Pleasurable Weight Loss, Sensuality & Body Love with Jena la Flamme

Speaker: 00:00:00

Jena la Flamme: Yes. I ask women, when I work with them in my coaching, if they're overeating, I say, Do you think if you were having great foot massage, wonderful conversation and like, delicious make out, do you think you would be binging tonight? They always say, no, never met a woman that was like, Okay, if you're really full of pleasure, would you be overeating? No, the reason they're overeating is because they have a deficit of pleasure. They need pleasure. We've gone through life with pleasure as a guiding force, as this indicator of love and safety and nourishment. And when we don't have pleasure, our body says something's wrong, and it goes to get it. If food is the only pleasure you allow yourself, or it could be alcohol or another substance, you will overdo it. You will binge on that thing. But when you're more democratic about your pleasure, and you have some from here, and some from dance, and some from music, and some from sex, and a whole buffet from which you are free to choose, then it won't be a compulsion where you feel required to have that thing.

Kate Harlow: 00:01:11

Hello, beautiful. I am so excited to share this very special guest with you today, who named Jenna flam. She is an intimacy expert, she's a pleasure coach, she's a weight loss coach. She is so embodied in the work she's teaching. I met Jenna probably 12 years ago, and I took a program with her that completely changed my life. And you'll hear in the episode, me realize how much, because when I met her, I hated my body. I wasn't sensual, I wasn't connected, and I fell in love with myself and my sensuality in my body, through her work and even through her beingness, she's a very, very sensual, beautiful, magical being with fresh perspectives on body and weight loss that probably you've never heard before, and she's been doing her work for over 15 years, so you definitely she's one of the leaders and pioneers of the pleasure movement that's kind of everywhere now. So I'm excited for you to hear all of her gems and her wisdom and her beautiful heart, and let me know how this episode lands spread the word to every woman you know who's at a war within herself and her body we've been taught to be at war, and it's time we take our power back and change that conversation. So excited for you enjoy and we will see you soon.

Kate Harlow: 00:02:38

Hello, beautiful. Welcome back to the new truth Podcast. I'm so excited. I think I say that every week, but this time, I'm really, really excited for the guests that I have for you this week. This woman has been a massive part of my journey, which you probably don't even know, to the extent that you were when I first met Jenna. She you were just this Goddess, and this, like, very sensual, very embodied, teaching how to lose weight through having pleasure in more pleasure in your life. And I remember just short circuiting hearing this message. And at the time, I was a business coach, and I was, you were working with us, and I was, you know, stepping into my power in a lot of ways, but sensuality was the one piece that I was completely shut down from. And usually I was quite triggered around women that were sensual. But when I met you, I just had this feeling of like, oh, I want to be her. And I was so disconnected from this part of myself and just being around you, I started to shift, and I took your pleasurable weight loss course, and I wasn't even trying to lose weight at the time, but I just wanted to learn from you, and I wanted to be around you, and I wanted to, like, soak up your energy. And It's so wild to think that was at least 10 years ago, and I'm so my whole life is pleasure. Now, like my I live in Europe, I follow my heart to everywhere I go, everything I do is based on feeling good and having creating a pleasurable, sensual experience for myself. That's my whole entire life. So you were so pivotal in that journey for me. So I'm thrilled to have you here, and so happy that you just finished your four year maternity leave and you're back at it. I'm so excited to spread your message to all the women in our community. Hi, how are you? Okay?

Kate Harlow: 00:04:35

Jena la Flamme: Thank you. What an honor to be here, and I'm thrilled that you're in Athens, and you go to Kenya, and I feel pleasure just hearing about your existence.

Kate Harlow: 00:04:48

It's fun. This is and the whole new truth podcast. I feel like every episode is about like having a more enjoyable, pleasurable life, rather than following the script of who we've been taught to be. So. Oh, so exciting, and I'm so grateful for endlessly grateful for you, for all the influence that you've had in my life. And excited to have this conversation. I think that so pleasurable weight loss, sensuality and body love is is the overall topic, which I think they're so interconnected. But this term, pleasurable weight loss, I feel like it's an oxymoron. People get so confused when they hear this term. I've I've shared it with clients before. I've talked about your work with my clients in the past. And so I'd love for you to talk to us about, like, how, how, where did this come from? How did you even discover pleasurable weight loss? And is it real? Tell us about it.

Kate Harlow: 00:05:43

Jena la Flamme: I was 12 when I first uttered those words that ruin lives. I'm fat, and I wasn't at all. I was a girl prepubescent, you know, hitting puberty. Of course, the body fills out and changes, but I'd only heard women around me saying, I'm fat, I'm fat, I need to lose weight. And now that I have a child, I mean, I see how they they mimic and it's, it's shocking, the things my my child will say, I'm like, wow, you just picked up that random phrase and boop, you're spitting it out. And that's what we see as girls magazines, lose lose weight, lose pounds, blah, blah, blah diet. So I just hooked into that zeitgeist of we're too fat, which is basically nonsense most of the time. And then by 14, I had an eating disorder I was binging and purging called bulimia, and through the binging, I actually got some pleasure, I got some release, I got some momentary joy, but then I didn't know how to savor it, allow it, allow myself to enjoy it. I was ridden with guilt and shame, and then I purged, and that's a terrible cycle that went on for many years in secrecy. I never confided in one single friend that I was struggling with this. I hid it from everyone who one friend kind of addressed it, and I just completely lied and denied it. Same with my parents, and then, wow, you

Kate Harlow: 00:07:20

were completely alone in it, completely alone. That's heartbreaking. And

Kate Harlow: 00:07:26

Jena la Flamme: then in university, I remember walking out the gates of high school being like, I'm free. Now, I went to a great high school, but it was quite disciplined. And anyway, I felt free. I'm in university, and then in this newfound freedom, I stopped being bulimic and but I still would binge, and I would binge, especially on sugar. I'd remember eating candy bars for lunch, and just like not good nutrition, even I was a vegetarian at the time, like junk food vegetarian, I'm not a vegetarian anymore, and much healthier. And so this was a pretty bad cycle up into my early 20s, and I was just really unhappy with my body. My skin showed it, my bloating, constipation, I was a bit overweight, not massively, but the mental weight of dissatisfaction with myself, right and pleasurable weight loss, if you're listening and you think, I don't really want to lose weight, or need to lose weight, great. There may be some part of your life where you have a mental weight, a mental burden, that you could pleasurably lose. So this could apply to you, even if you you don't need to wait in the physical.

