Guilt Food and Exercise: When does getting healthy become unhealthy?



Ads like these do not encourage us to listen to our bodies!

How would you describe your relationship to food and exercise? Is your approach healthy and balanced, or ridged, obsessive and extreme? Are you enjoying your life, and is exercise and healthy eating a part of your overall lifestyle that brings you fulfillment? Or is it something that takes up a lot of your time and energy (physically, mentally and emotionally)- a constant heavy weight of guilt over either eating something "wrong" or "bad" or for not exercising 'enough'?

There was a time in my life, I thought my habits and fixations were healthy, and I was just more health conscious than others around me. I was passionate and determined to eat perfectly, and exercise perfectly to have a perfect body. I hated what I saw in the mirror after having 3 kids, and I was determined to beat my body into submission.

One of my defining moments (there were many along the way) but this one in particular was coming across and article online, that changed my course forever. As I was reading the words, I felt this feeling of peace and relief wash over me- I finally understood why I had this love hate relationship with my body, and food. I ordered the book by the author of the article called Health Food Junkies and that was the beginning of my healing from my many disordered eating behaviors and patterns.

While I have come a long way, there are still times I find myself travelling down that slippery slope, however today I can catch myself before I go too far sideways. I always remind myself that whatever I am doing, my intention is always about health, and health is about balance. It is OK to miss a day of exercise, it is OK to have a treat, or eat fries in a restaurant, or not eat perfectly balanced sometimes. In the past I was very rigid and controlling around food and what I would allow myself to eat. I would go through the cycle of restricting and binge eating, dieting, over exercising and back again around it would go. Living in this way caused me many years of great suffering, anxiety and stress around something that really doesn't have to be so complicated. If I find myself feeling guilty or "bad" for not eating my daily quota of veggies in a day, or for missing my serving of kale, I can just let it go now whereas before it would consume me if I didn't eat perfectly that day - or had some of my "forbidden foods".

As I was reflecting today, on the fact that this is the third day in a row I have not exercised (because I have simply not had the energy), I noticed some old familiar feelings of guilt surfacing. This used to be a much bigger problem for me, that ate up much of my days focus, planning my eating and caloric intake to be in balance with calories burned. The guilt that would follow after eating a "bad" food was almost unbearable. To relieve the guilt and anxiety, I would either vow to start a new diet the very next day, or try to out-exercise the extra calories I consumed that day. It was insanity!

I was noticing that while I was feeling this "I should go run on the treadmill even though I am exhausted" urge, I heard my inner voice telling me "it is OK to rest, you will get back on track" and I was able to let it go.

I know this is a very common struggle for so many women, in varying levels of severity, and I feel it is part of my purpose to share my story and experiences with this and help women who are struggling  in any way with this painful . It is a very difficult world to live in, when you are experiencing an eating disorder. It's like being in your own personal torture chamber, with you being the one doing the torturing!

Here is a comment I was reading today on a blog I follow, that sparked this post I am writing: Keep in mind, this was written by a girl who is 16 or 17! These are all red flags to eating disorder behaviors!

"I definitely experience exercise guilt. sometimes it’s not that bad, like if I have exercised for 10 days straight or something, then I can take a day off without feeling TOO bad about it. I try to justify it by telling myself that my body needs a break, but I still feel as though I should keep trucking along. the worst, though, is after I indulge. For example, I graduated high school on Saturday and to celebrate we went out to the cheesecake factory and I had a whole piece of cheesecake WITH ice cream! it tasted amazing, but when I had to work for 5 hours on Sunday and didn’t get to go to the gym, I felt terrible guilt. like I ate way too many calories the night before and if I didn’t burn them off by running 5 miles I was going to gain weight and not be happy. " -unknown
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This makes me so sad, to know that so many girls and women struggle with this disorder, often in silence. We have to break the silence, and start talking about this with our daughters and other women! We have to love ourselves completely, and know that we are damn good enough love handles, cellulite and all!

Yes, we should strive to be healthy, and yes part of health IS a healthy body weight and proper nutritional habits- but there a point to where it can become unhealthy and is actually emotionally based coping behavior. It is essential to work with a professional who understands the vital link between our unhealed emotional wounds and eating disorders. 

So how do we distinguish between a healthy approach and an unhealthy approach?

I encourage you to reflect on these questions:

Is your food and exercise routine extreme? (Any time we are extreme in any area of our lives, we are definitely out of balance.) Do you exercise intensively more than 3-4 days/week? Do you take rest days in between intense workouts? Do you push through your workouts whether tired, ill or injured? If you miss a workout do you feel agitated or irritable?
Are you doing what you do out of love for yourself, just as you are now, simply because you want to feel good and treat your body well? Or are you doing it because of self-loathing and a desire to punish yourself in some way, or reach an ideal or perfect body shape? Are you fixated on the scale and what the numbers say?
Does what you are doing feel good to you? Does it make you happy? Do you love the exercise you are doing or do you grumble through it no matter how you are feeling that day? Do you enjoy playing around with new recipes, and finding new healthy foods to try and incorporate or is it something you feel you HAVE to do perfectly all of the time?

