Episode 18: How do I reincorporate exercise into my life?

In this week’s episode, Jessica is discussing the question, “How do I reincorporate exercise into my life?” We will be chatting about healthy exercise and joyful movement. So often exercise can be tied to weight loss, and we will be discussing how we can break that cycle.

Want to break the emotional eating cycle yourself?  Join Jessica in the Connected Eating Program.

Connect with Jessica on Instagram: @shiftnutritioncounselling

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Intro

Welcome to the art and science of eating. I’m Jessica Begg, registered dietician and clinical counsellor. I worked for fifteen years in programs for the treatment of eating disorders. I now help those that struggle with emotional eating and their relationship with their body. This podcast is where I answer questions to help people along this bumpy journey to creating peace with both food and their body. 

Podcast

Do you hear that on that side?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“That’s interesting. Well okay, I am ready.”

“Okay, I am ready too. Actually, I should lead you in first. I’m the worst podcaster. I love the conversations, but I hate the act of recording and putting it on and all that kind of stuff.

Welcome Nicole, thanks for coming onto the podcast.”

“Thank you.”

“I heard you had a question.”

“I do, I do. I guess my question is really around exercise.

When I sought treatment for my eating disorder last fall, one of the things that I was realizing when I was educating myself about Health at Every Size and intuitive eating is just the way in which diet culture really dictated my beliefs around exercise. It really intertwines exercise and weight loss.

I started to realize that I had this expectation that if I was working out, I would be losing weight. So the cycle of what happened is I would start working out and, quote unquote, eating healthy, and I wouldn’t see results either way by not losing weight. Then I would become discouraged, and one of them would fall off — either I would stop exercising or I would stop eating healthy.

So there was this expectation that I had put on myself that not only am I exercising, I am eating perfectly and I’m losing weight. And when I was not able to deliver on all fronts, it would be really discouraging and really disappointing.

So over the last few months, when I initially sought treatment, I made the decision that I was going to stop all formal forms of exercise in a gym or anything like that because I had seen that I was setting up these expectations for myself.

I’ve really just been doing more light movement, like walking my dog and doing some gentle yoga. But in recent months, I’ve really been craving exercise in a more formal setting — getting a good sweat going, building up some strength, and really diving back into that world. But I’m a little bit nervous I might fall back into the old ways.

So I guess my question is: how do you separate the belief that when you exercise, you lose weight? How do you separate those two things — exercise and weight loss?”

“Yeah, because you’re right, they’re so tightly linked.

People do these things where they’re like, ‘Okay, I’m going to do this whole thing — hurrah! — focus on my food and my exercise.’ So when one goes off, the other one falls off with it too. That makes sense.

I like how you made that break from exercise so that you could really re-evaluate your relationship with activity because it had become part of this self-harm cycle of, ‘I’m doing this as some sort of punishment,’ even though it has this guise of being healthy.

Often it’s employed in these self-harm ways: ‘I’m going to work out this prescribed amount,’ or ‘no pain, no gain,’ and all these things that are really not nice.

So often people will even sever themselves from activity entirely because even the thought of it feels so harmful that they don’t want to do it anymore. So I like how you’re considering going back into it.

And you’re right — how do we do it?

First things first, I always question the gym and maybe toxic gym culture, because I’ve found it really difficult to create a happy relationship with your body in that space. People are probably going to come at me who are religious about going to the gym, but I just find there are lots of mirrors, machines with numbers, and a focus on changing the body — that I am doing this for weight loss.

So I think the first thing to evaluate is: am I thinking about going into spaces that may not feel safe to simply exist in my body?

The second thing I would think about is how to separate the connection between diet and exercise. This idea of calories in, calories out, or that exercise is to change your body.

Because when you put those layers of expectation on yourself, you’re not doing it for things that will actually be motivating in the long run.

For instance, if you’re going to the gym and thinking, ‘Okay, well I’m going to do this to lose X amount of pounds,’ we know that just plays into the weight-cycling cycle. There’s all sorts of disappointment. Basically, it’s setting yourself up for disappointment, so it’s not going to be a sustainable practice.

You go to the gym trying to lose weight, it doesn’t happen, or it doesn’t happen the way you want it to, or your weight remains the same. It’s using outcomes that are not really fulfilling.

However, if you can separate it from that — and separate it from food too, and I’ll get to sports nutrition in a minute — then exercise becomes a separate spoke on this wheel of self-care and health.

We exercise not to change our body, but in the same way we brush our teeth. We brush our teeth to maintain oral health, which is connected to heart health and all sorts of other things. You brush your teeth — not calories in, calories out.

And to me, exercise is like that. It should be for things like keeping your legs strong, keeping your arms strong, so that you can do the activities you want to do.

For me, it’s keeping my body strong so I can sit here for long periods of time doing my job. I need to stretch and move in order to maintain my body and be able to do the things that I do.

