, not meaning like, ooh, all this stuff all the time, but just know that my body was asking for what it needed. With diet culture’s input, I’m thinking, well, that’s just a pie-in-the-sky idea. It’s ridiculous. That’s not really true. That’s just what I wish, but that’s not how it is. Then I saw this video one day that talked about that kind of body trust and about body wisdom. It’s the first time I’d ever heard that term. And so I went, oh my gosh, this is exactly what I think. This is exactly what I’ve been hoping for. And so, of course, I’d binged all of their content. Well, that video was from the Institute for the Psychology of Eating. And so I ended up getting my certification there from them and then have made it my mission to kind of go in through the door of our relationship with food in our body. But really, it’s about the wholeness of a person, the wholeness. I specifically work with Christian women.

I will work with other people but who I mainly like to work with and who I mainly work with are Christian women because I feel like we have so many of us have this understanding that we’re daughters of God but even with that understanding too much the understanding lives here and it doesn’t live here.It’s like okay well you Charla it’s easy for me to see that you’re a daughter of God and see all the ways that you manifest that in your life but me when I look at me what I see is thatI’m yelling at my kids and I’m not being as faithful as I know that I can be and I’m not serving as much as my community and I see all the lack and that’s just that’s such an inaccurate lens and I think that culturally the expectations that are placed on women and specifically on how women look and what we’re expected to do there’s a lot of lies and inaccuracy there.

We are you’re so on target there I do want to remember most people will probably not watch and probably will listen in podcasts in the future.So, I mean, I want to just point out you pointed to your head and you said here and not here. So, it was head first and heart second. So, I’m pretty sure that that would have been pretty intuitively gotten. But so, yeah, just I forget sometimes because we’re on, you know, we’re on Zoom, right? And we’re having, looking at each other. So, you know, so that’s just a little piece to try to remember, especially like spelling names and all that kind of stuff. So, we got Tracy A-S-T-L-E, Tracy Astle is, and Tracy Astle, Tracy, Tracy Astle dot com, T-L-A-S-T-L dot com is your email, website is nourishingbodysoul.com. There’s all over the place they can find you, and we’ll put more of that in as we go.

If you just Google search my name, my website comes up, and my LinkedIn, which is where I’m most active on social media, but I am also on Facebook and Instagram, but not as much as on LinkedIn, but that all comes up if you just type in my name.

Awesome sauce. Anyway, so I think you’re on to something so incredibly huge. And years and years ago, I started noticing, you know, when the introduction of high fructose corn syrup and then the introduction of these artificial packets, little artificial sweeteners, nobody’s skinnier or healthier since those things came out and artificial fats and all that kind of stuff. So nobody is getting healthier and thinner because of that. And, you know, I read an article years, decades ago now that your bypass your body’s, you know, I think you’re not getting anything, you know, or, and so it stores everything. And so when that, and, you know, as a flight attendant, Tab and Fresca came out. And it’s like, I just instinctually have been on this path. Oleo margarine, when my mom was cooking in the 50s, and they started, oh, we’re going to eat calories, that was a new concept back then, too. So it’s all been kind of eased into us while we’re adding all this artificial stuff, we’re also removing all the good stuff. Now you can’t have salt, you can’t have sun, you can’t have eggs, you can’t, what have they done? And what have we sucked into and how we don’t know, we didn’t know any better, right?

Yeah.Yeah.

And then, and I’m just going to say that I said diet with a cross at the end, when Diet Coke came out, the best marketing branding name I’ve ever seen, I think, but I call it die with a cross at the end. I do believe all those artificial things are just, they’re killing us and causing the inflammation and causing all these other issues. So we’re not healthier because our farmlands and all that are not either.

Yeah, and that’s just so much a part of it, but it’s not even all of it. Along with all of those artificial foods that have been introduced, we’re also conditioned to have this list of good foods and bad foods. And food in and of itself has no moral value.There are many different religions or different diets that have food protocols that they follow. My daughter-in-law is, because of health issues that she has, she eats a keto diet and feels so much better when that’s how she’s eating. But if she’s doing this keto diet and it’s helping her body feel better, does that mean that bread is bad? That’s not what it means at all. It means her body doesn’t respond nicely to it, so it’s something that she’s not going to want to have much of. And so it’s just this whole, we get ingrained with this, good food, bad food. And when we get ingrained with that, then what happens if we eat the bad food, then we feel like a bad person. And it just it just is all so tied together.

The psychology oh, my goodness. And I’m so grateful that you’re bringing all that up. Because I’ve known this for a long time, too. You know, I just like, just, it’s not all or nothing. And people who are doing all or nothing are saying Oh, I can’t do that and this. I believe that has caused so much of our angst and anxiety over the years here. Because I know, oh, I should, this is a big deal.