Look deep inside your heart, and get real with yourself. Where are you at? Do you need to do some inner reflection and reassess some things? Reach out for support and guidance?

The mind and body are connected. If the mind is unwell, so will be the body. To heal from this pattern, we must heal it from within. It's really not about the extra inches or imperfections we see in the mirror, it is a chronic lack of self-love, and past trauma and emotional wounds which need to be healed.

It is not easy, but I promise you, it is absolutely worth it. As a mother of two daughters, I want them to never, ever have the experiences I had living with this struggle. I teach them to love and to listen to their body, and feed it well, and appreciate what healthy food does for our bodies, and why it's the quality of our food that matters, NOT the calories or carbohydrates. These are the greatest lessons we can model for our daughters! They are watching and listening to everything we say and do!


I work with women experiencing unhealthy eating behaviors. Chronic dieting, binge eating and restrictive eating patterns are signs of an unhealthy relationship to food.

I can assist YOU toward a healthier path to finding balance, and healing the root cause so you can finally be free.

Work with me:

~Leanne Oaten
Registered Holistic Counsellor
250-319-3630
leanneoaten.com
info@leanneoaten.com

Unhealthy intimate relationship beliefs that are affecting your happiness

When it comes to relationships, especially love relationships, things can get really, messy, and overcomplicated. Our past, unresolved pain and unhealed wounds are often played out in our most intimate relationships, when we are looking to our 'special love' to fill whatever void is missing, or desperately trying to have a need fulfilled that we didn't have met with one (or both of our parents) in our formative years. Another aspect that causes relationship drama, pain and chaos, is that we are conditioned to believe (and live by) these unrealistic, and toxic "relationship rules" or ideas. 

Relationships are the best way to learn about ourselves, and who we are. And, if we are able to learn the lessons, even the most painful and seemingly impossible ones, we will grow in leaps and bounds individually, and as a couple. The huge piece here though, is that we should never enter into a new relationship, or stay in one that we are in because we feel we NEED this person for our very survival, but instead, that we choose to be with this person, because they enhance our lives in a positive way.

A healthy relationship is one where both people know that they could live without the other person, but they don't want to.

I have certainly experienced my share of pain and relationship drama over the past 20 or so years of my life, but it wasn't until I became more clear about the truth of what a healthy relationship is really about -and continue to deepen my understanding with greater clarity, that nobody can make me unhappy, unless I am already unhappy to begin with- that things really started to change for the better. Just as nobody and no thing can make me happy, unless I carry happiness inside.

I now see that through my own healing, that loving myself, taking ownership of my life experience, dropping the veil of self-protection, embracing my authentic self, and being more of who I want to be in the world, things go a lot smoother in my marriage and life in general.

I am so much happier when I turn the attention away from my husband (or anyone outside of myself) to make me happy, put the responsibility upon myself to make ME happy. It is a much better place to be, let me tell you!

On my quest in turning inward to learn the lessons I need to learn, and my determination to learn how have a healthy, vibrant, flourishing relationship, I have come to some conclusions about love and how easy it is to misuse a relationship to (unconsciously) serve our unmet needs from our childhood or past events that have occurred in our lives. Once I started to become clear of the patterns and how I was bringing the past into the present, it was like a light turned on in a dark room. I am now able to see when I am feeling or behaving from the past, and shift things to the present moment. It makes a huge difference when we are able to do this!

Here are some of the wacky relationship messages we hear all over the place, from relationship books and therapists, to well meaning relatives, to romance novels and movies, love songs, Hallmark cards, and everywhere in between that (I believe) are complete nonsense, and create all kinds of dysfunctional and codependent relationships! I cringe when I hear these messages in love songs on the radio, really I do. ;)

 See if any of these ring true in your relationship patterns, or in your belief system:

"He/she is my everything"
No other person should EVER be your everything! If you give this power away to someone else, and they choose to walk away, or the relationship doesn't last- what are you left with? Nothing? Really? Just think for a moment about how absurd this really is! Take the pressure off of your partner, he/she does not want to be your everything! It's your job to be your everything. Fill yourself up, and just feel appreciation and gratitude for this person who has chosen to share their life with you.

"You have my heart" or "I gave him/her my heart"
I read something the other day in passing that struck me..it said something to the affect of, if you give someone your whole heart, and they leave, does that mean they take your heart with them when they go?" How silly this sounds. Yes, we open our hearts, and give love, and act from love, and share love, but we do not give our hearts to anyone. There has to be a healthy balance of having an open heart that is free to love unconditionally, but also the ability to guard our hearts as well from the hurtful behaviors of another. Our heart (or heart chakra) can be too open, and when this is the case, we pour our love into everything and everyone (at the expense of ourselves) and feel deep pain when someone rejects us or leaves because we really do feel we gave our heart away. It can feel like this, but it is our responsibility to guard our hearts in a healthy way, without closing off to love and new experiences.

