Imagine measuring your wealth by how much you have in your bank alone - misguided, right? That's how we've been conditioned to gauge our health, by weight alone. Today, we're exploring the consequences of obsessive calorie counting, weighing, and exercising that have led to unhealthy mindsets for many.
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Shop our apparel! --> Love Your Body Now
Come connect with me over on your favorite social media platform!💞
Insta: @savannahrobertsonwellness
Tiktok: @savannahrobertson402
Youtube: @savannahrobertson
Imagine measuring your wealth by how much you have in your bank alone - misguided, right? That's how we've been conditioned to gauge our health, by weight alone. Today, we're exploring the consequences of obsessive calorie counting, weighing, and exercising that have led to unhealthy mindsets for many.
* * * * * * * * *
Shop our apparel! --> Love Your Body Now
Come connect with me over on your favorite social media platform!💞
Insta: @savannahrobertsonwellness
Tiktok: @savannahrobertson402
Youtube: @savannahrobertson
you get praised for losing weight. That's just the. That's the norm, and it still unfortunately is, and I I don't think it should be. I I think that there are other metrics to measure our health that say a lot more than the scale can, and, unfortunately, not a lot of people are aware of this or really understand this, and they we've just been taught, and it's just been drilled into our brain to really only use weight as the only metric for our health.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the Love your Body Now podcast, the podcast for women who are ready to feel confident in their body right now and redefine what health looks like for them. I'm Savannah, your host, and together we'll be having conversations about what it means to accept and love our bodies now, while simultaneously prioritizing our health journey. We'll be debunking beliefs that do not serve us and diving into misconceptions and unhealthy narratives in the fitness world, so that we can rebuild our foundation from a place of self-love. Hello, welcome to the Love your Body Now podcast. If you are new here, I'm so excited to be chatting with you today and if you are a regular listener, thank you so much for supporting this podcast and listening to me. I was saying in a previous podcast. I'm like you know it, the podcast, it's so fun and it's so therapeutic to just be able to speak your mind on topics that you're passionate about. But there's always this like little feeling of wonder, of like, is there anyone listening on the other end? But I know that there is at least some people listening, because I'll get messages and they'll be like oh yeah, I heard about this going on or you know, you mentioned this in a podcast episode. I'm like, so someone does listen to me. Okay, this is awesome. So if you are a regular listener, thank you so much. Like you have no idea how much that support truly means. And if you do listen to my podcast regularly and you haven't told me, please shoot me a message and let me know, because it seriously it makes my day to know that there's someone listening in on the other end and you know someone who cares about the topics that we discuss on this podcast and you know all of the things. Like it just really means a lot, like I think, a lot more than you would expect. You know, because you are kind of talking to yourself and you don't really know if anyone cares enough to listen or, you know, has the time. So, yeah, shoot me a message if you do listen, whether it's your first episode or you listen, you've listened to a few episodes or you listen regularly. Let me know.
Speaker 1:But I want to talk about a topic today that kind of it sparked in my head. I was listening to, I listened. I listened to the Model Health Show by Sean Stevenson and I discovered his book and his podcast a long time ago and like religiously listen to it and then I kind of like stopped listening to it and that's just because I was like learning other topics. So like I will do that where I will find a podcast that I really like and want to learn about and I will just like completely like binge all of the episodes and then and then I'll find a new topic that I want to learn about and repeat the same process. So it's been a while since I was listening to his podcast, but I think I had like a specific episode that I found that I wanted to learn about and then, ever since then, I've listened to like six more episodes from him right after, just because he just like gives so much good knowledge and like the latest research on health and he's just like super intelligent and his story is really impactful. So if you haven't checked out his podcast, well, there you go. There's a free little advertising marketing for him. That I just did. But he really I mean he, his book is incredible too. If you want to learn more about nutrition, his book Eat Smarter is incredible, and I'm gonna I think I'm gonna start his other book. He has one called Sleep Smarter, because my sleep is shit, so I'm gonna try and improve my sleep and hear what he has to say about it.
