April 24, 2021 • 27 mins
Matt explains the difference between exercise vs. physical activity, and the nuance between exercise addiction, exercise dependency and exercise compulsion. Matt also opens our eyes up to the idea that “we are not problems to be solved” and how a shift in our own mindset can change the relationships we have with ourselves, and those we seek help from.
About Matt:
Matt Stranberg, MS RDN LDN CSSD CSCS is a Sports Nutrition and Exercise Science Specialist helping athletes and individuals improve their relationship to food and exercise.
https://www.mattstranbergconsulting.com/
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I won't lend my body out out everything that I'm
made do, won't spend my life trying to change. I'm
learning to love who I am. I get I'm strong,
I feel free, I know who every part of me.
It's beautiful and I will always out way if you
(00:24):
feel it with your hands in the air, she'll some
love to the poet there. Let's say good day and
time did you and die out? Welcome back to that way,
Lisa here again, and today we're bringing back Matt Stranberg,
who you probably remember from our last episode where we
learned all about how to figure out if our relationship
(00:45):
to food is healthy versus dysfunctional. We explored the differences
between men and women in eating disorders, and what I
really loved about that episode, which was how we can
support men in getting the help that they need. So
if you didn't listen to that episode, head on back
to listen to it. Matt is phenomenal. So welcome back. Matt.
Your registered dietitian, but you're also an exercise science specialist
(01:05):
and you help athletes and individuals improve their relationship to
not just food and exercise. So today I'd love if
we could talk about how to approach fitness from a
healthy place. Starting out the door with what is exercise addiction? Yeah, totally.
And this is a great topic as well. And actually
it very much relates to the previous conversation that we
(01:25):
just had, So I would strongly encourage you to actually
go back and listen to that because that will help
kind of get chap to speed with some of these
thought processes. That being said, you know, something that is
really important to this topic is is understanding these categories
because they can be helpful in some respects and at
the same time, they might not capture your experience. And
so and that is actually something that's really important because
(01:48):
a lot of times people will say, you know, I
think it's time for a change, or I'm thinking about something.
They'll google something and they're like, oh, I don't fit
that correct here, I'm all good, and they'll move on.
And so, for instance, with you know, the concept of
extra size addiction, exercise addiction UH is a term that
is commonplace in our society because the word addiction is
(02:09):
something that's very much talked about and at the same time,
from my experience, doesn't necessarily kind of flesh out, you know,
what is going on for an individual. So you know,
when I talk about these topics, um, it's really important
to first understand, you know, what is exercise versus physical activity,
because that, you know, it can help people further understand,
you know, what's going on. Because I will talk to
(02:30):
a lot of people and if in my assessments or
when I talk to someone, if I say, you know,
tell me about you know, what you do on a
weekly basis for exercise, and they're like, oh, you know,
I don't exercise that much. Maybe I'll go to the jam,
like you know, three times for an hour or whatever.
And so like when you're listening to this, you go, Okay,
you know this person exercise for three hours per a week.
But if you said, can you tell me about your
physical activity, they go, well, you know, I only exercise
(02:52):
like three times a week, but my physical activity, you know,
I'm hiking all the time, I'm walking, you know, you know,
I take my bike everywhere, etcetera. And they're racking like
hours on hours of physical activity every single day. That
wouldn't have been captured if you would just asked about exercise.
Because people define exercise in a very particular way, and
for some people is something is not considered exercise unless
(03:12):
they're sweating and their you know, their hearts pumping and
their muscles are burning. So I talked to a lot
of people who do like hours of intensive yoga and
like go for these hikes, and they're like, oh, that's
not exercise, that that's easy. Exercise is when I kill
myself and CrossFit. So you know, first, if you back
up for a moment, it's really important to kind of
think about you know, physical activity exercise, and physical activity
(03:32):
is just any movement in general that's using your skeletal muscle.
It's not necessarily planned or like intended to try to
improve a fitness quality per se, while exercise, conversely, is
planned out, it's intended, it's it's designed, you know, in
many respects to change a particular fitness quality. And so
that's yeah, yeah, often, so it seems that for people
(03:53):
to qualify their exercise it needs to be within a
fitness facility, on a piece of equipment as a part
of their day that is very different from the rest
of their day. So they're not going to count things
like gardening or walking to the park with their grandchild
or daughter or son, you know, So that's super interesting
to just kind of think about the two and why
(04:15):
people think of them as so differently. Yeah, I mean,
with all these definitions that we've been talking about, unfortunately,
because of the explosion of information as well as like
you know, overall distrust and authorities, it's been really fragmented.
So nowadays people really have their own definition and their
own symbolic and emotional meaning attached to words. So you
can talk to like ten different people about exercise and
(04:36):
they might have ten different definitions of exercise. You can
talk to ten different people about a carbohydrate or starch
or health and they'll have ten different definitions. So in
many instances, people are talking past each other and they're
essentially talking different languages, which make it really difficult to
understand kind of what the overall experience might be. And so,
you know, going back to this concept of exercise, addiction,
(04:57):
you know, addiction summons this this very wrong effective term
that really generates a lot of feelings and emotions and
immediately people are kind of like a repulse by it,
or they don't feel that way that they're like, I'm addicted,
you know. And so for instance, if someone said, oh,
are you struggling with exercise addiction, and the person might say, oh, no, no,
it's just a lifestyle. I just love being a high
activity lifestyle. So in that respect, you know, it can
(05:21):
really miss the mark in a way that we can
flush this out to help maybe people explore this a
little bit more. Is once again revisiting that original concept
that I talked about that the map is not the territory.
So just because these categories are describing particular patterns or
experiences doesn't mean necessarily it captures everything or it's indicative
of reality. They're more so describing patterns that might give
(05:44):
you ideas about what's going on. But it's really key
to talk to individuals on a personal basis. Now before
we go into the individual basis and exploring that, going
back to the categories of archetypical patterns that you might observe,
you know, in the literature, there are some patterns that
have been described, such as exercise dependence or compulsive exercise,
(06:05):
or obligatory exercise or excessive exercise, and each one of
these has some kind of understanding of what's going on. So,
for instance, dependence is usually describing this cluster of cognitive,
behavioral and like physical symptoms um similar to like substance
use disorders or dependence. So an example might be kind
(06:27):
of similar how we talk about substances in relation to you.
