- Hey everybody, I have a wonderful special guest, Nikki.
(Nikki gasps) (Kati gasps)
- It's me. - Yay. (Nikki laughs)
She is here to talk to us about building self-esteem
and building a better body image,
so let's get into it. - Cool.
(upbeat hip hop music)
Hi, my name is Nikki, (Kati laughs)
and I tell everyone it's a lifestyle channel.
I feel like that makes a fancy version of what my channel is
but I just kinda make videos about anything and everything
I want to make videos about.
So morning routines. - Yeah.
- Food. (claps)
I do a lot of food videos.
Sometimes talking videos, we did a tea talk on my channel.
And music, I do music videos too.
- Yeah. - Vlogs,
kinda anything and everything.
- There's all sorts of stuff.
You can check it out.
I'll put all the links in the Description
so you can hop over there
'cause you have a ton of wonderful playlists,
and a lot of different things,
depending on your mood and what you feel like watching,
or even just listening to. - Yeah.
- It's amazing so go check it out.
- Yeah some videos get long, that was the reference to that.
See I've got a lotta different things you could check out
if you wanna come over and join our little Phillippi fam.
- And we did a video on her channel,
you don't want to miss out on it,
so I'll put the links in the Description,
and push to it at the end again,
but yeah, hop over there, check it out, it's very cool.
But today we're here to talk about body image, self-esteem.
I guess I'll just open with asking,
are there certain things you do on the regular
or things you've done in the past to help with it?
- Yeah, so I've talked about this a little bit
on my channel.
I used to struggle with an eating disorder
for a couple of years.
I grew up a dancer.
So I feel like you're just more,
not to say this to the dance community,
but when you're staring at your body in a mirror
all the time. - Yeah.
Well people are judging you on it.
- Yes, you're like setting yourself up
to potentially struggle with that sometimes.
So I struggled with that for a few years.
And it's amazing though, being where I'm at now,
because it was so all-consuming when it was happening.
And I thought, "Man, this is gonna be my whole life."
And it's amazing coming out the other side,
I mean I just do not even struggle with it
the way I used to, at all. - Mm-hmm.
- It doesn't even compare to it.
- Recovery's possible.
(dinging) - Yes, yes!
That was the point of that, was I really thought,
"This is gonna be my whole life,"
'cause it consumed my thinking, literally all the time.
And now it's not even hardly an issue.
So the things that I've done though, over the years,
that I feel really helped with that,
there were a couple of things.
One of those is I really shifted my focus,
and a genuine shift, to caring about the health of my body.
- Uh-huh.
- As opposed to the look of my body.
Because there was a point there for a few years
where it was like
I just cared about how I looked and that was it.
- Yeah.
- And I didn't really grasp the correlation
between the food I was putting in my body,
the sleep I was getting,
just taking care of myself.
- I love that though.
I love breaking it down
and saying it's not just about how I look
because we get so caught up in that.
- Yes. - Especially being online,
or looking at Instagram all the time.
- Yeah, yeah. - Right?
I think it's really great
to think about the health of our body and how we feel.
- Yeah. - I used to tell my clients,
"Don't weight yourself, notice how you feel,"
and fat is not a feeling. - Mm-hmm!
- By the way. - By the way, yeah!
- Yeah, I love that.
Take notes. - That was the biggest thing,
and the second one was what you said,
I stopped weighing myself.
I was just like, "I really don't need to weigh myself.
"I don't need to know."
So those were probably the two biggest things,
but the health thing was really it.
- Yeah.
- I just stopped caring as much about my look.
It was like, "I'm just gonna take care of myself.
"And wherever I'm supposed to sit,
"is where I'm gonna sit and that's it."
Because after years of torturing myself,
and not getting the result that I thought I wanted,
really it was just my vision was so morphed anyways,
I couldn't have gotten what I wanted.
It wasn't there.
You know what I mean? - Yeah.
- But that's what really helped me.
- No, that's great advice.
And I think something that's important
and something that I even as a
non-eating disorder based person, just as a woman,
as a person who's aware of what I look like,
I notice that if I weigh myself,
if I feel good I'm like, "I'm feeling good today,"
and I weigh myself.
If I'd weighed it regularly,
and I'd been up X number of pounds or whatever,
then I might feel crappy. - Yes!
- And it might make my whole day turn to shit.
