episode 125: the missing piece to improving your relationship with food and your body
On episode 125 of the The Diet Diaries I'm talking about a recent experience I had in a yoga class and why movement is one of the most powerful, transformative tools when it comes to improving negative body image and your relationship with food.
My newer listeners may not know that I taught yoga and movement for nearly 9 years before transitioning into coaching. So the power of movement is very close to my heart both personally and professionally.
In today’s episode I introduce the concept of our thinking mind and our observing mind and how these 2 minds work together or against each other to shape our responses and reactions to our thoughts.
Here's what you'll hear in episode 125 on using movement to improve negative body image:
The difference between the observing mind and the thinking mind
The type of exercise I do and why I do it
The role of the observing mind in movement
What it means to get out of your head and into your body
How being in your body connects to what, why and how you eat
What we're really good at feeling and what we need to get better at feeling
How movement becomes a tool to cope with negative body image, negative self talk and disordered eating behavior
Why movement is not just about exercise
How to think about exercise outside of calories burned/weight loss
I also share more about my own journey with exercise, what it was like to go from taking yoga to teaching yoga and how I use movement to work through my own body image insecurities.
If you want to learn more, take a look at this blog post that outlines 3 simple skills to help you manage body negativity.
And listen to episodes 119 and 123 of The Diet Diaries for more support around improving body confidence and negative body image.
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[00:00:00] Hey friends, it's episode 125 of The Diet Diaries, and today, this is another kind of episode that I feel like I've talked about and mentioned, oh, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it. Well say I'm doing it. I'm gonna talk about movement and yoga and exercise and why that is relevant to body image.
[00:00:26] To, um, doing work around feeling at ease around food, um, how it connects to fat loss and probably it'll turn into some other things as well. But super important episode cause I've not talked about movement in a while, and it is a really big piece of this puzzle. Before I do that, today will be the last podcast reminder for the spring weekend retreat because the deadline to sign up is one week from today.
[00:00:51] I think it's one week from today. Um, May 1st and coincidentally. We are going to be practicing yoga together. We are going to be moving together because it is such an important skill. So if you've been listening or if you're new, um, just a quick reminder, it's May 19th, the 21st in Hunter, New York, which is about two hours north of New York City, $675 all inclusive.
[00:01:14] That includes accommodations, food, and the entire experience of the weekend. It's gonna be a series of four workshops over the course of the weekend mixed in with, um, uh, yoga practice. Um, having meals, some meals on your own, some meals together, including dinner prepared by a private chef on Saturday night and, uh, downtime.
[00:01:35] So, and this is really gonna be about giving yourself your undivided attention. To identify what are the actions, what is the work you need to be doing around food, around exercise, around body image, around self-care, so that you can start making real lasting changes in your life, right? This is gonna be a weekend devoted to that, to uncovering some of your behaviors, your patterns, and starting to introduce the skills that you need to make lasting change.
[00:02:02] So there's a link in the show notes. Um, you can DM me on Instagram. You know, guys know where to find me. That is that. So let's dive into today's episode. Um, I've been wa, as I mentioned, I've been wanting to talk about this for a while, but there was something that happened kind of recently. About a month ago, I went on that trip with Danny to the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia, and we stayed at this amazing hotel and they had free yoga classes on Saturday and Sunday morning.
[00:02:31] Now some of you. May or may not know. Some of you do know if you're newer, you may not know that I taught yoga. For eight and a half to nine years, um, I taught yoga and that evolved into, um, what's sometimes referred to as functional, functional movement. I taught mobility work, I taught strength, um, and I loved it.
[00:02:52] I still love it. I've just kind of shifted, um, kind of my focus, but that work is still very much a part of the work I do on my own, like independently and the work I do with clients. But truthfully, I have not been to. A yoga class, like a traditional yoga class and a very long time. Part of that was because I'm very picky about teachers.
[00:03:17] I think that just kind of happens when you teach something. You then start to pick up on things that people are saying or not saying, and you start to like, for better or worse, like judge and think, well, I would do this differently, or I don't like that, or I do like that. Like your teacher brain turns on and it kind of.
[00:03:35] Takes away from the experience of like what yoga is really meant to be. That's part of it. I've also found many other forms of movement that I love and have chosen pri to prioritize. There's life, like, there's a million different reasons why this class was at the hotel. It was a nine o'clock. We didn't have a schedule.
[00:03:52] It was like, do whatever you want. So I went on Saturday morning, and of course it was in this beautiful location. It was in there where the observatory was. So it had a gorgeous view of the property. It was only, I think three or four other people there. So it was nice and quiet, gorgeous windows. There was no rush.
