This episode turns the spotlight on self-reflection and its power to revolutionize your approach to fitness. Learn to identify and challenge the narratives that shape your views on exercise, both from within and the world around you. It's time to select the fitness philosophies that resonate with you, and together, we'll navigate this mindful path to physical empowerment. By redefining exercise as a life-enhancing habit rather than a mere weight-loss endeavor, we pave the way for a healthier body image and overall well-being.
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Shop our apparel! --> Love Your Body Now
Follow us on socials: @weareloveyourbodynow
This episode turns the spotlight on self-reflection and its power to revolutionize your approach to fitness. Learn to identify and challenge the narratives that shape your views on exercise, both from within and the world around you. It's time to select the fitness philosophies that resonate with you, and together, we'll navigate this mindful path to physical empowerment. By redefining exercise as a life-enhancing habit rather than a mere weight-loss endeavor, we pave the way for a healthier body image and overall well-being.
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Shop our apparel! --> Love Your Body Now
Follow us on socials: @weareloveyourbodynow
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 back to the Love your Body Now podcast. I'm so excited for today's episode and if you have tuned in to some of my podcasts, you know that I've been playing around with recording video at the same time news for content and I'm actually recording on Zoom right now because what I would like to do is eventually just add my podcast episodes to YouTube. So I'm playing around with that and I've got a lot of different tech going on. Right now I'm hooked up to my phone and video and microphone, and then I'm also hooked up to my laptop and microphone and video and I'm like, okay, I hope nothing goes wrong during this, but if it does whatever, as long as I have the audio and I can upload onto the podcast, then we'll be fine. So if you are a regular listener and you tune into the episode regularly, welcome back. Thank you so much for supporting the podcast and if you feel like you find value of this podcast, please go out of your way to share episodes that maybe resonate with you and you think other people would benefit from listening and just help us out to get the word out more on this podcast that it exists and is here to help support others. And if you are new and this is the first episode that you're tuning into, thank you so much for giving this podcast in a chance, basically, and seeing if this is something that you want to continue listening to and see if it's something that actually helps you.
Speaker 1:And what I'll say is, if you ever have suggestions of different topics that you want me to cover on this podcast that you feel fall into the umbrella of different topics that we discuss, which we discuss a lot of different health, fitness, body image, just mindset stuff that us women go through and men as we try to navigate our health journey and our wellness journey and our worth journey. So we sort of marry all of those topics together and chat about, chat about them here on the podcast and I share my own personal journey very often to. However, it will help someone in the future of you know, seeing me go through it. Maybe I'm one step, two steps ahead of your journey and you can kind of pull and take away what you need to apply to your own journey. And today we are specifically talking about exercise and how we can start to shift our mindset in a relationship with exercise. Because if you experienced anything like I have or maybe you know I've worked with a lot of clients in the past when I was health coaching and I've I noticed over and over again this skewed narrative or this regular belief system that we tend to have with exercise as a whole, myself included, and that's honestly what led me to teaching what I teach about now and having conversations about the health and fitness world and kind of shining a light on hey, you know, maybe, like the fitness industry, people who work in the fitness industry have good intentions.
Speaker 1:Usually it is the marketing that sometimes can feed into this narrative that leads to an unhealthy relationship with our bodies and unhealthy relationship to our fitness journey and not really honoring ourselves and our body Because we're tuning into those words and what the fitness industry is continuously marketing to us and us believing and adopting those beliefs that are given to us. It tends to bring us further and further away from what our body actually needs and actually tuning into our body and feeling into it. Because, ultimately, we know what our body needs, but we've trained ourselves not to listen to it and instead listen to outside sources. And there's a time and a place to learn from health and fitness professionals and to you know, go on that journey and try and better understand exercise and working out and learning about that, because it is important that we understand it, understand the importance, understand the varieties of exercise and physical activity that we can truly benefit from. But I think that, with the way that the fitness industry markets, it sort of teaches us that we should feel like we are dependent on our personal trainers, on our fitness instructors, on the gyms that we go to, on the group classes that we sign up for, like whatever it is. We've started to adopt these beliefs that we need. We need them in order to be successful.