One takes a dose or you know, engages in a
certain dose of exercise and they establish a tolerance and
then they need more and more to obtain the same effect.
When they try to do less exercise, they start to
experience withdrawal, so they start to feel irritable or off,
and in many respects, this causes them to up the
(06:49):
dose again and exercise more. Oftentimes, there can be moments
where they feel like they have challenges with intentions. So
for instance, like I'm gonna go, you know, go for
a run for thirty instant, it's like an hour and
a half later, they're going longer that's intended, and you know,
maybe there's feelings of like lack of control, like I
can't stop myself, I just need to run more, salience
like it's it's it's taking up a large part of
(07:11):
their life. And you know, we can look at like
how this relate to other activities. Are they're reducing other
activities so they can exercise more. And then one of
the key features in terms of like exercise dependence would
entail that there's continuance and people persist in these behaviors
even when there's negative side effects. So, for instance, the
person breaks their ankle and they're still going on runs.
(07:33):
You know, they're not feeling well and they're sick, and
they're still going out for runs. They feel like they
can't miss the gym, and you know, they're feeling dizzy,
but they still going out on runs. And so as
with other forms of dependence, that really depends on the
context in the person's life because you know, these varying
levels might not capture their relationship. And so really a
good question is like, what would happen if you couldn't exercise,
(07:55):
and that will start to you know, flesh out what's
going on. Yeah, and I know from from sinal experience
to just humanize kind of what we're talking about here.
For me, exercise addiction. When I think back on that
part of my life, I certainly wouldn't have called it
that then. So looking back, I can tell you that
it was an addiction for me because I only deserved
to eat if I worked out, or you know, it
(08:16):
was a compensatory relationship I had with exercise. And food.
It was also the only way that I could create
serotonin in my brain, meaning when I felt high and
good on life naturally, the only way I could derive
that was from exercise. And while that felt really good
at the time, I now know stepping back, that I
(08:37):
should get joy from micro moments of my life, such
as sharing a meal with somebody, going for a walk
that isn't quote unquote exercise, or making my heart pump
or sweating and all these little things during the day.
And I could not miss a day. And during that
stage of my life, Matt, you know, I was studying
to be a nutritionist and my masters was an exercise physiology.
(09:01):
If you told me that I had an exercise addiction,
that would have felt incredibly confusing, just like many of
our listeners might feel confused, like my doctor told me
to get this much in a day, and I'm doing that.
How can what we were told to be good moving
our bodies, lifting weights, walking, whatever it is, How can
that become negative the same way healthy eating can be?
(09:22):
And so how can we know if we're flirting that
line in the moment rather than being reflective like I
am now on the past, Yeah, totally and and we
can certainly explore that because one thing that I think
that would be important is actually what you just described
is sounds more along the lines of another kind of
archetypal kind that I described, such as compulsive exercise, so
(09:43):
for instance, using exercise persistently and maybe excessively as a
way to relieve anxiety or distress with perceived negative consequences
from abstaining from the behavior. So for instance, maybe you
have avoidance or rule trip and behavior or exercise is
being used as a weaken role mechanism or like you
have mentioned, a primary means of mood improvement. And then
(10:04):
maybe there's even elements where even though you don't feel
good and the exercise is not enjoyable, you still find
yourself doing it and you're you know, exhibiting this rigidity.
And so you know, as I had mentioned, with the dependence,
like this is one cluster of maybe a relationship, there's
lots of relationships exercise that are much more compulsive, and
and they fly into the radar because when someone says, oh,
(10:26):
I'm not feeling good, I need to go out for
a run, people like nice work. That's a really healthy
way of doing that. But the question would be like,
can you actually feel your emotions and can you process
them without going for a run. And when the person
starts to feel like they're having these compulsions to go
for a run no matter what and they can't feel good,
it's like, you know, something's beginning to evolve there. And
(10:47):
I mean, I see this all the time and I've
been there, and I also kind of have this two
prong approach to it where I do feel better when
I moved my body. It's great for my mental wellness
and my mental health. However, we also hear be will
say I need to move my body every day to
feel good, and we clap for both, but there's a
distinguishing factor of do you take rest days, you know,
(11:09):
if life gets in the way because of family commitments
or school commitments, or you're just feeling tired, can you
take a break and find another way to be okay
that day. And we have to stop applauding, like you said, yeah,
that's a healthy behavior, you know, and instead allow people
to find more ways, more tools in their toolbox to
(11:30):
get that joy to feel good, to not just be
out running themselves. And I don't know if this is
similar for you or not. But for me, exercise was
exactly what you said away to run away from my
emotions and my body. And it's interesting because I'm still
exercising moving my body, but oftentimes when I'm coming to
that place of I'm going to move my body, even
(11:51):
though I'm in a kind of crappy place mentally, I
don't feel like I'm running. I feel like I'm coming
even more in my body. I don't know if that
makes sense. And so, for instance, of activity is is
something that is potentially very therapeutic and potentially very transformative
and and and potentially very life enhancing. You know, when
we think about, you know, that differentiation between physical activity
(12:13):
and exercise. The reason why I said that, or another
reason why I said that, is because people can realize
the benefits of movement and not necessarily have to fall
into the societal conception of you know, why is legitimate
versus what's not? What is exercise versus what's not? And
in many respects, like you had mentioned, it's overtly seen
as a good thing. But similar to other things in
(12:34):
our life, you know, it can throw us out a
balance if that's the only tool in our tool kits.
So for instance, like emotional eating, Like this is a
term that's often thrown around is like something negative. But
you know, in most cultures and throughout time and a
lot of other areas, like people eat with emotion and
that's actually part of the experience. So eating with emotion
(12:55):
or soothing your emotions with food is not necessarily a
bad thing. Um, same thing with doothing your emotions at
times with physical activity and moving your body in particular ways.