Oh, I shouldn’t be eating this, but I’m gonna eat it anyway, chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp. And then you’re eating and living with shame and guilt. And what I have been saying is a lot lately, and I know we had, you and I had a conversation quite some time, but I’ve started offering this word of savour, if you’re going to eat it, don’t do it with shame and guilt. Enjoy it. Savour it. Give it your, go, oh my goodness, I’m so grateful for this. And what if we slowed down and started savouring our food? And whether it’s a donut or a steak or whatever, you desire, God gives you the desires of your heart if you desire something. I believe that you will be your perfect and a better weight if you quit focusing on it.

About four years ago, three or four years ago, I put a number in my head. I was pushing up the weight, right? And then I had a number in my head that I wanted to get to. And I didn’t do anything different, but I could see myself at that number. I’m within probably five or eight pounds of that without doing anything differently. I do believe we can ask, believe, expect, and receive . And so I wasn’t weighing all the time.I just had this, I just like, this is what I’d like, thank you. You said we can do what you did and even more in John 14:12. This isn’t about religion, by the way, this is, my show isn’t Christian or religion, it’s faith. It’s faith and conversation and what we believe, right?

But I was surprised, not necessarily surprised, but I was kind of happy that all of a sudden clothes that I wasn’t able to wear I was able to wear and I still got way to go but I’m not dieting mm-hmm, and I enjoy seeing what I kind of feel like eating mm-hmm and that’s body wisdom.

As opposed to, okay, here’s my body, it’s something that I have to fix. That is the diet and fitness industry. I’m not against fitness by any stretch of the imagination. So let’s not interpret this that way. But the toxic fitness industry, there’s healthy fitness and there’s toxic fitness. And the diet and the toxic fitness industry really teach this: your body is something to be fixed. It’s something to be fixed. Your weight is a problem. Your size is a problem. Your weakness is a problem. The way you eat is a problem. These are problems to be fixed.And then we get in this, okay, well then this is what I have to do.We set up these rules that we have to follow.And then that’s where we learn to start not trusting our bodies and trusting ourselves, but trusting this diet that I’m doing, trusting this exercise plan, trusting that expert or that expert.And what you just, the story you just told really exemplifies body wisdom.The whole idea of weight because that’s another thing where diet culture is really, really, and fitness culture too, toxic fitness, has really warped our ideas of what is healthy in weight.Because, honestly, I am living in a bigger body right now, but my labs are all good.

I exercise regularly and I’m continually nourishing my body in different ways, finding things that feel the best for my body. But we get this idea because culturally we’re taught that, no, that’s not right, that’s not good. And so your intuition about where you wanted your body to be. And then just letting it go. That’s listening to body wisdom.And when we do that, whether our bodies end up smaller than we expected, or larger than we expected, or exactly the size we expected, we know that we’re where our body needs to be. And that’s just not an attitude that’s taught. We’re taught that our bodies are a problem that we need to fix, and it’s our job to fix them, and we owe it.

And I want to circle back to what you’re talking about, taking pleasure and savouring food, because that’s such a key thing. People hear that, and that spikes fear. It’s like, oh my gosh, if I just let myself eat what I want, I will never stop eating. I will never stop eating it. There’s no way I can do that. When I first learned about, you mentioned slowing down and savoring. Those are such important things because we’re also kind of taught that how many times have you heard somebody say, oh, this is just a guilty pleasure when I eat this or do that. That’s a guilty pleasure. Or we have cheat days on the food that we take.

So all these negative things that are attached to that. And so pleasure can be one of them. It’s like, oh, I can’t take pleasure with food because then, man, I’ll just be out of control. Well, when I first started learning about this and slowing down with food and really savoring it, something that I had such, and emotional eating is a big thing that’s talked about too, and I had such an emotional attachment to ho-hos. And from when I was a kid, all different kinds of things were attached to Ho-Hos. It was just such a comfort food. It attached me to really good memories and really good times that carried it over into triggers as an adult, of when I would want a Ho-Ho.

And intellectually, I know this is not the best food for my body, but I still wanted it anyway. And that’s where I was having that disconnect I talked about earlier. But then I thought, okay, if I’m going to have a ho-ho, I’m going to just slow down. I’m really going to love the heck out of this ho-ho. And so I bought the ho-hos one day, you know, they come in a two or three pack, and I sat down and I peeled off the chocolate and I ate that chocolate slowly and I smelled it before I ate it and then I unrolled the little cake like you do like we do anyway in my family and I ate that slowly and I’m really trying to take pleasure in this and what I realized wasI really don’t even like HoHos.That chocolate is nothing but wax. It doesn’t really have a good flavor. That cake is so dry. And really, what even is that cream? It’s not, I mean, it’s supposed to be whipped cream. It’s not cream. It’s something.