Kate Harlow: 00:08:50

I think it 100% applies to everyone. Because even if you're thin and you don't think about weight, this was me when I signed up for your program, I didn't need to lose weight at that time. My weight has fluctuated over the years, but I at that time, was more on the smaller side. I took the program because I I knew that I was living in the frequency of and I knew about your your magic was pleasure and sensuality. So it's like even for a woman to learn how to satiate a meal. Like who in North America, I know there's women from all over the world listening, but there's a lot of North Americans listening. And who in North America takes time to savor their meal, isn't eating on the go, isn't like there's so much to learn here, regardless of what the scale is or how you feel about your body,

Kate Harlow: 00:09:43

Jena la Flamme: exactly. So my big turning points are one. One of the first ones was when I went to this guy. He was a trainer, a physical trainer, and I met him at a dance, and we were hanging out, and I said, Oh yes, I'm struggling with with food and my weight. And he. Said, Oh, I know why, in this very confident, kind of cocky voice. And I was like, Well, why? And he said, It's because you're not listening to her. And I'm like, Who? He said your body. He said your body is an animal, a female animal. She isn't she. She's not an IT. She's not an object that you own. She is a being. She's a creature. There's two of you, there's your mind, the thinking part of you, and there's your body, the feeling part of you. And they are meant to be equals. They are meant to be partners in life. But your problem is you're not listening to her. You. Your problem is you're not respecting her. And Kate, it was as if I felt these ears, these animal ears prick up, going what he said exactly. Listen to that guy. He's on point.

Kate Harlow: 00:10:49

Oh, my God, you

Kate Harlow: 00:10:52

Jena la Flamme: have tingles. Uh huh, exactly. It still, still does it for me. And at first, I could not connect with her unless I was in his presence, and I would go back to him again and again, and I would say, tell me about her. Connect me with her. How can I be with her? And then over time, repetition, I really got it, and I listened to her voice, and I could hear her voice. And the essence of it is that all animals in nature know how to eat and move, to be in balance with their weight. You don't see obese animals, overweight animals in the wild, they're they're all fit. They're all healthy. Okay, you may see a domestic cat that you know could lose a few but it's not in nature. It's domesticated under the control of someone else's mind. So that's

Kate Harlow: 00:11:41

true. I was just in Kenya with a lot of animals. Never saw the elephants are large, but they're all large, exactly,

Kate Harlow: 00:11:48

Jena la Flamme: yeah, wow, and, and they're large and they're powerful. Yes, they're not large, and going, Oh, I'm too big. They're like, Hey, I'm a leader. I have power. Yeah, exactly. So when I realized that my body does actually know I just need to start listening to her. I need to start understanding her, this led me to pleasure. Because all creatures, not only animals, but organisms, a flower, a tree, they know to move towards pleasure and away from pain. So the flower that's opening to the sun and closing when it's cold at night. I see that in my own garden, for for the birds, the bees. I don't need to go into all the examples of how animals basically, pleasure is nourishment, pleasure is safety.

Kate Harlow: 00:12:37

Yeah, children too. They feel their pain, but they're always moving towards pleasure and creating pleasure, yes,

Kate Harlow: 00:12:45

Jena la Flamme: and the term I've come to use for this is erotic innocence, and this is the the flag I love to wave erotic innocence like pleasurable weight loss. It's like, what erotic innocence? Isn't it like erotic guilt or shame, but erotic innocence refers to that innate impulse towards pleasure. And erotic doesn't mean sexual per se, it it's Eros, it's the pulse of life. It's the all the senses. So it's the sunset or the the baby on your breast, which I've come to. So enjoy, you know, putting on that lipstick or making a great meal, enjoying that ice cream every darn lick of it, innocently, which means free of guilt and shame, because first of all, the body senses and then the mind labels and judges so erotic innocence means to turn down The volume on the guilt and shame to say, mind, just shut up for the moment. I'm just going to experience, I'm going to have a direct experience. And this is, this engages the primal part of the brain, which is the most ancient part, the most animalistic part, and we could say the most spiritual part, because it's the direct experience of life without all the like, ooh, that's not in my religion. And good girl shouldn't do that and ooh, her mother's really allowed. It's just living experiencing so to create a life of erotic innocence means to have your own personal bodyguard that's ready to say, hey, shame and guilt, judgment, limitations out. I'm, you know, choosing friends that won't bring that into your scene, having certain boundaries with family members that you may not kick out of your life, but certain conversations you just turn down the volume and don't take it in. And then you can live with this innocence where you know that you deserve pleasure, and you give your body pleasure because I ask women, when I work with them in my coaching if they're overeating, I say, Do you think if you were having great foot massage, wonderful conversation and like, delicious make out? Do you think you would be binging tonight? Maybe. Always say, no, never met a woman that was like, Okay, if you're really full of pleasure, would you be overeating? No, the reason they're overeating is because they have a deficit of pleasure. They need pleasure. We've gone through life with pleasure as a guiding force, as this indicator of love and safety and nourishment. And when we don't have pleasure, our body says something's wrong, and it goes to get it. If food is the only pleasure you allow yourself, or it could be alcohol or another substance, you will overdo it. You will binge on that thing. But when you're more democratic about your pleasure, and you have some from here, and some from dance, and some from music, and some from and some from sex, and a whole buffet from which you are free to choose, then it won't be a compulsion where you feel required to have that thing and more. Oh, my

Kate Harlow: 00:15:54

God, this helps with dating too. This is exactly what we say. Not really 10 million blah, blah, blah epiphanies while you're speaking. But this is we talk about with dating like, you know, show up on dates satiated and full and in your relationship and not needing to get because women have been taught to get that validation and pleasure from a relationship, and they come to the relationship empty. So it's the same thing, like doing that with when you have pleasure in your life, you're no longer turning to the ice cream every single night to to numb out try and like overcompensate or the guy or anything like you're not no longer overdoing it with one thing in An addictive way, as opposed to when you're satiated, you're satiated so you're not needing to extract it from anywhere, any one place. Wow.

