3048: Fear of Mediocrity by Stefanie Bonastia with Jessi Kneeland on Diet Culture and Fitness Advice

[00:00:00] Have you ever noticed how a calm mind can really set the stage for a good night's sleep? That's the idea behind our new podcast, Good Sleep. Greg, our host from Optimal Relationships Daily, is here to help ease you into a peaceful night's rest with some positive affirmations. And these affirmations aren't just comforting, they can help ease anxiety and nurture positive thoughts, setting you up for true good sleep.

[00:00:24] So, press play on Good Sleep tonight because a good tomorrow starts with a good night's sleep. Just search for Good Sleep in your podcast app and be sure to pick the one from Optimal Living Daily. This is Optimal Health Daily, Fear of Mediocrity by Stefanie Bonastia with JessiNeeland.com and I'm Dr. Neal, your host and narrator.

[00:00:48] Happy Monday and welcome back to another week of Optimal Health Daily. This is where I read to you from some of the best health and fitness blogs on the web, kind of like an ongoing audiobook, and always with a bit of my commentary at the end. I'm going to keep this intro nice and short, so let's get right to the post as we optimize your life. Fear of Mediocrity by Stefanie Bonastia with JessiNeeland.com

[00:01:17] When Lauren came to me for coaching, she had been controlling her body weight through diet and exercise for 15 years. She had finally reached the point where the payoff no longer felt worth the cost and recognized her patterns of behavior as disordered and soul-sucking. She knew she wanted out, but at the same time, she feared what might lay on the other side of her highly controlled identity. Her entire skill set was built around nutrition and fitness.

[00:01:46] In her friend circles, she was known as the healthy one, the one who knew what superfoods were trending and how to make Super Bowl snacks without carbs. What had started out as a routine gym schedule turned into a certification in personal training, and her body became social proof of her status. But the lifestyle was beginning to suffocate her. She recognized her lack of mental space for anything other than tracking numbers on MyFitnessPal and planning gym sessions.

[00:02:16] She was chasing macro goals in between what felt like self-sabotaging binge episodes, and found herself more obsessed and rigid when the pandemic hit. Her world was becoming smaller and smaller. And after learning about intuitive eating on social media, she became intrigued, and eventually was convinced that a change was necessary if she ever wanted to escape the pressure prison she had created for herself.

[00:02:43] Unfortunately, Lauren's obsession with food and fitness had developed during adolescence, a time when our identities are only just forming, and she had never understood her role, purpose, or worth under any other lens. To abandon this lifestyle felt necessary, but absolutely terrifying. Success, confidence, and talent were only known to Lauren under the umbrella of nutrition and physique.

[00:03:10] I want to be free of this, but sometimes I wonder what I'm even doing, she said to me at our first session. I'm leaving the only thing I'm good at, and something that honestly gives me a high. Without that, I'm afraid I'll be bored. And mediocre. I meet lots of clients like Lauren, and I'm sure there are more of you listening to this article now. If you have dedicated a significant amount of your time and energy to mastering the skill of dieting or fitness,

[00:03:38] you've probably become really, really good at it. You know everything about it. You know what to do, and when, and how. People admire you for what you know, and what you do so seemingly effortlessly. You are like the guru of health and wellness. When all else fails, you can fall back on your know-how to give you the confidence that others don't see, or that you may not feel in contexts outside of your appearance.

[00:04:06] To give this up is a really, really big ask. It feels like severing ties to your only sense of empowerment. To replace it with vague and abstract promises of freedom and intuition sounds nice, but not actionable. Even concepts like neutrality feel like a letdown. Like trading exceptional for normal.

[00:04:30] So, is that what you're really facing when you give up your one big life skill of rigidly controlling food, exercise, and physique? Vague mediocrity? As we unpack this, I think we need to address the facts of intensity and immediacy. When emotions become overwhelming, or when situations beyond our control start piling on, the instinct is to escape or rise above. Controlling food is a quick response.

[00:04:58] You can literally start dieting right now if you want, and your body will respond to your efforts with a tangible outcome of weight loss. Well, for a short period of time anyway. And in the meantime, you get to bask in the highs of self-control, a focused goal, and accolades from everyone. Your friends will admire your dedication, your family will approve of your discipline, and society at large will validate you for being a clean-eating, gym-going, responsible adult,

[00:05:26] doing your part in the collective march towards aesthetic worth. I mean, what greater high is there than to trade discomfort and helplessness for approval and productivity? When you're good at dieting and exercising, it's like a drug. It's quick, it's easy, it's concrete, and you know how to get it. The rewards are swift and sure. This is not something that food freedom or body acceptance can rival. I think it's helpful to acknowledge this.

[00:05:57] Once we give ourselves the permission to admit that, yes, a quick fix would feel so good, we can simultaneously recognize that this is actually only a band-aid. By labeling it as such, we give ourselves the space to see it's not what we need. So, what then is the larger solution? How do we move past the band-aid to empower ourselves as effectively, especially if the band-aid is our natural skill set?

