Author of the beautifully inspiring book, The Goddess Revolution, Mel Wells encourages us to adopt a healthy attitude towards our relationship with food and banish all negative thoughts around weight and diets once and for all. We caught up with her to chat about her philosophy and mission to help women fall in love with their bodies once again.
Mel Well’s and Healthy Living London’s Beth
Tell us about yourself.
I’m a Food Coach, Author and Speaker. I help women transform their relationships with food and their bodies.
Where/when did your wellness journey begin/when did you first decide to love your body?
It took a long battle of hating my body for many years, to realize that my approach wasn’t really getting me anywhere! I started my journey to ‘wellness’ before I realized that I had to also learn to love my body. I became obsessed with clean eating before I put two and two together. Nothing works without love.
What was the first step you took to loving your body?
Throwing out the scales! Biggest and boldest and most terrifying step, but the MOST important!
What is the goddess revolution?
The Goddess Revolution is a mission to help women quit dieting, quit bingeing, live in harmony and peace with food and LOVE their bodies again!
What does it take to be a goddess?
All women are goddesses! It’s about being on a journey of self love, self acceptance, and making upgrades to be your best, happiest and healthiest self!
What are the benefits?
Endless! You will reclaim your life back, transform the way you feel around food and your body for the rest of your life.
What’s the story behind the goddess revolution/what inspired it?
My story is how I spent years at war with food – and transformed my own relationship with food. This is why I help women to do the same.
What did you intend for it to do?
Help women transform their lives!
How do you manage your life/fitness/health balance? What advice would you give to someone who struggles with this?
Stop trying to do everything overnight – nobody is perfect. Make some little right habits and create routines and ‘new normals’ out of them. That’s all.
What can someone expect to get out of reading the goddess revolution?
A revolutionary new way of thinking about food and your body – especially if you’re someone who’s been in a battle with it all!
Who’s your health/fitness/nutrition muse?
I don’t have one – I believe we are our own gurus.
What’s your own personal favourite workout?
Yoga is my favourite way to move my body.
What’s your perfect breakfast?
Green juice followed by some variation of eggs and avocado.
Do you have a favourite pre/post workout snack?
Whatever I feel like when I get home really!
Who has had a big influence on your life and what have they taught you?
My mum – who says its always been about balance, not counting calories, and living outside a lot.
Where is your favourite London wellness spot?
I love Tanyas Café in Chelsea.
When you have an off (unhealthy) day how do you get yourself back on track?
There’s a section in my book about good days and bad days, and ‘on track’ or ‘off track’. I don’t believe in any of it – therefore I never have bad days and I am never off track. There is no track in my world – the track is just an illusion that the diet industries have given us to judge ourselves with. Lose the track – lose the wagon – we are all learning and growing and there is no pass or fail. Each day we just get a series of choices and then they are gone – all we have is the present moment. One ‘bad’ choice shouldn’t lead to 28 more bad choices.
Do you have a motto or mantra that keeps you focused?
I am worth the time it takes. (When I feel too busy to cook/exercise etc) – I am WORTH it.
What’s your ideal way to distress?
YOGA! And meditation.
What’s your guilty pleasure?
I don’t have one – I don’t believe we should feel guilt for the things that bring us pleasure. I get a lot of pleasure from chocolate, but I don’t feel guilty about it ☺ – I believe in having NO guilt around food – just making choices that nourish our minds, body and soul.
One bit of advice you would give to HLL readers?
You can’t start the self love thing once you’ve lost a bunch of weight first. Love yourself NOW – the weight will be a byproduct. Too many people are confusing health with weight loss and prioritizing the way their bodies LOOK rather than how they feel. Focus on how your body FEELS and the rest will follow.
What tips do you have on becoming more of a goddess and less consumed by the whole idea of image?
First step – throw away your weighing scales! Stop tracking or counting calories or macros and start actually listening to your body. That is the thing that most people are terrified of doing because they don’t trust their body and they think if they listen to their body ‘oh my god i’ll just eat cake all day and eat cereal for breakfast and for dinner’, but that is not what happens when we get into the habit of listening to our bodies and focussing on how we feel after certain foods. Focus on how we feel before we eat, focus on how we feel during exercise. If we’re spending the whole time exercising going ‘ohmygod I firkin hate this I cant wait to get home, I’m going to reward myself with fish and chips tonight’. It’s the wrong attitude in the first place. We should be exercising as a celebration of our bodies not as a punishment.
It seems like you really care about the whole mind/body connection. How do you keep it in balance?
I think your mind and your body has to be in constant conversation more than anything to have a good relationship with your body you’ve got to have a good relationship with your mind. You’ve got to have a good dialogue, a good connection all the time. Your mind is where everything starts. For me, when I thought I was being ‘healthy’ my mindset wasn’t actually healthy with it. So I was having healthy food, but the way in which i was eating it was emotional, binge eating or overeating because I was bored or because I was stressed or because I felt rejected or lonely or overwhelmed with work. So my body might have been heathy to an outsider, but my mind wasn’t healthy. So for me mind-body connection is about recognising that health actually begins in the mind, not just with what is on your plate.
Do you exercise your mind as well as your body?
Exercising your mind for me is about becoming self aware and observing thoughts rather than just being engulfed in them – always asking yourself why. Personal development work – I read a ton of books and they’re all personal development stuff. All about retraining your brain, your mindset. Again it’s about uncovering layers of conditioning and what we’ve been taught to believe about ourselves. Becoming sheep in society, going along with things that we don’t even believe in or really know to be true. And we have these little limited beliefs and associations about ourselves that is really just built upon layers of fear and none of it is true. So for me a lot of personal development work always comes back to unlearning all those layers.
Would you be able to tell us what your approach to fitness and wellness is?
I don’t have regimes anymore like I used to and I just found it became too monotonous or it became a chore. Now I move my body as much as I can, but I always do it in a way that feels good. So some days that’s yoga, some days where I have loads of pent up energy I want to go for a run, some days I want to lift weights some days I don’t. I’m open to always changing it. I think we get too caught up in picking one things and having to be the best at it. Always do things that feel good and you enjoy. Focus on a lifestyle rather than just the result.
Find Out More:
Get your hands on your very own copy of The Goddess Revolution here or check out Mel’s website, twitter, or instagram pages!
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