Kate Harlow: 00:16:52

Jena la Flamme: And once upon a time, all pleasures were healthy, like stone age, if you had a fire, if you had a baby to cuddle or love her, or found some fruit or honey, there's, there was no opportunity to have too much of it or an excessive amount of it. Now we have obsessive things like Facebook scrolling, or, you know, too much TV or too much artificial sugars, or even sugar itself, like processed foods, it is possible to have too much of the wrong pleasure, and that's where I make this distinction between true pleasure and counterfeit pleasure. And this is really important. This is about discernment. Yes, you might think, oh, pleasure. Well, that's going to get me into trouble. So yes, too much of the counterfeit pleasure, it will I, once in a while, eat at least half a tub of ice cream once in a while. It's not a it's not an issue. Yeah, it's it's mixed in with a lot of other pleasures. But if that was all the time, that would be a counterfeit pleasure. And by that, I mean it feels good in the moment, but there's a hangover, there's a belly ache, there's a digestive there's a weight gain, there's a mental guilt of like, gosh, that was the wrong thing to do, and so a counterfeit pleasure. When you look back the next an hour later, a day later, a week later, a year later, there's a bit of a cringe factor, a true pleasure. You look back an hour later, a day later, a week later, a year later, and you're like, Hell, yes, that was excellent. I'm glad I did that. So that's the distinction. If you're ever wondering like, Oh, should I feel guilty about this or go for it, imagine your future self looking back and if she's clapping for you, and there would be positive side effects. Then go for it.

Kate Harlow: 00:18:46

That's so good because it I feel like the mind is so sneaky, and it'll convince you like this is pleasurable. So eat ice cream every night before bed, or, you know, whatever, the thing is that that hurts, and I love that. It's like, do you still feel good after Do you still feel good the next day? Do you still feel good a week later? That's how you know if it's actually pleasurable. It's

Kate Harlow: 00:19:11

Jena la Flamme: also good to question why we feel guilty about pleasure. And I'm curious to ask you when you were in that phase, when you were scared of sensuality or are not yet comfortable with it. Why that was but I'm guessing there's a lot of conditioning around being a good girl. Being sacrificial makes us holy. It could be against our religion to be really enjoying ourselves to indulge in these kinds of beliefs.

Kate Harlow: 00:19:43

Yeah. I feel like, Yeah, it's interesting even how they call it your guilty pleasure. Like, oh, it's my guilty pleasure to watch The Bachelor. It's my guilty pleasure in that. Like, where does that statement even come from? And I think that I feel like for women so much. Of it is conditioning around patriarchy and feminism and like women trying to compete with men, so we behave like them, and we think that's how we get ahead and how we, you know, survive the Western world. But for me personally, yeah, my my mom and aunt were both virgins till they were married. And definitely, like, they grew up evangelical. They're not any my aunt's an atheist, and my mom is, like, United Christian now, but, but that's how they grew up. So there's definitely, I mean, even I remember when I was becoming a speaker for Callan and Justin and healing my fear of public speaking, and started, like, really growing in confidence. I remember my aunt saying my mom's sister saying, I was like, I'm so proud of myself. I just led a retreat, and it was so good. And everyone came up to me after and shared blah, blah, blah whenever I was celebrating. And my aunt was like, well, you're sure high on yourself, and it's like, and so that was the energy. And my my aunt is a very wealthy woman, and she's amazing. I love her, but, but doesn't give herself any pleasure. Like she doesn't like she has lots of nice things, but she's definitely disconnected from and same with my mom. Like there's, yeah, there's the the good evangelical girls inside of them. So I think that's probably where it came from for me.

Kate Harlow: 00:21:27

Jena la Flamme: And you mentioned patriarchy, and it does get very political very fast when we talk about pleasure. Because yes, here's the thing, when you have pleasure, it creates dopamine in your in your neurochemistry, your biochemistry. Let's jump straight to one of the highest pleasures, orgasm, when a woman can look forward to having an orgasm, meaning like she knows Wednesday night it's going to happen, or just this afternoon when the kids are napping, or whatever it is, when she can look forward to it, when she can relish it, enjoy it without any guilt or shame, and she can just enjoy that afterglow, and then again, look forward to the next time I know that's going to happen again. Not like, When am I going to get it, but like, I'm confident it's happening. It's in my schedule. Then she can maintain a consistent high level of dopamine. This is what people use drugs to go after, or cocaine. I've never tried it, but, you know, I heard it's a classic Wall Street like, give me that high of dopamine so we can get that naturally, simply through orgasm. It doesn't even have to be genital it can be through something as simple as breast massage, which I can talk about later. And then when we have a high consistent level of dopamine, it boosts our sense of confidence, creativity, leadership, that sense that we will not sacrifice ourselves and throw ourselves under a bus for someone else, nor will we let someone else do that to us, we become very strong and leaders, essentially so back to the patriarchy. If the system wants to suppress female leadership, the best way to do that is to take away their pleasure and their dopamine, right? And the best way to do that is to tell them, Oh, it's against our religion, or you should feel guilty about that, or who are you to have that? Mother shouldn't have that. So that is why it's so indoctrinated that that's not for us. We, meanwhile, men never question that they deserve an orgasm anytime, right?

Kate Harlow: 00:23:37

Wow. So we've actually been brainwashed to to feel no pleasure, to not have pleasure, to put it on the back burner. Yeah. Isn't that crazy? Even, like men getting away with, like, going to strip clubs and like all the things. I mean, in Africa, they still have polygamy. Polygamy still alive and well, there men have, like, multiple wives and, yeah, wild.

