How many of you would like to change your bodies if you could? I’m not talking about plastic surgery, just about what you can change yourselves. Having babies means an inevitable change to our bodies. For some, they return to ‘normal’ afterwards with little effort but for the majority this is not the case. These changes can alter the way we feel about our bodies and how we think others feel about them.

In order to try and make sense of some of the issues surrounding these changes and offer some possible solutions, I have an exciting and inspiring interview to share with you. I recently interviewed Kelin from MetaPhysiques. Here she shares her experience and knowledge of biology, nutrition, exercise and Neuro Lingusitic Programming (NLP).

Kelin, please tell the readers a little bit about MetaPhysiques and the services you can offer

MetaPhysiques is about working with individuals to ‘master their minds to perfect their bodies’. It is such a profoundly powerful way to achieve long-lasting results because it is our mind that rules the show of our life!

Since the day that you were born, you began interpreting and responding to the world around you and over time you develop your own unique mental filters, cause-effect links and default mindset. Your resulting neurological pathways are responsible for establishing your unique drivers, motivators, de-motivators and coping mechanisms, as well as creating your habits and making your decisions about food and exercise.

It is important to realise that the main objective of your mind is to keep you safe and to get you what you want. Therefore, your natural instincts will drive you to avoid pain and obtain pleasure, and so it is incredibly beneficial for you to get to know the things that make ‘you’ tick, so that you can really start to exploit them in a positive way!

Using a combination of NLP, hypnotic techniques, and life coaching methods, in conjunction with my own specifically designed ‘Custom Visualization Audio Therapy’ (CVAT), I successfully work with individuals to refocus their mind so that they can happily and sustainably achieve their body goals.

I work with individuals wanting to transform their bodies, including athletes. For more details on how and what this involves you may visit my website.

Can you share with us your inspiration for starting the business?

I have always been absolutely fascinated with biology and the body, as well as the mind. Therefore I successfully studied psychology and various science subjects at A-Level and then went on to get a 1^st Class Biology Degree at university. I also naturally got very much into training and nutrition from a young age, and I spent a lot of time around bodybuilders. I ended up with a very deep level of understanding of the body and the mind around food and training.

I also experienced a bit of a roller coaster past that really opened my eyes to the reality of experiencing what it is like to be in the crutches of emotional out of control eating, and having to deal with the consequences of a dramatically different body.

So, with this wealth of knowledge and first hand experience behind me (in addition to my absolute passion to help others achieve emotional freedom to be able to love and enjoy their bodies), there was no wonder that it all clicked into the place (like a light bulb switch), when I went on to train in Neuro Lingusitic Programming (NLP)! That was the final piece to the puzzle for me, as it all became so clear that we can all very happily and naturally, change our outer world and bodies, through nurturing the power of our inner world and making our subconscious mind our best friend!

Many busy mums struggle with weight loss after having children. For many it is a time issue, for some motivation is a problem, for some their relationship with food can be problematic, for some weight loss after children just seems such an epic task – do you have any top tips you could share?

Everybody is so incredibly different that I would need to write a book to answer this properly! However, a few key things that spring to mind are:

Start by getting absolutely crystal clear on what it is that you want! If you don’t put in the correct address into a sat nav then it simply cannot direct you there, and your mind is no different! Getting this right will really boost your motivation and tilt you towards a much more positive and successful mindset. To do this:

• Create a movie visual in your mind of the new you in your new life. Get specific in what your new body looks like by admiring it from all angles, and pay attention to how you are now carrying yourself, moving and how the new you dresses. Also notice how people react to the new you and consider what you do differently now in your life, and what new opportunities are open to you with this amazing new body.
• Fine tune the movie to make it as perfect for you as possible and turn up the colors and the sounds and add in any smells or tastes or people or places that make it even more compelling and exciting to you.
• Finally, give your visual even more power by imagining it as if it is your current reality now, and allow yourself to really experience the way you might feel inside of yourself with this body, whether it be light, petite and feminine or strong and fit and flexible. Plus really connect with the inner feelings you might have such as confidence, happiness, beauty, freedom, sexiness and/or whatever else resonates with you, as you watch the movie of your incredible new future!
• Visualize and ‘feel’ this movie as often as you can for 2-10 minutes at a time. You can do it whilst you are brushing your teeth in the morning and again when you go to bed at night and then simply whenever you remember in the day, just daydream it and feel it over and over again.

Come to realise and that your outer world resembles your inner world because your body (always wanting to give you what it thinks you want) responds to your thoughts, words, visualizations and feelings as if they are absolutely true.

Therefore, do not confuse the message that you are giving your mind about what your goal is, by feeding it with negative words, thoughts and visualizations of yourself. If something negative pops into your head, just say or think something positive (even if it is on a different subject) or daydream your amazing body goal visualization and tip the balance towards a much more positive and successful mindset.

Stop using the words ‘weight loss’! The word ‘loss’ assumes that it is something that you did not choose to be rid of, and therefore that you would want it back! So stop calling your progress ‘weight loss’ as you certainly do not want it back (and don’t want your mind thinking that you do), because you have chosen to transform your body and want permanent results! Say something that works for your mind such as ‘drop fat’, ‘get leaner’, ‘reduce weight’ or ‘get more defined’ etc (affirmations) to yourself all day long, over and over.

