Love Your Body Now
Love Your Body Now
4 Mainstream Things to Avoid In The Fitness Industry
Join me as we confront the unhealthy narratives in the fitness world and redefine what health truly means. Through honest reflections, we strip away misconceptions and build a foundation rooted in self-love and acceptance. This isn't just about fitness; it's about feeling empowered in your own skin and reconnecting with a community that values holistic well-being. Let's challenge societal norms together and embrace our bodies exactly as they are, right now. Whether you're struggling to find balance or seeking motivation to prioritize what matters most, this episode is an invitation to embark on a journey towards self-acceptance and love.
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If you have been following the podcast for a while now and you are loving the Love your Body Now brand and the entire mission that it represents, then you should definitely go check out our Love your Body Now apparel line self-love. And we don't just have t-shirts, but we have sweatshirts, hoodies, hats, stickers, key chains, and we are always launching new products to give more women the opportunity to represent the message behind the Love your Body Now brand. And we have even recently added in a couple of youth girl options for your daughters, little sisters, nieces, whoever you have in your life. So I definitely recommend checking that out if you are behind this mission and want to spread it and represent for others to see. And I will also suggest joining our text list because we send out uplifting body positivity messages, self-love messages, and we also send updates for new product launches. And if you join the text list, you do often get a special discount code for new launches for being a part of our VIP text list. So you can text join to 1-844-311-3767. Or if you go onto our website, loveyourbodynoworg, the link to join our text list will pop up and it'll also give you a 15% off discount code when you join. So totally recommend joining that and just being more involved in our community and our mission and staying up to date. And, of course, everything is linked in the show notes, so be sure to check that out. And, of course, thank you so much for being a part of this community and supporting the Love your Body Now podcast. 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. All right, welcome back to the Love your Body Now podcast.
Speaker 1:I know it's been a few weeks since we've released an episode and I just want to say I'm sorry I had so much going on and it's just if you don't know which. I've posted about it a little bit. I've been working full-time. I picked up a part-time job doing personal training at a local gym near my house and then, of course, like everything that I'm doing with the business. So there's just been a lot that I don't know that has been like going on Sometimes like if I am just like stretched thin, I take the one day that I usually do the podcast recordings and I'll usually just like chill out. So that has been what's been going on with me behind the scenes a little bit and why I haven't put out a podcast episode in a few weeks. So I really appreciate you understanding and being patient.
Speaker 1:I also recently started a YouTube channel, which I actually already had the YouTube channel and I just started posting more long form content on that and I think I'm going to end up using this podcast episode as this week's episode that I share, because I've been trying to do once a week. So I'm just like really good at adding more to my plate when I really don't have the capacity to. But it's because I just enjoy it so much and I want to do these things and I spoke a little bit about it on my YouTube channel that I had been wanting to start prioritizing YouTube for like a couple of years now and I just like haven't because I've always been like oh well, I have all these things going on and I kind of just got to the point where I'm like you know what, I'm just gonna start and do it and figure it out as I go, and that'll be enough for me, that'll be okay. So, yeah, so here we are, and I'm sorry if you hear in the background. Our fire alarm is it's in need of new batteries. It just went off. Now I don't know if you can hear in the background. Our fire alarm is it's in need of new batteries. It just went off now. I don't know if you can hear if the mic is picking it up or not, but it's like. I don't know if you've seen that meme where it's like your fire alarm is making that squeaky shoe noise, or like when someone's playing on a basketball court and they make that squeaky shoe noise. That's what it's doing right now and it's doing it like I don't know. It's been doing it all day. My husband's getting more batteries for it so that it stops, but I'm like, of course it's like on the day that I plan to record and do that, but it's fine, I was not going to use that as an excuse to not record the podcast today, but I'm super excited about this specific topic because I feel like we did a topic about this a while back, similar to this one, and I feel like a lot of you really liked it and like tuned into this one. And since I've been personal training, I feel like it's given me a lot of insight to what's kind of like the thought process and the mentality of a lot of women working out in the gym. So it did kind of help me get an idea to like put this out there. And I also feel like personal training has really helped me again just remember the perspective and the mentality that some people have when it comes to fitness, because I used to be there. I used to really really struggle with my just overall body image and figuring out how to make my health and fitness a part of my lifestyle in a way that didn't feel overwhelming and it didn't feel like it was all about weight loss and just like all about this insane amount of control over my diet and my exercise. And you know I really have taken the last four years to focus on healing that and just like really trying to