Kate Harlow: 00:24:08

Jena la Flamme: Then women are allowed to have multiple plates of food, right, right? That food is the legitimate female pleasure, which is good. I want us to enjoy food, but to be our best and to experience a pleasurable body that's in balance. We need the whole buffet to be legitimately available to us. So if you are struggling with weight, I offer this to anyone or even body image, I want you to take that as a sign that I have a pleasure deficiency.

Kate Harlow: 00:24:49

So if so, you're saying, if someone is overweight, that equals pleasure deficiency. So when you're walking down the street, if you see someone that's overweight. You think they're deficient in pleasure? Yeah, wow. What a freaking reframe. Tell us more about that.

Kate Harlow: 00:25:09

Jena la Flamme: Well, we're meant to have pleasure when we eat, first of all. And there's a whole science behind this, and I would you like me to geek out on a few molecules. Yeah, my diagram I'm going to pull up for myself here. So basically, every time we eat, there's an opportunity for pleasure. If we're thinking, oh gosh, I'm overweight, I shouldn't be enjoying this. You know, pleasure is no good, then we actually don't receive the pleasure. So if we're stressed out, for example, when we're stressed, we're desensitized to pleasure. And this is evolutionarily smart, clever. If there's a true danger, you're not meant to be going, oh my god, this ice cream. You're meant to be just like, drop the ice cream and deal with the stress. However, now most stresses are not true life threatening situations. They're in our head. So if we're simply not present, if we're multitasking, if we're not allowing ourselves to really savor, then we're not getting the pleasure. If we're feeling guilty, and guilty pleasure is a complete nonsense statement. So then, when we don't feel it, we get more appetite. And the molecule here is called neuropeptide Y, the Eat More molecule. So in the absence of pleasurable satiation, neuropeptide Y is a chemical that increases our appetite for food, telling us to search for food, especially carbs. So it's naturally elevated. In the morning, I woke up this morning I was hungry. I went to get my nice, homemade muffin, and it satisfied me. It's elevated when we're deprived of food, especially after dieting, and when we're in a low blood sugar state. So it has a useful, you know, role, but it if we're actually denying ourselves pleasure, or so stressed out that we don't get the pleasure, then it's, it's it's trying to help us. Essentially, it teaches us that we cannot escape the biological imperative to enjoy. Even if we try to deprive ourselves, the body will make sure it's not denied. How cool is that? For the female animal, you know, amazing taking her taking her pleasure. So just to summarize that if you don't have pleasure, you'll have more appetite, you'll eat more, then you'll have another opportunity for pleasure. If you don't take it, you're going to eat have more appetite and eat more. And that is the binge cycle, and I call it the infinite shame loop. So the way out of it is to flip the narrative on pleasure and say, I deserve pleasure. Pleasure is a biological requirement. It's a healthy guiding force. It's a compass that I must follow. It's my body's intelligence, it's my body's need. So then when we do that and we feel it, then we eat with presence, we slow down. And the key pleasurable weight loss tip is to take five to 10 breaths, at least three before eating. And we actually did this before the podcast. Right now, Kate guided me through about a dozen deep breaths, and we grounded, we relaxed, and it helped take off any nerves, and really to be here from the heart. So imagine doing the same thing before eating, grounding, Breathing, relaxing, and now suddenly you taste more those little peas in the casserole. Like, Oh, they're so sweet, they're juicy, the texture and ooh, pasta like, Oh, I really love it. Whatever you're eating that you really enjoy it. Then you get the feeling of satisfaction and completion, which means I've had enough. I can leave even leave some on the plate, not because I'm mentally choosing that, but I'm I'm full. So the molecule here is called cholecystokinin, or CCK, the satisfaction molecule, where, in response to fat and protein in the meal, the same molecule that enhances digestion, stimulates the sensation of pleasure and tells you you've had enough to eat. How's that for brilliant digestion, pleasure and satisfaction. This shows that pleasure, good digestion and a naturally controlled even though we don't think of it as control, appetite, are woven, interwoven, so you can only experience the pleasure if you're present, seeing, smelling, tasting, feeling, the experience of food. So the most important thing is to know that it's not only the vitamin A and B and proteins and carbs in the food, the pleasure of eating it is a nutritional requirement. Is a nutrient and cell. So don't cheat your body at the pleasure of the moment. Instead, be present. And be guiltless, Be shameless, and experience it fully,

Kate Harlow: 00:30:05

and you and then you just get to feel better. Because Can you just thinking like, may we bring this energy into everything we do and how, in especially my experience of North America, whenever I'm home, I always feel this. I I fall back into it where I over schedule myself, even if it's just pleasure, like seeing friends and catching up with family. I'll be in Vancouver for three weeks, and I'll be like, and at 430 of this thing, and 730 of this thing, and my schedule all of a sudden is crammed and and then I'm a few weeks in and I'm like, Oh no, I'm doing it again. Like I felt I fell back into the trap of how people move so fast there, and everyone is so over scheduled and over busy and in the future and going to the next thing the next thing, the squeezing things in. And my life here, and it's such a gift living people ask about the time change. It's such a gift for me, because I only work from 3pm till usually seven or 8pm at the latest, have three calls at the most, maybe four on a very stretch day. Have so much spaciousness. Wake up and I go to Pilates at the time I want, and then I go to my coffee shop and hang out there until I'm done, and see all my different friends at the coffee and I just have this really slow life here. So I just think this, that chart, which is amazing and so clear. It feels like it's just something you can bring in like, the more we are present with, even driving like, with every every experience. Now, when your body is relaxed, well, now there's no weight to store. You don't your body's not in protection mode.