Make any precious time spent moving your body (walking, cleaning, exercising or running around after the kids) really count by:

1. Focusing on what your body is doing and really squeeze and contract your muscles strongly to work them hard, and build up that incredibly powerful mind-to-muscle connection that Arnold Schwarzenegger is famous for! The more connected your mind and muscles become, the harder they will work, and will result in your body burning more fat.
2. Repeating powerful words and statements (affirmations) in your mind that really make ‘you’ tick and get you going. Literally repeat them over and over again in your mind, as you go about what it is that you are doing. You might want to try something like the following:

• I am dropping fat
• I am getting leaner everyday
• Leaner, stronger, fitter
• Energized, focused, driven
• I love exercising

I have achieved many PB’s (personal bests) at the gym doing this!

Stop dieting!!!! There are so many credible studies showing how ineffective diets are and how they can actually make you fatter! Restrictive diets are often so unpleasant that no wonder it seems like a daunting epic task that you feel you have to keep putting off until your have more time, no social gatherings or feel strong enough! Forget dieting and choose to begin a new enjoyable and sustainable lifestyle where you eat for health and wellbeing (not for dangerously fast weight loss). Doing this will significantly reduce cravings, get you’re the results you want, and overtime it will also enable your relationship with food to rebalance itself. A few points to note with this are:

1. Always eat when you are hungry and make sure that you are eating enough so that you do not let yourself get overly hungry, feel unwell or have your body go into fat storing starvation mode!
2. Really start listening and responding to your body telling you when and what it needs to eat and not force it to go with set meal times. This will only lead to horrible cravings, binge eating, and obsessing over food.
3. Get a good balance of food types, including natural healthy carbs (if this is medically suitable to you) that will aid your serotonin levels to keep your mood stable. When you get the balance right for you, you will free yourself from cravings and obsessive eating.
4. Cut back on unnatural foods with chemicals and sweeteners in, as they mess with your body, hormones, mood and appetite and make your crave things even more!
5. Eat mindfully and slowly and stop eating when you are full.
6. Don’t put so much pressure on yourself to be perfect (80% right is good enough), as this leads to the all or nothing mentality and binge eating and restrictive dieting. Relax and enjoy your food, and your life, and simply strive for steady progress that will eventually lead to you having a whole new set of helpful habits that support your goals.

If you struggle with out of control eating, before you begin, visualize the perfect you visual, and really feel the amazing feelings inside of you as if you have it now. Then with those feelings and thoughts in your mind, enjoy eating your food calmly and mindfully and remind yourself that you can eat whenever you are truly hungry so you can be relaxed about food and stop when you are full. Also repeat relevant affirmations to yourself such as:

1. My healthy new eating habits get me the body of my dreams and make me feel amazing
2. I am enough, I have had enough
3. Calm, relaxed, empowered
4. Satisfied, content, loved, happy
5. I am satisfied by many things in life other than food

If you get an unwanted craving, interrupt your destructive thought patterns by spelling your full name backwards and then counting back to 0 from 30. Then bring up your body goal visual and feel those feelings that go with it. Build up the feelings and make it as real as possible as if you are in this new life now. Then remind yourself of what your new amazing new body and life will mean for you. If you are getting a lot of cravings then check that your eating is well balanced and that you are eating enough calories for your body feel safe, calm and healthy so that your metabolism runs high. I have twice boosted my body transformation progress by significantly increasing my food intake so do not starve yourself!

Pick a song that really REALLY makes you feel good and gets you going with energy, and then set it at whatever time (morning or day,) on your phone, as an alarm to tell you to exercise. When you hear it, do not give your mind even a second to think anything at all… in the words of Nike ‘Just do it!’. Honestly, this is the absolute best way to handle exercise, as if you give yourself the opportunity to think about it at all, your mind can (and very likely will) come up with a thousand reasons of why you should not exercise. Do not even give yourself the opportunity to go there in your mind, as if you get into a inner debate, you are then relying on willpower and by god that is a tough fight that you just do not want to get into! Make yourself a reasonable plan to exercise at whatever time, place and duration that suits you (making sure that this works with your current situation), and then when you hear that alarm simply go go go!

Even if it is just a 5 minute power walk or jogging on the spot. Just do it! Bring up your amazing body goal visual, connect your mind to your muscles, and repeat empowering affirmations to yourself over and over, and you will absolutely not be disappointed with the results! Your body and mind will love it and start responding to you!

You have transformed your body several times over and helped others to do the same – do you think anyone can do this?

Yes. As a human being, our bodies are highly adaptive. They are continually responding physiologically to internal and external stressers such change in diet, energy demand (amount of exercise), environmental conditions (such as high altitudes, low temperatures and high temperatures) and infections etc. Therefore, it is absolutely possible for everyone. However, considering that every individual is so very different, there is no one way that will work perfectly for everyone. With this in mind, it is really important for you to really get to know ‘your’ body and know ‘your’ mind, and find a comfortable and sustainable way of eating and exercising and thinking that suits ‘you’ and supports ‘your’ goals.