And I thought, this is so disgusting. I mean, flavor-wise and texture-wise, it was really like, not even, I don’t really like it. It was like, this is gross. Why do I like this? And then I was able to go, oh, because it’s attached to these feelings from childhood. And so now, but where before diet mentality, I would be fighting against, I shouldn’t have that ho-ho, I should not eat it. This is a bad thing to eat. But now listening to my body, it’s like, I really don’t even want that. And now, what happens is that every now and then, I’ll have the thought, ‘man, I really want a Ho-Ho. ‘ And I know immediately, wait a minute, I don’t want the ho-ho, what is it that I want? And I can be so much more in touch with myself, and then I can fill that need like that. And so when we fall into the fear of, oh my gosh, I can’t let myself eat whatever I want, or I’m gonna go crazy, that often is exactly the opposite of what happens, because what keeps us wanting it is us telling ourselves we can’t have it. A lot of that plays into it. It’s not the only thing, but it plays into that.

I am so glad you told the ho-ho story, because you’re telling that before, and I’m gonna relate it to, someone that has I think it’s it’s not just food, but there’s a dog that they had as a child and you know, and then they lost their parents and and then they had a list of this dog is that we have now is such a Hassle, it’s just a it’s just not an easy. It’s everything has to center around this animal and it’s exhausting. And I don’t I believe that that’s a similar psychology to something that you know, just this is the same kind of dog I had and I’ve got to keep them and but it’s very inconvenient for everybody. So I just think that it’s not just the food side of things, but I knew that story when you talked before reminded me or made me think about this situation, and perhaps, you know, maybe we can address that from that angle sometimes. But I wanted, you know, I was a flight attendant for 34 years and I, you know, flight attendants are in the you know, we’re the ones behind at the dinner party behind the curtain.

You have to be very conscious of your weight.

So back in when I was my weight, max, my maximum weight that I and we had to weigh in every three months. And if you didn’t meet it, you had to weigh in every month and people were terrified of that. I never got close to my max until I got pregnant, but 127 at 5’5″, that was my maximum, and no problems for me back in the day, young days. I’m not so certain that the weight restrictions weren’t awe’re all bad just well I mean it’s understandable we’re not on a plane you have to know how much weight’s on the plane so it’s understandable but it’s but you have to maneuver down the aisles there’s a lot a lot to it and there’s so we don’t have when they got rid of the weight restrictions you know it was a great relief for a lot of people but that I’m just saying so but the culture back then it was before the artificial stuff started really being let out there but waists got much bigger just because of what we talked about in the beginning.

I think, partly. But I think what you’re so spot on that, and when you say it’s just the opposite, literally, if you really want that ho-ho, at that moment, you could go, I’ll give myself permission to have the ho-ho, even though I knowI don’t really like it, but you’ll probably take a bite and you know, you give yourself permission. And back in the day when I lost after my, you know, my third child, I ended up losing 50 pounds and I had a mindset shift that instead of, it’s similar to what we were talking about. Instead of like, um, and am I going to regret eating this? I shifted that. Or I projected to the next day, tomorrow, will I care that I had that yesterday? Tomorrow, it won’t matter at all to me, so why have it now? You know, I mean, it was just kind of a mind game I played with myself. Don’t know that I’ve ever heard anybody else talk about it like that, but I was able to project and then go.

And I also had another trick that, you know, working first class on international flights, you know, they’ve got some good stuff up there. And back in the day, we served meals every, you know, leg. So from when I was working and flying to, I would say, oh, they would say, hey, they call back out, you know, hey, y’all want an ice cream sundae? We got leftovers. And I would go, I would say, no, I automatically had a no. And then I would go, I give myself 30 minutes, and if I thought I wanted it, then I would go up to the first class. This was a lot of years ago when we actually served food. And I would take out a spoonful of the ice cream, and I’d pour coffee on it, make a little treat out of it, and reward myself if I wanted it. And most of the time, by that 30 minutes, I didn’t even care anymore. And so those are just some of my personal tricks that I did in the past. The three times I lost 50 pounds.

That brings up something, too: when we give ourselves that permission, it’s a lot of the battle.And it can be a hard thing to do when we’ve been conditioned otherwise, and we’ve lived a lot of years in a different mindset. But when we do that, that also frees us up to go, okay, I do want this ice cream. I’m going to have this ice cream.And then we take a bite and we go, oh, that was good. I’ll have another.And we take another bite and it’s like, okay. And that was enough.That was all I wanted.And it’s so much easier to walk away. My daughter-in-law, I was just visiting recently with them, they live in another state, and we were talking about, she had offered something, and I said, oh no, I’m good. I think it was a Häagen-Dazs ice cream bar. I’m like, oh, I’m good.And she’s like, you’re so good at that. You’ve always been so good at that.Or just like walking away from food, and I said, hold up. I have not always been good at this.I’m not natural at this.This is something that, that’s something that’s changed in me.

