How long have you been doing everything in your power to work against your body??
For me, it started at six and never really stopped until I was in my 20s. And for the sake 100% honesty – I didn’t stop because I wanted to.. I stopped because I absolutely had to.
I had gotten dangerously unhealthy. I wasn’t technically under weight, but my hair was falling out in clumps everywhere. I was also in constant pain not just from my leg but from other injuries that would not heal. I was also so hormonally imbalanced that I will be on medication for the foreseeable future and possibly forever. Not to mention I was constantly tired, constantly hungry, and constantly in a bad mood.
My body was screaming for me to listen to it for years, but I refused to listen. That is – until one night I went for a run, and the pain got so bad I had to sit down on the side of the road in my neighborhood. I blacked out there for a few minutes and when I came to I realized that what I was doing was incredibly dangerous and I could not keep doing it. It wasn’t even the first time I have blacked out from the pain and malnutrition. I’d been doing it for months at the gym and sometimes I would even puke mid work out from the pain. Running at night as a woman is already a little scary but add in possibly blacking out on the side of the road and it was something I never wanted to experience again.
Since that day, I’ve seen several doctors, hired my own dietitian, and done a LOT of self work. I’d had coaches before this point, but the goals and plans were always focused around making myself smaller. They always had rules that were slightly unrealistic and easily broken. And the goal was never to build a sustainable lifestyle tailored to me.
Now, my goals look entirely different. Yes, of course, I still wanna look and feel good in my skin, but ultimately I want to be healthy. I want to work with my body rather than fight her. Sure, that still means eating lots of vegetables and fruits and whole-grains and moving regularly. But it also means having pizza when it sounds good. And I think there’s currently 4 pints of ice cream in my freezer. However, I no longer feel the obsessive need to eat the entire pint or the ice cream at all just because it’s in my house.
Working with my body has been a radically different process than anything I’ve ever done before. Fad diets and the diet industry is designed for you to work against your body. They set you up for failure time and time again but somehow convince you to continue signing on for more diets, because eventually one has to work, right? Unfortunately, no it absolutely does not have to work.
What does work in a long-term sustainable way is building behaviors and habits tailored to your ideal lifestyle and your wants and needs. This is what I have had to do for myself (with a lot of help). And it’s what I do for my clients every single day. The good news is – I know it’s working because not only do I feel better, but I went and got a haircut earlier this week and even my hairdresser commented on the fact that my hair is growing back and actually feels like it used to feel before it started falling out. Plus, my clients regularly text me after they graduated to tell me how good they still feel and how the program still works for them.
If you’re tired, sometimes literally, of fighting against your body trying to achieve your goals; that I invite you to try something different – try working with your body.
