Love Your Body Now
Love Your Body Now
How To Set Physical Goals Without Sacrificing Your Mental Well-being
Have you ever found yourself chasing fitness goals for the wrong reasons? We’ll talk about how healing the relationship with your body is key to a healthier and more fulfilling fitness journey and how you can actually practice this in your day to day. I'm sharing with you in real-time how I've been able to reframe my mindset around what I consider to be my ideal body. We’ll also discuss the importance of aligning your nutrition and fitness goals with overall well-being, and how to find joy in the process.
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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 Hello. Welcome back to the Love your Body Now podcast. If you are new here, thank you so much for tuning in and if you're a regular listener, I am so glad that you are back today.
Speaker 1:I can't wait to dive into today's episode because I feel like I'm really going through this in real time as we speak and I really want to talk about it and talk about how I feel, like, if I want to set physique goals or anything related to body image, it doesn't feel like this Before. It used to feel like if I didn't achieve certain body image goals, that I wasn't worthy or that I wasn't beautiful or I didn't deserve to feel confident or wear certain clothes and, honestly, the motives of like setting body image goals in the first place are very different than what they used to be when I was younger and even like up to a couple years ago, and so I really want to talk about this in real time, to share how I've gotten to this point. But before we do, I just want to share a couple of updates. So if you are not following our Instagram page, well, you definitely need to be. We are. You can follow us at. We are love your body now, but recently we've had a couple of launches in our apparel shop and we are working on some incredible things for the coming year.
Speaker 1:For the coming year, and I just can't wait to see what this brand transforms and expands into, because I feel like this past year has been the year of working on myself, healing some things that I feel like were really holding me back mentally, and also just getting in the room with some incredible women who have achieved incredible things, and I feel like I've been able to lean on in so many different realms. So I really feel like next year for the business is going to be transformative and it's going to lead to a lot of really cool things that I have planned. So I want to let you know that I have started an email list if you want to join and stay in the loop with those things. So, whether we're launching new products in our store, whether we're sharing updates about the business or I have something personal to share and, just like a little sneak peek into next year, I have some ideas for some in-person events and workshops. So if you are someone who wants to get involved with the Love your Body, not brand and potentially attend some in-person events, then you definitely want to jump on our email list because that is where we will be sharing everything to and, of course, everyone who's on our email list. If you've been on our text list, you know that I give very exclusive VIP discounts already for our apparel shop. So just imagine, like, the type of VIP access that you're going to get for the entire business as it expands into next year.
Speaker 1:And, of course, like I really just love connecting with people on a more intimate level. So joining our email list kind of gives us that access to do that. So if you want to do that, you can find a link in the show notes to join our email list. Well, because the text list is super cool, because I send out basically body positive little notes, self-love reminders, just like some little messages and reminders throughout the month to keep you positive and keep you in the right direction for your journey, and the email as well. Like neither the email or text list is going to be any kind of spam. Um, I actually hadn't done my email list which I had one previously when I was like health coaching and doing all of that and I took a step away because I just had felt like it was too much to keep up with and I recently just came to terms of like okay, like I can have an email list and not feel like I have to email every single week or email you know certain amount of emails every single month. So just know that if you join the email list, there's not going to be any spam to it, because that is more work for me and I'm not I'm not wanting to do that anyways. So it'll be a totally intimate experience and, yeah, you'll get to stay in the loop with everything that's coming in the upcoming year and everything that we will close out for the end of this year.
Speaker 1:But with that I want to get into today's episode, where we talk a little bit more about how can you achieve your body goals per se or focus like, really focus in on health and fitness without compromising, basically, your mental health, because if you have had a journey that was anything like mine, health and fitness was always directly tied to me, feeling like I wasn't enough, and that was the reason I was using it a lot of the times, like if I was focusing on my eating habits and my nutrition and I was really trying to step up my exercise. It always had to do with you know, when I really like, brought it all the way back to my core belief about myself, which was that I wasn't enough, I didn't like my body. I thought that I didn't look good enough, that I wasn't pretty and that I needed to lose weight in order to be pretty. Therefore, I had to do certain things, like follow certain nutrition plans and work out a certain amount of times every single week. So you can see where sometimes it can be a challenge to want to better ourselves physically without feeling like it's tied to this limiting belief in ourselves.