There’s maintenance in that regard, just like brushing your teeth.

If we can keep exercise in that realm, then it makes more sense, and it becomes something we can maintain because it’s connected to how our body feels.

If I’m sitting at my desk and not stretching forever, there are pains and other signals I can cue into — just like with hunger and fullness cues around food. Activity has those same kinds of cues. Like, ‘Oh, my back is kind of tight and sore.’

So maybe going for some walks or stretching makes intuitive sense. It makes us forget that disheartening relationship with activity.”

“Yeah, yeah. I find even my motivation for wanting to get back into some sort of formal exercise is way different than it used to be.

I mean, I still have the little voice in the back of my head saying, ‘Nicole, look this way.’ But I think the vast majority of my motivation is coming from wanting to feel strong and wanting to be more in tune with my body.

So it’s difficult, and I think that’s where the hesitation comes from in actually going back to the gym. Is this going to be a really triggering experience for me?

One of the things I’ve been looking into is whether there are any body-positive gyms in the Vancouver area, and unfortunately there’s not much. And the ones that do exist are really expensive.

There’s definitely a space for that, but it’s just not really attainable unfortunately.”

“Yeah, and it might even be looking at activities that are less focused in that way.

I think that’s also about reframing your idea of what activity could be.

When people are doing those big pushes — ‘I’m going to do this new exercise regimen and it’s going to come with this meal plan’ — they often think that’s what activity has to look like because that’s what they’ve done in the past.”

“Yeah.”

“But activity could just be making play dates basically. Meeting up with your friends and going for hikes, going swimming. It doesn’t necessarily have to be signing up for something formal.

And again, just like our connection with food, we don’t eat the exact same way from week to week. Exercise can ebb and flow with the seasons too.

It’s summertime right now, so we can be outside more and do those kinds of things. Maybe in the wintertime there are different activities you enjoy.

There are also little ways you can find strength and movement in everyday life.

I have a client who was incredibly active in her day-to-day life but felt that because she wasn’t doing what she considered ‘exercise,’ she wasn’t an active person. But she really was.

She was gardening, stretching between meetings, going for walks. There were all sorts of things she was doing that she was undervaluing as activity.”

“Yeah, I think it’s tough to get your mindset into acknowledging that some things you do on a day-to-day basis are actually physical movement because we’re trained to think you have to be going 100% in order to get any sort of results.”

“Yeah, because that’s the shift too, right? Because it’s not about getting results.

And when you say ‘results,’ immediately my brain goes to weight loss, right? Like, ‘What’s the point if I’m not losing weight? What’s the point of doing activity?’

And I think that’s where the black-and-white thinking comes from.

Well yeah, if you’re working out purely for weight loss, then there is no point once weight loss isn’t happening. But when you open it up to maintaining your strength, agility, flexibility, and all sorts of other things, then suddenly it becomes: ‘Oh actually, there are lots of ways to maintain my body.’

And it could be as simple as gardening. I mean, gardening can actually be really physically demanding depending on how big your yard is. Though in Vancouver it’s usually a couple of pots.

But you can absolutely be active without doing those big intense pushes you may have done in the past.”

“Yeah, I think it’s just about finding something that’s going to work for me. So I think I need to try a few different options, but at least my mindset has shifted way more than it was back in the fall.”

“Yeah, yeah. Great.

You know what I would also suggest, as you’re approaching this idea and because you’ve taken a nice long break from it, is thinking about how to do it in really comfortable ways.

This is the other cautionary thing to note. Sometimes when people return to activity after a break, their idea is, ‘I’ve got to get back to the way I was before,’ and that often means going right back into those big pushes.

So again, rethink it through this lens that activity can happen in all sorts of ways, but also ask yourself: how do I do this in a really self-care, nurturing way as I reintroduce it into my life?

For some people it might simply be: let’s just get my shoes on and allow myself to go for a walk for as long as I feel like.

Not a prescribed thing like, ‘Okay, get your shoes on, you’ve got to walk for 20 minutes,’ in these rigid ways.

My thought would be to approach it gently, the same way you’d warm someone up to any new idea. Like, ‘Why don’t you come outside and take a look? Bring your shoes and just see. We’ll be here for as long as you like, and then we can come back.’

That way you keep recreating positive experiences with movement again.

As soon as you don’t like it, or as soon as it feels uncomfortable, you stop and go back. So your brain learns: ‘Okay, I only have to do as much as I like.’

And then movement becomes fun again.”

“Yeah. Great place to start. Fun for sure.”

“Good, good. I look forward to hearing how it goes.”

“Thank you.”

“Thanks Nicole. Anything else that you wanted to ask?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Okay good, thanks for coming on.”

“No problem. Thank you.”

“Take care.”

Disclaimer

This podcast is for education and information purposes only. Please consult your own healthcare team to discuss what is right for you and your care.