August 13, 2022 • 17 mins
OUTWEIGH: Certified Eating Disorder Specialist & Registered Dietitian, Melissa Giovanni, is our expert for the next 3 weeks! Today’s chat (episode 2 of 3) is about having a healthy relationship with exercise in recovery...for some of us it's hard to even comprehend what that even looks like because working out has been our eating disorder "buddy" for years and years. However, there is hope!!! You can get to a point where anxiety doesn't hit if you know you're not working out one day (or five!) We hope you feel less alone after listening and more equipped to do what is best for your body today...whether that's moving it or not moving it.
Melissa’s Instagram: @allthefoodsrds
Melissa’s Website: https://balancenutritioncounseling.com/
Melissa Giovanni, MS, RDN, CEDS, LDN is a licensed and registered dietitian in Nashville, TN and owner of Balance Nutrition Counseling, PLLC, a group private practice in Nashville and Murfreesboro, TN. She is also a certified eating disorders specialist. Melissa came to the field of nutrition with a passion for eating disorders treatment. She strives to help people heal their relationship with food and live a life without food rules and judgments. She provides clients with the information, skills, and support to progress in their recovery.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I won't let my body outly outweigh 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 then will always out way if you
(00:24):
feel it with your hands in the air. She's some
love to the boom there. Let's say good day and
time did you and die out? Happy Saturday. Outweigh fam
I am back with Melissa Giovanni. She's a registered dietitian
in Nashville and founder of Balanced Nutrition Counseling. If you
(00:45):
miss last week's episode, I encourage you to go listen.
We talked about living in a toxic environment. If you're
someone that is actively in recovery and you're around all
these triggers all the time, you might you might need
some some tools for your toolbox to help navigate some
of that. And you know, we're going to talk today
about something we've touched on before. But I love hearing
(01:07):
different experts and their thoughts around it and what they
like to encourage clients to do, because you never know
what little nuggets you're going to get that are different
and we're gonna talk about having a healthy relationship with
exercise while working on recovery, because depending on people's recovery puzzle,
let's call it that. I don't know, I just popped
(01:27):
into my head, Melissa. But there's different components. There's different pieces,
Like there's the big puzzles, like okay, the body image,
eating disorder, whatever was making that up. But then there's
like the food part. You have to let go of
different things, Like for me, I started to allow different
foods back in, so I let go of some of
the orthorexia, but I was still trying to control because
(01:47):
I used my fitness pal right like, I was letting
myself eat whatever, but I still was logging it and
still obsessing over you know, if I ate a waffle
that had one egg, but I it made seven waffles.
I was calculating the division of that egg kind of thing,
which is like not a fun place to me now
(02:09):
at all whatsoever. So there's that, you know, those are
different pieces to the puzzle. Then there's the workout piece.
It's like, oh, well, I used to going to the
gym was my buddy in my eating disorder. It's like
my life's little companion. Gonna, you know, forced me to
go to the gym today. Love it, even though I
was miserable half the time. But everyone has different things
(02:30):
that they do that make up their whole puzzle. And
I think it's very normal unless you can correct me
if I'm wrong, but to take it, you know, one
thing at a time, Like some people might be able
to like put that puzzle together and be like, okay,
this is my plan, but for me, it was a
slow role. I'm a sure slow learner, and I had
to take it one puzzle piece at a time. And
(02:51):
some of them I didn't even realize that they were
actually a problem until as I'm actively in recovery, like
a lightbulb went off of like, oh wait, this seems off,
this seems weird. And luckily I've I have expert friends
that I was able to confide in and say, hey,
I'm still kind of holding onto this thing. Is that weird?
Like I literally have to work out seven days a week,
(03:13):
but I think I'm doing it for my mental health.
And then they would help me unpack that and so
how do we have a healthy relationship with exercise? For
talking about that piece of the puzzle? Yeah, absolutely, I
think you're totally right that it is a slow process
and you can't just like tackle everything at the first
go of it. It's going to take some time. Healthy
(03:34):
relationship with exercise I personally think it's going to look
different for each individual person. So like somebody without a
neating disorder, or maybe someone who's never struggled with food
or exercise might be able to have an exercise plan
where they know what they're doing the whole week. They
have it set out, they're going to these classes, are
doing this X, Y Z at the gym, While someone
(03:57):
who has gone through recovery or is working on recovery,
that might be pretty triggering because if X happens and
they miss a day, they feel a ton of guilt
and anxiety and aren't able to eat that day. So
I think it really just depends on the person and
what your healthy relationship with exercises going to look like,
and it's important to take time to define that with
(04:19):
your team, if you're working with a dietitian and a
therapist and figure out what is that going to look
like for you and writing that down doing things that
you enjoy I think is one piece of that puzzle.