Speaker 1:And it has taken me years to really heal my relationship with my body, and I feel like that is where it really has to start, is you have to not only heal your relationship with your body, ultimately yourself, and how you perceive your own worth. And that's when it starts to heal your relationship to food and your relationship to exercise and working out. And the scale even the scale. I can't believe how much my mindset with the scale has changed since I've really started focusing on healing those things for myself. It can be challenging when you're in the middle of feeling like you're not enough and you feel like the only way that you will feel enough is by losing weight or getting back to the weight that you were and maybe getting back to the sizes of clothes that no longer fit. Maybe that feels like the only way that you're going to actually feel any better about yourself.
Speaker 1:And I just want to say like I've been there and I totally get that feeling where it's like you can't just shut it off right. It's like it's been a core belief of yours for as long as you can remember, so it's not something that you can just turn off like a switch and say, okay, I'm no longer going to feel that way and I'm just going to work out and eat better because I care about my body. Right? We all want to adopt that belief. I know that most women, even I, had like, kind of like, told myself that over and over again. But deep down, that core belief, that is kind of hard to see.
Speaker 1:Sometimes I knew that it felt like I was a phony when I would say those things, like I don't actually love my body, especially if it's 10 pounds more than what I'm used to it being. Then it's like that's when your core beliefs start to really unravel and expose themselves, because the way that you see yourself is not your actual reflection in the mirror and if that is tied to how you perceive your worth, then it's obviously going to be a conflict within yourself and your own core beliefs. I don't know if you can hear it, but the ice cream truck is driving through our neighborhood right now, so he's going to get louder because he's going to go past our house. But so just know that I'm saying all of this and giving all of this advice from a place of like. I've been there and I know how it feels to hear someone talk about really respecting and loving their body. But then you visually see them and they have, like, maybe what you think is the ideal body type. So it's like, oh well, that's easy for you to say.
Speaker 1:And I just have to say, like I went through that I lost a bunch of weight and physically like I looked, you know, kind of like how I would have if I would have said this is my ideal body, that's what I had, and I I was preaching all of this like loving your body and not focusing so much on the scale and all these things. And then slowly I started to put on more weight and then it was like it kind of hit me square in the face that, oh, I didn't actually deal with my core beliefs about myself. I just thought they were fixed because I had gotten to a place physically where I thought I looked good but I didn't actually feel worthy deep down and obviously my looks had a lot to do with how I felt about myself and my own worth. Because of when my body went through those changes, it, those feelings and those beliefs started to rise up again and started to like I just got to the point where I had to face them to. I had to like honestly release control of those things and that was one of the first steps that I just had to come to terms with is like releasing control of that and focusing on my core beliefs of myself.
Speaker 1:And some days it looked like you know, if I felt like my thoughts were starting to go down a rabbit hole, of feeling not good about myself. Sometimes it just was a matter of trying to redirect the thoughts and not allowing them to you continually spiraling, because when you allow it to do that, it's just like feeding back into the belief and then your brain is always going to be looking for proofs or like examples of that core belief that you have about yourself. So it was just a matter of okay having that awareness of when those thoughts come up. Then it's like I can't allow these to go on and on and on, because sometimes it's almost like an autopilot where you just allow it to go on and on, and that's when the core beliefs start to really like solidify. Because it's one thing if it's just a thought that randomly pops up and you don't really give it much energy and you don't allow it to continue to persist, but it's when you start to allow those things to persist over and over again and then your brain naturally is starting to look for proof of those beliefs and that's when it really starts to solidify and your brain starts to really rewire because you've had so many of those thoughts going on about yourself. So that was one of the first things that I needed to do when I was really trying to not give those beliefs more fuel, basically. So then after that, it was okay.
Speaker 1:So I let myself kind of like let go of control a little bit when it came to nutrition and fitness, because at that time I was in a really busy season and stressful season and was just really out of alignment in a lot of different aspects of my personal life and you can only focus on so much at once. So it basically looked like meeting myself where I was at and, because I was so busy, I didn't have a lot of time to work out anymore. From what I was used to, which was having a lot of time to work out and not really having a whole lot of issues with prioritizing it, it became about how can I meet myself where I'm at and just prioritize exercise when I can for however long that I have the time that I have, and just allowing that to be and being okay with that and knowing that this is just a season that I was in, and it was a very frustrating season, I'll admit, because I ended up like my clothes started not like fitting well, so it's just like a constant reminder that, oh you know, like I don't even fit in this anymore. And then your beliefs start to like come back at you, like basically refueling that belief that, oh you know, like my body is changing all of these things right, we go into that spiral. So when I met myself, where I was at, that was the biggest focus and I started to become super aware of anything that was very triggering for me when it came to feeling like those feelings of self-loathing or lack of confidence. So if it, if my triggers came up when I would put on a certain outfit, then it was kind of like, okay, I'm just not going to wear that for right now. If I had to buy something new to replace it, then that's what I did.