And so instead of letting that happen to me,
I don't weigh myself,
because let's just be honest,
let's get real for just a second.
When would you need to know what you weigh?
- 100%. - Why?
- You don't. (laughs) - You don't.
- Totally. - Never.
- Never. - Ugh, so anyways.
- Great advice. - Yeah.
- I love it. - Thanks.
- And something that I think that I've done,
just to add in my two cents. - Yes.
- That's helped me feel better about myself,
is having boundaries.
And I know that sounds really crazy,
but I find that sometimes because I am empathic,
'cause I do care about people,
I can get taken advantage of,
and it's something that I learned at a young age,
it's important for me to know
what I'll accept and what I won't accept,
and where that boundary is,
and being able to communicate it.
- That's awesome that you learned that so young.
I feel like that's been a very recent thing for me to learn.
- But it's like practice. - Yeah.
- Realizing and then doing it. - Doing it is different, yeah.
- There's years in there of, whoa!
- Maybe I didn't set boundaries, gotcha.
- Exactly. - Yeah.
- So I think that that's something that more recently even
I've been working on communicating it clearly
so that it can be heard
because before I would have a boundary but I'd be like,
"Oh, nope, can't do it,"
and I wouldn't talk about it,
and they wouldn't understand where I was coming from.
And so I think there's two parts to that, and it takes time.
We're not perfect.
I'm workin' on myself. - Oh, I'm perfect!
- She is.
- Sorry, - It's true.
- I don't know if you guys all knew that part going in.
Wait, wait!
No, I'm confused though.
Which boundaries are you talking about
in relation to body image?
What do you mean by that?
- I think it's like building self-esteem.
- Oh just your self-esteem in general.
- Yes, like making me feel better overall.
- Oh! - Because I find when I feel,
and I'm glad you brought that up
'cause sometimes I don't make any sense.
- No, no, no, it's good!
- But it's confidence. - Mm!
- Overall confidence of feeling,
like I know what is best for me.
I'm doing what's good for me. - Yeah.
- And I expect other people to act that way as well.
- Yeah!
- I hold myself to the standard,
and I hold people in my life to that standard.
- That is such an interesting point.
I never made the connection between,
It sounds so obvious too as you're saying it,
body image to confidence?
That sounds so obvious.
- Yeah but we think body is like
what do we see? - Yes!
- What do we feel? - Uh-huh!
- But it comes from inside, truly
- Yeah, and I've realized over the years,
as you're saying that
my brain's flashing back to all these years
between having that issue and now,
and I do feel like confidence has been a big part in that
because I know now where I sit is not like before,
the way I looked in a bikini at the pool,
or the way I looked in my leotard,
or my whatever was so much more important.
And now, and I guess the word is because of the confidence,
I'm just like, "Whatever, it's fine.
"I look good.
"Beauty comes in all different kinds of sizes."
- Totally. - Whatever!
- So along the lines,
'cause I loved what you said about health
and not weighing yourself, about how long,
just out of curiosity from when you decided,
did you decide you wanted to get better?
- Yes, I did. - Okay.
- I decided.
It was one specific event that happened.
- Oh!
- So I had been struggling with anorexia.
I wasn't eating for extended periods of time.
After all of the restriction
I started to make myself throw up,
and my second time, maybe it was my third time in trying,
it was like someone had smacked me in the face.
And I was like,
"I'm actually hurting myself.
"This isn't good."
And it was from that point
that also led into a conversation with my mom
that I was like, "I am so over this.
"This is not good."
and I had read a couple of articles in between
about the health effects too.
- Yeah, I have a video about that.
- Oh you do?
Yeah, it's serious,
and I think getting your head around
the effects of how it can really hurt your body,
I think is a really good thing too.
But yes, to answer your question, I did,
I decided, I was like, "I need to fix this and get better."
- And how long did it take for you?
And everyone's gonna be different,
but I always find it really helpful to know
when we are working on ourselves
or working on our body image
or trying to get over something.
- Yeah. - How long?
- I would say that it was definitely a journey.
It wasn't an overnight thing.
It was (fingers snapping) an overnight thing
in terms of, I decided I wasn't going to restrict that way,
but in terms of my thoughts, really making a transition,
it took a couple of years. - Mm-hmm!
- The real transition, to be honest, random,
took place when I went vegetarian.