So not dreading. Whatever it is that you're doing for
a movement is important. Thinking about is this movement that
takes energy but also gives me energy back? It's not
(04:39):
just taking energy and making me feel really drained and
I hate it. That's not going to be helpful or
a healthy thing to do. Oh not doing movement that hurts.
So if someone maybe you really enjoy running but it
hurts your knees, that's not I can give you an example. Yeah,
I trained for a marathon and call ledge and I'm
(05:00):
pretty sure it was for the sole purpose of like,
if I trained for a marathon, I'm gonna lose so
much weight, and I completely messed up my knee in
the process. Yes, I ran twenty six point two miles.
I did not lose any weight. In fact, I think
I gained because I was eating like so many carps,
which carps are not bad, but because I was restricting
and binging. I was binging on the carps, so there
(05:21):
was no balance there at all whatsoever. It just I
had it all backwards. My motives were completely off. But
then I was too locked into the challenge and I
didn't want to quit even though my knee was killing
me and I had to take um like I view profen,
you know, every four miles. My mom and my boyfriend
at the time, we're meeting me at different benchmarks to
hand me more and I was just popping them. But
(05:44):
I'm like, you know what, I'm going to do this marathon,
and it's totally backfired on me, and I was miserable
and it sucked. And then also another example of that
would be everyone was doing CrossFit at some point and
I just thought, oh, which for some people, CrossFit is
cool and it is the thing and it's their jam.
It was not my jam. But I thought, oh, I'm
gonna do all this. I'm gonna burn all these calories.
And I was torturing myself and like, I literally think
(06:06):
I injured my tailbone because I feel like I have
a tiny little tail, like some people don't have that
bone that sticks out, but you know, like boone pose
at yoga, I cannot do that because of my bone
the way it sticks out. It feels like a little tail,
which I don't know if that means I have a
(06:27):
tail or not. Some of my like my daughter feels
and she's like, what is this bone? And I'm like,
I don't know. My bone just feels weird. But anyway,
I remember me at cross fit and I rubbed that
little bone, like that skin on my tailbone raw. But
I was like, this is the workout of the season
and everyone's doing it, and this is what is getting
everybody fit. So I have to be doing CrossFit even
(06:49):
though I was miserable and my tailbone, my tail bone
was raw. Yeah, which is good example. Yeah, the running,
the CrossFit whatever in sart, whatever it is for you,
hey listener, like whatever you've been forcing yourself to do
even though you're miserable, that's it, Yes, totally. And it's
so normalized, like no pain, no gain, you know, like
(07:12):
the fitness type culture. I mean, it's super normalized that, oh,
you know, just push through it, you'll be okay. You know,
that's you're going to get results if you keep doing it.
So unfortunately, that's super normalized. And then I think thinking
of the other reasons or actually not even other, just
like healthy reasons that you are going to move your body.
(07:33):
So what are the reasons that we do this, Like
you mentioned you kind of we're telling yourself that it
was for your mental health, but maybe it wasn't at
that time. But for mental health could be a healthy
reason to to move our body because it feels good.
It gives us energy for our overall health and well
being to feel strong, well for my mental health. I
(07:53):
did think I needed to go because I thought I
was going to go crazy if I didn't, because if
I didn't work out. I spy rolled into like what
is going to happen to my body? And I got
so in a way, Yes it was for mental health.
But what's a mantra or something we can say to
ourselves to start rewiring our brain that that is not true?
Like it actually is not true. I will be fine
(08:16):
if I don't go to the gym. But I don't
know if there's like a cuter mantra or way to
say that of Like on the last episode you you
gave us one. I was like, Oh, maybe there's something
that we just keep in our pocket to say it's
not a sin if you don't go to the gym.
I love that. That's probably not good. I don't have
a great mantra for that one. But that's a good one.
(08:38):
You're not gonna die if you stop training for the try, right, Yes,
that's a good one. Yeah, you used to do triathlons too.