Speaker 1:So I was listening to an episode that he did with Shalene Johnson, and if you don't know who Shalene Johnson is, she's like this huge fitness icon with like tons of workout DVDs from back in the day, and I like her. There's some things you know that. It was a really insightful episode, especially because she shared a lot about her struggles as this fitness influencer back in the day and doing these workout videos and just the impact that it had on her overall self-talk and body image and it. I really related to some of the things that she said and it actually makes me really sad that she took I don't I don't mean this in a judgmental way, but she took so long to heal her relationship with her body, of what it sounds like according to this episode. She was super raw and open about it and she was just sharing about how, how hard she was on her own body for so long and then how she had a shift in her perspective of like her approach to health and did that and now is really like she says that she's really feeling like she's healed a lot and like it's free from a lot of that mentality that she used to carry about herself.
Speaker 1:But some things really resonated with me, just from what I see in other people and also what I've experienced in my own journey, which is this obsession to health and how oh my gosh, it was. It was so like true how we can get so obsessive when it comes to our calories or our weight or like sticking to our workouts. Like I feel like we've all not all, but I mean a lot of us have had a season of life where we are just super deep in this hole of feeling obligated to be at a certain weight, to be at a certain size, to look a certain way and we do whatever we can to achieve it and kind of the old way of thinking used to be you know you're counting your calories right, like you're eating the salad. You're really like not eating and consuming a lot of food. You feel hungry a lot of the time but it's kind of like, well, you got to do what you got to do to lose the weight and just like obsessively checking the scale. I feel like if you listen to this podcast, you might know what I'm talking about and I used to be this way.
Speaker 1:And what's really sad is I struggled with this as young as middle school. Like I remember struggling with the food that I was eating in middle school. I remember like attempting to not like naughty lunch all the time just because I was so obsessed with what the what the scale said and obviously that that carried into high school and that carried into college and I even ended up gaining about 20 pounds in college you know the freshman 20, as they say. But I also think that that I mean I did. I was exposed to a lot of crappy food. Like it's pretty sad the food that we are provided at college. Now when I look back, I'm like, yeah, that's just like terrible. But I also that was the time of my life that I got on birth control and I also started taking depression medication as well, and that is right around the time that I started to see my weight increase. So I don't think that that's a coincidence either. I think that they definitely had a correlation. I don't I'm not on either of those things anymore.
Speaker 1:I was on the pill for a couple of years and when I moved to California after I graduated college, I started. That's really when my health journey really began, like I actually started educating myself and just like trying to consume as many resources as possible to really just try and have a strong foundation for my health journey. Now that I was no longer going to be playing sports and it wasn't going to be a, you know, just a regular thing in my life, and I knew it was something I was going to have to do on my own. I really just became addicted to learning about health, and that's when I started learning about birth control and how much it can like seriously fuck up your hormones and what it actually does with our hormones. So I completely like just stopped taking birth control. I might have actually stopped taking birth control before that. I can't remember when I stopped taking it. I think there was just the one time that I was like I don't feel like making the effort to try and get this, this filled anymore. But I remember learning about the the. You know what can happen when you take birth control, especially long term. I remember learning that when I started my health journey and I was like holy shit, like I did not realize this.
Speaker 1:It's kind of crazy how normalized birth control is, especially for things like it's prescribed to young women, like young girls at such a young age, for things that not are necessarily about sex. You know, preventing having a baby, like a lot of it is. We take it for other reasons and it's just crazy how normalized it is when we like and we're just not educated on it. You know you were just so quickly prescribed like, oh, here here's birth control, without really knowing anything about it, not knowing how it works, not knowing the what would, the side effects of, what can happen from it. And I just remember when I was at the doctor and had all these things happen and I remember being prescribed I think I was prescribed birth control and my depression medications at the same time and I actually remember when I first took my depression medication and this was not something I was educated on either.
Speaker 1:I took it, and I took it before I went to class one day for the first time and I about passed out in class. I mean, I remember they sent me back to my room, they sent me, they told me to go to the doctor or whatever, the school nurse or whatever, and I just had no idea that it would like have that much of an impact on me, like I was like about to be sick, like I was about to pass out, like my teacher. I remember my teacher stopped class and she was like you look like you're about to pass out, like are you okay? And I was like I don't think I'm okay. You know me just like going along with it, like oh, I'm fine, but really like I'm like over there, like my head is spinning and I just got no education with my doctor when I was prescribed these things. Like you know, not to start out, you know like wean your way onto this medication like nothing, like I was just given these pills and I was told to take them and that it would make everything better. And I know I'm kind of going on a tangent, like this wasn't even the topic I was trying to talk about, but I mean, you know, we, I opened the door so I'm gonna start talking about it, and eventually I got.
