A few years ago, this would have been the furthest thing from how I felt. I was following workout programs to a tee and felt like I had unlocked a new level of fitness. I was incredibly diligent, never missing a day and "hitting goals" left and right. That was until I realized that it was actually becoming disordered.
When's 2020, I discovered intuitive eating and I learned that things like "working off what I had eaten", "never missing a day" and thinking a workout "didn't count" unless it was high intensity and broke a sweat were actually negatively affecting my mental health. I had become so obsessed with exercise and using it to produce a certain body aesthetic, that when I had a mindset shift with intuitive eating, I found myself having to unlearn a lot of old thought processes. My relationship with exercise needed a lot of repair just as the one had with food.
So, as I began to retain my thinking around food, I found that I struggled to engage in fitness as it triggered a lot of old disordered patterns of thinking that had to do with changing my body. Intuitive eating is based on 10 principles.
3 of the IE principles at play with my thoughts around exercise were as follows:
Principle 1: Reject the Diet Mentality
Giving up the idea that exercising the pounds way is an effective and healthy thing to do.
Principle 8: Respect Your Body
Accepting that your body has a genetic footprint that is largely out of your control is a key concept with this principle. Continuously striving for a smaller body because we believe it's "better" inadvertently reinforces the idea that larger bodies are not as good. Truly embracing that all bodies are good, deserve respect, and need to be cared for, regardless of the size, is an important distinction to respect your body.
Principle 9: Movement-Feel the Difference
Let go of the dichotomous thinking that exercise is all or nothing. It doesn't need to leave you unable to walk the next day to be effective and have benefits.
(Picture of my 5 year old and I skipping through the store which raised my heart rate quite a bit 😂.)
Usually I try to include advice or what I've learned in these posts, but this one is a tough one as I will fully admit that it's still a work in progress.
There are times when I want to return to lifting weights because I loved feeling strong, but it also triggers the disordered thoughts of using it to shrink my body. I avoid this because telling myself that a smaller body is better is equivalent to saying my body right now, or those larger than mine, is not good enough and I'm distancing myself from those thoughts now.
So, I get stuck exercising very little or not much at all. That keeps the diet-y thoughts away, but also doesn't allow me to get all the other great benefits of moving my body including heart health, better sleep, and improved flexibility, just to name a few.
This morning I asked for advice in an intuitive eating online community and here were some great suggestions I got:
Calling out the thoughts as "diet thoughts"
Using playground equipment to simulate exercise, but more fun
Avoiding exercise routines that were used in the past during disordered timeframes
Exploring physical activity in new environments than where you used to over exercise
So, I'm going to hold of on traditional exercising for now because I don't feel ready, but I am going to try exploring some new forms of movement.
I'd love to know what your favorite form of physical activity is that is not the traditional exercising. Let me know in the comments!
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