I don't know, come up with your own little sing,
but just know that it's very normal if you're having
those thoughts, and that can be the tricky part because
you're trying to also. Yes, it seems mental at the time,
(08:59):
but of freedom you're going to feel once you're able
to let go of that is I just want to
offer you that there is hope, because I know it
seems so far off because you maybe have been working
out this hardcore for twenty years or more. I think
(09:19):
the other thing to remind yourself it's not a mantra,
but in that scenario as far as like, Okay, I'm
going to be so anxious if I don't exercise today,
it's kind of thinking of the short term versus the
long term big picture. Short term, yes, if we're the
goal is maybe to not exercise tomorrow is like a
challenge to work through some of the compulsive exercise or
over exercise. You probably are going to be really anxious
(09:41):
and we can talk about how to handle that. But
in the long run, like you said, it's so much
better the freedom you feel better about movement, you feel
better overall. But short term it can feel really overwhelming,
So trying to think of like the big picture a
little longer term. Short term, yeah, I'm going to be
really uncomfortable. Long term, I'm going to feel a lot better.
And you know, prioritizing sleep is something that is both
(10:04):
for me has been a gift in recovery because I
used to if I hadn't gotten my workout in, even
if it was eleven PM, I would stay up and
work out. But now I have that permission to not
and so I'm able to just if I didn't get
the workout in, even if I had planned it for
the day and I was hopeful for that, if it
didn't happen, I can lay down and know that I
(10:27):
am going to be okay. Totally. At that point, it
isn't even doing what you're trying to do, like the
exercise at eleven PM, or when we're not prioritizing sleep
and you're getting up at like three am to go
do whatever and you've only slept four hours. Your body
is under such a state of stress. Now we haven't
gotten enough sleep. You're anxious about working out and stressing
about that, and it's just it's not even healthy at
(10:49):
that point. It's actually doing the opposite. It's harming our
health overall versus helping. And I think of different weekends
where I've had friends in or I've gone to visit friends,
and I've prioritized to work out. I think, if there's
something you enjoy doing and you're in a town and
like there's a beautiful lake you can run around, Okay,
sure schedule a run. Or there's your favorite yoga instructor
(11:11):
is in this city and you're visiting, Okay, schedule that.
I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about where I've
been maybe somewhere for forty eight hours, and I knew
both of those days I was getting in some sort
of workout and the friend I was with didn't really
work out, and that took time away and it just
was counter to what I was actually trying to accomplish there.
(11:32):
But I had to face the music that my eating
disorder actually made me incredibly selfish at times, and because
you're I was very hyper focused on that and I
would miss out on connection because I had to get
in a workout totally, and that you know, there's so
many like layers to the exercise piece. I think with
(11:53):
eating to sort of recovery because it might be you know,
over exercise or compulsive exercise. It might be kind of
like what you just mentioned, more obligatory exercise, so like
I have to do this, I cannot miss a day.
And then it could also be exercise resistance, which I
feel like isn't always talked about as much, but where
for a variety of reasons, someone might not be exercising
(12:13):
at all throughout their journey and then we have to
work towards some some movement in the future. Oh yeah, no,
I don't think we've ever talked about exercise resistance here. Yeah,
it can show up in a lot. I think firstly,
someone who may be overexercised for a long time. This
is just one example. I'm thinking of they and they're
eating disorder, the over exercise, and then where they are
(12:34):
taking a break throughout recovery, and then there's some resistance
to get back into movement because the fear of going
back to that place of over exercise or just not
finding things you enjoy or you've just enjoyed resting and
you don't it's not a priority anymore. You don't want
to do any sort of exercise now, which is totally okay.
I used to UM say often like just find a
(12:56):
way to move. Early on in my recovery, I'm like,
it doesn't matter what it looks like, just find a
way to move, because I think I was still doing
like tracking my steps, which is another thing that I
eventually had to let go of, because I remember at
night sometimes I would be pacing from my bathroom to
my room just to make sure that I hit my
step goal before I climbed into my bed. So it's
(13:17):
so weird that sometimes I pace around my kitchen just
to get those steps. But anyway, it was very much
even though I was easing into recovery, I was still
trying to encourage people to move. And it's really not
my place to ever tell anybody to move because I
don't know their full story and I don't know where
they're coming from. And the big picture of health was
(13:37):
always painted for us that it's like food and exercise.
And you even posted a graphic about this on Instagram.
You can find Melissa all the foods s r d s.