[00:04:08] There was no rush to get there. There was no rush to leave and, and so the circumstances definitely were kind of primed and what was kind of even taboo, excuse me, I may cough a few times. I've got this like really weird. I dunno if it's allergy or virus or something happening. Um, the teacher was great.
[00:04:26] She taught, we started the class lying down and if you are listening and you ever came to my classes, you know that we always started lying down and it was like the best part of the class. And so I was like, oh my God, she's starting lying down. Nobody does that. It's very rare. Uh, people mostly start seated in a very kind of upright, where you have to have like your tush elevated, your legs are crossing, your spine is straight, and your shoulders are down and back, and all these things that are like honestly really uncomfortable and really unnatural.
[00:04:54] I've never understood like why we have to start a yoga class this way. I always started laying down because for most people lying down on the floor feels pretty good and we would use props and whatnot to make comfortable anyway, so I was like, yes, I'm all in this 60 minutes, or was like 50 or 55 minutes at this yoga class.
[00:05:13] Were so wonderful and it was the most powerful reminder to myself like, forget my work, forget coaching, forget being a teacher, just for me, existing as a human being, doing all this work alongside you guys of how powerful movement is. I talk about this all the time, and I feel it when I go to dance class.
[00:05:38] I feel it when I go to Pilates. Uh, walking has a different purpose for me. I'll kind of talk about the differences between these things, but this yoga class, the way she taught it was so much about bringing our attention to what was happening in our bodies, and that is what I loved about it. When I first started going to yoga, which was in early 2009, I will never forget going to my first class in a studio and walking out.
[00:06:06] And my mind being blown about the fact that I had just spent almost an hour not thinking about other shit, that I was only paying attention to what the instructor was saying and how to make that happen in my body and what it felt like. And that experience was a revelation. And it was a revelation a month ago when it happened kind of unexpectedly.
[00:06:32] And truly it is a revelation whenever we can make that happen. And it is way more often than we think, and that is amazing because to be able to turn off what is called our thinking mind and turn on or focus more on what is called our observing mind. Is the key to so much of this and that type of movement.
[00:06:56] Yoga, I'm gonna call it somatic movement. When I say somatic, it just means of the body. I do think Pilates is similar to this. I actually do think dance is similar to this. There's a lot of movements that I think could technically be a somatic movement, but then there's a whole branch of just somatic movement, which is very gentle, it's very floor based.
[00:07:15] Um, so that's, you know, kind of get into some semantics there, which I don't, we don't need to, and it doesn't really matter, but. Using movement as a way to observe what is happening in your body and what it feels like to do different movements is an incredibly powerful skill. One, because it takes you outside of your thinking brain.
[00:07:37] Your thinking brain is your judgment. Brain is your, am I doing this right? How do I look? Do I look fat? Do I do these? Are these clothes, right? I did that wrong. I ate too much. Um, I need to go on a diet, like all, all of these things that sometimes come up when we are, um, often in like an exercise based class, um, or just living our lives, right?
[00:08:05] It's the constant, it's the, it's the chatter and whether it's about our bodies or about food, it's about a million different things. Obviously, I'm kind of keeping it into like this little, you know, box of what I often talk about. Um, That type of movement class helps you move away from that into your observing mind, paying attention.
[00:08:26] What does it feel like to have the bottom of my foot on the floor? What happens if I drop my leg open a little bit? What happens if I drop my leg open a lot? What happens if I kind of push my hips in this direction? What happens if I push my hips in the right direction? How does it feel different? Can I feel a different part of my body touching the floor?
[00:08:43] Do I feel a stretch over here? Do I feel a stretch over there? You start to get curious. That's the. And if you have a teacher who is skilled at this and kind of cues you and offers you to pay attention and notice, notice what you notice. It takes you out of your head and into your body. And when you are struggling with body image, when you are struggling with chronic dieting, thoughts, when you are struggling with the feeling of I'm never going to be happy until I lose X amount of weight.
[00:09:12] Getting out of your head where those thoughts are controlling, feel like they're controlling everything. And into your body where you're feeling what it's like to be a human being is one of the most powerful revelatory experiences cuz your body is where you are living in the present, present moment.
[00:09:30] Your body is how you move through life. It is your home. And yet we spend so much time neck up in our heads and not feeling what's happening below. And that is a huge reason why we struggle so much with. Because food from a biological standpoint is about giving our body the nutrition it needs to survive, right?