Speaker 1:And again, there's a lot of gray area with this, like, yes, you may need a mentor or a guide in whatever stage of journey that you are in, but ultimately your body knows like you are the ultimate guide, like an inner knowing of what you need, and sometimes you need to seek out information. You need to seek out education and knowledge from the people who have dedicated themselves and are very knowledgeable within the industry. That that's a tool, but that's the thing that we need to have the shift in with exercise and working out and physical activity and fitness is that these are all tools and when we go and seek out knowledge and want to learn more and learn from these guides, we don't, we should not, take anyone's expertise as this end all be all or this is the way you have to do things or this is the the ultimate way. There are bits and pieces that we can take from every single mentor, every single piece of education and whatever that we learn and apply it to our lives, but we need to trust ourselves enough to be able to not necessarily take everything so you can absorb the information and then you can interpret it of okay, like I'm going to try this thing that I just learned, or I'm gonna take this thing that I just learned and see how it goes for me, but not taking it as, like, this is the way I have to do it, because that person said and I hope that that makes sense, because, even as I'm here sharing my knowledge and sharing my expertise and my own personal journey, I want you to question the things that I say. I want you to take it with a grain of salt, like I. I want you to take the information that you need to hear and apply it. However, you need to apply it. But if there's stuff that I say that doesn't really apply to you, it doesn't resonate with you, doesn't make sense for you, or it's not the right time in the stage of journey that you're in, it's okay. It doesn't mean that you have to do everything.
Speaker 1:The exact way that I say and I think that that's that's the shift I really want to help other people have when it comes to fitness, when it comes to body image, when it comes to discovering our self-worth is that we are the ultimate like. We ultimately know what we need and we can go and outsource information and take what we need, but ultimately, we are the ones that know what's right and what's wrong, and I know that that might sound a little weird or might sound confusing, but even when I like. For example, if I want to work with a coach, I can get a pretty good idea, not even a coach, just like any kind of professional that I want to work with, whether it's for my own personal growth and development, or, let's say, like a tax accountant, or you know an accountant or a realtor that I want to work with or you know any kind of professional that is gonna have a huge impact in my journey. In whatever area of life I can like, within the first like meeting that I have with them, I can know whether or not this person has my best interest at heart. Is someone that I actually want to work with, someone that I trust, whether they I wait, I feel like they know their shit because, for example, I will like I got on a call recently with a potential like tax strategist slash accountant person to help us with our taxes and really to have a relationship with someone moving forward, as we're, you know, diving more into real estate and you know I have different ways that I earn side income, so different.
Speaker 1:Just wanting to have someone in my corner that I trust and that can advise me where I'm not knowledgeable and one of the first things that I will pay attention to in, let's say, like an initial conversation or initial interaction, is whether or not they ask me questions about where I'm at. You know what I'm looking to achieve, like the goals that I have this season that I'm in. That tells me whether or not a coach is actually a good coach or if a coach is literally just projecting everything that's worked for them onto you and not really understanding that you are the person that knows what's best for you and they're just there to guide you in the way that you need it. And the only way that they can guide you in the way that they need it is to try to understand you, your goals, where you're at, what questions you have and I know this is maybe seeming to get a little bit off topic, but it's me really just trying to drive home the mentality that you know it's best for you and you can start to understand whether or not, if you are trying to work with a personal trainer or a coach, if they really go deep and try to understand you as the individual and not just go about starting to say, oh well, you should do this, you should do this, you should do this when they haven't even asked you any questions. That's a red flag, and not just fitness, but anything. And I that's one of the first things that I kind of use as, like my inner knowing knows I know the type of guy that I need and the mentor that I need right now. I need someone who's gonna take the time to understand me and my needs and to ask me what my goals are, because then they can apply the specific knowledge that they have to my specific situation and goals. So, again, apply this to your, your fitness journey, because I know that that's the main topic that we're talking about right now is how to shift that relationship with exercise. So I wanted to start there with if you are like looking for tools to help you where you're at in your journey, be mindful of if you are going to work with another individual or someone is trying to sell you something, whether it's a gym membership or a coaching service, whatever it may be. Be mindful of those things, whether or not that person takes the time to ask you questions, because if they don't take the time to understand where you're at your needs and just like where you're at in your journey, they're not going to be able to help you as good as someone else could who actually takes the time to do that. And that goes along.