And when we’re restricting ourselves and thinking, I shouldn’t have the ice cream, I shouldn’t have the ice cream, I shouldn’t have the ice cream, then when we do, it’s like, well, I blew it now, so I’m just going to have all the ice cream. I’m going to finish this whole ice cream sundae and it’s that kind of mindset because it’s like when we set that hard line if we go past the line well we’ve gone past it so we’ve gone back by an inch or by 10 miles whatever we’re still past the line and it’s that again that’s the site you know some of the psychological things that come into play whereas when we just give ourselves permission it’s so much easier to just go you know what actually that doesn’t really sound good right now or man that sounds wonderful and take a bite and then assess, okay, did that do what I wanted? I got the flavor in my mouth, got the texture in my mouth, that was awesome. If I have more of this, am I going to keep thinking it’s awesome or am I going to cross over into the meh? I didn’t need that much of that. And we really are listening to ourselves more instead of listening to the rules that we’ve set up more.

I love that. Yeah, it’s like I did it. I remember many times, you know, well, I’ve blown in today, might as well keep blowing and I’ll try again. I’ll start again tomorrow. You know, I’m going to start on Monday or whatever it happened to be. I did. I did do the lemonade diet for three times. If you’re familiar with that, it’s just lemon and cayenne pepper and maple syrup and lemon juice. Anyway, I think that’s it. I did it for 14 days once, I did it for 15 days once, and I did it for 21 days one time, where I did nothing but that. And it was more like a fast in a way the last time, but the day before, I was thinking, ‘There’s no way I can do that.’ But I did, I did. And I would wake up and I’d go, just for today, just for now, just for now, just for now. And I stayed on that thing for a while. It was, it was fine. I didn’t have the hard part, which was on an international flight, where most of the first class cabin didn’t show up, and there was so much amazing food.

And, you know, often, you know, they’d have nuts sitting there and it just won’t, you know, any as a flight, as a crew in the galley. And it was like, well, that was tricky, but I chose it; it’s a choice. This is a choice right now, whether I just scarf it all down or whether I have some discernment around it. I would really just think, what would I really like? And when I would go, another trick I had, and I don’t know where all this has come from now. I remember that before, if I was going to go out to eat with the crew or whoever, I would decide ahead of time what I was going to have. And I would decide ahead of time that the company was the treat, the conversation was the treat. And I would, you know, I might order a chicken breast, one glass of wine or whatever it was, but I would think ahead. So I didn’t, because I’m usually in a restaurant, oh, what do I really want? What do I really want? So I think that we can do that. I haven’t done that in a long time. I think it was a good idea.

I talk often about instead of putting on our judge’s robe and go, I should not have done that. I know that I should. And then put on a scientist’s lab coat instead and look at it with experimentation, not even if you’re not even creating the experiment, but just about, okay, what can I observe from this? What can I observe? And just take in the data. And that way, that really teaches us to learn to trust ourselves. And so, I mean, again, that trust can look at so many different ways. It can look like deciding ahead of time what you’re going to have, because I trust myself to know now in this moment, this is going to be what I’m going to make my best choice. And so I’m going to make that choice now. Or it can be, you know what, I have to learn to be able to just be out in the wild and faced with opportunities and decide at that moment what’s best for me.I need to learn to trust myself in that situation.

So it’s going to be better for me to go there and decide there and see what happens and then afterward go, hey, that was awesome because I chose the chicken breast and the steamed vegetables instead of the mega nachos or whatever. Or, oh man, I went for the nachos again and it was nothing but at that restaurant just grease and fat and I don’t feel good now because I ate too much of the nachos. Why did I do that? And then we can learn about ourselves and we can learn about how our psychology, our relationship with food and our body is. And then we can start honing in on really closing that gap and doing what really is best for us on all levels, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, all of it. But it’s just, you know, we don’t need to be judging ourselves in the meantime. We were not born perfect, and we’re not meant to be perfect in this life.

No and I think I just feel like our society has put these huge burdens on our expectations on how we should look and all those things for the you know back in the day the Barbie doll even when I was little and that and I think so I want to go into that but I also want to ask the whole w-h-o-l-e you’ve got the whole method and you’ve got a couple of we might as well talk about it, the books and the things that you offer. But what does the whole stand for?

The WHOLE method is, again, creating your whole life in a way that nourishes you. The W is for wisdom, for tuning into your body wisdom, tuning into the wisdom of God and accessing that in this situation. The H is healing with hope, that recognizing that when our relationship with either with food in our body or it just in general, if we just have those feelings of being not enough or have those feelings of being too much, I’m just too much. People tell me all the time I need to calm down and be quiet. We have those feelings of being too much or not enough. That’s something that needs to be healed.