Speaker 1:But it was just a matter of trying to prevent my thoughts from spiraling but then also having that awareness of when they were coming up. So basically, anything that was triggering those thoughts. I was trying to figure out how can I prevent these triggers from coming up, because I don't want to continue feeling these thoughts, I don't want them to continue coming up and basically reframing myself, believing that just because I've gained some weight means that you know I'm not worthy, or whatever the feeling is. So those were two things that I really focused on in the season that I had to slow down because I was so busy and a lot was going on. Now let's say maybe that's not your season right now and you don't have any problem fitting in exercise, you don't have any problem trying to eat a certain way, but you're still feeling like it's almost like these chains around you where it feels like it's hindering on your actual well-being and your mental health, maybe just being able to enjoy life a little bit more freely.
Speaker 1:Then I would take a look at what your specific goals are, because if you're specifically focused on maybe achieving a goal weight like, let's say, you're trying to get back down to a weight that you were before and that is how you were measuring your progress every single week or month or whatever and that is like the main reason that you're exercising and eating a certain way is for that goal, which is physical appearance then I would consider changing the goals and really like not making the physical, like your weight, the sizes and stuff I wouldn't try to pay too much attention to that and you don't necessarily have to say or lie to yourself that you don't care about that, because I think some of us do and like that's not a big, like that's not a problem, like there's nothing wrong with wanting to feel good in your skin and feel a certain way about yourself physically.
Speaker 1:But again, if it's like having this negative effect on you where it's like your well-being is suffering, you feel, like it's always like hindering and not allowing you to live your life, then it would be a great consideration to look at how you can adjust your goals to take away from all of the physical aspects of fitness and nutrition and what they do for us. So one of the things that I started doing was I actually completely changed what I was doing for a workout routine and I'm not saying you have to do this, but like there were some skills that I was trying to learn, specifically like calisthenic type goals, where it was like I wanted to learn how to do handstands and like hold handstands and do like certain like controlled body movements and I wanted to increase the amount of pull-ups that I could do and the training that I was doing was great, like I mean, it's a great training program that I was doing, but it wasn't necessarily catered to me achieving those goals, and what I decided to do was I actually ended up hiring a personal trainer who specializes in those types and that type of training and helping people achieve these skills, and it has, honestly, like really changed the game for me when it comes to exercise right now. Like it is just allowed me to show up for my workout in a way that is like again, just like doesn't really have anything to do with how I physically look, like my main focus is trying to make progress and show up regularly so I can get one step closer to this new skill. And it's like how awesome will it feel when I get to achieve this skill and like be able to share that I achieved it. And it's like how awesome will it feel when I get to achieve this skill and like be able to share that I achieved it and then be able to build off of it, because there's so many different skills I can build off of this, this specific goal that I have right now and that makes exercising and working out so much more exciting for me. And, just like it makes my brain focus on something completely different than my physical goals. And let me just say I still have physical goals, like I am still.
Speaker 1:You know I've been eating in a slight calorie deficit because I am trying to lean out a little bit more, but the whole, the main point, the main reason for that is because I want to be able to do these skills and I feel like if I lean out a little bit more, they will feel a little bit easier on me physically to be able to achieve them. Now am I going to say that leaning out won't make me feel more confident, like physically? No, I'm not going to lie and say that that's not another factor or reason as to why I'm doing it, but it's like it doesn't really like it doesn't have a negative or a positive effect on me mentally and that's not something I've ever been able to admit or say or really like, believe that like, if I don't have I don't know if I don't look, have a certain physique, then I feel like, like crap about myself or I feel like I need to work harder. It doesn't feel like that for me anymore and that's how I know that I've really worked through my core beliefs about myself that I can focus on giving myself nutrition goals and like really trying to reestablish new nutrition habits, and it doesn't have anything to do with my worth or who I am as a person or how I look physically. It really just has to do with me working towards these new goals that excite me and I find fun and also, again, just to better my health.