The analogy that I often make, you know, to help
kind of clarify this is so for instance, like let's
say you had a really long, tough week and you're like, oh,
you know, that was just a really stressful week. I
(13:15):
feel like, you know what some retail therapy, and you
go on to Amazon and you just buy those new
shoes that you've been uh, you know, iron for a
while and it comes to your door, and like, hell, yeah,
treat yourself. That was awesome. You know, that feels great.
Nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with that. Same
thing with all the things that we talked about. The
question is is every time you get stressed or feel off,
do you find yourself loading up your Amazon cart and
(13:36):
starting to deliver stuff to your door, or reaching for
that ball of wine, or going for a run, or
eating as your only ways of coping. If that's you know,
something that you're observing, the question would be am I
becoming increasingly dependent on this? Or is it becoming compulsive?
You know, this is something that we ask ourselves and say,
you know, how does this relate to the other aspects
of my life? How do I self soothe in ways
(13:59):
that go beyond on maybe just food and just exercise.
Maybe food and exercise and these things that we're talking
about can be one thing of many instead of just
you know, alternating between food and exercise. And unfortunately, in
our society, many people reward these unidimensional relationships with certain things,
and in many respects it flies into the radar because
(14:21):
what is often seen as dedication and passion um is
really compulsion or you know, a feeling of obligation where
someone has an obligatory exercise pattern where they feel like
they can't take a day off. They're rigid and you
know they otherwise they're starting to feel anxious or guilty
if they missed that day um. Similarly, in excessive exercise,
(14:41):
you know, this is once again very much dependent on perspective,
and you know, what is excessive for one person might
actually be very much in line with, you know, what
helps them live their best life. So for instance, like
if you're an Olympic athlete, yeah, you're gonna be exercising
all the time because that's your job and that's what
you do. And at the same time, you know, maybe
you also have another a visual who goes to cross
fit five times a week and everything else is pretty
(15:03):
well balanced, and this is just kind of, you know,
how they want to live life, and there's nothing wrong.
The question of excessive is are they consistently going over
their body's capacity to recover mentally and physically. And so
for instance, if you do that temporarily, that can be beneficial,
but if you're chronically doing that, it's going to have
negative effects. So the question be why are you consistent
(15:24):
going over your capacity to recover? Why are you consistently
doing more and more and more and and these kind
of things often fun to the radar because people often
look at it as a sign of delay, gratification and control.
It's something like that aligns with like maybe Tom Brady,
no days off, um, no pain, no gain when it
(15:44):
all costs, like, you're doing what it takes to get
to the next level. This is part of your fitness lifestyle.
And so I think something that we can talk about
a little bit more is like, well, how do you
explore this relationship to kind of understand, you know, what's
working for you versus what's not working for you. Yeah,
And I can tell you as a practitioner, when I
started my business six years ago and I wanted to
get my clients who didn't exercise or have much physical
(16:06):
activity in their life, i'd prescribe them to walk ten
k steps a day. That was like, you know, just
get out there and walk tank steps a day. And
then they'd come back and I started to see how
unhelpful that advice was because they'd spend a day. I'll
say it was a Saturday, and it was a male
client who went golfing for two hours, walked the entire green,
(16:28):
then went kayaking, and when he was done kayaking, he would,
you know, instead of just resting or spending time with
his family, he had to get those tank steps in
and he felt the pressure to get them in. And
we talked about it, and I really, you know, learned
from that experience as to there's not just one way
to move, and there's not just one way to get
that exercise in. So, especially as we head into the
(16:48):
warmer months, I encourage everybody to just kind of recognize
what feels good today, And it doesn't have to be
you know, running two miles or six miles or even
walking in that linear plane that you know we're taught
is exercise. So explore what feels good. Is it gardening,
Is it going for a swim, Is it you know,
just even parking a little bit further and getting to
(17:11):
going into the grocery store, and that's your quote unquote
exercise for the day. Allow these things to count without
counting them, I think could be helpful. So I worked
with a woman in New York City who I adore dearly,
a client of mine, and she came to me because
she was working with a trainer who put her on
a macro counting diet, and although she was hitting her
(17:34):
goals quote unquote at the gym, she started to notice
that this restrictive diet was not very different than calorie counting,
something she had already conquered. And I hear this a
lot when it comes to trainers. Specifically. And that's not
to say all trainers are bad or or that all
trainers can't help us be healthy as well as help
(17:57):
us form a healthy relationship to food an exercise. But
this is a theme that we can't really ignore. How
can trainers play a role in keeping us mentally well?
What are some things that they can do and say
not do and say that can motivate us but not
steal from our internal knowledge of knowing exactly what we
(18:19):
need to do when it comes to both food and exercise.
I think, in order the best answer this question, we
can actually generalize it to most practitioners as well in
terms of you know, what we've been talking about. So
before we delt in, I think it's important to note
that although physical activity or exercise can be beneficial, it's
not a moral imperative, and it's actually okay if people
(18:41):
decide to not engage in activity or exercise. And every
choice that we make has its pros and cons gifts
and take in, and the same thing with quality of life,
quantity of life, etcetera. Some people want to live a
certain lifestyle that they find works best for them, and
that isn't necessarily a bad thing. If if they decide
to not exercise at all, sometimes they might invest all
(19:02):
that time and reading and writing in the arts and
so at the same time, you know, people might find
and explore that, like we have been talking about, varying
degrees of movement might actually enhance their life. So I think,
you know, going back to the practitioner standpoint, a lot
of practitioners, especially personal trainers, but also doctors and psychiatrists
(19:22):
and psychologists often look at the patient as a collection
of problems to be solved and therefore extend you know,
the life experience as a collection of problems to be solved,
when in actuality, you know, although it is nice to
maybe change certain things in our lives or quote unquote
overcome a certain problem, life as core, you know, one
(19:44):
might argue, is a reality to be experienced. And if
we're always focusing on having versus have not and always
focusing on solving problems, um at the core in many respects,
we're not allowing ourselves to experience our day to day moments,
in our day to day being and in had are
perpetually in the state of lack and trying to view
ourselves as lacking and as a project to be completed
(20:07):
and as you know, a problem to be solved, and
when you begin to view yourself in that manner um,
it can really rob us of the other dimensions of
life that you know, can often make movement really enjoyable. So,
for instance, if we approach movement and physical activity has
simply you know, stimulus response, question, answer, problem solution, I'm
feeling this way and I want to feel differently, it
(20:29):
really robs us of the ability to open up the
experience of simply being in the world and being you know,
like for instance, like going for a run and feeling
the sun on your face and feeling your feet touched
the pavement. And this is something that is totally removed
from the experiences offered by most practitioners, and so something
that you know, practitioners and trainers alike can probably benefit
(20:53):
from is it's moving beyond what I had mentioned in
the last episode. Is this procedural kind of approach where
everything is viewed as a collection of boxes and objects
and problems that need to be checked and manipulated and
tweaked like a car mechanic opening up the hood of
our brain and saying I gotta tweak this and got
to tweak that and by the end of that, you
know you'll look better and you'll feel better. Instead, I
(21:15):
would sit down and encourage the trainer and the client
to have an open conversation and say, hey, let me
get to know you. You know, what's important to you.