And it was the first time that I ever got really into
nutritious food, as opposed to food from a place of,
"How much do I need to eat to stay thin?"
It was just like-- - Yeah,
restrictive eating versus-- - Yeah, what do I like to eat
and what's healthful for my body?
I actually call myself a fake-atarian now (Kati laughs)
'cause I for the most part don't eat very much meat.
Sometimes I eat it when I feel like it,
but that period of finding a diet
that was really around healthful eating,
it allowed me to explore food in a different way
that like you just said, wasn't so restrictive or negative.
It was more about bountiful like,
"I can and should eat as much of this color as I want."
- Yeah.
- And it really helped shift that.
And for some reason, somewhere along that process,
I just stopped caring as much about
my body size and shape and everything.
- Yeah, that's really cool.
And I think that's part of what I've always talked
with you guys about,
is The Intuitive Eating Workbook is a great tool to use
if you're pretty far along in your recovery,
or you can work with your dietician one-on-one with it.
But I think it's more about listening to your body.
- Yes. - Because
oddly enough our bodies will crave brownies,
and then it will just in the same day,
crave a salad. - Yeah.
- Or carrots. - Yeah.
- Or any number of things,
because our body, if we listen,
children are the most intuitive eaters
and I love watching toddlers
when they start eating solid foods a lot.
Is they'll eat, and eat, and smoosh it all in their face
like they're loving it, so amazing,
and they'll do the same with cake or sugar,
but they won't have a ton of it.
And then they don't want it anymore.
- Oh! - And so they'll walk away
and they'll leave half of their food there
and the mom will be like, "Are you done?" or whatever.
And like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah.
"No more.
"All done." - Isn't that interesting?
- Yeah, 'cause they listen
and we get so busy or we get so anxious
or we get so overwhelmed,
or we're so worried about what we look like
that we stopped listening. - Yeah.
- And I think it's cool to turn it,
instead of worrying about how many calories or whatever,
or energy units as we call them
in the eating disorder treatment realm.
- Gotcha!
- How many energy units something has, we can think instead,
"Do I want more?
"Does my body want it?" - Yes!
- "Does it sound good?" - Yes!
- "Do I like it?" - Yes!
That's why I'm a fake-atariate,
because sometimes I do want meat.
- Yeah. - And I see it as a sign.
If I naturally am someone
that doesn't really like meat for the most part,
but then I occasionally really want it.
- Yeah.
- To me I'm like "That's weird."
I see that as my body wanting something.
- It might need iron. - Yeah.
- Or it might need some kind of vitamin
that it gets only from that. - Yeah, yeah!
- And another thing that I do actually
to build a better body image for myself,
I just love that alliteration, "Build a better body image."
- Yeah I like that!
"Build a better body image."
Yes! - Say it five times fast.
- "Build a better body image, build a better." (stutters)
I can't, I'm already off. - No. (waggles tongue)
- Go on.
- But I find something that as,
this took me a long time,
and this is something I only realized, 'member,
if any of you follow me along on Snapchat
you know that I did that whole clean out,
which we talked about. - Yes.
- We bonded over the clean out.
- The life changing magic clean out.
- It is life changing.
I realize that I kept clothes that don't fit me well.
- Yes.
- So then I feel like shit when I wear them.
- Mm-hmm! - Ding, ding.
As I was going through stuff, I'm like,
"This is a size too small, no wonder I don't like it.
"It cuts into my stomach,"
or "This is too loose here, or too baggy here.
"I look like a pregnant lady." - Mm-hmm!
- And I know that that all sounds really ridiculous,
but there's something about wearing clothes
that you feel good in, - 100%
- that can change your mood.
It is life changing. - Yeah, it totally is.
- And I think that that's another thing.
If you find yourself not feeling confident,
are you dressing yourself in things that you actually like?
And I'm not talking fancy.
I'm not talkin' gettin' dressed up, puttin' makeup on,
curlin' your hair, you know me. (Nikki laughs sharply)
I'm not a girly girl that much.
- Yeah.
- It's more about how you feel.
If you feel great in those sweatpants, (claps)
you rock those sweatpants! - Exactly!
- I love leggings. - I love leggings so much.
- Personally. (Nikki laughs)
I own one too many pairs of leg--
- So many.
- And they're hanging in my closet like pants.