Speaker 1:The first step of starting to shift your mindset and relationship to exercise, which is having awareness of not just your thoughts but of yourself, like in your habits. And I will say that having awareness around the way that you talk about exercise in your mind to other people is a super big indicator of how your relationship with exercise is in reality. And if you want to improve your relationship with exercise, you first need to have awareness around the thoughts that come up when maybe you need to exercise. And that's kind of why I brought up the whole being super mindful of what other people are telling you about fitness and who's guiding you, because every single person is always going to project their beliefs, their limiting beliefs. Whatever knowledge that they have, whatever has worked for them, they're always naturally going to project that onto you. And if you're not fully aware of what's going on in your own mind, of what you're thinking about exercise, you can start to easily adopt other people's projections, whether it's true or it's not. So, having that awareness for yourself and learning how to be more mindful of how you are talking about fitness and how other people are talking about fitness, how fitness is marketed to you on the internet or on ads like whatever, starting to develop that awareness and question it.
Speaker 1:Not all marketing around fitness is bad, but know that people market to our insecurities a lot of the times when it comes to health and fitness. So if your mindset is believing that you're overweight and maybe you are, or just like really having a bad mindset around your overall body image, fitness companies know that a lot of the population already has these beliefs, so they're going to feed into that and it's going to trigger emotions in you and when emotions are being triggered, we're naturally more likely to make decisions based off those emotions. So if a company is really great at marketing, they're going to be really good at understanding the client and understanding what's going on, like the thoughts that are going on inside the client's head and speaking directly to that. So you want to be able to have enough awareness in yourself and in your own thoughts whether or not a company is really trying to help you or if they're trying to sell to you, and sometimes there's like they're doing both and obviously those companies need a way to get you in the door and sometimes they'll say things to get you in the door and then they truly will help you transform your life. So I'm not saying that that type of marketing is bad. I just want you to have awareness around it, and just awareness. Even seeing fitness influencers, seeing coaches online educate and talk, take it with a grain of salt, because they're projecting their beliefs and their expertise and not all of it has to apply to you.
Speaker 1:You are ultimately, the one who is in charge of your mentality around exercise and your mindset around it. So be very, very, what's the word I'm looking for? Be very selective of the words that you allow to turn into beliefs when it comes to exercise and working out, because if you hear people saying things like, oh, I'm going to go burn off my calories, and you start to adopt those beliefs or maybe that already is your belief that you feel like you have to burn off your calories, that you you ate food and now you feel like you have to go burn that off that's feeding into a negative mindset around exercise. So if you're someone who wants to have a more positive relationship to working out, you want to have things that you say about exercise that are positive and that lift you up, not make you feel negative towards your body or negative towards how you're eating. So really starting to have that awareness and also be very selective of the thoughts that are going on inside your head and what you hear on the outside.
Speaker 1:You can just choose not to believe something, and I think that that it can be very hard to adopt this. And I'm kind of in the middle of that, not with, necessarily, my fitness journey, but other areas of my life that I've noticed. I've had limiting beliefs for a long time and I haven't been able to manifest the things that I want in my life because of these limiting beliefs and realizing that they are these beliefs that I've carried on for so long. But I get to decide whether or not I want to continue bringing them with me and continue pouring into them, which ultimately, you know, those are the beliefs that will self sabotage when I try to make changes. But I haven't addressed the beliefs.