"I'd be lost without you" or "I can't live without you"
 This is the biggest reason so many women stay in toxic and abusive relationships, because they truly believe they are worthless, and that they would not survive without their partner. If you find yourself thinking this, ask yourself, is this absolutely the truth? Would I die without this person? Would my life cease to exist? Would I truly get lost somewhere in the middle of nowhere, if not for this person? (well this may be true for me actually, because I do have a poor sense of direction, and my husband has an internal GPS) but just think about how dis-empowering it feels for the person who truly believes their existence depends on another person! This is a sign that we are not in our true personal power, and need to spend some time and energy strengthening our inner being.

"Till death do us part" "together forever"
This is one message I have questioned my whole adult life. Maybe because I did not have healthy and stable relationships modeled for me to learn from while growing up, or maybe it's because it seems that marriage is just something you do because it's what seems like the right thing to do, then when it gets difficult so many people cut and run..but I do not believe in promising to stay with, or love someone forever. How can you commit something like this in good conscience? Circumstances change, people change, relationships dissolve, stuff happens. Relationships are hard, and sometimes the problems are too deeply ingrained to overcome together, and the healthiest thing to do is part ways. Not all marriages are meant to stay in tact for eternity.

Yes, we marry with the intention that it is forever, and we do all we can to grow individually and together for the sake of the marriage, and we take the vows seriously, and view marriage as a sacred union- but- I am not going to promise something I have no way to guarantee, because life is uncertain, I can not predict the future. My intention is to commit to the process, as long as it is healthy for all involved, and that more positive comes from the union than negative. Both people must be invested in the process for a relationship to grow and mature.

"I give myself to you"
We give our time, energy, love, kindness, and caring to another, but if we are actually giving our SELF to another, what does that actually mean? My heart, body and soul are no longer mine? We give aspects of our self, we share our self with our partner, but to give our sense- of -self away to another, is just plain toxic. In a healthy relationship, we have a healthy and intact sense of self, and it remains ours. Nobody can take this away, unless we allow it.


"I love him/her more than life itself"

To feel that you love someone more than your own life is a needy and toxic pattern in many relationships. When someone actually believe this, they will end up settling for less, and staying in relationships that are harmful to their well-being.

"He/she is the reason for all that I do" "He she is everything to me"
Sure this sounds lovely, but if you really think about it, do you want to be anyone's everything? How does it feel if you are the one living and pursuing all that you do, and doing all that you do-solely because of, and for another? A vulnerable newborn baby, and a small child that counts on us for everything, for their survival needs, yes we are their everything, but in a healthy, adult relationship no other person can be our everything. To believe this is insanity, and very unrealistic. To put this expectation and pressure on our partner is unfair. In relationships where someone really believes this to be true, and for whatever reason the relationship ends, they feel as if they really do have nothing, because they believed that the other person was their entire reason for existing. I have worked with clients in the aftermath of a relationship imbalance like this, and they suffered greatly because of it. Doesn't sound very pretty, does it? A healthy relationship involves two people coming together to compliment and balance one another's differences. Not to give endlessly at the expense of themselves.

And last but not least...

 "You complete me" "my other half" "we are one"

If you rely on anything or anyone outside of yourself to complete you and make you whole, you are totally screwed. You will never be truly happy, and will forever be at the mercy of another for however you are feeling if you believe they complete you. Don't give that kind of power away to anyone!

“The purpose of a relationship is not to have another who might complete you, but to have another with whom you might share your completeness.” — Neale Donald Walsch

If together you are one, then what were you before you came together? Two halves? This is one circumstance that two halves do not make a whole. It is an illusion. If you have two "half people" coming together in a relationship to make a whole person, desperate for completion through another, it will likely be a disaster. The couple will likely be very unhappy together, as well as be very uncomfortable with being apart! The reason is that you can never make yourself whole through another! Take back your personal power, and responsibility for making yourself whole, and let your partner off the hook.

In a nutshell, what all of these messages imply, are than unless we find 'the one' we are incomplete, lost, nothing, needy, dependent, and broken. No wonder people feel in a panic to find "the one" jumping from relationship to relationship because they are desperately seeking someone to fill the void within. Or, they feel desperate to keep "the one" they believe is their reason for being (even when this person may not be the healthiest option for their highest good) because they believe they will not survive alone.


The takeaway I hope you get from this, that applies to all conscious, healthy, thriving and flourishing intimate relationships, is that both partners must take 100% responsibility for their own personal growth, happiness and fulfillment. If we are ever looking to something, or someone outside of ourselves to fill us up and make us happy, we will forever feel empty, like a bottomless pit that nothing, and nobody can ever fill. Healthy relationships are formed when we develop a healthy relationship with our ~ self first. We must fill ourselves up from within, and feel so full and complete and comfortable within our own skin, and fully love who we are, to truly know what it means to love another, for we can not give to another, what we do not have within ourselves to begin with.

~Leanne


Leanne is a Holistic Counsellor & Soul-Centered Life Coach. She teaches regular classes related to whole being health, personal development and natural healing and offers one-to-one coaching programs.

Visit: www.soulworkcounselling.com for upcoming events.
Leanne can be reached at: 250-319-3630