How do you feel? How would you like to approach this?
I have some ideas. Would you be open to this?
How does that make you feel? Would you be open
to experimenting with this? And now you have a mutual
collaboration of therapeutic alliance where people are able to collaborate
(21:37):
together and explore together various frameworks, various perceptions, various ways
of looking at things, various patterns of behaviors as well
as thought patterns, and all these various aspects that we
can use to navigate our day to day and figure
out over time what works in relation to the day
to day experience, but also in relation to the overall goal,
(22:00):
but also creating space for simply experiencing each other and
experiencing the moment. So I think it's really critical for practitioners,
trainers included, to sit down and really enquire about, you know,
those subjective experiences and how things are being experienced and
then from there begin to tailor the approach in a
(22:21):
way that is not split in that dualistic thinking that
I was talking about as subject and client or subject
and object, but more so as a unified intersubjective kind
of like experience where they're joined together, exploring things together
and developing things together. That helps people really develop the
relationship that they're looking for and that really can only
(22:43):
truly evolve through a mutual interaction as opposed to expert
and um subject. So that means there's two different responsibilities
that need to change, both of the practitioner therapist, trainer,
dietitian da dada, and let's call it client person paying
for services whether it's covered by insurance or not, which
(23:03):
means the you know, the practitioner cannot feel like it's
their job to find the problem and then just provide
a solution based on the problem that they see, and
the client cannot walk in because they're paying or because
it's a service, or because they're working with an expert
and say I have this problem and I want it fixed.
(23:25):
The relationship, the trust needs to be established, a conversation
needs to be happening, and other things outside of the
obvious quote unquote problem being overweight or wanting to hit
a specific goal at the gym, whatever. You know, you
can't just look at that in isolation. You need to
look at what else is going to be affected by
(23:46):
pursuing that goal, maybe not even reaching that goal, but
by pursuing it in that method. And I think that's
a brilliant framework to take beyond even working with a
professional or not. Is. We have problems, period it. We
don't need to fix every single one of them. You're
not lazy for not being quote unquote proactive about all
(24:09):
of those things. And by doing so, we're surrendering to
life again. And like you said, going for a run
and feeling your foot on the earth is very different
than going for a run and I need to hit
those two miles at this speed and blah blah blah.
So what you really did today, Matt is you gave
us an invitation to actually be part of reality rather
(24:30):
than craft or reality that may or may not ever exist. Yeah,
that's super passionate. That hits home for me totally. A
lot of times I meet people who actually, I mean,
I would say most people I meet are in a
perpetual managerial mode where they spend eight to ten hours
of work per day or in school. And the way
(24:51):
that the approach that is question answer, stimulus response problem,
you know, solver. And this can be really effective in
the work environment. At the same time, if it's generalized
to all other aspects of our life, it actually becomes
incredibly dehumanizing and mechanical and dysfunctional in manty of respects. So,
for instance, I always joke about it with my clients
(25:13):
because I meet with a lot of clients who very
much espoused this perpetual productivity managerial mode. And so the
joke is like, Okay, I'm going to schedule and some
relaxation and then I'm gonna prep myself. I'm gonna read
a book about how to relax, and then I'm gonna
go in there. I'm gonna try to relax as hard
as possible, and you know, I'm they are really concentrating
relaxing And we laugh about it because that's the antithesis
(25:35):
of relaxation. And so, you know, if we approach everything
from that fix our mindset, we actually lose out on
a lot of the experiences that actually bring us are
probably the best moments of our life. So, for instance,
our friends and you know, maybe you know a romantic partner.
You don't go into a situation saying we need to
have the best time together, and we need to advance
(25:56):
our friendship and we need to be best friends. By
the end of this, you know, we're on track to
being good friends and we're gonna fall in love at
this time here. No, what happens is that you create
space without intention of how you're going to feel at
the end of your hanging out with a friend, and
then you sit with that person and you explore being
(26:17):
in the moment together and it flows and you know
when it happens, whether it's a date or whether it's
your friends or whether with your partner, you begin to
feel woa, time is just flowing by and we are
simply being in the moment. And people know what this
experience is like, they strive for it. And actually most
of the people who are quote unquote struggle with exercise
feel themselves compulsed to go back to exercise because this
(26:39):
is maybe the only moment in the day when they're
actually maybe present or actually maybe they're tuned out from
constantly being a manager and so creating more space in
your day to day life. To simply experience reality and
not approach it as a problem allows us to actually
experience a lot of the things that make us humans,
such as love and friendship and connection and and so
(27:01):
I think there's some hints there in maybe you know,
if you look at the things that really help you
be present in the moment when you're with your partner,
with your friends, your family, or whoever. Might be lost
in a good book not for the sake of completing it,
but rather just reading it. I mean, this is something
that we can start to explore in other areas as
opposed to look at everything as another work problem. Well,
(27:21):
I mean, like I said, I expected to really talk
about exercise addiction in a different way, and I think
this conversation took such a beautiful turn and has allowed
us to really think about life in such a multidimensional way.