Speaker 1:I just decided, you know, I don't want to be on this shit anymore. I I want to learn about my health and that's kind of when my perspective started to shift with health overall, like versus before, when I was very obsessed with my calories, like calories in, calories out. I was obsessed with keeping track of how many calories I burned in a workout. It was very, very, very obsessive. And you know, you, you get praised for losing weight. That's just the. That's the norm and it still unfortunately is, and I I don't think it should be. I I think that there are other metrics to measure our health that say a lot more than the scale can and, unfortunately, not a lot of people are aware of this or really understand this, and they we've just been taught and it's just been drilled into our brain to really only use weight as the only metric for our health, and the weight just does not give us a big picture. It just tells you one tiny, little, minuscule thing about yourself.
Speaker 1:And that's when, like, my perspective started to shift was when we were in California and I started this health coaching journey and I started kind of like a new fitness journey for myself. I had always grown up playing sports and that was how I got my exercise in was, you know, training for sports? And this was during COVID too, like a graduated school during COVID. I moved to California during COVID, so the gyms were closed, everything. So I had to really have a mental shift in what fitness meant to me if I was gonna make it work for me during that time, because you just, we didn't know how long things were gonna be the way that were and I was like I can't wait to start prioritizing my fitness until all of this, you know, goes away because, like, who knows if it will? Or you know, you just, we just didn't know. And so I started learning and you know, I started doing a nutrition program and it did teach me a lot about nutrition in a different way that I had seen it.
Speaker 1:And I started learning things about fitness and I was just like all in right, I was so obsessed with learning about health. I felt like I was learning something new every single day that I had no idea. And I, I was obsessive, so obsessive like it's crazy how I got off the bandwagon of counting my calories and obsessing over my weight. Slowly it wasn't an overnight thing, but I slowly started to let go of that mentality. But it was interesting because all of that energy that I had directed into it, it slowly started to get poured into something else, which was all about my new workout programs that I was doing every single day and making sure that I followed the programs to a T and that I wasn't. I wasn't doing anything like I was always showing up because in my head I was supposed to be a health coach and I was promoting my health coaching on social media and I was trying to be this example and like this leader to everyone that I was, I was working with. So in my head it was kind of like I cannot let up, I can't, I can't not show up because everyone is counting on me.
Speaker 1:And the same thing happened with my, my nutrition, where it was like I did not allow myself to not follow the program that I was doing, like I followed it basically to a T for a few months, like I would say probably like six months. I followed it to like a T and that was the way I was living and this podcast that I had listened to on the model health show with Shalene Johnson. It kind of made me, you know, re reanalyze that period of my life which I have, and admit that, like although this whole entire thing has been a journey for me and it's been a positive journey, like I feel, like I continuously make progress, I continuously learn stuff about myself I had realized how much of my like, my obsession didn't go away, it just got it just like slowly switched to being directed to something else which was like this obsession of being healthy. And I know that that may not sound bad, but when you start to think about our addictions in general and obsession and like these obsessive habits, it you start to you start to realize, like how much they actually take away from your life and from just being present and in the moment and just living and being intuitive and giving your body what it needs.
Speaker 1:Because at that time, that period of time which I would say probably lasted for a year to two years, where I was kind of in that season of life where I was really obsessed with learning about health and learning about just like the research on stuff, you know, the quality of our food, like all this stuff which is good knowledge to have. But it got to the point where it was like you know, we would be out to eat and I would be telling the person next to me, you know, should you really be eating that? Do you know what's in that? Like and like just almost like I was that person where I was like oh yeah, like like they don't know what's in here, and you know I was doing it to my husband and I know, like I know it was annoying him because he's like can I just like eat my food without you like having to make a comment about how terrible it is? And it wasn't like a way where I was like trying to shame him, for it had nothing to do with his his physical being or like anything like that. It had more to do with me, like in my own way, like I care about his overall health and his well-being being and the stuff that I had learned about the quality of our food like pretty much all of our food like the shitty quality of it.