But you said, what diet culture and wellness culture says
determined health? And there's two bullet points food exercise and
then what actually impacts our health genetics, stress, sleep, access
(14:03):
to food, connections environment, food, exercise, relationship with food, time outdoors, education,
access to healthcare. Like, there's so many different things going
on for each individual and what that means and looks
like in the different life experiences that we had. So, yeah,
you just have to tap into yourself and where you
are in the journey and hopefully if you have access
(14:26):
to consult with someone that can guide you along. Even
if someone means well, if you have that exercise resistance.
I I we have never discussed this, so I'm just
kind of thinking through how I know in the early days,
I thought I was being helpful saying I wasn't saying
go out and run or take the striper hard class
and like just go for a walk, whatever you're doing
(14:46):
to move your body each day. But I've since learned
that actually might not be helpful for someone to hear. Yeah,
it could also look like exercise resistance, maybe not necessarily resistance,
but just I guess it kind of is just that
word kind of feels weird in the situation. But maybe
you know someone living in a larger body that feels
uncomfortable going to a yoga studio where primarily everyone there
(15:08):
is in a thin body um, and there's not any
like modifications given to fit their body types, so they're
not sure how to move and they feel uncomfortable, and
it's just a hard situation to walk into that and
not have um someone there to support you and whatnot,
or moving hurts in whatever way that they're trying to move.
So I think there's a lot there's a lot of
like nuances to to that piece. I guess, yeah, so
(15:31):
much to consider for sure. Well, Melissa, thank you for
talking through exercise and recovery and having a healthy relationship
with that. Is there any closing thoughts you'd like to add?
I think we kind of covered most of it. I
think just that the primary things would be looking for
things that you enjoy that naturally feel good and not
(15:51):
focusing on it changing your body or weight in any way. Well,
closed with one more Instagram posts that you put up
that it was just a cute little reminder graphic that
said a healthy relationship with exercise means a day off
or a week off or a break from exercise for
however long doesn't cause anxiety. And then in the caption
(16:14):
you put not exercising isn't going to cause anxiety. If
we have a healthy relationship with movement. If you can't
take a day off or miss a workout for a
social event, or rest more just because you want to
or because of an injury, it might be time to
take a look at your relationship with movement and your body.
(16:35):
So if hitting a chord with anybody, it's okay, You're
not alone. It's just time to do some reflection and
then maybe have some conversations. Totally awesome. Okay, well, thank you, Melissa,
and Melissa will be back next Saturday and we're going
to talk about how to handle ways to recover in
a diet obsessed, toxic culture because like, yes, everywhere you turned,
(17:00):
I mean, the diet industry is like a bazillion dollars
and fun fact, I used to work at a weight
lost clinic in college. Okay, I was all up in it.
I had no idea. So we'll see you all next Saturday.
I
I won't let my body outly outweigh 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 then will always out way if you
(00:24):
feel it with your hands in the air. She's some
love to the boom there. Let's say good day and
time did you and die out? Happy Saturday. Outweigh fam
I am back with Melissa Giovanni. She's a registered dietitian
in Nashville and founder of Balanced Nutrition Counseling. If you
(00:45):
miss last week's episode, I encourage you to go listen.
We talked about living in a toxic environment. If you're
someone that is actively in recovery and you're around all
these triggers all the time, you might you might need
some some tools for your toolbox to help navigate some
of that. And you know, we're going to talk today
about something we've touched on before. But I love hearing
(01:07):
different experts and their thoughts around it and what they
like to encourage clients to do, because you never know
what little nuggets you're going to get that are different
and we're gonna talk about having a healthy relationship with
exercise while working on recovery, because depending on people's recovery puzzle,
let's call it that. I don't know, I just popped
(01:27):
into my head, Melissa. But there's different components. There's different pieces,
Like there's the big puzzles, like okay, the body image,
eating disorder, whatever was making that up. But then there's
like the food part. You have to let go of
different things, Like for me, I started to allow different
foods back in, so I let go of some of
the orthorexia, but I was still trying to control because
(01:47):
I used my fitness pal right like, I was letting
myself eat whatever, but I still was logging it and
still obsessing over you know, if I ate a waffle
that had one egg, but I it made seven waffles.
I was calculating the division of that egg kind of thing,
which is like not a fun place to me now
(02:09):
at all whatsoever. So there's that, you know, those are
different pieces to the puzzle. Then there's the workout piece.