Speaker 1:I think it can be really easy to like slowly lose track of our nutrition habits and routines just over time if we're not self-conscious of them, and that's kind of what happened to me. So this whole refocusing on it is like it's another way that I'm able to give back to myself and pour back into myself, and it's not me punishing myself. It's really like I'm going to be 30 in a few years and I kind of like made this pact with myself that like I want to be like the healthiest version of myself when I hit 30. Like I want to be more healthy as a 30 year old and I want to be able to move my body in ways that I couldn't even move my body as a 20 year old, and like I want to feel like more energized than I did in my twenties, and that just kind of like, a like, a little like under the rug pack that I made with myself. So I'm naturally starting to take steps towards that and take action towards that, because that type of stuff is Like, that takes years, it doesn't just happen overnight. And it's like why would I wait until I get to 30 to really, like, go all in on my health journey? It's like, no, I want to start now and I want to see the progress that I make from 26 to age 30. Like I want to see what I can do in that time frame and see what changes happen.
Speaker 1:And you know, like there's other factors too that you know are influencing my behavior and my decisions when it comes to potentially having kids one day. Like I'm getting older and it's like I need to take care of my health if I want to have that future. So there's all these little factors that are playing a part in my goals, but the biggest thing to pay attention to is they all support each other. Like my skill-based goals of like wanting to achieve handstands and more pull-ups and eventually more calisthenic type goals, and just like being able to like have full control over my body movements. That is in support of me wanting to like lean out a little bit more and improve my health and improve my eating habits and just like wanting to move more and wanting to feel better and feel more energized, like they all support one another.
Speaker 1:There isn't anything that's like really contradicting something and that can be a huge indicator for you If you ever feel like you're kind of like working against yourself, going back to the example of you're trying to achieve maybe a weight loss goal but you're trying to achieve it so hard that it's hindering your mental well-being and your mental health, that would be a perfect example of a goal like kind of going against some other things that maybe matter to you and they're kind of contradicting one another. So it's really just about how can you realign everything so that it all supports one another and it feels in alignment, it feels good and ultimately enjoyable and you're improving your quality of life in the long run. So I hope that that helps and gives you maybe a different perspective with your own journey. Again, I know it can be challenging being in the middle of it all and just wanting to feel good in your skin right now, like I totally get it. But how can you take away maybe the triggers in your life that lead to you feeling kind of down about yourself and what can you implement in your life that lead to you feeling kind of down about yourself?
Speaker 1:And what can you implement in your life that does make you feel good and makes you feel those things that you're looking to achieve through the weight loss goal? So, whether that's buying new clothes, like maybe you like get your hair done, maybe you do little pampering things for yourself that give you those little tiny feelings that you're like already there, because the more that you can fill your life with those feelings, maybe it is getting in a workout and you feel really good after the workout and letting it just be like that Don't allow it to be so much about the physical aspect of it and just like really building that awareness with yourself and trying to figure out okay, how can I take away the negative triggers and how can I put in more like of the positive reinforcement and just allow that to be my focus and then watch that just happen over time, like you continuously do that and, before you know it, you're going to feel better in your skin and you're going to actually like achieve a lot of those goals that you set out, maybe a long time ago, that you were having a hard time achieving in the first place. So if you have more questions on that, like, feel free to reach out to me and message me. I'm happy to share some of the things that I went through in my own journey and some of the ways that I've navigated. Or if you just need to talk through it with someone else who's been there, feel free to message me on Instagram. But otherwise, feel free to message me on Instagram, but otherwise I will chat with you soon. If you ever have ideas or topics that you want to hear us talk about on the podcast, please DM me and let me know. I'm always open to hearing your feedback and hearing what you really need to hear right now with your own fitness. So, yeah, let me know. And then also one more ask before I let you go If you have been listening to this podcast for a while, or the last couple episodes have been super helpful for you, please consider leaving a review and rating on the podcast.
Speaker 1:It really, really helps out just with being able to expose the podcast to more people who are looking for this type of support, and I would appreciate it so much if you took one minute out of your day to rate and review the podcast. But with that, I will chat with you soon and I hope you have a great day. 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.