Speaker 1:Unless you are being very, very intentional and going out of your way to buy all the right foods, it is like almost impossible to avoid the shitty quality food that we are now given and are surrounded by everywhere Like it's a minority to find food that is like not, it doesn't have a bunch of toxins in it is basically what I'm saying, and I know that I was personally like shaming myself like internally is what I mean If I was like eating, allowing myself to eat stuff when I knew what I knew, right, that was the hardest part was like, after you know and you learn these things, you can't unknow it and you can't unlearn it, and so it's like you almost have to take action because you're like I just learned this and now I have to make a change because, like, I can't unknow this, and it was this internal shame that I was carrying which I have always carried, internal shame it just became. It just shifted right, like before it was about the calories and it was about my weight and I had that. I carried that internal shame. And then it became about my health obsession and trying to do health perfectly, whether it was avoiding all of the toxic ingredients and, you know, following my nutrition plan to a T and making sure that I did my workout programs the exact way they said never taking a break from my body, never allowing myself to sleep in Like I was like if I did any of that, I felt this internal shame and I realized how much I was also projecting that shame onto other people that I really cared about because I thought I was, I wanted to protect them, but that was the only.
Speaker 1:That was like how I knew best to protect them. And I try to be very careful of it now because for a while a good while like, I would go out with people and I shouldn't say that I used to like point stuff out at people about their food. It was really only when I was out with my husband, victor. I never really did it to like other people unless they specifically asked me, because it wasn't like ever something I wanted to make people feel bad about. It was always just usually, victor that I would make comments about the food we'd ordered or something like that, because I was just like I would have all this internal shame of like, oh my gosh, like we're killing ourselves. And you know that was me being like Victor, like we're killing ourselves, like we we've got to do better, we've got to do better Like our health matters.
Speaker 1:And I would realize, like because I was so open and like talked about all this health stuff on my social media for that period of time, like people knew me as the health nut Like they like anytime they talked to me they would start talking about health and fitness, like they would talk about their stuff, like I wouldn't even bring it up, it was just like it was almost like the only thing they knew how to talk about around me. And it actually became very frustrating for me when I would be out with friends or family that I hadn't seen in a long time, because we don't live around friends and family anymore and the only the only way we would stay connected was through social media. So they had been seeing all my posts about health and all that stuff, and then we'd get together and we would go out to eat and they would almost like feel self conscious that I was there, because they felt like I was judging their every choice, which was not the case at all, and I like I felt so. I felt so bad just existing at the lunch. Like you know, like I, I didn't realize how much people paid attention to what I had to say on social media. So I always felt bad when people like felt obligated to explain their eating choices to me, because I was like I don't, I want you to live your life, like I want you to just enjoy this lunch with me, whatever.
Speaker 1:And I think that that's kind of where things started to shift again for me, to the point where I realized, like you know, we do know all of these things, we have this knowledge and I have this knowledge myself. But at what point is it, like you know, am I really living my life? Am I really being present in the moment and enjoying? You know, victor and I go out to eat and we want to go for a dinner date. Am I more concerned about the food that we're ordering or am I more concerned about spending quality time with him?
Speaker 1:And that's really when, again, my, my perspective started to shift and I started to realize that, although I really wanted to learn I love learning and I wanted to understand my health, I wanted to have education about the quality of our food, our resources. Like I wanted to know all of those things, but I also wanted to find more balance in my life, because I felt like I wasn't truly living. I was. I was obsessed with this new thing, just like when I was obsessed with my weight and being the strongest in the weight room and the calories that I was consuming. It was an obsession. It was something that I thought about constantly, like all times the day, and I thought that I had overcome that and I did in a way, but at the same time, my obsession just change to something else.
Speaker 1:And that was a pivotal moment for me when I, when I started to realize that like, yeah, I've come a long way in my journey, but also I'm not. I'm still. I still don't feel like this sense of freedom in my health journey. I still feel like I don't, I don't know, like I'm kind of shameful still about stuff, like I'm finding ways to still shame myself. It's just different and that's why I tell women all the time that losing weight won't solve your problems. We all struggle with those mental issues and negative self talk and we think that losing the weight and getting back down to our weight we used to be will solve our problems. But we know that when we used to be at the weight that we thought was bad before, until we gained the weight, we knew we were unhappy then and I knew that about myself too, and it's just like, at what point will it be enough, and you kind of have to start to realize that about yourself.
