What’s up everybody
Welcome to another episode of
A little bit of this and Nat
Im your host Natalie
And in this podcast we talk about
Personal growth, self-healing, mindfulness, spirituality
and all things self care.
So if you’re into expanding your mind and connecting with the deeper parts of you
Hit that plus sign so you’ll be notified of new episodes
Cause there’s plenty more where that to come
Its been awhile since I’ve recorded an episode and I missed it
I swore when I started I wasn’t gona be one of those people who starts a podcast, records a couple episodes and then goes MIA
I had systems in place, I had things I was doing to make sure podcasting every week was fun and easy and natural for me
BUT
I have a good reason for being away
I … got covid…
Yep,
In the 6th wave of all this I got it
And I think its because I work at a school
And the mask mandate was lifted in Ontario right after march break
And a lot of people went away on vacation for the march break
But it was mild, more mild than I thought
although I know it could’ve been a lot worse
I definitely did not want to talk about covid at all on this podcast because I think were all just done with it
The only thing I will say is,
Get vaccinated or don’t get vaccinated its really none of my business
I know that you will do what’s in your best interest for your health
Only you can know the best way to take care of yourself
No one can tell you that for you
That’s your choice to make
So that’s all the time I have for politics
And its funny because the podcast episode that I was going to record before I got sick was about my health and taking care of my physical health and my personal experiences with the diet and fitness culture
So a bit of a background story:
I first started getting into health and fitness when I was 15
I started learning how to do yoga just from YouTube videos and did some at home workouts that way too
I wanted to be healthy and feel better
And definitely stay in shape
But I found I really loved it
And I went on to become a personal trainer
I went to college, finished the exercise science program
Got certified and started working at a big name cooperate gym
And through out that process I was really trying to learn what it meant to take care of my body, I was really into nutrition and lifting
And I didn’t realize how disordered my thoughts were around food,
And how they had been disordered for years
since I was probably 8 or so
I learned early on that my outer appearance
Whether I carried a few extra pounds on my waist or not
Was like a key factor of success in life in general
I was judged for being overweight
I got thin and took charge of my health
And I was judged for being too skinny
Was even told that I was starving myself (when I wasn’t)
So becoming a personal trainer for me, originally was about being able to work one on one with women who were experiencing the same issues I was
Trying to find a balance between eating healthy and taking care of myself without going to far into disordered eating and having an unhealthy relationship with fitness
The idea that if I have this piece of cake that’s 30 minutes on the treadmill
The yo yo dieting and juice cleanses and I have to workout everyday or I’m not good enough type of mindset
There’s just a lot of toxicity in the diet and fitness culture that working at a gym as a personal trainer wasn’t what I thought it would be,
I wanted to make a difference in peoples lives and support them mentally and physically as they went through their own weight loss journey
and journey towards self love and growth
But working at a gym really messed with me
At least the gym I worked at
As a personal trainer I know that every single persons journey to loving their bodies looks completely different
And I know that coming to the gym every day to train or coming even 4-5 times a week just doesn’t work for some people
Some people might want to lose weight but they don’t enjoy weight training
And measuring their waist and weighing them and calculating BMI can be triggering for some people
I worked at a women’s gym and I just would’ve liked to see a different way of doing things
Body inclusivity, body positivity, make the focus more about how you feel internally, know that being healthy is about making small efforts and its something you have to be mindful of for the rest of your life
A lifestyle change
And thinking of it that way might help you to make more sustainable life changes
Especially because
When you are building the life you want
You think about how your ideal day would look,
If you’re ideal day doesn’t include waking up early to go to the gym for 3 hours then why would you try to make that a habit now?
It has to be realistic
And it has to be deeper than “losing 20 lbs”
I think it’s way more important to train because you want the ability to move through daily life and not feel so exhausted and sore from it
Again to form that mind body connection
And honestly it bothers me that information about our bodies is so withheld and that we have to go based on what the media tells us is healthy or not
Like everyone has a body, and everyone has the right to know how to get an effective workout in
There’s a huge reason why after years of lifting and trying other forms of exercise while still doing yoga
That after all these years I still do yoga
Yoga is the one thing that stuck
Yoga is perfect for me because I have the background to make it more challenging when I need it to be
And I know that if I’m doing a gentle flow and only training flexibility then I’m doing enough for my body
People don’t realize how important stretching is
People say “oh I’m old”
But that’s not the reason why you feel tension or stiffness in your body
My life changed when I learned that a lot of bodily pain is because of stored unprocessed emotion and energy
And I think it’s only fair that people have a base knowledge of how to take care of your body
I just don’t like how it’s not taught
Or at least it wasn’t taught to me
And even most of the stuff I know about yoga
and the way I train now is all self taught
It just frustrates me that it took me so long to learn how to treat my body with love
Even after years of schooling I still had to seek out even more information
And now its like Im still learning but on a more emotional level,
I just started learning more about the psychology of emotional eating
And all of this stuff still really fascinates me
I love learning,
I’ll be learning the rest of my life
But what I’m trying to get at here is that
there’s so many holes and missing pieces in the health and fitness industry
that it can make people feel alone when trying to seek out the knowledge
That they need to have a healthy lifestyle
I think we learn a little too much from social media and we forget that there’s millions of books out there
If I was a personal trainer and I was working with a client for 6 months to a year
Lets say she had 30 pounds to lose
She lost the weight dropped inches dropped pant sizes
Now she loves to go shopping for new clothes
You know
now she can squat more
And she can run farther and faster
Her strengths up her cardios up
Things that were hard for her before
Were adding more weight too
You know like she’s it all her milestones she’s making all this progress
She hit her goal weight
Did I do my job?
Did I succeed in helping her have a healthy lifestyle?
