What if the key to taking care of your body wasn’t more motivation, but a better relationship?

In this episode, Aimee introduces a powerful reframe: treating your body as if it were another person you care about. Instead of pushing, criticizing, or trying to fix your body out of fear or dissatisfaction, she explores how compassionate motives emerge when you relate to your body the way you would a friend, child, or partner—someone whose needs matter, even when it’s inconvenient.

Through personal stories of pregnancy, chronic pain, weight loss, and burnout, Aimee explains how separating you from your body makes compassion easier, and why this shift creates a kind of motivation that doesn’t burn out. When your body isn’t an enemy or a project, caring for it becomes an act of respect rather than punishment.

This episode challenges the idea that self-discipline and intensity are the only paths to change, and offers a different way forward, one where you listen, respond, and do small favors for your body because it’s on your side, not because you’re trying to escape shame.

If you’ve ever felt stuck in cycles of all-or-nothing motivation, this conversation offers a radically more sustainable way to care for your body for life.

Why does motivation disappear the moment you need it most? Why does changing your body feel so urgent… and yet so impossible to sustain?

In this episode of Body Like You, Aimee explores the real fuel behind lasting change—and why most of what we’ve been taught about motivation actually works against us. From dieting in a panic to trying to scare ourselves into better health, she breaks down how fear-based motivation (whether rooted in body shame or future health risks) can spark short-term action but almost always burns out.

Drawing on neuroscience, body image work, and personal experience, Aimee explains why your brain treats body changes as a survival threat—and how that wiring keeps you stuck in cycles of urgency, self-criticism, and starting over. She shares how fear once propelled her own health journey, why it helped at first, and why it ultimately wasn’t enough to support lifelong care.

The episode then introduces a radically different approach: using compassion—not punishment—as the engine for sustainable motivation. Aimee offers a powerful reframe for relating to your body—one that doesn’t require self-hatred, panic, or constant discipline—and invites you to experiment with a new way of listening to what your body actually needs.

If you’re exhausted by extremes, frustrated that “knowing better” hasn’t led to change, or wondering what motivation is supposed to feel like when it actually lasts, this episode opens the door to a more humane—and more effective—path forward.

This week, Aimee starts with how to nourish your body when you’re sick and your routine gets thrown off. But knowing how to eat when you're sick or injured isn't usually the biggest obstacle. Beneath the practical questions about nutrition, there’s often a quiet sense of urgency. A low-grade panic. A worry that has nothing to do with vitamins or hydration.

That’s when the conversation shifts into what this episode is really about: the fear of fat gain.

Using insights from Tabitha Farrar’s book Fear of Weight Gain, Aimee unpacks why disruptions to our workout schedule or eating patterns can evoke so much anxiety, even when the circumstances are mild or temporary. She explains how this fear is wired early, how it differs from cultural fatphobia, and why it can make taking care of yourself during illness feel emotionally loaded.

You’ll learn how to recognize the subtle ways this fear shows up and how to start rewiring it with awareness, compassion, and small courageous actions.

If you’ve ever struggled to rest when you’re sick or felt uneasy about letting your body change, this episode offers a new way to think about caring for yourself, even when life interrupts your plans.