2562: [Part 2] You Can't Shame Yourself Into Health and Hotness by Jessi Kneeland with Mark Fisher Fitness

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[00:01:05] This is Optimal Health Daily, episode 2562. You Can't Shame Yourself Into Health and Hotness,

[00:01:11] part 2, by Jesse Neeland, with markfisherfitness.com, and I'm Dr. Neal.

[00:01:17] Hey there and welcome back to Optimal Health Daily where I read to you from some of the most

[00:01:21] popular health and fitness blogs online. Now today is Wednesday and like I do every Wednesday,

[00:01:27] I like to share a little bit of inspiration with you. So with that, here we go.

[00:01:31] Quote, Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life. Omar Khayyam.

[00:01:39] Now, today's episode is part 2 of a longer post. If you missed part 1, then I'd recommend going

[00:01:45] back and listening to that first. That was episode 2561. But if you're all caught up,

[00:01:50] let's hear part 2 and continue optimizing your life. You Can't Shame Yourself Into Health and

[00:02:00] Hotness, part 2, by Jesse Neeland, with markfisherfitness.com. Starting out.

[00:02:08] Unfortunately, many people in our body-obsessed society only think to begin a health or fitness

[00:02:13] program because they feel insecure or negative about their bodies. Women and increasingly men

[00:02:18] are especially vulnerable to suffering from negative body image, which means they often

[00:02:23] approach food, fitness, and other health habits as a way to fix their flaws or lose enough weight

[00:02:30] to finally be acceptable. With endlessly layered and conflicting beauty and body standards,

[00:02:36] along with increasing pressure to look flawless, our society encourages us to see certain kinds

[00:02:41] of bodies, lean, fit, thin, muscular, as good, right, and worthy of love or attention,

[00:02:49] while other bodies, pretty much everything else, as bad, gross, wrong, and unworthy. So is it any

[00:02:57] wonder that when your average Joe or Jane takes up a new health or fitness program, they're coming

[00:03:01] at it from a place of fear, shame, negativity, and a desire to fix what's wrong with them?

[00:03:08] It's easy to see why so many people fail to reach their long-term goals, think they hate exercise,

[00:03:14] have disordered relationships with food, and generally blame themselves for not having enough

[00:03:19] willpower. An alternative. How would your relationship to health, fitness, and nutrition

[00:03:26] shift if you moved away from shame-based motivation and moved toward acceptance and self-compassion?

[00:03:33] While this isn't something that will be changed overnight, in fact, this may take years of work

[00:03:37] if you've been deeply entrenched in shame your whole life, but here are a few places to start.

[00:03:42] One, focus on how you feel instead of how you look. Instead of spending your mental energy

[00:03:49] on what you want to change externally about your body, focus your attention on how you feel inside

[00:03:55] and how you want to feel instead. Then, pay attention to how you feel as you make changes

[00:04:01] and how you feel after making each change for a few weeks. How do you feel when you go for a 20

[00:04:06] minute walk every day? How do you feel when you don't? Tune inward to the immediate changes in

[00:04:12] how you feel with each behavior instead of outward to things like weight, size, or appearance.

[00:04:19] Two, dismantle the hierarchy of bodies. A lot of the shame we feel about our bodies comes from

[00:04:25] old deep beliefs about which bodies are good or desirable and which are bad or undesirable.

[00:04:32] I call this the hierarchy of bodies. Marketers and advertisers capitalize on and even create

[00:04:39] this hierarchy in order to make money so it can seem more like fact than opinion. But think about

[00:04:45] other eras of history. Fat, pale, small-breasted, and even hairy women have all been the height of

[00:04:51] beauty in different cultures and different times. Today's body hierarchy is all about prioritizing

[00:04:57] thin, lean, fit bodies. But those bodies are not objectively better than any other kind of bodies.

[00:05:04] Start to challenge your thoughts and beliefs about which bodies are good and which are

[00:05:09] bad by asking where you learned them and if they're really true.