So thank you, Matt. Thank you for being on the
show twice, and we hope to have you as a
third time later on. So thanks for being you doing
the work that you do, and we'll see you soon.
(27:42):
So that's great. Thanks for having me, Lisa
I won't lend my body out out everything that I'm
made do, won't spend my life trying to change. I'm
learning to love who I am. I get I'm strong,
I feel free, I know who every part of me.
It's beautiful and I will always out way if you
(00:24):
feel it with your hands in the air, she'll some
love to the poet there. Let's say good day and
time did you and die out? Welcome back to that way,
Lisa here again, and today we're bringing back Matt Stranberg,
who you probably remember from our last episode where we
learned all about how to figure out if our relationship
(00:45):
to food is healthy versus dysfunctional. We explored the differences
between men and women in eating disorders, and what I
really loved about that episode, which was how we can
support men in getting the help that they need. So
if you didn't listen to that episode, head on back
to listen to it. Matt is phenomenal. So welcome back. Matt.
Your registered dietitian, but you're also an exercise science specialist
(01:05):
and you help athletes and individuals improve their relationship to
not just food and exercise. So today I'd love if
we could talk about how to approach fitness from a
healthy place. Starting out the door with what is exercise addiction? Yeah, totally.
And this is a great topic as well. And actually
it very much relates to the previous conversation that we
(01:25):
just had, So I would strongly encourage you to actually
go back and listen to that because that will help
kind of get chap to speed with some of these
thought processes. That being said, you know, something that is
really important to this topic is is understanding these categories
because they can be helpful in some respects and at
the same time, they might not capture your experience. And
so and that is actually something that's really important because
(01:48):
a lot of times people will say, you know, I
think it's time for a change, or I'm thinking about something.
They'll google something and they're like, oh, I don't fit
that correct here, I'm all good, and they'll move on.
And so, for instance, with you know, the concept of
extra size addiction, exercise addiction UH is a term that
is commonplace in our society because the word addiction is
(02:09):
something that's very much talked about and at the same time,
from my experience, doesn't necessarily kind of flesh out, you know,
what is going on for an individual. So you know,
when I talk about these topics, um, it's really important
to first understand, you know, what is exercise versus physical activity,
because that, you know, it can help people further understand,
you know, what's going on. Because I will talk to
(02:30):
a lot of people and if in my assessments or
when I talk to someone, if I say, you know,
tell me about you know, what you do on a
weekly basis for exercise, and they're like, oh, you know,
I don't exercise that much. Maybe I'll go to the jam,
like you know, three times for an hour or whatever.
And so like when you're listening to this, you go, Okay,
you know this person exercise for three hours per a week.
But if you said, can you tell me about your
physical activity, they go, well, you know, I only exercise
(02:52):
like three times a week, but my physical activity, you know,
I'm hiking all the time, I'm walking, you know, you know,
I take my bike everywhere, etcetera. And they're racking like
hours on hours of physical activity every single day. That
wouldn't have been captured if you would just asked about exercise.
Because people define exercise in a very particular way, and
for some people is something is not considered exercise unless
(03:12):
they're sweating and their you know, their hearts pumping and
their muscles are burning. So I talked to a lot
of people who do like hours of intensive yoga and
like go for these hikes, and they're like, oh, that's
not exercise, that that's easy. Exercise is when I kill
myself and CrossFit. So you know, first, if you back
up for a moment, it's really important to kind of
think about you know, physical activity exercise, and physical activity
(03:32):
is just any movement in general that's using your skeletal muscle.
It's not necessarily planned or like intended to try to
improve a fitness quality per se, while exercise, conversely, is
planned out, it's intended, it's it's designed, you know, in
many respects to change a particular fitness quality. And so
that's yeah, yeah, often, so it seems that for people
(03:53):
to qualify their exercise it needs to be within a
fitness facility, on a piece of equipment as a part
of their day that is very different from the rest
of their day. So they're not going to count things
like gardening or walking to the park with their grandchild
or daughter or son, you know, So that's super interesting
to just kind of think about the two and why
(04:15):
people think of them as so differently. Yeah, I mean,
with all these definitions that we've been talking about, unfortunately,
because of the explosion of information as well as like
you know, overall distrust and authorities, it's been really fragmented.
So nowadays people really have their own definition and their
own symbolic and emotional meaning attached to words. So you
can talk to like ten different people about exercise and
(04:36):
they might have ten different definitions of exercise. You can
talk to ten different people about a carbohydrate or starch
or health and they'll have ten different definitions. So in
many instances, people are talking past each other and they're
essentially talking different languages, which make it really difficult to
understand kind of what the overall experience might be. And so,
you know, going back to this concept of exercise, addiction,
(04:57):
you know, addiction summons this this very wrong effective term
that really generates a lot of feelings and emotions and
immediately people are kind of like a repulse by it,
or they don't feel that way that they're like, I'm addicted,
you know. And so for instance, if someone said, oh,
are you struggling with exercise addiction, and the person might say, oh, no, no,
it's just a lifestyle. I just love being a high
activity lifestyle. So in that respect, you know, it can
(05:21):
really miss the mark in a way that we can
flush this out to help maybe people explore this a
little bit more. Is once again revisiting that original concept
that I talked about that the map is not the territory.
So just because these categories are describing particular patterns or
experiences doesn't mean necessarily it captures everything or it's indicative
of reality. They're more so describing patterns that might give
(05:44):
you ideas about what's going on. But it's really key
to talk to individuals on a personal basis. Now before
we go into the individual basis and exploring that, going
back to the categories of archetypical patterns that you might observe,
you know, in the literature, there are some patterns that
have been described, such as exercise dependence or compulsive exercise,
(06:05):
or obligatory exercise or excessive exercise, and each one of
these has some kind of understanding of what's going on. So,
for instance, dependence is usually describing this cluster of cognitive,
behavioral and like physical symptoms um similar to like substance
use disorders or dependence. So an example might be kind
(06:27):
of similar how we talk about substances in relation to you.
