NOTE: We're revisiting hinging strategies today, at the request of a few of you who want to learn how to alleviate back pain, keep your spines safe, and feel awesome when you pick things up. Feel free - always! - to email at any time with topic requests, questions, or concerns.
Fall is a special season for me. The leaves are changing, the smells of bonfires and tailgates are in the air, people enjoy hanging out outside, all the pumpkin-flavored things make a special appearance, and it’s socially acceptable to get a flavored coffee at any time of day.
I can’t remember a fall without pumpkin chocolate chip bread (since I learned to cook, anyway). I’m not much of a baker (you have to measure for that), but that’s one thing for which I’ll ignore my preferences (and habits of kitchen experimentation), hunker down, and get out the measuring cups. The mixing, the smell of cinnamon and nutmeg, the anticipation of the warm and gooey chocolate chips with the unmistakable scent and flavor of fall: it’s all worth it for me. Even the extra calories, which I don’t typically count (and definitely don’t when it comes to pumpkin chocolate chip bread.).
And that leads me to picking and choosing our nutrition battles: one of my favorite topics that always bears revisiting with the change of food seasons.
We've trained not to go in, do what we need to do to create love and peace and safety for ourselves, and then go about our lives, but to drop everything for everyone and leave ourselves last, depleted, and rejected (by ourselves, no less!). No wonder that even though many of us have an inner child screaming for attention (or a blanky and a nap), s/he gets easier to ignore every time. We're pros.
It's no secret that I began here after being at a crossroads in my life. Crossroads are never easy places. Sometimes they're huge, with flashing neon signs, and sometimes, they're much more understated, and we don't even realize they were pivot points until much later.
Each and every day contains hundreds of choices, all of which move us closer to or further away from the people we want to be.
Some of my best writing was borne from exploring this concept, realizing that, no matter what the circumstances, I still remained the powerful, worthy being I have always been.
Not every season in life contains record numbers of pounds (whether that's lost or lifted on the bar). The *real* progress lies in showing up, even when we don't feel like it (or feel like we can't).
When we show up for ourselves, we're operating from a place of abundance. We're communicating to our bodies and our brains (often, if you're anything like me, in spite of the narrative that feels loud AF in these times saying we shouldn't) that our goals are worthy, and that we're here to move the needle, because there's enough time for us. There's enough energy for us. There's enough space for us. We don't have to fight for it; we create it.
Self-talk matters, but I often have another voice that defeats it. The only way I've found to really get what I want to get through, through is to take action and actually *do* something.
SO, here are 3 workouts you can complete in less time than it takes for round 2 of driving to soccer practice, because you had to turn around since your kid to forget his shinguards.
In short, many of us are running on fumes, and one of the very last things we feel like doing is overhauling our entire lives (unless it's to set them on fire and start over on an uncharted island all alone, with The Rock on scheduled visits. No? That's just my escape plan? Okay...), because pizza and Subway are about all we can muster right now.
And I get that. Like...do I *EVER* get that.
But, here's the thing: we deserve to be taken care of too.
And you know this, because we all know you can't pour from an empty cup, and you're a better coworker/partner/friend when you take care of yourself. But also, you deserve to be taken care of too...because you're a living, breathing, feeling human being worthy of care, just as you are. Not in order to *do* something. Just because you exist and are worth it.
Get real: we don’t *have to* eat any particular way. We don’t have to stick to any one diet; we aren’t being force-fed vegetables; we are under no obligation to eat all the ice cream. All we have are choices to make.
There’s power in owning this choice. And it’s magical, because, all of a sudden, we can examine ourselves in our fullness (no pun intended). We get to ask, “am I choosing the hot dog just because that’s ‘what you do’ at a barbecue, or am I choosing the hot dog because it’s what I actually want?” Avoiding the spiral starts with choosing the indulgences we’re truly excited about and owning that decision.
For a moment, consider that what we’re really doing when we “go on a diet” is utilizing a tool to get to a goal. It’s a means to an end.