And so the healing through hope. And then the O is oneness, being at one, finding a way to be at one within ourselves, to be at one with God, and then that spreads out into being able to be at one with others. I find it so interesting that in the scriptures we have so few examples of where Christ prayed and we know the words that he said. And one of the examples, and the longest example, is in John 17, and it was his last prayer with his disciples. So it’s like, okay, this is a big moment, this is a big prayer, and we have the words that he said. Three times in that one prayer, he said either that they may be one, or something similar to that wording. That idea of unity, of being one, with God and Christ and being one within ourselves and being one with each other, is something that’s so important, that kind of unity. And then the L is for love and grace and learning to really not just know about God’s love but to really feel it on a deep and daily basis, to understand what his grace is and what it does, 

be able to extend that grace to ourselves the way that he does, and then also to extend that grace to other people. Because often when we’re making changes, it’s easy to go, oh, well, if we’re talking about food and body, it’s like, well, I used to eat like that too, and kind of make other people wrong for how they eat, and that’s not the deal. Just give grace to people to be on the path that they’re on, and interact the way that you know with the people that are in our path in the way that feels the most loving so that love and that grace and then E is evolving because even when we make these changes we’re not finished and that’s not a problem it’s a promise. That idea of evolving, and just that, is so freeing to me. It means my goal is not to arrive. My goal is to keep growing. And that just takes away so much of the pressure of feeling like I have to do this this way. I have to arrive at something. I don’t have to arrive. I just need to keep growing. So wisdom, healing, oneness, love, and evolving.

Say that again because I interrupted you.

Wisdom, healing, oneness, love, and evolving.

Perfect. Wow. We all need that. And I’m so, you know, loving yourself. I just think our culture has tried to keep us, you know, unlovable.And then, you know, there’s much more to talk about with that. But I’m going to take a mini moment right here to talk about my beloved Zinzino.

One of the ways that you nourish and nurture yourself.

Yeah, let me just tell you, we’re going to take a quick break here. And we’ll be right back with more with Tracy Astle. And thank you. So we’re back andcharlaanderson.com/Zinzino Z-i-n-z-i-n-o and I’m just gonna cheers take some oil take my dose of omegas right now it’s amazing because they reduce inflammation and many almost every other disease so we want that don’t you so thanks Tracy for the break here andI think something that we touched on, but perhaps I feel like body image, and the media, and the expectations, and I think so much of that has evolved. And I’m not so sure in a positive way, because if there’s the new trend, I mean, we have to haveI mean, I don’t want to offend anybody. My people, I love you so much.

Whatever you do is great. I love, if God is love, he can’t be not love. And that’s my message, unconditional love. So if you’re listening to this, it’s not about judgment, but it is an opinion that I’ve witnessed as we’ve gone that the marketing, you know, it’s all trying to sell us stuff. It’s almost like they’ve tried to create us to look like caricatures or something with eyelashes that are 10 pounds and painted brows and expanded lips. Why can’t we just love ourselves as we are? I wear a touch of makeup, but my mama and I taught makeup for a long time, but I don’t wear much. And I want people to go, well, your eyes are pretty today. I don’t want them to go, oh, I love your eye makeup. So it’s to enhance, to give you just a little bit of a, I like color. My lips, if I don’t have lips, I look kind of and it kind of not not healthy or something but very little I know you know no very little base makeup and any base and all that stuff so and then I sold Mary Kay for 14 for 16 years so it was yeah and that’s such a good I’m so glad you brought that up.

It seems like, well, if you go very far down the path of, you know, body acceptance, it means that you just need to accept yourself absolutely the way you are and not want to make any changes and all of that. And that’s not really what that is. In their amazing book called, the book’s name is More Than a Body, and it’s by doctors Lindsey and Lexi Kite. So interesting because they’re twins. And they, if anybody knows about, you know, body comparison, is twins, you know? And they talk about this body neutrality is the term that they use. And I love that term because what that is, it’s like, it’s not just about and when I say body, I mean, body and beauty related. It’s not about the So if you’re body neutral, does that mean that you’re never going to want to wear makeup because you’re just going to set up your body the way it is? You’re never going to want to…to eat differently because you’re just like… 

It’s not that. It’s that… Somebody had asked me one time, it’s like, so what about makeup? Is it a problem that people wear makeup? I’m like, no, not at all. When it becomes a problem is when you’re doing it because you feel like you have to, because it’s an insecurity thing, because there’s a certain way that you need to look then that’s not coming from a healthy place. And I want to be very careful with this because it’s such a personal thing. And when I say when you feel like there’s a certain way you need to look, well, you know, if you’re an actor, you have a certain way that you have to look for that role, and so yeah, of course. But sometimes we get in our head that this is what a manager at a business looks like, and so therefore that’s what I need to look like. That’s a slippery slope to be on. Wearing makeup can be a form of just self-expression, and that’s a very cool thing. And not just makeup, but how we dress. That’s a very cool thing to be able to use this as, you know, like thisThis shirt that I chose to wear, this necklace, this way that I do my makeup and my hair is a way that I like to express myself. That’s one thing. That’s a completely different thing than, oh my gosh, I can’t go. Well, I’ll share a story about this. A friend of mine, this is years ago, she always looked really put together. And that was really lovely. I mean, it’s like, you know, go her.