One takes a dose or you know, engages in a
certain dose of exercise and they establish a tolerance and
then they need more and more to obtain the same effect.
When they try to do less exercise, they start to
experience withdrawal, so they start to feel irritable or off,
and in many respects, this causes them to up the
(06:49):
dose again and exercise more. Oftentimes, there can be moments
where they feel like they have challenges with intentions. So
for instance, like I'm gonna go, you know, go for
a run for thirty instant, it's like an hour and
a half later, they're going longer that's intended, and you know,
maybe there's feelings of like lack of control, like I
can't stop myself, I just need to run more, salience
like it's it's it's taking up a large part of
(07:11):
their life. And you know, we can look at like
how this relate to other activities. Are they're reducing other
activities so they can exercise more. And then one of
the key features in terms of like exercise dependence would
entail that there's continuance and people persist in these behaviors
even when there's negative side effects. So, for instance, the
person breaks their ankle and they're still going on runs.
(07:33):
You know, they're not feeling well and they're sick, and
they're still going out for runs. They feel like they
can't miss the gym, and you know, they're feeling dizzy,
but they still going out on runs. And so as
with other forms of dependence, that really depends on the
context in the person's life because you know, these varying
levels might not capture their relationship. And so really a
good question is like, what would happen if you couldn't exercise,
(07:55):
and that will start to you know, flesh out what's
going on. Yeah, and I know from from sinal experience
to just humanize kind of what we're talking about here.
For me, exercise addiction. When I think back on that
part of my life, I certainly wouldn't have called it
that then. So looking back, I can tell you that
it was an addiction for me because I only deserved
to eat if I worked out, or you know, it
(08:16):
was a compensatory relationship I had with exercise. And food.
It was also the only way that I could create
serotonin in my brain, meaning when I felt high and
good on life naturally, the only way I could derive
that was from exercise. And while that felt really good
at the time, I now know stepping back, that I
(08:37):
should get joy from micro moments of my life, such
as sharing a meal with somebody, going for a walk
that isn't quote unquote exercise, or making my heart pump
or sweating and all these little things during the day.
And I could not miss a day. And during that
stage of my life, Matt, you know, I was studying
to be a nutritionist and my masters was an exercise physiology.
(09:01):
If you told me that I had an exercise addiction,
that would have felt incredibly confusing, just like many of
our listeners might feel confused, like my doctor told me
to get this much in a day, and I'm doing that.
How can what we were told to be good moving
our bodies, lifting weights, walking, whatever it is, How can
that become negative the same way healthy eating can be?
(09:22):
And so how can we know if we're flirting that
line in the moment rather than being reflective like I
am now on the past, Yeah, totally and and we
can certainly explore that because one thing that I think
that would be important is actually what you just described
is sounds more along the lines of another kind of
archetypal kind that I described, such as compulsive exercise, so
(09:43):
for instance, using exercise persistently and maybe excessively as a
way to relieve anxiety or distress with perceived negative consequences
from abstaining from the behavior. So for instance, maybe you
have avoidance or rule trip and behavior or exercise is
being used as a weaken role mechanism or like you
have mentioned, a primary means of mood improvement. And then
(10:04):
maybe there's even elements where even though you don't feel
good and the exercise is not enjoyable, you still find
yourself doing it and you're you know, exhibiting this rigidity.
And so you know, as I had mentioned, with the dependence,
like this is one cluster of maybe a relationship, there's
lots of relationships exercise that are much more compulsive, and
and they fly into the radar because when someone says, oh,
(10:26):
I'm not feeling good, I need to go out for
a run, people like nice work. That's a really healthy
way of doing that. But the question would be like,
can you actually feel your emotions and can you process
them without going for a run. And when the person
starts to feel like they're having these compulsions to go
for a run no matter what and they can't feel good,
it's like, you know, something's beginning to evolve there. And
(10:47):
I mean, I see this all the time and I've
been there, and I also kind of have this two
prong approach to it where I do feel better when
I moved my body. It's great for my mental wellness
and my mental health. However, we also hear be will
say I need to move my body every day to
feel good, and we clap for both, but there's a
distinguishing factor of do you take rest days, you know,
(11:09):
if life gets in the way because of family commitments
or school commitments, or you're just feeling tired, can you
take a break and find another way to be okay
that day. And we have to stop applauding, like you said, yeah,
that's a healthy behavior, you know, and instead allow people
to find more ways, more tools in their toolbox to
(11:30):
get that joy to feel good, to not just be
out running themselves. And I don't know if this is
similar for you or not. But for me, exercise was
exactly what you said away to run away from my
emotions and my body. And it's interesting because I'm still
exercising moving my body, but oftentimes when I'm coming to
that place of I'm going to move my body, even
(11:51):
though I'm in a kind of crappy place mentally, I
don't feel like I'm running. I feel like I'm coming
even more in my body. I don't know if that
makes sense. And so, for instance, of activity is is
something that is potentially very therapeutic and potentially very transformative
and and and potentially very life enhancing. You know, when
we think about, you know, that differentiation between physical activity
(12:13):
and exercise. The reason why I said that, or another
reason why I said that, is because people can realize
the benefits of movement and not necessarily have to fall
into the societal conception of you know, why is legitimate
versus what's not? What is exercise versus what's not? And
in many respects, like you had mentioned, it's overtly seen
as a good thing. But similar to other things in
(12:34):
our life, you know, it can throw us out a
balance if that's the only tool in our tool kits.
So for instance, like emotional eating, Like this is a
term that's often thrown around is like something negative. But
you know, in most cultures and throughout time and a
lot of other areas, like people eat with emotion and
that's actually part of the experience. So eating with emotion
(12:55):
or soothing your emotions with food is not necessarily a
bad thing. Um, same thing with doothing your emotions at
times with physical activity and moving your body in particular ways.
The analogy that I often make, you know, to help
kind of clarify this is so for instance, like let's
say you had a really long, tough week and you're like, oh,
you know, that was just a really stressful week. I
(13:15):
feel like, you know what some retail therapy, and you
go on to Amazon and you just buy those new
shoes that you've been uh, you know, iron for a
while and it comes to your door, and like, hell, yeah,
treat yourself. That was awesome. You know, that feels great.
Nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with that. Same
thing with all the things that we talked about. The
question is is every time you get stressed or feel off,
do you find yourself loading up your Amazon cart and
(13:36):
starting to deliver stuff to your door, or reaching for
that ball of wine, or going for a run, or
eating as your only ways of coping. If that's you know,
something that you're observing, the question would be am I
becoming increasingly dependent on this? Or is it becoming compulsive?
You know, this is something that we ask ourselves and say,
you know, how does this relate to the other aspects
of my life? How do I self soothe in ways
(13:59):
that go beyond on maybe just food and just exercise.
Maybe food and exercise and these things that we're talking
about can be one thing of many instead of just
you know, alternating between food and exercise. And unfortunately, in
our society, many people reward these unidimensional relationships with certain things,
and in many respects it flies into the radar because
(14:21):
what is often seen as dedication and passion um is
really compulsion or you know, a feeling of obligation where
someone has an obligatory exercise pattern where they feel like
they can't take a day off. They're rigid and you
know they otherwise they're starting to feel anxious or guilty
if they missed that day um. Similarly, in excessive exercise,
(14:41):
you know, this is once again very much dependent on perspective,
and you know, what is excessive for one person might
actually be very much in line with, you know, what
helps them live their best life. So for instance, like
if you're an Olympic athlete, yeah, you're gonna be exercising
all the time because that's your job and that's what
you do. And at the same time, you know, maybe
you also have another a visual who goes to cross
fit five times a week and everything else is pretty
(15:03):
well balanced, and this is just kind of, you know,
how they want to live life, and there's nothing wrong.
The question of excessive is are they consistently going over
their body's capacity to recover mentally and physically. And so
for instance, if you do that temporarily, that can be beneficial,
but if you're chronically doing that, it's going to have
negative effects. So the question be why are you consistent
(15:24):
going over your capacity to recover? Why are you consistently
doing more and more and more and and these kind
of things often fun to the radar because people often
look at it as a sign of delay, gratification and control.
It's something like that aligns with like maybe Tom Brady,
no days off, um, no pain, no gain when it
(15:44):
all costs, like, you're doing what it takes to get
to the next level. This is part of your fitness lifestyle.
And so I think something that we can talk about
a little bit more is like, well, how do you
explore this relationship to kind of understand, you know, what's
working for you versus what's not working for you. Yeah,
And I can tell you as a practitioner, when I
started my business six years ago and I wanted to
get my clients who didn't exercise or have much physical
(16:06):
activity in their life, i'd prescribe them to walk ten
k steps a day. That was like, you know, just
get out there and walk tank steps a day. And
then they'd come back and I started to see how
unhelpful that advice was because they'd spend a day. I'll
say it was a Saturday, and it was a male
client who went golfing for two hours, walked the entire green,
(16:28):
then went kayaking, and when he was done kayaking, he would,
you know, instead of just resting or spending time with
his family, he had to get those tank steps in
and he felt the pressure to get them in. And
we talked about it, and I really, you know, learned
from that experience as to there's not just one way
to move, and there's not just one way to get
that exercise in. So, especially as we head into the
(16:48):
warmer months, I encourage everybody to just kind of recognize
what feels good today, And it doesn't have to be
you know, running two miles or six miles or even
walking in that linear plane that you know we're taught
is exercise. So explore what feels good. Is it gardening,
Is it going for a swim, Is it you know,
just even parking a little bit further and getting to
(17:11):
going into the grocery store, and that's your quote unquote
exercise for the day. Allow these things to count without
counting them, I think could be helpful. So I worked
with a woman in New York City who I adore dearly,
a client of mine, and she came to me because
she was working with a trainer who put her on
a macro counting diet, and although she was hitting her
(17:34):
goals quote unquote at the gym, she started to notice
that this restrictive diet was not very different than calorie counting,
something she had already conquered. And I hear this a
lot when it comes to trainers. Specifically. And that's not
to say all trainers are bad or or that all
trainers can't help us be healthy as well as help
(17:57):
us form a healthy relationship to food an exercise. But
this is a theme that we can't really ignore. How
can trainers play a role in keeping us mentally well?
What are some things that they can do and say
not do and say that can motivate us but not
steal from our internal knowledge of knowing exactly what we
(18:19):
need to do when it comes to both food and exercise.
I think, in order the best answer this question, we
can actually generalize it to most practitioners as well in
terms of you know, what we've been talking about. So
before we delt in, I think it's important to note
that although physical activity or exercise can be beneficial, it's
not a moral imperative, and it's actually okay if people
(18:41):
decide to not engage in activity or exercise. And every
choice that we make has its pros and cons gifts
and take in, and the same thing with quality of life,
quantity of life, etcetera. Some people want to live a
certain lifestyle that they find works best for them, and
that isn't necessarily a bad thing. If if they decide
to not exercise at all, sometimes they might invest all
(19:02):
that time and reading and writing in the arts and
so at the same time, you know, people might find
and explore that, like we have been talking about, varying
degrees of movement might actually enhance their life. So I think,
you know, going back to the practitioner standpoint, a lot
of practitioners, especially personal trainers, but also doctors and psychiatrists
(19:22):
and psychologists often look at the patient as a collection
of problems to be solved and therefore extend you know,
the life experience as a collection of problems to be solved,
when in actuality, you know, although it is nice to
maybe change certain things in our lives or quote unquote
overcome a certain problem, life as core, you know, one
(19:44):
might argue, is a reality to be experienced. And if
we're always focusing on having versus have not and always
focusing on solving problems, um at the core in many respects,
we're not allowing ourselves to experience our day to day moments,
in our day to day being and in had are
perpetually in the state of lack and trying to view
ourselves as lacking and as a project to be completed
(20:07):
and as you know, a problem to be solved, and
when you begin to view yourself in that manner um,
it can really rob us of the other dimensions of
life that you know, can often make movement really enjoyable. So,
for instance, if we approach movement and physical activity has
simply you know, stimulus response, question, answer, problem solution, I'm
feeling this way and I want to feel differently, it
(20:29):
really robs us of the ability to open up the
experience of simply being in the world and being you know,
like for instance, like going for a run and feeling
the sun on your face and feeling your feet touched
the pavement. And this is something that is totally removed
from the experiences offered by most practitioners, and so something
that you know, practitioners and trainers alike can probably benefit
(20:53):
from is it's moving beyond what I had mentioned in
the last episode. Is this procedural kind of approach where
everything is viewed as a collection of boxes and objects
and problems that need to be checked and manipulated and
tweaked like a car mechanic opening up the hood of
our brain and saying I gotta tweak this and got
to tweak that and by the end of that, you
know you'll look better and you'll feel better. Instead, I
(21:15):
would sit down and encourage the trainer and the client
to have an open conversation and say, hey, let me
get to know you. You know, what's important to you.