Kate Harlow: 00:31:47

Jena la Flamme: Exactly. You said to me, when I see someone on the street, randomly, they're overweight, I think they have a pleasure deficiency. Yes, I also would think they have a reason to protect themselves, or they've had a reason to protect themselves, yeah. So we spoke about the elephant in nature. Little animals aren't messing with the elephant. As far as I know. They're like, that's a big creature, and we're little, and we know our place, yes, yeah. So there's something inherently safe about being big. You know, when we see a big guy and we're like, Okay, I'm not messing with him. So also as women, if people have messed with us, unfortunately, as in our childhood or our adulthood, it's there's something intelligent about gaining weight to protect ourselves, and especially in terms of sexual assault, which I've been through, and I talk about that in my book pleasurable weight loss. If we gain enough weight, we basically deflect sexual attention, right? And I can feel safe if we've been sexually assaulted.

Kate Harlow: 00:32:51

Of course, it's so intelligent the body like really, it's amazing. So

Kate Harlow: 00:32:56

Jena la Flamme: I respectfully honor that if someone has gained weight to deflect sexual attention because they've been violated. Like, yeah, there's, there's something very significant there that I would never gloss over or undermine and just be like, Oh, go on a diet. No, the deeper work is, how can you feel safe and protected while losing that physical buffer. How can you be nimble and light and yet still no, no one's going to mess with me,

Kate Harlow: 00:33:30

right? Because if the people on that journey, I'm just thinking, if the protection is there, they are in they're hurting themselves like you don't have the weight and have the not just with food, but with your thoughts, with how you're treating your body, how you're talking to yourself, like if you are protecting yourself from the world, for sure you're hurting on the inside. So even though that was a smart thing for the body to do at the time when it was the only thing it knew how to do, now there's another option, exactly.

Kate Harlow: 00:34:02

Jena la Flamme: So it's, it's a strategy we want to first of all respect the strategy to say, Yeah, that makes sense. And now what? What else is available, right? So Kate is very good at teaching this beliefs that help you reframe things so that what you believe before without dissing on your younger self, you can say that made sense then and now. Here's this future self that's emerging with these new beliefs and then evolving into how can we be safe without extra weight? And there are many answers to that,

Kate Harlow: 00:34:42

yeah, and how, because then you're robbing yourself of experiencing your own pleasure and your own sensuality. And I just think like your your course pleasurable weight loss is what it's called, right? Yeah, that course, and I'm so happy you're resurrecting it. This is it was so divine. Every. Jenna, just like randomly popped into my heart and I reached out, and she was only just, she'd done one other podcast, getting back into her business after a four year maternity leave, which is so beautiful. And I'm just, I'm I'm just, it was a year

Kate Harlow: 00:35:16

Jena la Flamme: trying to get pregnant, almost a year being pregnant, and now I have a two and a bit year old. So, yes,

Kate Harlow: 00:35:21

a journey of caring for your body in new ways and for this little being. And it's just wild to like, I'm realizing through our conversation how much your work changed my life, like more than I even realized before talking to you. Now that I'm hearing I'm like, Oh, when I took that course, the reason I took it is, but yes, I was desiring to unlock my sensuality, and I felt like you had a key for me. I just intuitively knew that when I met you. But the most important thing that you unlocked for me is I learned how to love my body and change my relationship with her. Because I hated my body. I hid in my body. When I was really light, like I would fluctuate. I'd be like 100 pound, 95 pounds to I'm like five foot, two and a half so that that. But then I would be 140 pounds, and I would, like, fluctuate really big. And every time I was on the heavier side, I would be beating the shit out of myself. And every time I was on the thinner side, I get this is fucked, so many compliments. When I was tiny, tiny, tiny, people would be like, Oh my God, you look amazing. And I would get so many compliments. So then that reinforces the dysfunction internally. But I was paranoid about gaining weight, and then I was constantly looking in the mirror and like, have I gained weight? Have I gained weight? Have I gained weight? And it was just this obsession, and I loathed my body, and that was the gift that you gave me, and that this, even this, this mental refilling, reframe, pleasurable weight loss, that that I learned how to love my animal and my body, and how to be, how to listen to her, I'd be in relationship with her, and all of my work is based on that. So thanks. I just think this whole podcast and everything I've done like you really influenced me. It's wild.

Kate Harlow: 00:37:14

Jena la Flamme: Thank you. When we feel good, we think we look good, yes,

Kate Harlow: 00:37:18

yeah. And you stop care? Like I stopped caring what I look like from the external, but I feel so satiated and so good in my body. And when I like still, I'll fluctuate 510, pounds, and I love myself at both sides, like there's the conversations are loving that I have with myself. It's so different thanks to this perspective, which this is, like, really revolutionary, like, there are a lot of people teaching pleasure now, sensuality, but, but this piece about really, like, rewiring your relationship with your body, and you know, weight is, like you said, protection, and that is so many people struggle with, so many women struggle with weight, or even perception that they need to lose weight, or obsession over what the body is supposed to look like, and meanwhile, they're missing all the this, like endless pleasure that they could access, and this feeling good, like that's all we really want deep down. So always,

Kate Harlow: 00:38:18

Jena la Flamme: the thinnest woman in the room that's the most attractive is the woman that's enjoying herself, who has these other qualities that are inviting and magnetic. And I'm not here to tell every woman like, oh, lose weight. Lose Weight. Like, absolutely not. It may be to stay exactly how you are, but be happy with how you are, enjoy how you are, and enjoy every nerve ending in your body. Enjoy your capacity for multiple orgasms, or not only the climax that we think of that's compared to a man's, but an orgasmic flow where you're going through life just with that like little tingle.

Kate Harlow: 00:39:01

It's like our superpower, I think, as women. And you know, there's, I just think, I've worked with a lot of women who are who are curvier on the curvier side, and when they fall in love with their bodies, and they change their relationship with their bodies and how they treat themselves, and wake up their sensuality, they start to love their body as it is. And then if there is weight to be lost, like, if the body doesn't want it, it will shed it, but it's not shedding it because you're punishing it or forcing it. That's what I love the most about this is like, you're you're it's like, this is self love. This is what self love is. You're learning how to love yourself, and through doing that, anything that's not serving you anymore, we'll fall away.