It's like, oh, well, I used to going to the
gym was my buddy in my eating disorder. It's like
my life's little companion. Gonna, you know, forced me to
go to the gym today. Love it, even though I
was miserable half the time. But everyone has different things
(02:30):
that they do that make up their whole puzzle. And
I think it's very normal unless you can correct me
if I'm wrong, but to take it, you know, one
thing at a time, Like some people might be able
to like put that puzzle together and be like, okay,
this is my plan, but for me, it was a
slow role. I'm a sure slow learner, and I had
to take it one puzzle piece at a time. And
(02:51):
some of them I didn't even realize that they were
actually a problem until as I'm actively in recovery, like
a lightbulb went off of like, oh wait, this seems off,
this seems weird. And luckily I've I have expert friends
that I was able to confide in and say, hey,
I'm still kind of holding onto this thing. Is that weird?
Like I literally have to work out seven days a week,
(03:13):
but I think I'm doing it for my mental health.
And then they would help me unpack that and so
how do we have a healthy relationship with exercise? For
talking about that piece of the puzzle? Yeah, absolutely, I
think you're totally right that it is a slow process
and you can't just like tackle everything at the first
go of it. It's going to take some time. Healthy
(03:34):
relationship with exercise I personally think it's going to look
different for each individual person. So like somebody without a
neating disorder, or maybe someone who's never struggled with food
or exercise might be able to have an exercise plan
where they know what they're doing the whole week. They
have it set out, they're going to these classes, are
doing this X, Y Z at the gym, While someone
(03:57):
who has gone through recovery or is working on recovery,
that might be pretty triggering because if X happens and
they miss a day, they feel a ton of guilt
and anxiety and aren't able to eat that day. So
I think it really just depends on the person and
what your healthy relationship with exercises going to look like,
and it's important to take time to define that with
(04:19):
your team, if you're working with a dietitian and a
therapist and figure out what is that going to look
like for you and writing that down doing things that
you enjoy I think is one piece of that puzzle.
So not dreading. Whatever it is that you're doing for
a movement is important. Thinking about is this movement that
takes energy but also gives me energy back? It's not
(04:39):
just taking energy and making me feel really drained and
I hate it. That's not going to be helpful or
a healthy thing to do. Oh not doing movement that hurts.
So if someone maybe you really enjoy running but it
hurts your knees, that's not I can give you an example. Yeah,
I trained for a marathon and call ledge and I'm
(05:00):
pretty sure it was for the sole purpose of like,
if I trained for a marathon, I'm gonna lose so
much weight, and I completely messed up my knee in
the process. Yes, I ran twenty six point two miles.
I did not lose any weight. In fact, I think
I gained because I was eating like so many carps,
which carps are not bad, but because I was restricting
and binging. I was binging on the carps, so there
(05:21):
was no balance there at all whatsoever. It just I
had it all backwards. My motives were completely off. But
then I was too locked into the challenge and I
didn't want to quit even though my knee was killing
me and I had to take um like I view profen,
you know, every four miles. My mom and my boyfriend
at the time, we're meeting me at different benchmarks to
hand me more and I was just popping them. But
(05:44):
I'm like, you know what, I'm going to do this marathon,
and it's totally backfired on me, and I was miserable
and it sucked. And then also another example of that
would be everyone was doing CrossFit at some point and
I just thought, oh, which for some people, CrossFit is
cool and it is the thing and it's their jam.
It was not my jam. But I thought, oh, I'm
gonna do all this. I'm gonna burn all these calories.
And I was torturing myself and like, I literally think
(06:06):
I injured my tailbone because I feel like I have
a tiny little tail, like some people don't have that
bone that sticks out, but you know, like boone pose
at yoga, I cannot do that because of my bone
the way it sticks out. It feels like a little tail,
which I don't know if that means I have a
(06:27):
tail or not. Some of my like my daughter feels
and she's like, what is this bone? And I'm like,
I don't know. My bone just feels weird. But anyway,
I remember me at cross fit and I rubbed that
little bone, like that skin on my tailbone raw. But
I was like, this is the workout of the season
and everyone's doing it, and this is what is getting
everybody fit. So I have to be doing CrossFit even
(06:49):
though I was miserable and my tailbone, my tail bone
was raw. Yeah, which is good example. Yeah, the running,
the CrossFit whatever in sart, whatever it is for you,
hey listener, like whatever you've been forcing yourself to do
even though you're miserable, that's it, Yes, totally. And it's
so normalized, like no pain, no gain, you know, like
(07:12):
the fitness type culture. I mean, it's super normalized that, oh,
you know, just push through it, you'll be okay. You know,
that's you're going to get results if you keep doing it.