How do you feel? How would you like to approach this?
I have some ideas. Would you be open to this?
How does that make you feel? Would you be open
to experimenting with this? And now you have a mutual
collaboration of therapeutic alliance where people are able to collaborate
(21:37):
together and explore together various frameworks, various perceptions, various ways
of looking at things, various patterns of behaviors as well
as thought patterns, and all these various aspects that we
can use to navigate our day to day and figure
out over time what works in relation to the day
to day experience, but also in relation to the overall goal,
(22:00):
but also creating space for simply experiencing each other and
experiencing the moment. So I think it's really critical for practitioners,
trainers included, to sit down and really enquire about, you know,
those subjective experiences and how things are being experienced and
then from there begin to tailor the approach in a
(22:21):
way that is not split in that dualistic thinking that
I was talking about as subject and client or subject
and object, but more so as a unified intersubjective kind
of like experience where they're joined together, exploring things together
and developing things together. That helps people really develop the
relationship that they're looking for and that really can only
(22:43):
truly evolve through a mutual interaction as opposed to expert
and um subject. So that means there's two different responsibilities
that need to change, both of the practitioner therapist, trainer,
dietitian da dada, and let's call it client person paying
for services whether it's covered by insurance or not, which
(23:03):
means the you know, the practitioner cannot feel like it's
their job to find the problem and then just provide
a solution based on the problem that they see, and
the client cannot walk in because they're paying or because
it's a service, or because they're working with an expert
and say I have this problem and I want it fixed.
(23:25):
The relationship, the trust needs to be established, a conversation
needs to be happening, and other things outside of the
obvious quote unquote problem being overweight or wanting to hit
a specific goal at the gym, whatever. You know, you
can't just look at that in isolation. You need to
look at what else is going to be affected by
(23:46):
pursuing that goal, maybe not even reaching that goal, but
by pursuing it in that method. And I think that's
a brilliant framework to take beyond even working with a
professional or not. Is. We have problems, period it. We
don't need to fix every single one of them. You're
not lazy for not being quote unquote proactive about all
(24:09):
of those things. And by doing so, we're surrendering to
life again. And like you said, going for a run
and feeling your foot on the earth is very different
than going for a run and I need to hit
those two miles at this speed and blah blah blah.
So what you really did today, Matt is you gave
us an invitation to actually be part of reality rather
(24:30):
than craft or reality that may or may not ever exist. Yeah,
that's super passionate. That hits home for me totally. A
lot of times I meet people who actually, I mean,
I would say most people I meet are in a
perpetual managerial mode where they spend eight to ten hours
of work per day or in school. And the way
(24:51):
that the approach that is question answer, stimulus response problem,
you know, solver. And this can be really effective in
the work environment. At the same time, if it's generalized
to all other aspects of our life, it actually becomes
incredibly dehumanizing and mechanical and dysfunctional in manty of respects. So,
for instance, I always joke about it with my clients
(25:13):
because I meet with a lot of clients who very
much espoused this perpetual productivity managerial mode. And so the
joke is like, Okay, I'm going to schedule and some
relaxation and then I'm gonna prep myself. I'm gonna read
a book about how to relax, and then I'm gonna
go in there. I'm gonna try to relax as hard
as possible, and you know, I'm they are really concentrating
relaxing And we laugh about it because that's the antithesis
(25:35):
of relaxation. And so, you know, if we approach everything
from that fix our mindset, we actually lose out on
a lot of the experiences that actually bring us are
probably the best moments of our life. So, for instance,
our friends and you know, maybe you know a romantic partner.
You don't go into a situation saying we need to
have the best time together, and we need to advance
(25:56):
our friendship and we need to be best friends. By
the end of this, you know, we're on track to
being good friends and we're gonna fall in love at
this time here. No, what happens is that you create
space without intention of how you're going to feel at
the end of your hanging out with a friend, and
then you sit with that person and you explore being
(26:17):
in the moment together and it flows and you know
when it happens, whether it's a date or whether it's
your friends or whether with your partner, you begin to
feel woa, time is just flowing by and we are
simply being in the moment. And people know what this
experience is like, they strive for it. And actually most
of the people who are quote unquote struggle with exercise
feel themselves compulsed to go back to exercise because this
(26:39):
is maybe the only moment in the day when they're
actually maybe present or actually maybe they're tuned out from
constantly being a manager and so creating more space in
your day to day life. To simply experience reality and
not approach it as a problem allows us to actually
experience a lot of the things that make us humans,
such as love and friendship and connection and and so
(27:01):
I think there's some hints there in maybe you know,
if you look at the things that really help you
be present in the moment when you're with your partner,
with your friends, your family, or whoever. Might be lost
in a good book not for the sake of completing it,
but rather just reading it. I mean, this is something
that we can start to explore in other areas as
opposed to look at everything as another work problem. Well,
(27:21):
I mean, like I said, I expected to really talk
about exercise addiction in a different way, and I think
this conversation took such a beautiful turn and has allowed
us to really think about life in such a multidimensional way.
So thank you, Matt. Thank you for being on the
show twice, and we hope to have you as a
third time later on. So thanks for being you doing
the work that you do, and we'll see you soon.
(27:42):
So that's great. Thanks for having me, Lisa
Feeling Things with Amy & Kat News
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