Being Kind to Yourself

Why do we part take in exercising and dieting? To feel better about ourselves - so why turn it into something we hate or dread, therefore won’t be able to sustain long term by adhering to restrictive diets and stupid exercise regimes that will burn us out?

I listened to Body Kindness this morning written by Rebecca Scritchfield and it really sparked a lot of thoughts for me surrounding the way we have been conditioned to perceive food and exercise due to the diet culture. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has not read it.

We believe looking a certain way, or earning a certain amount of money is going to make us happy, in actual fact, only 10% of our happiness comes from these surface layer factors. A whopping 40% of our happiness comes from our daily choices - so if you choose every day to restrict yourself from things you love, the long term happiness reward will be less than the happiness you would be feeling if you just allowed yourself these pleasures, in moderation. 

You can do this and still achieve your goals. 

I don’t know about you but I bloody love food - it is such a pleasure for me, why would I want to take the enjoyment out of something I love for a physique that will probably leave me once I have finished dieting in a worse place than when I started. No thank you. 

Is it just me, or when you diet, all you can do is fantasise about bingeing on a whole heap of bad food. But if you don’t restrict anything, your body will actually start craving healthy food. Yes you will have days where you want chocolate, or pizza, but this becomes the exception not the rule. Whereas, with dieting, it is kind of the other way round. 

Diet culture has labeled foods as healthy and unhealthy, however I do not like to look at it this way. There are some foods that will make you feel good physically, and some foods that will make you feel good mentally - and I believe it is important to have both. 

Why are we conditioned to believe some things are healthy and unhealthy - this gives the unhealthy foods a sort of ‘forbidden fruit label’ creating anxiety around them if you do eat them. This anxiety around food is actually the most unhealthy part. And conditioning us to believe we should absolutely stay away from these foods, makes us want them more! So strip these labels! 

Food is not there to add to your stress, there are plenty of other life factors for that. Food is there to be enjoyed, so let it be just that. Listen to your body, and I guarantee most of the time, you will opt for the “healthier” option, because when we eat intuitively and recognise the kinds of foods that make us feel good physically, we are more likely to choose them more often. And these foods can be different for everyone, we are all unique. 

So please do not associate your meals with guilt. 

This brings me onto my next point - exercise.

Another thing that stood out to me in Rebecca’s book was the astonishing amount of people who only engage in exercise to counteract the food they are eating. I have to say, I put my hands up to be guilty of this, and I didn’t even realise I was until listening to Rebecca’s book. Especially during lockdown, I feel like we are all engaging in tons of extra exercise to counteract our food choices. This is totally the wrong way to look at it. 

After realising that I was succumbing to this maladaptive mental thought, I asked myself - what does exercise really mean to me deep down? 

My answer: it is my absolute passion, it is my life, my career, my therapy, my meditation, my escape, my happiness and lastly, it is my boss bitch moment. Truly exercise really makes me feel like a strong, powerful boss a** bitch. So why in the hell was I associating this with my negative mindset towards food?! (Little side note, I know I have said all of the above, but I am only human and I still have a negative relationship with food due to the way we have been conditioned by diet culture and the fitness industry - it is ever improving and adhering to intuitive eating, allowing myself to have whatever I want etc etc is really helping. But there are sometimes where I just feel like I need to restrict everything - I am in the process of practicing what I preach, but I am not an expert there yet). 

An example of me forcing myself to exercise during quarantine due to consumption of food: I, as with many others, have been jumping on the excessive cardio train. I started running - and to be honest, I hate running. I don’t enjoy it when I am doing it, and I just feel tired and sick at the end of it. But I thought I had to because my movement has gone down so much. But then I thought to myself, it is stupid to engage in a form of exercise that doesn’t make me happy when my relationship with other types of exercise is so positive and strong. And let me tell you - WALKING is now my new best friend. BQ (before quarantine), I would probably walk around 15,000 steps per day between gyms. And it was my me time, and I missed this. So, every morning now, at 6am I wake up, and take myself on a 5k walk. It is amazing, I bloody love it. It’s quiet, no one is awake yet, just me, my thoughts and my podcasts (I get all my education now in my morning hourly walk, for business, mindset, nutrition, fitness etc). So I am learning, it makes me feel good, sets me up for a productive day, and I am getting more steps in than if I was running, that’s what matters more to me. Exercise doesn’t have to be and shouldn’t be a chore, just move your body in a way you love. 

If you find yourself feeling as if you are forcing yourself to part take in some form of exercise, maybe step back and think why? And what alternative can you do that you love, that will have the same outcome?

This is such a ramble, but I just want to wrap up following on from this with my last little point I took away from Rebecca’s book - which is body image vs body kindness. What we see in the mirror is always going to change, and is never going to be the same as that girl you are comparing yourself to on instagram. So instead of fixating on what you want to change, be kind to your body. Focus on the change you have already made, how far you have come, how your body has changed for you, and how it will continue to change, if you are just kind to it. 

Lets put a bulldozer to diet culture and live well because we love our bodies and we want to be kind to them, and help them be the best they can be, not “eat healthy” in diet culture terms (restriction, stress, anxiety, binge repeat) because we hate our bodies and want to change them. 

Your body is uniquely yours, please don’t ever think you want or need to change anything, just think about what you can do to make your body (and mind), the best version you can make it. 

