Things I Used To Do
Schedule all of my workouts in Google Calendar
Track all of my workouts in a notebook (the activity I did, etc)
Weigh myself often
Weigh my food/Meticulously measure out serving sizes
Track and log every calorie
Go too long between meals and feel hangry/dizzy/nauseated
Things I Do Now
Workout when my body feels like I can
If I want to do some kind of movement for my mental health but my body doesn’t want to “workout”, I walk or do yoga
I try to eat intuitively
I don’t weigh/track/log/record calories or food
I only weigh myself periodically
I try to go by how my clothes fit instead of the number on the scale
I go to therapy regularly to challenge my old mentality of diet culture and try to learn healthy habits
I try not to go to long between meals and listen to hunger cues
I had been really doing the work, for over a year before I got pregnant with Zoey. I was able to find some form of food freedom. I had realized what I was doing before wasn’t living a full life. I had realized that I *didn’t* need to count every calorie. Cutting out entire food groups was not congruent with what I was striving for.
The above graphic is ME to a T. Guilt and shame? Check. Restriction. Check. Ignoring Hunger Cues–yes! When I stopped counting calories and tried to do Intuitive Eating, it was SO hard for me because I had suppressed my hunger cues for over a decade. I had rigid food rules–which caused a lot of conflict in my relationships. It’s been a journey and I felt like I was getting to a point where I had food freedom.
One of the stumbling blocks I still had was having to “Earn” food with exercise. But when I got pregnant I was having a lot of issues and I had bad morning sickness, so I wasn’t really able to do a lot. I certainly wasn’t trying to restrict. I ate what didn’t make me feel sick. LOL Exercise was no longer about burning calories, it was about movement and about being healthy and having a healthy pregnancy, but not the punishing workouts I used to do!
For the last year I’ve been having a lot of injury/mobility issues and that has been even more humbling. I don’t not take exercise for granted. I am happy when I can move my body. And I no longer try to punish my body with intense exercise. It’s not worth it to me to be crippled and sore for days, or injured, just for a huge calorie burn.
It’s a process and a journey and I am slowly getting there.
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