Speaker 1:So it is so important to know what's going on inside your head on autopilot, because a majority of our thoughts are on autopilot and they're kind of they kind of like, are sneaky in the way that they sort of like mask the actual belief. So we'll like say things of like let me think, let me think you know that, okay. So let's go back to the. I feel like I need to burn off the calories that I eat, like what's the deeper belief behind that? What is that feeling like Our body is not worthy of eating, like we should feel guilty for eating certain foods, and like you can even continue to go deeper and deeper with that. So understanding the current relationship that you have with exercise before you even start to make those changes is a super key starting point if you want to shift your relationship with exercise. So I would start there.
Speaker 1:And if you're not journaling, I know, and I even did this for the longest time I used to think journaling was like not for me, like I just couldn't get with it. And since the beginning of this year we're, you know, at the beginning of March, right now I have like full blown, like dedicated myself to journaling and prioritizing that and it's been life-changing and it's not just. I think what I used to think about journaling was like you sit down and you like talk about your day and it's like you just have to like recap your day like I don't even know. But again, that was a belief that I was carrying. That was kind of like masking other stuff. So then I was sabotaging myself. Every time I went to try and journal, I was sabotaging and saying, well, I don't really want to recap my day like this is pointless, like why would I continue doing this when instead journaling is actually a super key way to do inner healing and to basically mirror your subconscious beliefs onto paper and actually see them for what they are and then reframing them and working through them and going deeper with yourself. So it's actually super, super powerful what you can do with journaling.
Speaker 1:So, even again, starting to write down the thoughts that come up throughout your day of, like what you said about exercise or the feelings that you had about it, maybe you dread it and it's kind of like, well, why do I feel that way? Am I doing workouts that I don't really enjoy? Am I feeling super sore all the time? Am I super tired all the time? Like really starting to ask yourself, well, why do I feel this way about exercise? Is there another way that I can approach exercise to where I can make it more enjoyable, make it more doable? So, again, having super, like huge awareness is going to immensely change, be the start of the change of your relationship with it. That's not even just talking about exercise, that's talking like anything in your life, creating that awareness around it. And I know how easy it can be to like say, well, this didn't work for me, this didn't work for me.
Speaker 1:You know this coach, whatever, like blaming outside stuff, but even I've learned in my personal journey again not necessarily pertaining to fitness, but it can when I go to complain or think or blame an outside thing, I'm learning to actually revert it and point it back to myself of, well, why did this happen? Like, what did I do? To where it led to this? Because everything that we believe and carry, how we carry ourselves, is mirrored back to us in other areas of life, our relationships. You know what we, what we manifest into our life, is a direct reflection of who we are right now, our subconscious, and where we are at internally and mentally. And maybe we don't really realize it. And this is actually been very, very, very powerful for me as I've been working through my inner healing.
Speaker 1:Like anytime I get triggered by something, triggered by someone, I I'll start to go down this like, oh, they don't do this or you know, this isn't good enough or I don't like what they just did. And then I, like you know, that's like the point in the finger and you've got all these fingers pointing back at you. That's literally what I'm doing every single time a trigger comes up is well, what does this say about me? Like why do I, why am I getting so triggered right now, in this scenario or in the situation? And then that's when you go down to sit down in your journal and you start writing this stuff out of like but where did this come from? Like why am I thinking this way?
Speaker 1:Because when you can start to have gained clarity and gain control over that, that's when you really can start to reframe your beliefs and reframe again your relationship to exercise and just choose to believe something different and to continue to embody that. So let's shift a little bit. Let's say you're doing all of that, you're starting to work through your beliefs around exercise and fitness and being super, super cautious of what you allow to funnel through and come in and adopt as your own truth. Then you can start to tune more into your body and listen to your body and what it needs and have more grace around that. Again, I know some people might believe that in order to have effective workouts and exercise, maybe you're on a weight loss journey and maybe you, somewhere along the line, adopted that you have to do these specific exercises in order to see results, in order to fully give your body what it needs, if that is where you're maybe fighting yourself.