Kate Harlow: 00:39:41

Jena la Flamme: Yeah, and in essence, when we're stressed, we have higher cortisol. Cortisol increases insulin tells the body don't burn fat, store fat and don't build muscle. So that's a weight gain, weight maintenance path. Breath. So the other way around, relaxation, which is triggered by pleasure, tells your body decrease in cortisol, decrease insulin, which tells the body burn fat, build muscle and yeah, like be be lighter. And we can just feel that when we relax, we feel light emotionally, and the body follows. And I'm postpartum, I'm still breastfeeding. There's it's beneficial to have a certain amount of weight to while breastfeeding, and I have a great milk supply. I'm very proud of that. But recently, I'm like, Okay, I'm on my my own pleasurable weight loss journey again. Like to trim down a little bit. And I said, Okay, what would I enjoy? I found a ballet school down the road. Super convenient. I go to adult ballet. I'm in there with the teenagers who are just so incredible. And I'm well, I'm okay, and I'm doing Pilates once a week, and that's it. I haven't changed anything. I'm eating, I'm slowing down. I'm using my own techniques of breathing and enjoying and loving myself and getting my orgasms in. And I'm trimming down and like, nearly, like almost every time I go out. These days, people like Jenna, you lost weight. You're like, no restriction, no dieting. In fact, I call it the pleasure diet, which means the diet of pleasure, a free guide for our listeners at pleasure diet.com we'll put it in the show notes also. But I have a free course called seven days of pleasurable weight loss to give you the high level tips on how to do this.

Kate Harlow: 00:41:36

Amazing. That was so perfect. I was just about to ask you about in motherhood, what it's been like for you? Like, because also, motherhood can be stressful. So I was just about to ask that. But also this ballot, this is amazing, even, how you framed that, right? Most people like, Okay, gotta go back to punishing myself. Gotta lose weight, gotta go to the gym, go to force. Like, you know, if you love the gym, that's a different story. But like, what you said, what's what would be pleasurable, ballet and Pilates? Okay, great. And then, of course, that's the thing, that it's like, it's like working with your body. It's what, what that guy said to you, it's the mind and the body being in being in connection and collaboration, as opposed to the mind punishing the body and thinking that that's going to make us feel better about ourselves, yeah,

Kate Harlow: 00:42:24

Jena la Flamme: and if I was in a different stage of life, I may be adding in going to a nightclub one night a week, and I'm getting back to to that, yeah, I have to get up really early with the baby. So by the time it comes nightclub time, I'm like, but I do love going out and dancing. And I mentioned that because if you get in a good groove on a dance floor, three hours go by. I mean, you would never do a three hour dance class, necessarily. Three hours at the gym would just seem insane. But with the music, with the the erotic energy that's on a dance floor and the fun and the social aspect, you could easily have three hours of I call it pleasurable movement with dance. Dance is probably the ultimate pleasurable weight loss, pleasurable movement activity, yeah, my opinion. But it's up to everyone, yeah, for sure, weightlifting also, that was another thing I did not that long ago, and I'm going to get back to it, lifting kind of heavier and heavier dumbbells. It really helped me build my strength for lifting the baby. I was getting terrible back pain, and sometimes I still get it when I need to start lifting those weights again. And there's a certain bliss, actually, that I discovered comes as the afterglow of lifting weights. I wouldn't have known that there are many, many ways in,

Kate Harlow: 00:43:50

yeah, any kind of

Kate Harlow: 00:43:51

Jena la Flamme: sport something in my fantasy, haven't done it yet, but it's water polo. I know it's really hard. You swim a lot, and you I think I'd probably drown in the first session, but I, I like the idea of the challenge of the water polo. I'm sure people get really bad.

Kate Harlow: 00:44:08

I love it, and I love, I love the the exploration, you know, like that. That's it. I think so many people just do what they've always done, and if you do what you've always done, and you get what you always got, like, there's no nothing new can be born. And from just doing the same thing, so so beautiful, like the the things that you know you love, and then the the curiosities and exploring that maybe water polo, isn't it, but it's gonna lead you over here to something else in the water, or whatever,

Kate Harlow: 00:44:36

Jena la Flamme: exactly, and simply walking like I'm imagining visiting you in Athens and just taking long walks and just breathing, circulating the blood. It doesn't need to, need to be a power walk, even, but just being active, yeah,

Kate Harlow: 00:44:53

and being in nature, like how, yeah, actually, when I got back from Kenya last week, it. Everyone, including the woman that owns the organic grocery store that I go to, was like, everyone's like, Oh, my God, you've lost weight. Wow, you've lost weight. And I, I didn't even know, because there's really, like, I was living in a tent, and there was no mirror. And I did, I didn't. I knew my jeans were a little bit looser, but they're skinny jeans, so they stretch, so I couldn't tell. And and everyone was saying that. And I was like, really? And they were like, Yeah, it's like, really. Even my taxi driver, who I always use, Harris, I'll give you his number next time you come to Athens, he's amazing. But he was like, Kate, eat something, and then he picked up my friend the next day. And he was, she was like, oh, Harris warned me that you lost weight. I'm like, What the hell everyone said it. What was I doing in Kenya for nine weeks, I was in pleasure. I was resting the whole time. I was hanging out for hours, writing my book and singing and meditating in a swing chair and journaling. I was connecting with beautiful humans from all over the world. I was going on adventures. I was eating food from the earth that they grew at the farm and made me for meals like I was eating dessert every day. Every day I had dessert fudge or ice cream, which my body usually doesn't like. I was eating things that I don't normally eat. I had breakfast every morning, which I normally don't have, and I lost weight. This is your theory. I just did a case study, and

Kate Harlow: 00:46:25

Jena la Flamme: like what I'm hearing there is great buffet of variety, Soul Food embodiment, actual food deliciousness. Connection to freedom, expansive freedom.

