In the first week of 2020, the morning news team at FOX 40 in Sacramento did what morning shows do every January: they asked what people were promising themselves this time. The segment's hook was a riddle, lettuce, banks and bubbles, and the answer had to do with the body. Their guest, introduced as "the body whisperer," was Patty Alfonso, a facilitator and author who argues that our bodies are constantly communicating with us, and that most New Year's resolutions about them are ignoring what the body is saying. Across roughly four minutes, she laid out three mistakes to avoid, then a three-part practice built on relaxation, the senses, and joy. It is brief, conversational television, but the logic underneath it is worth slowing down for.
Alfonso's diagnosis starts with a single idea: the resolution itself is often the problem. When the host asked what the phrase "body whisperer" meant, she described a superpower of hearing what the body is telling us, and she framed the first step as listening before planning. Resolutions tend to arrive as orders. Work out harder. Eat cleaner. Squeeze into something smaller. Each one treats the body as a project to be overruled.
Her list of mistakes to avoid is less a set of rules than a set of tests. Would you actually do this thing if nobody were watching? If the answer is no, the body has already voted.
The first mistake she named was forcing yourself to work out. Her advice was blunt and practical:
"If you don't like dumbbells and you don't like going to the gym then find some other way to move your body."
The point is not that exercise is optional. It is that movement you dread is movement you will abandon by the second week of January, and every abandoned workout quietly confirms the story that your body is the problem. Movement you choose, whether that means dancing in the kitchen, walking, or something you have not tried yet, has a chance of becoming part of a life rather than a penance for one.
The same logic applies to food. Her second example was forcing yourself to eat salad: "If you don't like eating like a rabbit then why do it." Her alternative was almost playful. You can always juice your veggies. The underlying principle is consistent across her examples. Love for the body is not built by making it miserable on schedule.
The third mistake drew the most pointed language. Alfonso said that Spanx "has made a fortune making women feel uncomfortable in their body." She did not stop at criticism, though. Her argument was that comfort and appearance are not opposites:
"If you're comfortable in every moment with your body then you naturally look good. It comes from the inside."
This is a useful reversal. Most body-image advice tries to fix how you look so you can feel better. Alfonso runs the sequence the other way: feel at ease in the body first, and the outward presentation follows. Whether or not one agrees with her view of any particular product, the principle is a clear test for any garment or routine. Does it let you breathe, sit, and move, or does it require you to hold yourself in a state of apology all day?
The fourth mistake was the most unusual, and the one she seemed most attached to. Her claim was that our bodies are made for luxury, and that buying cheap shoes, cheap shampoo, and cheap pants can be one reason we do not love our bodies. The host's natural objection, that not everyone can afford luxury, got a direct answer. Alfonso said it could be simple: a really yummy shampoo, or a good pair of pants.
She held up her own pair on camera. They were not expensive, she said, "but when I wear them I feel good about myself." The lesson is less about spending than about deciding that your body is worth the small considerations: fabric that feels good, products you enjoy using, things that make the daily routine of living in a body pleasant rather than grudging. Treating yourself as someone deserving of nice things is, in her framing, already a form of body love.
Having cleared away the three mistakes, Alfonso moved to what she called the positive side of the list. Her first item was a letter-based sequence, and "B is for break old patterns" was the one she demonstrated. Her method was a shaking exercise: a light, loose bounce through the body.
Her stated mechanism was specific. She said shaking "actually induces the parasympathetic nerve response system," which she described in everyday terms: you get to relax, and when you relax you release tension, and that is how old patterns loosen. Her own words on the physical feeling were simple: "it just feels really good." This is a claim about the body and how it responds, and it is hers, offered in a television segment rather than a clinical setting. Read it as an invitation to try a simple, low-stakes movement practice and notice what changes, not as a medical promise.
The format matters. A shaking practice does not require skill, equipment, or a gym membership, which fits her earlier argument that the entry point to body love should be something you actually want to do. She later pointed viewers to a tutorial on her website for the exercise, which she described as something you can do every morning.
The next step in her sequence was to open your senses. Her instruction was to activate all of them: sight, smell, touch, taste, and hearing. She offered concrete examples, from a favorite perfume to simply looking at pretty things, which she said "really just bring you joy."
There is a quiet logic here. Much of our daily life runs on autopilot, with the senses dulled by habit and haste. Deliberately attending to a scent, a texture, a sound, or a color is a way of returning to the body as a place of experience rather than a set of tasks. It also connects to her earlier point about luxury: the senses are where a modest purchase, like a favorite fragrance or a pleasing bath product, can become a daily ritual rather than a one-time indulgence.
Her final practical item was to bring joy in. She said you want to do things that make you laugh, and offered something almost childlike as an example: blowing bubbles, or playing fun music. The instruction was to "bring joy into your life and include your body." Joy here is not a reward for finishing the workout or hitting a number. It is a stated part of the practice, and it is the most direct counterweight to the grim tone of the resolutions she criticized at the start.
This is where the segment's opening riddle pays off. Lettuce, banks, and bubbles were the three images the host teased, and they map neatly onto her argument: lettuce for the forced salad, banks for the financial side of self-care, and bubbles for the joy that resolutions tend to leave out.
The segment closed on its most personal note. Alfonso said that to love your body, you have to put yourself at the top of your to-do list. She held up her own list and noted that there was a lot going on at the top of it, and that her answer for herself was a lavender bubble bath. "Why? Because it's for me and it activates my senses."
That is the thesis compressed into one bath. The body does not need a new regimen so much as an acknowledgment that it is a participant in the day rather than an afterthought in it. Self-care framed as obligation tends to become another item on a list; self-care framed as priority means the list gets reordered.
When the host asked for a closing tip from the studio, the answers came back in the same spirit: a lavender bubble bath, or cinnamon and orange. The specific scent did not matter. What mattered was that everyone in the room seemed to understand the assignment.
If the segment left you curious, start small. Choose one movement you would actually do, not one you think you should. Notice one sense you usually ignore and spend a minute with it each day. And put one pleasant, nonessential thing on the top of your list this week, whether that is a bath, a song, or a shampoo you enjoy. Alfonso's shaking exercise tutorial is available through her website at pattyalfonso.sexy/shaking, and her broader work, including her books on the body as the creation of consciousness and her Pole Dancing for Consciousness program, is described on her main site at pattyalfonso.sexy. The four minutes on FOX 40 are a useful starting point, but the practice is the part that happens in your own body.