Allowing for that, our goal is the goal (as in, the diet is not the goal; the dress or 400lb deadlift or feeling at peace is the goal.). And the tools we have (current pattern of eating) are not the right ones for the job (we can’t hammer a nail with a phone charger), so we’re looking to find the right tool for the job. Nothing over which to get too distracted; we just need to find the one that’s good enough for us to use consistently to get the job done. With me?
Gathering all this data, a year or so ago, after reading one from Dr. Brooke Kalanick (good resource for female hormones, particularly PCOS and Hashimoto’s, but also general mindset reading, if you’re into that.), I created my own body change manifesto. Rather than a bunch of rules, I wanted a way of approaching food that made me feel empowered, rather than defeated; that gave me permission to explore, rather than ascribing to any particular 12-week plan; that looked at me as a whole person, rather than just the foods I eat. Going back to the concept of active acceptance, knowing that we can choose to accept our bodies while still wanting them to change, our thoughts surrounding food become different: they become a declaration of independence, guidelines to our goals with a healthy dose of freedom. If you’d like to know what that would look like, mine is as follows:
Our worth isn't wrapped up in our dietary choices, our goals, or our appearance. We're meant for more than to obsess over these things, and, for some of us, the way out is to try many methods before we arrive at what will work for us to find our freedom. In the quest for personal development, physical and otherwise, we are all sojourners navigating our stops.
I'm not sure we ever truly arrive and stay. But I am sure that it's always our duty to accept and own where we are and allow others the space to do the same.
More than anything, success and achievement are the result of developing a passion and seeing it through. Fitness, like many things in life, but contrary to societal messages, presents boundless opportunities for expansion. We get to choose to push our limits, to realize we can set goals and smash them, to develop the competence and confidence to push through the hard, ride the waves, and come out where we set out to be. (Chatting new commitments on the biz page! Hop over.)
We get to stay in our lane. Which is great news, because that’s all we can control, and it’s bigger over here anyway.
We get to turn our Victim narrative into a rewritten story of power at any time we choose. We get to claim our space and claim our freedom. We get to be honest – all the way honest, highlighting where we’re playing into it too – and become a Warrior focused on growing bigger, oozing more compassion, and being better.
We get to step into our dreams, eyes wide open, full of power.
Before we continue, I’d like to point out that the scale isn’t always a measure of our progress. So many of us wrap our worth up in that number (been there), and it’s a far more fun (and lasting!) process to realize that we’re in these bodies for life. Fitness, whatever that may mean to each of us individually, is about exploration: we’re learning what movement we love, what foods serve us, how we can balance rest/relaxation/exercise/food to yield the greatest – and biggest! – possible life. Much like Mother Teresa, Wonder Woman didn’t sit around worrying about the size of her thighs; she had shit to do (and probably wanted them to be huge anyway). And so do you. So, before we go into what many of us worry about, I’d like to take a moment to pause, reflect, and get to the bottom of what we say we want: is our body change about feeling good, or about some arbitrary number we think will lead us to happiness, once we get there?
Nailing down the real reasons for our goals will help us sort out this dissonance- promise.
Knowing that I can choose be happy right this second, despite my circumstances, allows me to be grateful for all opportunities to improve. Knowing that I can choose to accept my body while still wanting it to change allows me to relax into the process and take an objective look about my methods.
Knowing that what I’m trying to do is feel more energetic, and certain foods make me feel bloated and tired, will help me to avoid those foods (dairy, nightshades, gluten, whichever potential allergen) to choose not the pizza (full of all 3, coincidentally) but a turkey burger instead. It doesn’t feel like deprivation (“I’m trying to get skinny, so I can’t have pizza” is a sad, sad statement.) but a benefit (because, “I’m trying to not feel like a beached whale every time I eat something I enjoy and would rather find something that I can enjoy and feel normal afterwards” is a much more fun mission). Hence, the exercise here: getting to the nitty gritty.