So unfortunately, that's super normalized. And then I think thinking
of the other reasons or actually not even other, just
like healthy reasons that you are going to move your body.
(07:33):
So what are the reasons that we do this, Like
you mentioned you kind of we're telling yourself that it
was for your mental health, but maybe it wasn't at
that time. But for mental health could be a healthy
reason to to move our body because it feels good.
It gives us energy for our overall health and well
being to feel strong, well for my mental health. I
(07:53):
did think I needed to go because I thought I
was going to go crazy if I didn't, because if
I didn't work out. I spy rolled into like what
is going to happen to my body? And I got
so in a way, Yes it was for mental health.
But what's a mantra or something we can say to
ourselves to start rewiring our brain that that is not true?
Like it actually is not true. I will be fine
(08:16):
if I don't go to the gym. But I don't
know if there's like a cuter mantra or way to
say that of Like on the last episode you you
gave us one. I was like, Oh, maybe there's something
that we just keep in our pocket to say it's
not a sin if you don't go to the gym.
I love that. That's probably not good. I don't have
a great mantra for that one. But that's a good one.
(08:38):
You're not gonna die if you stop training for the try, right, Yes,
that's a good one. Yeah, you used to do triathlons too.
I don't know, come up with your own little sing,
but just know that it's very normal if you're having
those thoughts, and that can be the tricky part because
you're trying to also. Yes, it seems mental at the time,
(08:59):
but of freedom you're going to feel once you're able
to let go of that is I just want to
offer you that there is hope, because I know it
seems so far off because you maybe have been working
out this hardcore for twenty years or more. I think
(09:19):
the other thing to remind yourself it's not a mantra,
but in that scenario as far as like, Okay, I'm
going to be so anxious if I don't exercise today,
it's kind of thinking of the short term versus the
long term big picture. Short term, yes, if we're the
goal is maybe to not exercise tomorrow is like a
challenge to work through some of the compulsive exercise or
over exercise. You probably are going to be really anxious
(09:41):
and we can talk about how to handle that. But
in the long run, like you said, it's so much
better the freedom you feel better about movement, you feel
better overall. But short term it can feel really overwhelming,
So trying to think of like the big picture a
little longer term. Short term, yeah, I'm going to be
really uncomfortable. Long term, I'm going to feel a lot better.
And you know, prioritizing sleep is something that is both
(10:04):
for me has been a gift in recovery because I
used to if I hadn't gotten my workout in, even
if it was eleven PM, I would stay up and
work out. But now I have that permission to not
and so I'm able to just if I didn't get
the workout in, even if I had planned it for
the day and I was hopeful for that, if it
didn't happen, I can lay down and know that I
(10:27):
am going to be okay. Totally. At that point, it
isn't even doing what you're trying to do, like the
exercise at eleven PM, or when we're not prioritizing sleep
and you're getting up at like three am to go
do whatever and you've only slept four hours. Your body
is under such a state of stress. Now we haven't
gotten enough sleep. You're anxious about working out and stressing
about that, and it's just it's not even healthy at
(10:49):
that point. It's actually doing the opposite. It's harming our
health overall versus helping. And I think of different weekends
where I've had friends in or I've gone to visit friends,
and I've prioritized to work out. I think, if there's
something you enjoy doing and you're in a town and
like there's a beautiful lake you can run around, Okay,
sure schedule a run. Or there's your favorite yoga instructor
(11:11):
is in this city and you're visiting, Okay, schedule that.
I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about where I've
been maybe somewhere for forty eight hours, and I knew
both of those days I was getting in some sort
of workout and the friend I was with didn't really
work out, and that took time away and it just
was counter to what I was actually trying to accomplish there.
(11:32):
But I had to face the music that my eating
disorder actually made me incredibly selfish at times, and because
you're I was very hyper focused on that and I
would miss out on connection because I had to get
in a workout totally, and that you know, there's so
many like layers to the exercise piece. I think with
(11:53):
eating to sort of recovery because it might be you know,
over exercise or compulsive exercise. It might be kind of
like what you just mentioned, more obligatory exercise, so like
I have to do this, I cannot miss a day.