Speaker 1:So let's say I can even say this for myself feeling like I have to lift weights, like a certain amount of days of the week, in order to actually take care of my body. If I do other types of workouts, like if I go for a walk or if I do Pilates or if I do yoga, it feels like I'm not doing enough. It feels like my body needs more, it needs more challenge. It's not necessarily true that what I'm doing isn't enough If I feel like I'm not lifting all the time. Why am I feeling this way?
Speaker 1:Right now, for example, I am in the process of doing physical therapy for a specific injury I guess I don't even know if I'd call it an injury but my PT advised me not to lift heavy, basically, not to lift weights. I was like what the fuck? Then, instantly, my mind's like oh my gosh, I'm going to gain so much weight I'm going to lose all of my muscle mass. This is where my brain's going. It's like, okay, let's reel it in for a sec.
Speaker 1:Just because I don't lift super heavy weights or I'm not picking up dumbbells does not mean I can't do resistance training. We see resistance training in Pilates and it doesn't mean that I can't still move my body. It doesn't mean I'm going to lose all of this progress. I can start to work through that, even if I really wanted to. Let's say I didn't want to completely give up lifting. All he said was don't be lifting heavy, and then he told me some certain exercises not to be doing. I could still incorporate lifting, but not to the point where I'm not listening to him, but also not to the point where I'm just completely not doing it at all.
Speaker 1:Again, it's like listening to what would still feel good in my body, but also not be the extreme side of it. Sometimes that does mean making yourself feel a little bit of discomfort. I know for a lot of people and again including myself feeling like if I just did Pilates and maybe lifting twice a week, that would be very, very uncomfortable for me to adjust to, because I've always done lifting workouts ever since I started exercising and started working on the gym and playing sports. That's been ingrained in me. It can be very uncomfortable shifting things in my routine because it might feel like this isn't enough, like my body's not getting enough challenge. But then again, okay, so I'm feeling these things like why am I feeling these things? Are these things true? Then that's when you can go and seek out. Okay, well, let me learn from a fitness professional who maybe they are talking about the types of workouts that you need to incorporate, or maybe I know a personal trainer and I can ask them. But again, you want to be very selective because some personal trainers will have bias opinions and maybe that's when you actually ask multiple professionals and not just one, because I could go to a personal trainer who is maybe they're like a strength and conditioning coach and they don't do yoga, they've never done Pilates, they can't speak to it. So then it's like if I go to ask them and then they just feed back sorry, I just bumped the microphone, I don't know if that was really loud they feed back what I already believe and then it's kind of like see, like I'm right and that's our brain's way of trying to validate its own truth, whether it's true or not, so going and seeking out other advice.
Speaker 1:You know, I have the Pilates instructor that I have been following and like using her workouts. I had seen a post where it was like this other personal trainer said something along the lines of like if you want to do Pilates, great, but you still need to be lifting weights. Like Pilates is not enough to like I think it was, it was not enough to prevent osteoporosis as we age as women. And I messaged her and sent her the post and I was like I would love to hear your take on this, because you know she's hardcore like Pilates and like that's all I mean. I want to say that's all she does, but like that's her whole page is Pilates. And she actually was like. You know, I actually agree with this. There are studies showing that the only way to truly prevent osteoporosis from happening in women as we age is lifting heavy. So, yeah, like, it is still important to lift weights in our workout routine. Now does it mean we have to be lifting five times a week? No, we can still incorporate it and incorporate Pilates or incorporate whatever we enjoy, in order to still achieve the same results.