Always had, didn’t go outside without her makeup done or hair done, and, you know, good for her. But then, I was in our church at the time, I was the president of the women’s organization, and it was just really on my heart that I needed to stop by and see her. She was doing okay, it wasn’t like she was going through any major thing, but I felt like she just needed to know that God was aware of her in her day-to-day and just stop by and say, I love you, how are you doing? So I went to her door, knocked on the door, and her son answered. And he said, oh, just a minute. So he leaves, then he comes back a few minutes later, and he says, she can’t come to the door right now, she doesn’t have her makeup on. It broke my heart, broke my heart, that for her in that moment, I knew from my end, I was there simply to love her. And that love wasn’t received the way that it could have been because she let that not having her makeup and her hair done be a barrier to that. And I’m not saying that, you know, no judgment against her. That’s where she was and that’s fine.

But just how many times we’re coming from a place of, oh my goodness, I’m not good enough without my makeup. I’m not good enough without my hair being done. I’m not good enough if I dressed this way and not that way that’s when it becomes a problem. So it’s again, it’s like, it’s not the thing itself. It’s why we’re doing it. It’s what the psychology is behind. It’s where we are. That is what makes a difference about that.

So it kind of has swung and in some ways, yes, and yes, you know, so in some, you know, when there’s people that have zero care, it seems by observation about how they dress and look.SoYou know, I think I want to have self-respect. I want to have self-approval. You know, I put a little bit more makeup on on Wednesdays when I do my show, but it’s not, I don’t, and I nearly always wear something just because I feel better answering the door with a little color or whatever, but if not, oh well. I’m not obsessed about it, and it’s just, and it has nothing to do with, other people’s expectations so to speak.

Right yeah and it ties into that going back to what we talked about much earlier on about feeling not enough. If we feel like we’re not enough without that makeup but we’re not enough without those kind of clothes then that’s an issue.

It becomes our identity you know it’s who we are and you know we’ve got to have you know this rigid role and I just don’tIf it takes more than five minutes for my makeup, it’s way too long. And really, back in the day, I had three kids and I had three stepkids and I was raising, you know, the mission trip mom, the pool party mom, you know.

I’m and just came to mind every I was Christmas mornings. I had been up all night long wrapping. I’d been up all night, literally everything. You know, that’s a lot of things to wrap. And I would I would still I’d still be doing it at three in the morning and finally just close my eyes for a minute or not. But when those kids got up, I was dressed with my best, I’ve got my Christmas heels and everything.

I would they wake up and so the videos back in those days I was but it was it wasn’t to for anybody else it was for it’s just what I wanted to do I don’t I didn’t want to come out in my you know robe and all that kind of stuff and then have to find a time to get dressed later on in the day so it was just like easier just to go ahead and get dressed and then Christmas. Anyway, I just thought of that image of me being completely dressed in my little stockings and my non-stock Christmas stockings. Back in the day, we wore hose, right? Candies, maybe some candy cane hoes or whatever. Anyway, it was just something that I felt was important for me. And I just,And honestly, it really was because I didn’t know how or when I would ever get around to getting dressed with all that.

And that’s such a good example, because for you, that was a wonderful way of something that fed your soul, that fed your spirit. For somebody else, it would be like, I think of that and I think, oh, my gosh, that just sounds so exhausting. That sounds so exhausting to not only do all of that, but then to make sure that I’m looking good in addition to that. And so it just is really it’sIs it nourishing your soul? Is it a part of life that you really want that really is the expression of yourself that you want to have? And so it’s not about the yes, do this.No, don’t do that. It’s about what expresses you. And in order to do that, you have to know yourself very well. And that’s, that’s just part of the journey.

Yeah, well, I, I’m Easter. Okay, so we’re out there high in my heels and my beautiful Easter clothes, you know, with hiding eggs and looking for the eggs, right? So, I’m like, I really had some, you know, a couple of really special, I knew Easter off. It was a beautiful silk suit and I was just in bed, you know, sleeping. And I did say this many, many times, I’ll sleep in my next life because let me just tell you, there was not much. And I still kind of believe that. I’ve got too much to do, too much life to live, and too much excitement and joy in my world that I want to keep learning. I’m a personal development junkie, all those things. So all that ties in, I guess. But I’ve evolved. I don’t have to do that very many mornings anymore. Hide the eggs and all that.

Yeah, now our kids get to do that with the grandkids. We do an egghead hair on our property, but it’s later in the day and it’s, okay, when is it going to work for everybody? And it’s certainly not first thing in the morning.

We had to do it before church, you know, I mean, and we went to early church and it was just like, I don’t know, I don’t know what that was all about, but yeah, it was a lot.