And then it could also be exercise resistance, which I
feel like isn't always talked about as much, but where
for a variety of reasons, someone might not be exercising
(12:13):
at all throughout their journey and then we have to
work towards some some movement in the future. Oh yeah, no,
I don't think we've ever talked about exercise resistance here. Yeah,
it can show up in a lot. I think firstly,
someone who may be overexercised for a long time. This
is just one example. I'm thinking of they and they're
eating disorder, the over exercise, and then where they are
(12:34):
taking a break throughout recovery, and then there's some resistance
to get back into movement because the fear of going
back to that place of over exercise or just not
finding things you enjoy or you've just enjoyed resting and
you don't it's not a priority anymore. You don't want
to do any sort of exercise now, which is totally okay.
I used to UM say often like just find a
(12:56):
way to move. Early on in my recovery, I'm like,
it doesn't matter what it looks like, just find a
way to move, because I think I was still doing
like tracking my steps, which is another thing that I
eventually had to let go of, because I remember at
night sometimes I would be pacing from my bathroom to
my room just to make sure that I hit my
step goal before I climbed into my bed. So it's
(13:17):
so weird that sometimes I pace around my kitchen just
to get those steps. But anyway, it was very much
even though I was easing into recovery, I was still
trying to encourage people to move. And it's really not
my place to ever tell anybody to move because I
don't know their full story and I don't know where
they're coming from. And the big picture of health was
(13:37):
always painted for us that it's like food and exercise.
And you even posted a graphic about this on Instagram.
You can find Melissa all the foods s r d s.
But you said, what diet culture and wellness culture says
determined health? And there's two bullet points food exercise and
then what actually impacts our health genetics, stress, sleep, access
(14:03):
to food, connections environment, food, exercise, relationship with food, time outdoors, education,
access to healthcare. Like, there's so many different things going
on for each individual and what that means and looks
like in the different life experiences that we had. So, yeah,
you just have to tap into yourself and where you
are in the journey and hopefully if you have access
(14:26):
to consult with someone that can guide you along. Even
if someone means well, if you have that exercise resistance.
I I we have never discussed this, so I'm just
kind of thinking through how I know in the early days,
I thought I was being helpful saying I wasn't saying
go out and run or take the striper hard class
and like just go for a walk, whatever you're doing
(14:46):
to move your body each day. But I've since learned
that actually might not be helpful for someone to hear. Yeah,
it could also look like exercise resistance, maybe not necessarily resistance,
but just I guess it kind of is just that
word kind of feels weird in the situation. But maybe
you know someone living in a larger body that feels
uncomfortable going to a yoga studio where primarily everyone there
(15:08):
is in a thin body um, and there's not any
like modifications given to fit their body types, so they're
not sure how to move and they feel uncomfortable, and
it's just a hard situation to walk into that and
not have um someone there to support you and whatnot,
or moving hurts in whatever way that they're trying to move.
So I think there's a lot there's a lot of
like nuances to to that piece. I guess, yeah, so
(15:31):
much to consider for sure. Well, Melissa, thank you for
talking through exercise and recovery and having a healthy relationship
with that. Is there any closing thoughts you'd like to add?
I think we kind of covered most of it. I
think just that the primary things would be looking for
things that you enjoy that naturally feel good and not
(15:51):
focusing on it changing your body or weight in any way. Well,
closed with one more Instagram posts that you put up
that it was just a cute little reminder graphic that
said a healthy relationship with exercise means a day off
or a week off or a break from exercise for
however long doesn't cause anxiety. And then in the caption
(16:14):
you put not exercising isn't going to cause anxiety. If
we have a healthy relationship with movement. If you can't
take a day off or miss a workout for a
social event, or rest more just because you want to
or because of an injury, it might be time to
take a look at your relationship with movement and your body.
(16:35):
So if hitting a chord with anybody, it's okay, You're
not alone. It's just time to do some reflection and
then maybe have some conversations. Totally awesome. Okay, well, thank you, Melissa,
and Melissa will be back next Saturday and we're going
to talk about how to handle ways to recover in
a diet obsessed, toxic culture because like, yes, everywhere you turned,
(17:00):
I mean, the diet industry is like a bazillion dollars
and fun fact, I used to work at a weight
lost clinic in college. Okay, I was all up in it.
I had no idea. So we'll see you all next Saturday.
I
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