shift my mentality and my perspective on it. So now that I'm here and where I'm at now, sometimes it can be a challenge for me to remember, to be in that other mental state, and sometimes it's even challenging for me to come up with like podcast episodes because I'm not in the thick of it as much as I used to be. So it's sometimes it's I need to remember what my mentality was or what my thought process was when I was in the thick of it in order to speak on it better. And I think that just doing personal training and being in that gym environment again has allowed me to kind of like reconnect with women in a way that I is it's bringing me back to like oh yeah, this is why you started this and this is why it was so important to you to start this movement, to start this brand, to be that reminder and just educator and show people that fitness doesn't have to look how it has always looked for people and same like with integrating health into your lifestyle. It doesn't have to be this diet mentality and look at how diet culture has taught us to look for so long. And I do think that the fitness industry is really starting to shift. But I still see things in the fitness industry and diet industry that they are kind of like jumping on the trends and I just see things shifting a little bit, maybe in a better way, but it's also still really pounding down a lot of like making people feel obligated to look a certain way. Even if it does, even if now the new trendy look which trendy in quotes is to look, you know, more muscular or whatever, as opposed to how it used to be when women were really chasing thin and being skinny, it's still chasing a body image which I don't think is like the best mindset to have when it comes to our health and fitness. But at least it is. There's pros and cons to it, I guess, if you really look into it. Because, yeah, it's promoting for women to strength train more and to get stronger in the gym, which is a really great thing for our overall fitness and our overall health. But it's still very tied to the idea of a body image and to look a certain way and weigh a certain amount. And you know it's still like we want to like lose all of the fat that we have. So we look super toned, looks super muscular. So there's still that component of it where it's like we are still struggling as a society to accept body image as like just allowing our bodies to be and like live in the bodies that we have and be okay with that. Sometimes our bodies do change through seasons that we go through, and it's not like the end of the world if our body doesn't look how it did when it was 20 years old or 24 years old or whatever. So this topic I'm super excited to get into and just like speak my opinions on and my take on it. Of course, I'm sure anyone who's in the fitness industry they might have a different take on it depending on your perspective of fitness, but I want to and I wrote them down. So if you see me looking down, it's because I'm looking at my notes. But I want to talk about four different things to avoid in the fitness industry that I have seen, that I still see recently, and you know I still see people talking about it, whatever. So the first thing that I want to touch on and say that you should avoid in the fitness industry are any kind of like fast weight loss gimmicks. I feel like I don't see this as much as maybe I used to, even when I think about like you see people posting their before and afters or you hear people talking about how they dropped a bunch of weight in a short amount of time. That's a red flag and I that's a red flag and I it's not. Like I never want to. If someone's feeling super excited about their progress with their weight loss, I don't ever want to like discourage them and basically say that what's going on isn't actually sustainable or isn't a good direction that they're going in. But anytime I hear someone bragging on whether it's someone they know or it's themselves and they say, yeah, I lost 20 pounds in a month already. Or I feel like I've recently heard someone say, oh yeah, my husband, he's already lost 20 pounds and it's only been 30 days. Yeah, first of all, just because the scale says that you lost weight, it does not mean that you lost fat, and when people talk about wanting to lose weight, we all know that it's specifically. They're talking about fat loss specifically. So just because the scale is showing that it says one thing, it doesn't necessarily mean that you've lost fat. And to healthfully healthfully, I don't think that's a word, but to lose weight in a way that is sustainable and is specifically fat loss. On average, you should only be losing about one to two pounds a week, depending on where you're currently starting at. So if you're someone and you have a lot of weight to lose, two pounds a week is a sustainable amount of fat loss specifically to be losing. If you're someone who is maybe just trying to like lose a couple pounds 0.5 to a pound a week is a normal, safe amount, healthy amount to lose per week and it takes time and you all know that, like I've talked about it before, the scale being like the only thing you use to measure your progress is really I don't know. I feel like it's kind of counterproductive because you could get on the scale one day of the week at like. Let's say you check the scale at like right when you get out of bed in the morning. You could check it on a Monday and it could say I don't know, like 130 pounds on the dot. Let's say it's that. And then you go to check on Friday morning at the exact same time and it can say 132 pounds and some people, if you do not do proper education and you like, see that you may freak out and it's just like it's such an unnecessary thing to freak out about because it's physically like not possible to gain two pounds of fat, because we just discussed that losing two pounds of fat every week is a healthy and safe amount and sustainable if you have a lot of fat to lose. But if you're someone who's 130 pounds and then the scale reads 132 pounds