[00:06:23] The first step might be to recognize that controlling your food and body is not really the natural skill set. Consider this. Dieting and fitness are merely channels that you have learned to use that harness the power of your actual natural skill sets. What you are good at is not having a sculpted body or eating clean, as much as it might be researching new information and trends, integrating structure, or honoring commitments.

[00:06:52] Traits of persistence, organization, and even discipline might be strengths that flow into passions of any kind, but happen to land on dieting and weight control, because that's where you found the most accolades. In the absence of accolades, where would your passions be? Empowerment might lie in the answer to that question, because I promise that you are good at so much more than diet culture, and if what we are good at can bring us a sense of empowerment,

[00:07:21] then the mission becomes less about losing weight and more about soul-searching, which, of course, is not as glamorous or as instantaneous as quick-fix dieting. And it's probably one of the reasons we don't turn to it in times of self-doubt or insecurity. Instead, we choose instant gratification. But if instant gratification has become a hamster wheel of emptiness and burnout, then it might be time to get patient and intentional

[00:07:47] about cultivating confidence beyond body size. For Lauren, she had to detach from her identity in diet culture and feel the vulnerability of, what now, to start moving in new directions. The shift did not happen overnight, but as her self-worth became less and less about her body, it found other areas to find a foothold. More recently, Lauren was accepted into a doula certification program, which was an interest she had only mildly entertained

[00:08:17] prior to our work together. She now has new things to think about and other goals to pursue. And while she still has bad body image days, she doesn't rely on her former obsessions to appease her insecurity. Instead, she finds strength in her studies, volunteer work, and expanding self-confidence. What Lauren and so many other clients like her report back is that the mental space created by leaving diet culture

[00:08:45] doesn't leave room for the mediocrity and boredom that was once so feared. On the contrary, it's hard to understand how a life ruled by food and exercise was fulfilling at all, given the wider scope of a life not dictated by it. As it turns out, there is more out there. You just listened to the post titled Fear of Mediocrity by Stephanie Bonastia with jessenealand.com

[00:09:15] and I'll be right back with my commentary. Oikos presents 15 Seconds of Strength. Here we go. Steve's got a trunk full of groceries and no one to help him. Oh, that's tough, Jim. Looks like a five-trip load at least. He grabs the first bag, the second. Bob, it looks like he's trying to do it on one trip. He shimmies the door open, steps over the dog. Oh, and he stumbles. Oh, right into the kitchen without missing a beat. Jim, now that's a man who eats his protein-packed Oikos. With 15 grams of complete protein in each cup,

[00:09:42] Oikos Triple Zero can help build strength for every day. Oikos Stronger makes everything better. Ah, da ist meine Prime-Bestellung. Was? Jetzt schon? Nur eine Sache begeistert so sehr wie die schnelle Lieferung mit Prime. Und zwar das tolle Unterhaltungsangebot von Prime. Was schauen wir uns an? Heads of State, die neue Action-Komödie mit John Cena, Idris Elbert und Priyanka Chopra-Jonas. Sieht mega aus. Schnelle, kostenlose Lieferung, geniale Unterhaltung und mehr gibt's bei Prime. Für nur 8,99 Euro pro Monat werde jetzt Prime-Mitglied.

[00:10:12] Die Inhalte können Werbung enthalten. Fortlaufende Mitgliedschaft. Mehr auf Amazon.de slash Prime. Dr. Neil here for my commentary. For me, it's always entertaining to see the looks on my students' faces when I tell them that I love me some pizza, donuts and french fries. I teach up-and-coming dietitians. And so when they hear me, someone who talks about good nutrition habits day in and day out, reveal that I enjoy the occasional slice or two of pizza,

[00:10:41] handful of french fries, or deep-fried donut, they often gasp in horror, how could I? Well, I have to remind them that I'm human. That although they see me as someone that talks about healthy nutrition habits all day, I'm more than that. I have interests that extend far beyond just healthy eating. In fact, I often have to remind my friends, and family for that matter, that we can talk about other things besides nutrition when I'm around.

[00:11:11] I have so many other passions and interests. I share all this with you so that if you find that eating nutritious foods and exercising regularly are your passions, that's fantastic. They're mine too. But just don't let them be your only passions. Just because you've dedicated yourself to being the best version of yourself doesn't mean that you can't have other interests as well. It's not an either-or situation. You can still be the best version of yourself

[00:11:40] while enjoying much of what life has to offer. All right, that'll do it for the Monday episode. I hope you're having a great start to your week, and I'll be back here tomorrow as usual where your optimal life awaits. and make sure you're gonna be with that. Do you want to reach out If you are watching youruk, it's just two minutes. You're always going to do it. The next time, the time that I have fun and I'll add you and I'll see it