Maybe
Maybe on the outside.
She lost the weight but she didn’t learn anything about real self love
She lost the weight but she still restricts in her eating,
still has no understanding of the connection between food and emotions
and physical sensations and emotions
Like if I really succeeded as her trainer she would have an understanding of these core concepts that are the foundation of living a healthy life,
for the rest of your life
Not just for that one year
If I succeeded she would be able to take it from there on her own
She would know how to put an effective workout together
How to balance life and food
And how to give her body what it needs moment by moment
I think that’s hard for anyone
To have a perfect relationship with everything
I have all this knowledge and I’m still struggling
But
Its about sustainable health and getting better overtime
Life is a very long
We have all this time to get there
But
Its about the deeper connection you have with your body
And the capacity at which you allow yourself to live and feel and breathe
**
All the toxicity and the encouragement towards disordered eating, restriction and being 100% “good”
Really made me pull away from the gym altogether
But a part of me also knew that eating healthy and being active was ultimately going to help my mental health and that was important to me
And working out releases endorphins
And I did enjoy working out
I still do but my fitness routine looks a lot different now than when I was 21
I’m 26 now and life looks a lot different than it did in college.
In the past 5 years my thoughts on physical activity have definitely changed,
I don’t force myself to be active if I don’t want to
And I focus more on the way that physical activity can release pent up energy or stored emotion from the body
And yoga does that for me
Yoga has always been my favourite form of movement because its so versatile, you can make it harder or easier moment by moment
But I want be honest and transparent in saying that,
the mentality I experienced still stays with me in some ways
And I feel like I don’t workout like I used to because of it
I think fitness can be a great form of self care
But it can also be a form of self harm and self punishment
Long gone are the days where I’d push myself on the treadmill or push myself to do another set
I know now that I dont have to be sore the next day for it to count as a good workout
And I look at food as a fuel source and really pulled away from viewing certain foods as good and other foods as bad,
I think ill always want to maintain a healthy body figure but carrying a few extra pounds doesn’t affect me as much as it used to.
Im not saying I dont ever experience days of feeling insecure about my body or wishing it looked different in some way
But I know that the way I treat my body should really be my only measurement of physical health
How I feel on the inside matters more
I want to enjoy my body, and honor it, and fuel it with good food and enjoy food and not feel bad about living.
And not place high expectations on myself
And not fight my body or try to control my body
I want to be in tune with what she needs and do things I enjoy
I dont want what I’m eating that day to take up that much space in my life.
And I don’t want to workout everyday I want to go with how I feel in the moment
Before when I was going to record this episode before I got sick
I wanted to talk about having a healthy body image and
How sometimes we think that self love means loving what you see when you look in the mirror
And I think that self love is a lot more than that, its deeper than that
And I know were getting into the summer and its our first real first summer after covid and its bikini season and its shorts season
And its okay for you to want to change your body
I don’t think any of us are immune to this feeling of I could look better or feel better or be doing more for my body
But if you decide you want to start a journey of bettering yourself in this way
Just please be mindful of your mental health as well
You cannot hate yourself thin
That’s not going to work in the long run
Lets focus on having a healthy relationship with food and movement and with our bodies and focus on strengthening that mind body connection so we can make long lasting changes in our health
Some ways Ive been able to do this
In the past month are
I started a health journal
Because you know me I strongly believe you can solve any problem by journaling
Its kind of like a food journal but I talk about everything that relates to my physical health
So I use this journal to write down what I’m eating and how it made me feel and what I did or what I’m going to do to move my body that day,
I write about how much water I drank, where my mind body connection is at, I use it to move through negative thoughts about my body and to try to heal my toxic beliefs about diet and fitness
Its a separate journal from my other journals so I can organize my mind in that way
And I write out any negative thoughts about my body that I may be experiencing, and when I’m done letting it out I write down how I want to feel about my body
I use it to keep track of any physical symptoms i’m having as well
I know keeping a food journal might not work for everyone but Im a writer so its definitely worked for me
Ive always used writing as a tool to help me move through and process uncomfortable thoughts and emotions so doing so when it comes to my relationship with food has been a game changer for sure
For movement lately I started walking
And its been amazing, the sun is starting to come out more and the weathers getting nicer, its so nice to get out in nature
And where I live I found this route that I really like
It takes about half an hour to do which is perfect for me
And there’s a slight hill in the middle of the walk but at the end there’s a steep hill and it just feels really good
And it feels really good for my mind and soul too
And that’s the whole point of moving my body is to feel good so
But I feel like the main thing I’ve learned recently is that anytime you’re having an experience of something you don’t want
So in this case its gaining weight or feeling like your not connected to your body in the way you want to be
Then that experience is already showing you what you do want
And I think in every problem we face, the solution is embedded inside it
Knowing what you do want is all you need to start moving towards it
And honestly Im grateful that my body shows me signs and tells me when things are off balance and how I need to take care of it better
Because what I do want is a healthy body and a healthy relationship with my body where I’m giving it what it needs and I’m enjoying you know the physical experience
Where moving my body feels good and doesn’t feel like punishment
And where eating feels good and it doesn’t feel like an escape
And where I am willing to face the issues that I have with food so that I can reprogram my mind
I want to eat apples and salads and drink lots of water and go for long walks and do some strength training like once a week or something
But I also want to eat chips and watch a movie with my partner and go to nice restaurants and all you can eat sushi and enjoy my life
And not need to obsess about what’s in my food
Or count calories or carbs
I don’t want to restrict any food
I want to feel grateful for food
And my health journal is helping me get there
So writing in this everyday even if its only a couple sentences
And going for long walks as often as I can
Are my two new habits that I want to prioritize in my life