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| 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
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