The best diet that will get you the results you have been looking for

I have felt such a strong urge to write this post in the past few days as I feel I have not been completely honest about my food and diet journey, and what I am currently doing.

I have never ever been satisfied with the way I look - to be honest I don’t think anyone is. Especially in the line of work I have chosen, my body is basically my livelihood. A personal training career has always been my dream career - for as long as I can remember. And for the longest time, it was just that, a dream because I did not think my body fat percentage was low enough to be a PT, or my glutes were not big enough etc etc. There would always be a limiting belief created by myself that was standing in my way. So this stopped me from going after the career path I wanted. As a result of this, I partied too much, never dieted (I ate well, just probably too much, and the wrong food groups at the wrong times - my diet was basically 100% carbs and not much else). But I consistently showed up to the gym, and educated myself on weight training, because I just loved it, and the way it made me feel.

It was not until the beginning of this year, when I started working at a gym whilst looking for full time corporate work in London, that I actually thought - to be honest, I f**ing love it here and I feel like this is where I belong. As soon as I stepped in that gym, I just knew, and there was no turning back for me - I had to be a personal trainer. At this point I was seriously suffering with my skin issues as well, and I decided to really do some research into diets and what to eat to become shredded, that would clear my skin and give me all the energy in the world. Diets are glorified, trendy, and everyone wants to believe there is a quick fix to get them to where they want to be - so when you try and do research into optimal diets for fat loss - these are the first things you will come across. I fell right into this trap, and believed that I needed to be on some crazy restrictive diet to achieve my goals. So I basically tried out Keto on and off for 6 months, truly believing this was the answer to my fat loss conundrum. I am going to be honest, I saw great results very fast, I lost a load of weight in two weeks and my skin cleared up pretty much instantly. But I was f**ing miserable. I hated it, I was awful to be around, slowly my energy started deteriorating, I couldn’t lift as heavy as I usually would, I had no social life (which is depressing for a 22 y-o who has just moved back to London to be close to her friends), and every couple of weeks I would just go full out binge, my stomach was like an empty pit - then I would be back to square one and I would repeat the cycle again. This was really no way to live, and in my opinion, mental health is just as/if not more important than physical health, because if you are not mentally fit - you simply will not get where you want to be physically. Your mind is your most powerful muscle, if it is not keen, you wont do it.

The thing this little diet adventure did teach me however, was the importance of a balanced plate. I saw all those great results in the initial because my body had never really been used to eating a balanced macro plate in its life. So yes, increasing my protein intake and fat intake was great for my skin and my health, because our bodies thrive off this, but restricting carbs in the long run is just not something I can recommend - we need them to function, and we need them to be happy.

So from here, I decided that the carb restricting was just not for me. I then went on to believing that clean eating was THE way to achieve the figure I desired. Yes, clean eating makes you feel bloody great. I had energy again, my lifting significantly improved, I was losing weight, my skin stayed clear, I was fun to be around. But I still was not satisfied with my diet - I found every time I went out for dinner, or on holiday, no rules applied and I would still proceed to binge like crazy to the point where I felt sick. I thought it was because I was eating these unhealthy foods that my body was not used to, but in actual fact, I was honestly just stuffing myself, which ultimately was putting my body under stress.

So this takes me to where I am at now. I am going to be real, I am currently sitting at 20% body fat, which is such a healthy range for an average female. I am still trying to shed a little bit of fat, and it is working! But here is the thing, I am not actively trying, I have a goal in my head (I wont say what it is because that’s my personal goal), its not a dramatic decrease, I am just being mindful about not exceeding a certain amount of calories per day to keep me in a slight deficit that is sustainable and will help me reach my goal, and making sure I am hitting the macros that work for me. I am 99% certain I have PCOS so for me, it is good to save my carbohydrates for around my workouts. But other than that, I am just enjoying my food. I do love eating healthy, my body definitely thrives off this so I would say 80% of my diet is healthy, but if I feel like a glass of wine with my friends, I’m guna have it, if I want a date night, I’ll go for it, if I want to eat Kinder Bueno every day, I will (in moderation). I think the key is to enjoy what you are doing to get yourself to your healthy goal, be excited about it, and be excited about that treat here and there because you bloody deserve it for working hard.

I have honestly never been happier with my body than I am right now, I may not be the leanest Personal Trainer out there, but to me that is not what it is about. I do it because I want to help people, that is my true passion, I want to help people change their lives through what I truly love, and that is exercise and health.

And I believe my physique is attainable because I am the definition of your average girl. Doesn’t have abs, struggles to shift body fat and gain muscle quickly - but I have worked hard, and I have transformed my body, and I am very proud of what I have achieved, and I want to help other girls, in a world of unrealistic instagram goals - feel the same way. I am in no rush, I am just working towards a goal that is achievable for me, without decrementing my mental, social and physical health, but enhancing them.

A last note I want to put here before I will stop rambling on I promise is please do not compare yourself to what you see online. These teeny girls you see on Instagram are literally less than 1% of the population, they are not genetically normal, or they are putting themselves at risk to look like that. If you think of how many people you see face to face on a daily basis that look like that, the answer is probably less than a couple per week. Strive to be the best version of you, not someone else <3