Speaker 1:So, being able to make yourself a little uncomfortable and have an open mind around different maybe different areas of fitness that we haven't given the chance to make us better overall, if that makes sense, so like not just having a one-sided opinion when it comes to certain areas of fitness, I think that that's been something I have been exploring more throughout the years Because, again, I grew up in that mindset of this is what exercise looks like, because I grew up in sports and this is that's what we did all the time. You know, we went into the weight room and we did certain conditioning and once we got out of college, it was like really weird, because I was like I felt like in order to have an effective workout, it had to be exerting, it had to be hard, it had to be like I am like red in the face, dripping sweat, like my heart's got to be pumping really hard. And I'm still working through those beliefs Like, yes, it feels good to have a workout like that sometimes, but it doesn't necessarily mean that I don't get an effective workout just because it didn't look like that. And that's the other thing with shifting your mindset around exercise is to realize that when you can adopt the belief that exercise is meant to enhance your life rather than using exercise to lose weight. I think that this is such a big shift for people who are struggling with the relationship to exercise and I get that it is so hard to let go of that belief. I'm not saying it's easy to let go of that belief and I'm not saying that you should completely ignore the fact that, yes, exercise can be a tool to lose weight. But I think when you can start to shift the mindset and start to separate them as when I find ways to enhance my life and to enjoy life and to feel better overall as a separate thing you will naturally start to look healthier, you will naturally start to your body image will start to improve because you are honoring your body. That is the biggest shift is finding ways to honor your body and tuning into that and ignoring the outside noise. Again, take the outside noise when you need it as putting more tools in your toolbox education, knowledge, wanting to learn there's nothing wrong with that but ultimately, knowing that you know it's best for you and that when you honor yourself and your body and what it needs, and exploring that too, not being afraid to explore it. I think can really help to start to shift that mindset and the relationship that you have with exercise.
Speaker 1:I know for me more recently because I haven't been lifting heavy weights and doing these super intense workouts I have been getting outside more. I've been literally like I have been so much more mindful and aware of what getting outside does for me instantly, like so much energy. So what I've been doing is I've been going on more walks. I've been going on longer walks in the sun and listening to a podcast and really like feeling inside my body during, after and seeing how it made me feel like do I feel rejuvenated? Do I feel like good? Like did that feel good? And if it did, then it's like okay, like I'm starting to learn more about what my body wants rather than giving it what it's not necessarily wanting or needing right now, because I feel like that's how it should be Now.
Speaker 1:That's not to say don't push yourself like don't avoid a hard workout, because Savannah said not to Like there's a time and a place, but knowing like really tuning into the body is such a huge piece of it and it can be a challenge, especially if you are not super connected with your body. That is me right now. I am relearning to connect with my body and to regulate my nervous system. Like all of this stuff is connected and I'm going to be talking about this more in the podcast because that is like the season that I am in, where I'm really trying to slow down, stop trying to do more and more and more and more and more, to feel this sense of validation and that I am worthy and really starting to do the inner healing and reconnecting with my body and learning how to better regulate my nervous system, because those are things that I have been neglecting and sometimes I use training really hard, I use exercise, I use other different things to try and achieve as ways to avoid that, and I think that that's been one of the biggest lessons that I've learned this year thus far is that I am my ego is very good at avoiding the inner healing by trying and doing doing more and more and more, rather than slowing down, really trying to get quiet with myself and allow myself to feel what's going on inside of my body.
Speaker 1:So I hope that this episode was helpful. I hope that you are maybe feeling a little bit more confident in the ways that you can explore, exercise and explore how moving your body can be used as a tool to enhance your life and to better understand yourself and what's going on inside of your head and your thoughts and everything. So if you have more questions about this or if you have topics that you want me to cover on the podcast again, please shoot me a DM. We are on Instagram, as at we are love your body now, so if you're not following us, go ahead and give us a follow, but you can feel free to send us a DM anytime that you think of a topic that you want us to cover. But otherwise, I will chat with you soon and I hope you have a great day.
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. Alright, talk to you soon, friend.