Exercise and food

Ok, all my life, I had the thin privilege. I grew up an intuitive eater. In my twenties, I competed in bodybuilding competitions. I did well, and that’s how I acquired my self-worth. I stopped competing, had two children and exercised for stress relief and health. Oprah shows introduced me to her “health experts.” I started to exercise a certain amount that they recommended. I like to research, so I ended up doing a lot of reading on nutrition and exercise. I become somewhat orthorexic.

I finally knew it was craziness, and I came upon Intuitive eating and the work of Ellen Satter. I changed my eating back to intuitive eating. I’ve followed HAES and that world for years. I agree wholeheartedly. Over the past ten years, my body has added fat, and I’m just getting used to my new body. I haven’t weight trained in years, and I want to get back weight training twice weekly. I’ve yet to commit.

I’m guessing my own internal pressure that I “ should” look like I used to is part of the problem. The other problem is the dietary recommendations from the Canadian Diet Association gets into my head. The reason is that I’m aging, and age-related illnesses can start and will start to show up. After all, we can’t live forever. Too much knowledge of the “right way” to move and feed my body is the problem. Thanks!

ANSWER

Hello!

I’m not sure exactly what you would like coaching on. I can’t find a question to answer. We didn’t receive a self-coaching model either. So at this point, the best that I can do is to comment and suggest the next step. If this is not what you expected, please resubmit a direct question or a self-coaching model.

First comment: Well done for you to recognize your thin privilege. That said, having thin privilege doesn’t spare us from being fatphobic or having internalized the fear of fatness. It would appear that is what is happening for you. I make this assumption because of this sentence: “I’m guessing my own internal pressure that I “should”. This would indicate to me a fear of being fat.

So this would be my first coaching for you. You need to put this through the self-coaching process. We teach you how to do self-coaching inside the CONFIDENT course: Lesson 2-7.

So, in this case, I would suggest your C: Body size.

The second observation is around food. Although you have extensively studied Ellyn Sater and Intuitive Eating, it would appear that you are still holding “food judgement” or “healthy/ unhealthy food” beliefs within you. This is why you are struggling to process the “recommendations from the Canadian Diet Association”… you haven’t yet changed your beliefs about certain food, and now you experience a dilemma.

We teach you this inside PEACEFUL.- Lesson 4. We lead us to use the self-coaching model to neutralize all food.

C: Food

And the last observation would be about your internal belief system about health. Looks like you have a lot of thoughts (what you described as knowledge), and you haven’t yet made a decision on what you will believe or not. As a result, you are conflicted and uncertain.

C: Health while aging
TD
x
y
x
x
x
x

F: Uncertain/ Conflicted.

Stage 1 of Self-coaching asks you to inventory all of your thoughts and see what they create. Stage 2 of Self-coaching requires that you decide what you will think going forward. I think this is the key for you.

I would suggest you watch the “Health Goals the Non-Diet Way” Masterclass replay and work through all the exercises.

Hopefully, this coaching will be helpful. Be sure to ask a direct question or share your self-coaching model even if not complete next time so we can address your needs better.