Well, and that brings up another good thing about the seasons of life, because there are going to be times whereWe do have 4,000 things we have to do in a day, because we have this that we have to do for this. This child needs this, and that child needs that, or there’s this occasion. And goodness knows, for most of us, if mom doesn’t do all the stuff for Christmas, it doesn’t get done. That kind of thing. And there are times and seasons of our life. And again, putting on the lab coat, not the judge’s robe. Do I spend more time with my morning devotion time than I did when I had kids in the house? Absolutely, because I can do that now. I didn’t have an hour in the morning to sit in my scriptures and journal carefully and thoughtfully.

I didn’t have that. Sometimes I did, and some people say, well, just get up an hour before your kids. Well, okay, that’s nice in theory, but if you have a child that gets up at five, that’s a little much to get up at four when you have another child that stays up all night. And so I was like,we just have given ourselves grace for the season of life that we’re in and recognizing that this may be the time for this, that may be the time for that, and that’s okay.

And grace is the huge word in this judgment.I just love people. I say just love people. And the harder people are to love, the more they need it. And we want to just give grace and look for the win-win and all that kind of stuff. We didn’t even mention how we met. Brenda Byers, to prosper in all things, is our mutual connection, our coach. And we’ve met through her. I don’t think I could ever describe the brilliance that she brings, the wisdom to Christian women who want to have successful businesses.

I feel like she’s masterful. And I’m guessing you feel the same way. I’m going to go ahead and show her book. Oh, good, because I don’t have a hard copy of it yet. Total Soul Prosperity. So Total Soul Prosperity. And I read it. And it’s only a couple hours, it’s a small book. I read it in the Kindle version, the day before I got these. And I’m telling you, it’s powerful. And it’s wisdom condensed. So Prosper and All Things by Brenda K Buyers, B-Y-E-R-S.We really encourage you to get that. And it’s a great book for home studies, or book clubs, or Bible studies, and retreats, things like that. What about stocking stuffers? Anyway, so I just want to, I’ll put the link if I can get it in the descriptions. So we’ll have, I mean, we love her .I believe that she has added so, she overgives more than anybody I know. She does. I think she really has so much brilliance.

She is passion personified and the things that she teaches are so powerful.

And so effective. Yeah, so she’s a coach .If anybody needs a coach, let’s talk, talking to one of us. But yeah, I feel like, and a mentor as well. So I think the prosper in all things is for business. So we just want to acknowledge her and encourage you to check Brenda Byers out amazingly. So we’re winding down. It always goes fast. And I want you to talk about the books that you have or the offers you have and the coaching you have and let’s get that nailed down so that people can find you easily and get support from you.

I have lots of things that are available for free. I don’t have a book yet that’s in the works, but I do have lots of things for free. I have bought a podcast that’s on YouTube, that’s at the Nourishing Body and Soul channel on YouTube. There’s, oh, how many, 50 some, 50, 60 episodes there. I have on my website, nourishingbodysoul.com, I have over 200 blog posts. So you can check that out there. I’m on Instagram at TL Astell, Nourishing Body and Soul. I am on Facebook, Nourishing Body and Soul, and LinkedIn at Tracy Astell. And so, there are many ways to do this, and I also have numerous resources that I provide for free.

My two most recent ones are a… How many days did it end up being? It’s…Well, I have a three-step program for, it’s super simple, for overcoming emotional eating. And it’s like an in-the-moment do this, you know, when you’re heading for those cookies after work, and you know that it’s not what you want, and you know that you’re not really hungry, but why are you going? It’s what to do in that moment. Three steps.

That will get you on as well as getting that tool and helping you overcome that emotional eating in the moment, that will put you on my mailing list. And so they get at least weekly emails there. And then also that ties into specifically, I associate diet culture, I call it the diet culture funhouse, because it’s like where you go into the funhouse and you’ve got all those warped mirrors, and it seems fun and it seems silly and it’s very crowded in that funhouse. But really, that’s what diet culture is like. It warps our perspective of ourselves. And after a while of being there, we start believing those warped images. And so that will have a specific path for getting out of that diet culture fun house. And then the second, my newest second free thing that I have is a, it’s seven days of declarations for when we’re feeling like we’re not enough, or feeling like we’re too much, and how to really hone into that we are a daughter of God, wonderfully and fearfully made. and that just seven declarations to help us really…

Take into not just our head but our hearts and then move out to our hands and the things that we do to help us realize that we’re okay. We’re enough the way that we are. We hear, you know, oh you’re enough and sometimes that can be a fearful thing because like but then no I’m not because I’m not perfect and I know what I should be. No, being enough is not the same thing as being perfect. Being enough doesn’t mean there’s nothing that we ever are going to or ever are going to want to change. That’s not the same thing. It means that you’re okay. You’re on a path.)  and it’s okay. Wherever you are on the path is okay because Christ meets us where we are. He doesn’t demand that we go to where he is before he’ll talk to us. He meets us where we are. We’re okay. You are okay. You’re enough where you are, and you’re not finished. And that’s not a problem. It’s a promise.