[00:09:55] So we can essentially, if you wanna get like really kind of scientific to reproduce, right? That's from an evolutionary standpoint, that's like our job. And I'm not, if you know whether or not you have chosen to have kids, that's not what this is about. This is not a judgment on any of that. Like I'm talking strictly like biology.
[00:10:15] And so when we learn how to feel the physical sensations of hunger, of fullness, that is transformative because we've spent so much time following rules that tell us. When we can eat, when we can't eat, how much we're allowed to eat, how much we're not allowed to eat, what foods we're allowed to eat, what foods we're not allowed to eat, that we don't know how to feel those innate sensations anymore, those physical sensations of our body that we were born with, that we humans have biologically evolved over millions and to hundreds of thousands to thousands of years to feel those things to stay alive.
[00:10:51] We've lost it all, and we only know how to eat when someone tells us you have to eat every three hours, and this is the three things you have to. You don't know how to find those signals anymore, and it is a huge obstacle into feeling at ease around food. And so movement is a gateway to that for the reasons I just explained.
[00:11:10] Because when you're cute in a way and, and, and offered skills to notice, pay attention, explore, try, sense. That over time, 1000% translates into you being able to notice other sensations in your body. We are really good at noticing extremes, right? When we're starving and when we're stuffed, it's pretty clear what's happening.
[00:11:32] But in those in-between places where it's like moderate hunger or moderate fullness, We're like, I don't know. Well, I don't know what this feels like. What, what is this? Or we're not even able to pay attention. We're only able to, we only notice we're hungry when we're starving. We only notice we're full when we're stuffed cause we don't know how to pay attention to all that in between stuff.
[00:11:51] And movement is a incredibly powerful tool for that. And this yoga class I took was a huge reminder of that. And that's not to say, look, this was a month ago. It's something to say that I'd forgotten about it. I haven't, cause I talk about it. It was a reminder for me in my own. And I've been dancing a lot.
[00:12:08] I've been taking pies and dance is phenomenal. Dance honestly will trip me up when I'm seeing myself in a mirror cuz I will start to the am I good at this? How do I look doing this? Oh, that looks weird. I don't like how the t-shirt is like clinging to my fat there. You guys know what these kind of thoughts when I am not looking at that or I'm dancing where there's no.
[00:12:30] It is just the movement, it is the music. It is being in my body, and it has that same effect. It's different in that maybe I'm not kind of like paying attention to the different ways to do things, but it's just the feeling of moving and joyfulness of being in my body without having the judgment around what it looks like or if I'm doing it right or any of those other thought.
[00:12:53] Um, walking for me is different. Walking. I will, I actually get a lot of creative ideas when I walk. Um, walking for me is, Almost more about mental health. There are tons of physical benefits. I've, I've been working on trying to walk just a little bit faster to get my heart rate up a little bit. Um, but in general, walking is a different experience for me than dancing, than yoga.
[00:13:18] And then strength training. Um, strength training I love because it also gets me into my body because when you're lifting a really heavy weight, whatever heavy is for you, that's a subjective. You really have to focus on that. It takes a lot of capa, mental and physical capacity and kind of precise effort, and it's really hard to be thinking about other stuff when you're picking up and putting down a really heavy beat.
[00:13:39] And so in that same way, it really gets you to pay attention to come into your observing body. What does it feel like to pick this really heavy thing up off the ground? Not like, you know, judging myself for what I ate for b. Um, and so this is really just so much about being in your body, feeling, paying attention and noticing, and then over time those skills and that ability translating over into how you feel around food.
[00:14:12] Um, so I wanted to share kinda my personal experience in that class and how powerful it was. And then also I've been wanting to do this episode for a long time, so it all kind of just like gelled. Really kind of connect it back to the coaching work. Um, and I love this idea of the observing mind versus the thinking mind.
[00:14:28] And both exist and both ma both make us kind of who we are, but understanding how to break them apart is a really big part of developing the skills to feel at ease around food, to start to feel at ease in your body, right? So when it comes to like body image and movement, If we can start to use our observing mind to notice how it feels to move our body, then we can start to pull apart and not only think of our body as something to be looked at, it becomes a vessel in which we live.
[00:15:03] It becomes a tool for which we can start to learn and pay attention to which different things feel like. And a really big part of the work on body image is understanding that your body is not just something to be looked at. It is not just some, it is not just its size and its shape. It is not just how it looks aesthetically, it is how it performs, how it moves, what it does for you, what it feels like to move and do those things, and the myriad ways in which those movements can happen.