Kate Harlow: 00:46:43

Nature, walking, all of the things didn't exercise, other than I went on long walks, and it was very hilly, but that's a pleasure diet, pleasure. And it was because I was really I was saying to my friend Mariana, I kept forgetting to work like I was like, just enjoying being and she was saying, how Isn't that wild, that we like that? That's a thing that most people don't even know and never experience, and that's like, wrong and bad, mostly to like not be working and pushing. What I'm curious for you with ice in New York City, I,

Kate Harlow: 00:47:15

Jena la Flamme: when I lived there for 17 years, I used to carry my laptop with me everywhere, like, if it went out, I just always brought it with me in a little backpack. And now I think it was like, like a baby I look packing, like, carry that laptop everywhere, like I just couldn't leave it behind. And now some days in my existence, I have not even touched my laptop for a day. And that's was, like a shocking reflection on the difference, yeah, New

Kate Harlow: 00:47:47

York mentality, like everyone's working every Yeah, exactly that. Okay, so I'm curious about your story now. So, like, as so you were a teacher of this for many, many years, and then you became a mama and did the year of of getting pregnant and stepped into motherhood, which is a demanding role. How, how have you like fallen off? If you have, how have you integrated your pleasurable body, love, sensuality into motherhood. How like? What's your journey been like now?

Kate Harlow: 00:48:25

Jena la Flamme: Well, I have a very supportive husband who is a brilliant cook, so that was definitely one of the reasons, like we got together,

Unknown: 00:48:34

he seduced me with food.

Unknown: 00:48:38

Jena la Flamme: So I'm blessed in that regard. A lot of moms have a lot of pressure to cook, necessity to cook, and oh, if that's pleasurable for them, that's wonderful. What my mom always said she hated cooking. So that is still one area where I I'm still finding my my pleasurable groove, but I'm I'm on the track now. Our new thing is I'm collaborating with my husband, and he's guiding me. They're training me to be a he calls it a mom chef. I'm like, okay, that's fine. Train me up, please. I'm honestly, I'm in a blessed phase of my life. I live in Marin, California, which is north of San Francisco. There's redwoods around there's a creek, like, 10 minutes away. It's a waterfall, literal waterfall 20 minutes away, and I had my child in my 40s, which actually wouldn't recommend to a younger woman, I'd say, start earlier, but that's how I did it, and it was relatively set up that I could rest and and take time. So it's been wonderful meeting other moms, going to classes for conscious parenting, and really learning to kind of stand back in a way, and just like let the kids do their thing, to not be interfering or controlling too much, or should be like this. Should be like that, and they're toddlers, and they're they're wild and and let them be

Kate Harlow: 00:50:06

beautiful, amazing. And then how has been, like taking care of yourself and your body, and your relationship with your body, and being pregnant like being a body guru, or whatever you want to call yourself? Yeah, I'm just so curious what that journey was like for you.

Kate Harlow: 00:50:20

Jena la Flamme: Well, because I've postponed pregnancy until my 40s, I then experienced infertility. Were annoying and just kind of naive and ignorant of me to not realize the risks of that in the 40s, but I did have IVF and medical interventions to get pregnant, and that really brought down my my happiness. It was just a rough journey. And anyone who's wanting to get pregnant and not succeeding, it's extremely demoralizing. Yeah, and I did feel my my sense of beauty and my sense of self love and everything deplete. And then I remember one day during the pregnancy, I don't know, maybe five or six months in, looking in the mirror, and suddenly I'm like, you're back, and I need this color in my cheeks and this beauty. And obviously I'm round and curvy. And so pregnancy really brought me back into my self love. Then, unfortunately, I had a cesarean section, which I was really unhappy about. And that's something I'm still working with. I have the the incision scar and how that disturbed the contours of my torso, I can say, of my abdomen. So yes, that's one of my body love challenges is accepting the Cesarean, which if I'd played my cards differently, I could have avoided anyway. I would really like to have a second child Partially, because I really want to experience the vaginal birth and, oh yeah, really succeeding with that. But we'll see. We'll see if that comes to be I'm not sure yet. Yeah,

Kate Harlow: 00:52:01

I can see how that that, like, just the desire, based on your connection to your body and your animal, the desire to have that, that the full experience of, like going through the actual, the whole motions and and it's and it's so it's challenging because it's just one of those things that, like, not every woman does get to experience, and we can have all the intentions in the world, but, you know,

Kate Harlow: 00:52:27

Jena la Flamme: yeah, like I was preparing for, they call it ecstatic birth, or orgasmic birth, and I was receiving sensual massages, erotic massages from a woman, from an elder, yeah, you know, It wasn't a romantic entanglement, or like an erotic entanglement. It was just like her, like a practitioner giving me massages that included the Yoni and that climax. But I would have these orgasmic waves, and the baby would be like moving around. And, yeah, I had a great pregnancy. And I think having about 10 of those erotic massages, central massages, during my pregnancy, preparing for this orgasmic birth that unfortunately, the C section, you know, was one of my one of my secrets, and one of my great blessed things. And I also want to say that in my professional journey, there came a point where women would say, Hey, I just want to work with you. I want to learn from you, but I don't want to lose weight. Like, how can we do that? So I created a different branch of my teaching that is about pleasure and intimacy and doesn't have the the weight loss component. So that's that's another thing I offer. Because really, the weight loss is a gateway into this pleasure mentality, yeah, liberation,

Kate Harlow: 00:53:49

yeah. And it really is. It's a lifestyle. That's it. It's a lifestyle because even though, okay, so even though your story didn't turn out the way you thought it did, which, you know, when we're busy making plans, life has other ones. You still got to have a pleasurable pregnancy. And you still got to have like, how beautiful is that? How many women have had pleasure massages when they're pregnant, and orgasmic experiences and even the practicing lead up, like, what a beautiful gift for you, for your daughter, for your connection to each other, for your experience of being a woman who's connected to her body in pregnancy, like just, it just so beautiful, and it's a lifestyle. So tell us about Okay, so you are a legend, obviously amazing. I'm so so happy to to be sharing your work on here, and I'm so happy that you're back at it and excited to and also I imagine that I know there's a lot of moms that listen to and I know that sometimes being a mom can be pleasureless. So I think working with you as a mom is like, I mean, as any woman, but as a working woman who's stressed out and exhausted, as a woman who's stressed. Living with weight loss, or a mom who's you know, life is all about somebody else and other people pulling her attention and her not giving a lot to herself is like the greatest gift. So how do I want to