Can we talk about that?
Like next to my pants. - They're pants.
- Go on that.
They are, yeah! (chuckles) - That's fair.
And Marie or whatever her name is from our book,
says to hang everything.
- You know, so that's why I hang 'em. (Kati chuckles)
I'm followin' Marie's ways. - Exactly.
- But you're totally right. - Yeah.
So check out what's in your closet.
Notice if you like what you're wearing or not.
I think that's really, really life changing.
- I completely agree.
I don't even have anything to add to that
'cause I just agree with that.
I guess the only other thing that I would say,
like another tip,
is get moving.
I think that sometimes we can get so in our heads,
and if you just get up and get some movement,
some form of exercise, whatever it is for you,
I'm actually about to do a fitness routine on my channel.
- Oh! And I've been doing them
my entire time on YouTube, I love doing routine videos.
But this is the first time in my six years of YouTube
that I don't actually have
a typical fitness routine
because my physical therapist
took me off of all working out,
I'm only dealing with injuries.
- Oh! - But I'm doing it
because I want to convey the message and the thought
that you can just do what you can where you are.
- Yes, I love that.
- And that is my fitness routine right now.
So for now my fitness routine is my physical therapy,
and walks. - Yeah.
- Or maybe wading in the jacuzzi at the pool,
or whatever. - Yes!
- But some kind of movement.
It gets you out of feeling
awkward in your body.
It's like, "What even is this?"
And if you just get some movement,
you can tend to feel more comfortable in your own skin.
- Totally. - Whatever that movement is.
- And it can help us feel grateful for our body.
- Yes. - There's so many things
that we can get down about, like,
"Oh, I hate my stomach, my legs, my feet, my hands,"
whatever. - Yeah, yeah!
- But then if it's serving us. - Yes.
- We can be grateful for the fact that our legs still work.
I can still walk.
I still have all 10 fingers.
I can hear you, I can see you.
Those are amazing gifts. - Yes!
- And I think sometimes we get so caught up
in what it looks like or is supposed to look like,
which, that is never achievable.
- What does that even mean? - What does that mean?
- All in!
I like the grateful element. - Yeah.
- That's a really good,
I really like that. - Yeah.
- Yeah and plus, everybody knows this,
but you release endorphins
when you work out. - Totally.
- So you just naturally start to feel
a little less stressed about things.
- Exactly, and I think I like the idea
of just doing whatever you can where you are
because I think that a lot of people think about exercise,
and feel like it has to be like, "No pain, no gain."
- Yes! - But truthfully,
all we need is 30 minutes, three times a week.
That's all our heart needs. - Yeah.
- So for heart health, walking 30 minutes,
three times a week is plenty. - Yeah.
- So don't feel like you have to get out there and,
I don't know, do some cleans, or whatever people do.
- Yeah. - 'Cause you don't.
- Yeah, and that's the reason I'm doing the video.
I just thought, "Well, I'm done with fitness on my channel,
"at least for now."
And then I was like, "Wait a minute!"
And I would feel kind of depressed too,
because I used to be a full-on athlete.
- Yeah.
- So it was like, "Oh, this is it?"
and then I just kind of had that thought
that we're talking about.
You have to do what you can where you are,
so I need to kind of show that, I wanna show that.
- Yeah. - So yeah,
that's I think the biggest thing,
doing what you can where you are.
- Yeah and I love that.
And so leave in the Comments,
let us know what you do to feel better about yourself.
Let's share in our tips and tricks
'cause they'll be helpful for Nikki and I,
and it'll also be helpful for other people who are watching,
who maybe the things that we said,
don't quite resonate with. - Yeah.
- But we're a community.
We're working together, right?
Towards a health mind and a healthy body.
- Oh yeah.
- Thank you, Nikki for being on.
- Thank you for having me on your channel.
- Oh, of course, of course. - She's awesome.
- And like I said, we did a video over on her channel,
so don't forget to check that out,
and I'll put all the links to her stuff in the Description
because like I said, "I really love her channel."
and there's so many various things
you can get into and watch on the playlist
depending on your mood.
I really like it. - Thanks, Kati.
- Of course, and she has an amazing voice by the way,
so check that out too. - Oh thanks.
Ah-ah-ah! - Oo-oo! (Nikki chuckles)
And we will see you next time.
- Bye guys.