I have PCOS (polycystic overy syndrome), which makes dropping fat a very tricky business… It also means that I have to eat carbohydrates tactfully as it is a pre-cursor to diabetes and my body responds badly to sugar influx. However, with the right mindset and being clear on what it is that I wanted, I have been able to find the way that worked for me. Mindset really is key to your long-term success in this, so spend at least as much time working with your mind as you do on your body. Invite your subconscious mind to be your best friend and ally in your journey, rather than your nemesis!

How important is self-belief in transforming your body? – what if we don’t have this?

‘Fake it until you make it!’ is such a great term! Believing in yourself is certainly a super helpful trait to have, but reality is that we all very often doubt ourselves. Consider that even our idols will doubt themselves at times, and yet they are still able to succeed.

So, I would certainly say to relax and do not get too caught up on this. As we discussed earlier on, your mind will take what you say/think literally, whether you actually believe it or not so just keep directing your mind to think, say and see positive things and give it the right message. You can also help to boost your self-belief by writing down everything you have ever succeeded at, no matter how big or how small.

You will find that you have already succeeded at so many different things and you can and will, succeed at this, if you just keep your eyes and mind on the prize! The likely truth is, that if you have spent a long time struggling with your weight then you have probably been trying too hard and putting yourself through hell! You might also have an underlying medical condition that requires more specific and structured eating.

Either way, it will have meant that your routine was unsustainable in real life for you and your body will have reacted in panic (which does not support body transformation), and you may well have also ended up with a dysfunctional relationship with food that exacerbates the whole thing. It is not you that has failed; it is the diets that have failed you! So stop dieting and be kind to yourself, your body, and your mind, and it will get to work at giving you what you want!

After babies it isn’t just the wobbly bits us mums have to contend with, often our bodies have completely changed shape, we no longer know what is ‘normal’ – for example in 20 years I have been a total of 18 different bra sizes – how do you suggest we try to emotionally adjust to things like this?

I can really empathise with this point as although I have not yet had the wonderful opportunity to have my own children, my body has been through the wars too with me sliding between 5 different dress sizes and having had bra sizes ranging from a B cup to a FF cup (without breast implants). My body changes resulted from the consequences of a life threatening illness when I was 16 (that required me to go on a week long intravenous drip of steroids), and then later on (when I was 28), from emotional eating during a 3 year period in which I lost my mum, broke my back, and snapped my knee. For more details on my particular story with photographic evidence, you can visit the ‘About Me’ section of my website.

From my own personal experience and from working with others on their journey, I can honestly say that the key to happiness in all situations is to be incredible flexible, and I don’t mean the yoga way (all though that also helps in many different ways hahaha!). I mean to be emotionally flexible. Expect the unexpected, free yourself from any chains that you have bound yourself with, and let go of what you perceive to be normality. Drop any such emotional attachments to body shape as we all age, evolve and adapt, and life is a forever changing landscape that we have been designed to flex with. As humans, we are true masters of physical adaptation, so free your mind to flex and adapt with it. Forget what was ‘normal’ and choose to focus your energy and mind positively on your future, as you want it!

In NLP there is a basic belief that ‘the person with the most flexibility (including choices of behaviour) in a system (your life) will have the most influence’. This rings so true! Give yourself a break and:

a) start really living in the moment and making the most of what currently is and;

b) just keep on getting excited about your amazing future and visualizing (and deeply feeling) it over and over again.

Note: because we are instinctively flexible beings, that do naturally adapt both mentally and physically, our idea of what is our ‘perfect future visual’ might also change in time, so just relax and go with what works for you at the time!

Leave us with a few of your inspirational words…..

Life truly is too short to sweat the small stuff!

We cannot always control our outer world, but we all have the ability to change our inner world, and to choose to experience our life more positively, regardless of what it entails.

If you do not like a situation then don’t waste another moment of your precious life and start taking steps (no matter how small) to change it. If there is absolutely no way in which you can change it then choose to feel differently about it. Reframe the situation in your mind and start looking for what is positive and good in it, as there is always a silver lining to be found (even if it is difficult to uncover). Then just keep focussing on these positive aspects of the situation and nothing else. If this seems too difficult at the time, then fill your mind with thoughts of something positive that is entirely different, because if you divert your thoughts to good things, you cannot focus on what is making you feel bad. Just keep on thinking happy thoughts over and over 😉

‘You’ are the only one that has the power to decide whether ‘you’ are going to be happy or not. No matter what is occurring on the outside, it is all about viewing things and experiencing things in a different light. Fill your mind with positivity as much as you can from this day out. Positivity attracts positivity!

For more information on the services that I have to offer please visit my website at http://www.metaphysiques.co.uk or contact me on 07921 858 209 or Kelin@MetaPhysiques.co.uk

Wishing you all a wonderful Christmas break,

Kelin x

You can also find Kelin on Twitter; Facebook; and Instagram