Kate Harlow: 00:55:12

Jena la Flamme: see what a pleasure it is to be across from you? We're on video as we record this, seeing the sparkling in your eye, seeing the glow in your skin, and you really are living it, and I'm, I'm so proud of you, and I'm really honored to know you me

Kate Harlow: 00:55:27

too. Love Yeah, this is cool. It's, it's so cool that I didn't even realize the impact that you had until this conversation. But it's huge, and it's so important the work you're doing. So, so if I'm a woman, so if I'm a woman and I'm wanting to lose weight, the path is and we're going to link this all below, but the path is the pleasurable Weight Loss Program, which you're going to be launching soon.

Kate Harlow: 00:55:49

Jena la Flamme: Yeah, so I have a program. I'm going to start it in early June. It's called six weeks of pleasurable weight loss, the natural way to lose weight feel delicious in your body and transform your relationship with food using the power of pleasure. So that's a group, online program. Kate did it life changing. Thank you so much. But if you'd like a free thing that you can get into today, pleasure diet.com it's not a diet in the in the conventional form of the word. It's about having pleasure be a daily part of your life that then has the trickle down effect of losing weight effortlessly and healing feeling better about your body. It really starts with feeling better about your body. Frankly, once you feel better about your body and you embrace her as a female animal, as a she, as a being that you love, then the other things, then the relationship with food falls in place, and then the weight loss just happens.

Kate Harlow: 00:56:48

Yeah, I love it. That's it's everything your relationship with your body. So seven days is the free one. That's a great place to start. And then if you're feeling resonant with this message and with Jenna, this program totally changed my life more than I thought, more than I knew, and it's six weeks, and it's a group, group, mentoring program, and so that's a great place to start. So we'll link that below, and then, if I'm a woman who isn't wanting to lose weight, but I'm ready for more pleasure, I'm stressed out, I'm exhausted, I'm running on empty, and I'm ready to wake up, my sensual animal. What's the path for me

Kate Harlow: 00:57:24

Jena la Flamme: if you go to erotic innocence.com? Again, that's my my flag that I love to fly. Erotic innocence. Erotic innocence.com. Has a five minute breast massage self breast massage that you do yourself. It's a meditation. It's from Taoism, and you combine breast massage with releasing things and calling things in. And you can make it more relaxing or more exciting or however you like it, but it's really it's really good for activating your pleasure

Kate Harlow: 00:58:00

and and being in relationship with your body. Isn't it wild to think how many women don't ever touch their bodies. Is like, we want to be touched, and we we're all picky about how we want to be touched, but then we don't even touch ourselves. And what a gift. Thank you for the the gifts amazing. And when you say massage, I'm like, oh, yeah, you're Irish. I forgot what you lived in Ireland. Were you born there? Yeah, my parents are

Kate Harlow: 00:58:24

Jena la Flamme: Irish. I They had me out of the country when they were traveling. But I essentially grew up in Ireland until I was 10, and then I moved to Australia when I was 10, until 20. Then I traveled the world, including two years in India, studying Yoga and Ayurveda and meditation, and then I moved to New York City. Had a long chapter there. Now I'm in California, and I do these online workshops. I also do one on one work. So I can put that link in the in the show notes, too, if you want to do a one on one private coaching with me that's available.

Kate Harlow: 00:58:56

Amazing, amazing. So Jenna Flamm, she is a Celtic goddess. That's what you look as soon as you said massage, I was like, You look like a Celtic goddess. And yeah, she is a key, really, and a lot of I mean, I think every woman on planet Earth can use this, because we're most women are so disconnected from their bodies and at war in on the inside. So you're doing really, really important work in the world, and I'm so happy to have you here, and it's so nice reconnecting with you. So check out all of her things. Download the freebies. If you have any questions, reach out and your Instagram will link it below too. But do you have Instagram? Jenna laflem, Jenna laflem, and yeah, anything else you want to share any final words of wisdom around pleasurable weight loss, sensuality and body love. Just

Kate Harlow: 00:59:47

Jena la Flamme: question the guilt if you're not having pleasure in your life. Lovingly. Question Why, what taught me not to and start to dismantle those beliefs. Kate has. A lot of techniques for doing so keep listening to her. She has a lot of wisdom to share. Who's guilt is

Kate Harlow: 01:00:07

this? That's what I would ask. Who's guilt is this? There we go somewhere. Yeah. And

Kate Harlow: 01:00:12

Jena la Flamme: then here's a good one. When you see a woman who is in her pleasure, give her a little wink or even a verbal like, Hey, sister, I see you in your pleasure, and thumbs up. She'll appreciate that, because we don't often get acknowledged for being in our pleasure. Unfortunately, this world acknowledges us the badge of sacrifice, you know, the the badge of stress, the badge of honor of, Oh, I'm just so stressed out. So on the flip side, when you see someone who is doing that badge of stress role, you can approach them softly and say, Hey, I see your I see you have a pleasure deficiency. Let's see really stressed, and you could do with some more pleasure. And you know you deserve it. Just give them more guilt, but just lightly tap them in the direction of they deserve this episode

Kate Harlow: 01:01:06

of this episode, you send them this episode. And I love that. I got goosebumps when you said that the pleasure, or when you see a woman in her pleasure celebrating it like how many women usually, usually we feel threatened by a woman in her pleasure, we've been taught to feel threatened. So it's Yeah, it feels like the the activator to be sparked by it, instead inspired by it and honoring. I love that so much. Amazing. Well. Thank you so much for all your wisdom and brilliance and this beautiful conversation. I'm so excited to share it and yeah, share it with all your every woman you need know who needs to hear this message. Pass it on, and we will see you soon.