I love that. Not a problem is a promise. Yes, you’re not finished. Of course, we’re evolving. And the way I say it, if you can take a breath, wherever you are, you’re okay in that moment. In that moment, if you can take a breath, it’s when we can’t take a breath that we don’t have a choice anymore. So where you are is all you have. You might as well love it because God loves you exactly who and where you are right now. There’s nothing you can do to be loved more or less by God. And by me, really, I just want, I love people and it has, you know, people need to know that they’re okay, they’re perfect. Really, right now, because it’s all you have. Where else do you have to start from? So take that, take a deep breath, enjoy your moment, listen to yourself, listen to your body. We do so much on just reaction or habit that we don’t slow down to acknowledge and understand that it may not be what we really want. So we just maybe turn off the big black box off the wall and just for a few moments and be still and note. You know, listen, listen. I think that’s a lot of our, too much noise is really a problem right now.

Absolutely

And we don’t, don’t just listen, be still, remember who we are, remember who we are. Because we are loved. And how can we serve others if we don’t have our cup filled, right? So we’ve got to get out of the full cup. Or the way I like to say it is cupping a saucer back in the, if you don’t know what a saucer is, you. Watch Downton Abbey. Research saucer, but it’s not blind. My daddy would, you know, pour the coffee into the saucer and get a saucer to keep, you know, to cool down the, you know, but the visual I like about that is when you’re pouring into a cup, you’re filling yourself, you’re filling yourself, you’re filling yourself until it overflows. And then you serve out of that saucer, you serve out of the overflow.

That’s a nice image.

Yeah. Not as elegant of an image,

 But he always said, be a pipe, not a bucket, and it’s like, okay, a bucket receives all the blessings, it receives it, and it holds it. But a pipe, those blessings still go through it, you still are affected by those blessings, but now you’re sharing it with other places, you’re taking it and moving it on to other places too. Well, that’s a much more elegant visual. Yeah, we’re pipe fitters, or you know, the guys get that other one, but we get yeah, so we get a cup and saucer.

 But the Charla Anderson Show is weekly and I would love for you to find me on YouTube and subscribe and like. And for many, I’m past three and a half, into my third season, past halfway. So we got a lot of shows out there weekly, almost every week for two and a half years. So like and subscribe on Tracy’s YouTube and on Charla’s YouTube and let’s support each other, lift each other up. And my message is unconditional love. I just, you know, let’s love each other and offering and stories of overcoming and offering hope. And I love the ho-ho story because there’s a story of overcoming and figuring out that that’s not who you are, you know. And when you were describing it, I’m going,  That’s not chocolate, it’s plastic or wax. So that wasn’t my thing that I went for. I had my own. Thank you so much for joining me today, Tracy, A-S-T-L-E, Tracy Astle. You have brought so much wisdom, and I think it’s a huge topic  you know, we are in this diet culture and we nobody’s skinnier by being on these all these rat traps or what are they called rat race diets hamster wheel hamster wheels of, you know, you’re just learn to love yourself enough to trust yourself to less I think when this is all say I’ll end with this, but I believe when Jesus blessed the food. He’s blessed it to nourish us and to use what was good in it and to release what was not so good. And so if we learn to just love and savor, savor what we, you know, shove in our face sometimes, you know, just slow down.

 And a little pro tip too, when we learn to do that, don’t be surprised when we learn to love and savor our life.  a lot more as well.

 In all things, I do believe it. But you know, we’re all there so much connected and all the things, and I know that that’s what it all comes back to, the whole body, and so you are not you are enough, exactly who and where you are right now. So just love yourself. Let us love you and make it a great, great day. I appreciate you so much, Tracy, and we’re gonna find out how to Shut her down and see you next week.

Thank you, Charla.

And always, always, always choose joy.

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MEET: Tracy Astle, Eating Psychology/Mind-Body Nutrition Coach

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• Titles and links of books, products or offers mentioned:
  
  The W.H.O.L.E. Deal – 5 wk program to overcome feeling like you’re “too much” or “not enough”
  Leaving the Diet Culture Fun House Forever – 5 wk program to reclaim joy and a deep appreciation for your body

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Charla’s Info:

Howdy, from Fort Worth, TEXAS 🤠   

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About  Tracy Astle

Her coaching speaks to the head, heart, and hands—offering knowledge that brings clarity, identity that anchors women in God’s truth, and practical tools that empower lasting change. By weaving together faith, compassion, and lived experience, she offers a path to wholeness—body, mind, and spirit.

She believes that every woman is a beloved daughter of God and that her worth is never up for debate. Please join me in welcoming Tracy Astle, a faith-filled coach and mentor who helps women embrace peace with food, confidence in their bodies, and joy in their God-given identity.

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On The Charla Anderson Show, We discuss Mindset, How much Your WORDS matter, Princess to Queen energy, mantras, HOPE, Faith, Miracles, Overcoming, and much, much more, including learning from amazing guests.

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