Speaker 1:And I feel like this past couple of, like this last year and a half, so after we left California and we moved to Texas, I feel like it's been a whole nother healing journey for me where I've tried to let go of those expectations for myself, I've tried to allow myself to enjoy foods that you know I used to shame myself for, and I also talk about how I've kind of gained some weight back. I mean, I'm not, I don't, I'm not overweight, I don't weigh myself, but I know that, like I'm still at a healthy size. And it's been. It's been a challenge because I've kind of tried to force myself to not obsess over anything and I definitely think that therapy is something I need to explore because I think there are some things that would just help to process with an outside point of view. But that's been like where my new journey has led me, which is just kind of trying to let go of that sense of control which I don't know that I fully have.
Speaker 1:But I know that there's a lot of challenges that I've been facing with doing exactly what I preach, which is to love your body. Now, right, I preach it all the time and I feel like that's been the thing that I've been struggling with the most the last six months to a year, because I feel like I haven't been as like go hard with my workouts. It's kind of been more chill and like listening to my body and exploring different styles of workouts, like I've been super open to trying new things, so I haven't had a ton of like structure. I've been in two different jobs in the last year so I've navigated, trying to figure out what my schedule is like and making fitness a priority with different schedules, and I also have tried to let go of my obsession around food and really just like it's hard. It's really hard and I know that I talk about it all the time and I'm like, oh, you should do this and like I preach all of these things from like the lessons that I've learned. But the truth is I'm still on a journey and I've just realized that every season, I'm finding myself healing in a different way that I didn't realize I still needed to heal from, and right now, that what that is is truly accepting my body in a body that I feel not as in control of. And I think these last few years that I started health coaching and I started my fitness journey.
Speaker 1:It was it's really easy to tell other people to love their bodies and how self love when you are in you know some of the best shape of your life Like it's really easy to tell people that but then when you're in it, when you're not in the, your body looks different than it did two years ago. It's really hard to accept it and say that that that body is still beautiful, and not compare yourself to how you used to look or how others look around you. And that's something that I'm definitely being challenged with today, which is why this podcast means so much to me and this, this brand, this entire brand, means so much to me because it's kind of like my saving grace, like it's like I could easily revert back to old habits and old thoughts and negative self talk. But I know that with this brand that I've built, like there are people who have been inspired and have learned stuff from me, and it kind of reminds me of what I needed and what I have learned from others who weren't afraid to step up and speak up about their journey, and it's kind of like the weights that I carry today and it's not anything where I put all this pressure on myself, because I did do that in the beginning of health coaching. I put a lot, a lot of pressure on myself to be perfect and to be the perfect role model and to show people how it's done and, you know, to show them that it's it's doable and all of these things, and it really led to a lot of extra stress that I carried. And once you learn that stuff about health and about stress and how you need to manage that, because that's another thing with your health. I mean, if you're not managing your stress and your cortisol is chronically high all the time, that's just as bad as eating unhealthy all the time.
Speaker 1:So it's been every. Every season that I've been in, it's been. I've learned something new. I've learned something about myself. I've found ways that I can improve and grow, and I just continue to keep sharing about it on social media, on my podcast and just being super open about it. And that is just where I'm at with my season of life. I'm. I'm learning more about myself every single day. I just I'm. I'm glad that I get the opportunity to do that and that I get to share about it and that there's someone, hopefully, on the other end listening about it.
Speaker 1:So I will leave you at that. I will talk to you soon and if you loved this episode, please let me know again. Like it. Just it's nice to hear these things. If you liked it, tag me in a story or something and please leave a rating and review for the podcast If you listen to it and you like it. So then that way, more people can discover it. All right, I will talk to you later.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode. You have no idea how grateful I am to have you as one of the love your body now listeners. If you are loving this podcast, it would mean the world to me if you subscribed and left a review. This helps me get the message out to more women just like you who are also committed to their journey. And if you love this episode, please be sure to share it with someone who you know needs to hear today's message. Together, we can help more women recognize their self worth and build their confidence from a much deeper place, just like you're doing right now. Let's help change the world, one woman at a time. All right, talk to you soon, friend.