[00:15:32] Like you. Connect the bottom of your foot to the floor in way more ways than you think you can. And just right now, if you wanna try this, depending on where you are, but just pause for a moment and feel your feet inside of your socks, your shoes. Maybe you're walking, whatever you're doing, just pause.
[00:15:50] Maybe even stand still for a moment. Feel your feet where they are. What does it feel like if you wiggle at your toes? Can you feel your pinky toe? Can you feel your second? Can you press the bottoms of your toes into the ground? Can you press your toes upwards? What happens if you push more through your heel?
[00:16:07] Do you feel a difference in your hip? What happens if you push more through the ball of your foot? Does that feel different in your hip? This is what I'm talking about. There are so much nuance here and so many ways, and I guarantee you, when you were just doing that for those 5, 10, 15 seconds, even though it seems like a, it's a, it's a brief moment in time, you weren't thinking about anything else.
[00:16:28] You were probably like, oh my God, when I push my heel down, I feel my touch more. Or like, holy shit, I can't move my pinky toe. What's that about? Like you will only be able to focus on those things. Sometimes it's fleeting. It might only be a couple of seconds before the thinking thoughts come back in.
[00:16:44] That's okay. That's normal. We keep coming back over and over and over again to paying attention to. And that is why a skilled movement teacher will help you learn how to do that. Um, and that is something I'm going to keep talking about this more and more. I want to share more content on social media around this.
[00:17:03] Um, I, again, taught movement. I've, I've loved the human body since I was a kid. Everything about it since I was a child. Um, Honestly, I feel like I have such a, a unique skillset in having taught movement for so long, having been through all of the disordered eating and body image and destructive relationship with exercise that I've been through, and now having the coaching skillset that I do to bring this all together.
[00:17:30] Honestly, like when I really think about it, like it's, it's really special and there's a lot there and there's so much there that I want to share with you to help you guys because, um, I just, I love doing that and I love. Hearing what happens when you get the, when the light bulbs go off for people. Um, so I think that I'm trying to, I'm just looking at my notes.
[00:17:50] I'm making notes for episodes lately just cause I get all these ideas. I'm like, I forgot to talk about that. Um, so I'm just kind of like scanning and I think that this pretty much captures, um, everything that I really wanted to talk about. Um, I'm just like, yeah, I guess maybe the only, yeah, I think, I think that's good.
[00:18:18] I think it's good. I think the only other thing I really wanted to mention was that we're used to thinking of exercise, even like a yoga class for any of us, like especially like hot yoga and this is not a, I, I did my fair share of hot yoga, but from, we, most of us have turned exercise strictly into. A calorie burn.
[00:18:37] How hard is this? How challenging is this? How many calories am I burning? What is going to be the aesthetic result of this? Is this burn? Is this a fat burning workout? Is this going to help me lose weight? And there are so many systemic benefits to exercise. Beyond that, all different types. Hit, hit workouts.
[00:18:55] Um, uh, endurance workouts, heavy strength training, lighter strength training, hot yoga, dance, playing sports, going for walks like. There's no good or bad. There's only the reason why you're using that form of exercise and what, what this yoga class reminded me of and, and, and what I am always kind of talking about and trying to share is that movement is a way.
[00:19:22] To kind of reconnect internally to your body, right? We kind of think of it as more of this external thing about, well, what am I gonna lose weight? Am I gonna get, you know, a six pack? Am I gonna lose belly fat? Am I gonna have toned arms? Well, what can we learn from the experience of doing that exercise?
[00:19:38] How can we take it more external and bring it more internal? Yoga, depending on the class, can be a very powerful way to do that. I've mentioned a couple of other modalities that can also be powerful ways, and that list is not exhaustive, right? There could. You may have discovered this in some other form of exercise, and that's great.
[00:19:56] There really is no right or wrong. The walking might be that for some people it's not for me. It has a different purpose. Um, but it could be for you and that's great. So I really just wanted to kind of mention that, like just start to notice what are your, what are your thoughts, what are your feelings around exercise, Ron?
[00:20:12] Why you're doing it, what you're doing it for, and can you start to notice that there may be another benefit? There may be another why that you can. Um, thank you for listening. This is what I said, episode 125. Um, I always appreciate if there's a single person that you know of that might benefit from this podcast.
[00:20:35] I'm so grateful of you. Share it. Um, connection and sharing is the antidote to shame and. Being able to connect with people who are feeling feelings and think that they're the only one to then hear something and know, oh my God, she feel that she felt that too. And there's a podcast episode about it, which maybe means there's more people.
[00:20:54] There's nothing better than that feeling. So I always appreciate when you share and, um, thank you for being here and more next week, as always.