[00:05:14] Three, uncouple health from thinness and leanness. Many people assume that getting healthier means

[00:05:21] losing weight and that if you're losing weight you must be getting healthier. This is not true.

[00:05:27] Health doesn't look any particular way and it does us all a disservice to assume that lean or thin

[00:05:33] is healthier than average or fat because not only does it reinforce the hierarchy of bodies,

[00:05:39] meaning some bodies are acceptable and some are not, it also puts our focus on external feedback

[00:05:45] like size, weight, and numbers instead of how you feel. Get educated about the fat bias and fat

[00:05:52] phobia that are so common in our culture by reading books like Health at Every Size, Intuitive Eating,

[00:05:58] or Body of Truth to help yourself uncouple these two unrelated concepts.

[00:06:04] Four, change your self-talk. Pay attention to when you say unkind or shaming things to yourself

[00:06:10] about your body, your character, or your habits. Would you say something like that to your best

[00:06:15] friend or a child? If not, then why are you saying it to yourself? Bring awareness to these negative

[00:06:21] self-talk messages and interrupt them with something neutral or positive. If you're not

[00:06:26] ready to replace, my body is so gross with, my body is beautiful and amazing, that's okay, don't

[00:06:32] force it. Try replacing it with something neutral like, my body gets me where I need to go or,

[00:06:39] it's okay for me to look like this. Instead of focusing on what's wrong with us, we have to

[00:06:44] start focusing on what's right about us, refusing to buy into the narrative that some bodies are

[00:06:49] good and some are bad, and offering ourselves the same kind of compassion, kindness, and

[00:06:55] understanding that we offer everyone else. If you do this, you might discover that you naturally

[00:07:01] want to eat more nutritious food, move your body more, get more sleep, drink more water,

[00:07:06] or otherwise take better care of yourself. All because you know that both you and your body

[00:07:11] are worthy of love, care, and respect, and that you deserve to thrive and feel your best.

[00:07:21] You just listened to part two of the post titled, You Can't Shame Yourself Into Health

[00:07:26] and Hotness by Jesse Nealand with markfisherfitness.com and I'll be right back with my commentary.

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[00:08:42] Dr. Neil here for my commentary. So much of what Jesse discussed can be put into practice with one

[00:08:48] simple tool. You're not going to be thrilled about it, but hear me out. Keep a journal. Jesse

[00:08:53] recommended that we ask ourselves how we feel after we finish that 20 minute walk versus how we feel

[00:08:59] when we skip it. Keep those notes in a journal. Let's say after listening to this podcast or again

[00:09:06] any of the shows in the OLD family of podcasts and you're motivated to try some of the things

[00:09:10] we discussed, whether it's improving your relationships, regaining control over your

[00:09:15] finances or walking more often. Keep a log of your progress. Say you've planned out your meals for

[00:09:21] the upcoming week and you've mapped out which days you're going to spend some time walking outside.

[00:09:26] Write it down. Use a calendar and put it on the refrigerator. Now the week may go really smoothly

[00:09:33] or unexpected events may come up and things may not pan out as you'd hoped. Either way, keep track

[00:09:40] of what happened. If it went well, awesome. Put a smiley face or a check mark on the days when that

[00:09:46] happened. Make a note of how you felt when that happened. Now if you missed your walk or instead

[00:09:52] of cooking at home you had to grab a meal on the run, make a note of that too and again write down

[00:09:58] how that made you feel. Study after study have found that simply writing these things down can

[00:10:03] help you stay on track towards meeting your goals. And even if you go off track a bit, keeping a

[00:10:08] journal can help you get right back on it. Alright, that'll do it from me for today. Thank you so much

[00:10:14] for being here. Thank you for listening every day. I hope you are having a wonderful week so far and

[00:10:19] I'll see you back here tomorrow where your optimal life awaits.