five days later, if you have done your education, you know that you have not gained two pounds of fat. That's not possible unless you're really really really eating a ton of food. You have to eat a lot of food in order for something like that to happen For you to let that dictate how you feel about your journey. It's so counterproductive. It's like it's a waste of energy and a waste of freaking out because it doesn't make sense. So we know that there's a lot of things that can factor your weight on the scale. That could be like water retention. It could have to do with like something you ate the day before. If it had like a lot of sodium in it, then you're going to hold a lot of water weight. So there's just a lot of factors that can play into your weight loss and like what the scale reads. I actually saw a video and I shared it on the Instagram page the other day of this person basically putting the same kettlebell on a scale three different times, like back to back to back, and the scale read three different weights. It was all within, like you know, fairly close to what the kettlebell was, which was like I don't know 16 kilograms or something. I think the first one was like I don't know 15.8, 15 or sorry, yeah, like 15.8. And the next one was like 16.1. And then it like jumped up from there and it's like I love that video because it's such an accurate representation when people like only depend on the scale to help them figure out am I doing like, am I making progress? It's like there's so many other ways that you can be measuring your progress that don't really have anything to do with your weight specifically and can be so much more encouraging in your fitness journey. And then you're, if you're focused on the more positive things that are reinforcing that, you're naturally going to get healthier, you're naturally going to lose weight and over time, hopefully, you stop caring about it as much and like letting it dictate your overall how you feel about fitness, because if it's just all about weight loss, then, like it's probably not going to be very sustainable for you long term. So, yeah, anytime you see someone like talking about how fast they lost weight, or I haven't seen this in a while. But every once in a while I'll hear someone talk about like, oh, like a 10 day cleanse or something where and then you lose like 10 pounds in 10 days. Like just know that that's not fat loss, that you're losing, and it's like really I don't know, I just can't get behind that kind of stuff and it's like really I don't know, I just can't get behind that kind of stuff. So just be wary of that, especially if you are looking for sustainable lifestyle changes. That fat loss, weight loss, weight gain, muscle gain none of that is going to happen in years of consistency and dedication, and that's why it's just it makes more sense to, when you're starting your journey, just like start small and start on the things that like really encourage you and just build off that, because that's going to be what's sustainable and allow you to continue that on for the rest of your life. Ok, number two of things to avoid in the fitness industry. Now, this might, this might bother some people, but I'm going to say the statement and then I'm going to talk about it. So I say, to avoid meal plans for weight loss. Now I'm not going to say that meal plans are bad. That's a very like blanket statement, and I think that there probably is a time and a place for meal plans. However, I feel like meal plans for most people and you just have to know this about yourself but meal plans for most people are not sustainable. And when I'm talking about meal plans, I'm specifically talking about like, let's say, you're working with a professional who gives you like, like literally, they're giving you what meals to eat, or maybe they give you a couple options of meals to choose from every single day and that's what you have to eat every single day. That might work in the beginning and like work really well for you. And here is the positive thing that I will say about meal plans is, if you did it, that approach, it may educate you a little bit more and it may help you better understand nutrition. So I do think that, like just because I'm saying this statement that I would avoid meal plans for weight loss, I will. I want to also point out, like the good things that could come from them, because when it comes to health and fitness, nothing is black and white. There's so much gray area, but so, anyways, again, like this could be. If you get on a meal plan because you want to lose weight, what typically happens what I see over and over again is a lot of people will get on these like very restricted meal plans where it's like you're only allowed to eat this, this and this every single day. They don't stay on it forever and it it kind of like instills this underlying belief that, like you have to eat a certain way and restrict yourself and only eat certain foods in order to live a healthy lifestyle. Therefore, when you're not doing the meal plan or eating a certain way, then you feel like you are like doing bad quote unquote and you should feel guilty because you're not doing things the right way, you're not living your life the right way because you're not eating a certain way, and that's just like so stressful, that's like no way to live and you do not have to live that way in order to be healthy. So, in my opinion, I feel like if someone wants to lose weight and they're ready to like tackle on nutrition, which is like probably the biggest factor in whether or not you will lose weight, I think it is way a way better use of everyone's time to like slowly start to make changes in nutrition and slowly start to learn as you go, rather than trying to change everything all at once. Because, for one, when you try to change everything all at once, that's when it really isn't going to be very sustainable. And two, it just is like I feel like a lot of people end up like falling, like reverting back to what they're used to because it was way too restrictive, and they just like maybe you didn't even like some of the foods that you were given on the meal plan, like there's just so many things, and it's like I personally, if I'm working with someone, I would rather them like okay, like let's take a look at how you're eating on a regular basis, like let's first just see where you're even at and then there we can kind of like figure out where are some tweaks that we can make, can we like supplement out some you know, if you're eating this every day like maybe we can use this healthier option instead, and it's just like little tweaks being made to your diet overall, to where it doesn't really feel like you're dieting or restricting yourself, because we all know when we restrict ourselves for a really long period of time or we try to like control, control, control. That's when we kind of like you know things kind of hit the fan after a period of time, like even myself, like if I'm being way too restrictive, then, like I know I'm going to go crazy probably, um, and just like sabotage myself, um, while I'm still trying to do it. So it's just, in my opinion, not the best use of our time, like when we're trying to make it a lifestyle. Basically, I think that that's still kind of part of like diet culture, where it's like someone is telling you how you need to eat and how you should be doing things, and it's like instilling this other belief that we need these people in order to be healthy. And it's like I would rather work with someone and teach them as much as I can teach them and, you know, meet them where they're at and help them build that confidence in themselves and like help them realize that this is like a lifestyle and they can make it work for them. However, it works best for them to the point where, eventually, they can be fine without me them to the point where, eventually, they can be fine without me. I don't want them to depend on me, to feel like I have to be the person in their life that holds their hand while they're healthy the whole time. Now, if they're wanting the accountability, if they're wanting a little bit of a push, that's fine, but I don't want someone to feel like they can't eat healthy unless I'm there, telling them how to eat, telling them how to do everything or same with exercise. They can't exercise on their own and, you know, get a good so that if, for whatever reason, like I'm not there, you know they're, they are confident in themselves that they can do this and that it is just part of their lifestyle. Now. So that's what I will say about meal plans. Again, I'm not saying that they're bad. I'm just saying like. In my opinion, this is what my approach would be for someone who is really wanting to integrate health into their life. They want it to be sustainable, they want to build their confidence. They don't want to feel like it's controlling their life, like they don't want to stress about those things. They just want it to feel natural. That would be something I would avoid. Okay, number three things to avoid in the fitness industry Targeted exercises for fat loss. I see this all the time on social media and it pisses me off when I see fitness influencers. Oh my gosh, like the most common thing that I see are girls being like. Here are three exercises that I did to get rid of my mom pooch or like my tummy that you know, like lower tummy fat or whatever it's like. First of all, when you are doing like targeted exercises, like that, you are working on strengthening that part of the body, which is great. But like when they're promoting it and saying, work this certain area to lose fat, that isn't something you are in control of, because the body loses fat where it just decides to lose fat, and the most effective way to lose fat is through nutrition, and exercise is just kind of like that added layer in there to maybe kind of speed up the process a little bit. But exercise, in my opinion, if you are working on specific exercises, or the other one I see is like, um, there'll be like, oh yeah, like, get rid of the the arm. You know, if you're looking at the video, I'm like holding my arm up and they like grab their the fat under the triceps of the arms. Um, well, first of all, it's okay to have a little bit of fat, um, but like, even if you're working your triceps, which is that muscle that they're specifically talking about. Again, we're working on strengthening that area, and muscle doesn't, like fat, doesn't convert to muscle. That's not a thing. So even if you put on muscle there which is great, like that's, that is going to allow things to look more toned it's still there's still a process of, like you, losing fat, which has to do more with nutrition. So I think that when people do this, it's just more like clickbait stuff. Um, if they ever like, if someone ever tries to sell you something where they're telling you yeah, like, you'll have abs by doing these exercises or you'll look like me, like these are I see those videos a lot, too, where they're like here what will they say do these exercises, these are the exercises I use to get grow my booty, or something which, like those exercises may help you grow your butt. But, like, you're not going to look like them. And I think that a lot of the times, that's also like a very clickbait thing that I see on social media where they're kind of like promising you that you're going to look like them, like their physique specifically, and no matter what you do, your physique is not going to look like someone else's just because you do the same exercises as them. All of our bodies are very different, like we're made up very differently, so to chase something like that in the fitness industry isn't a very good use of your time, and it's also like it's I wouldn't trust someone who is like selling their fitness stuff that way. I would rather work with someone who, like promotes fitness as a lifestyle and doesn't use their physique to sell you. Um, and that's like a whole nother thing I could get into where I feel like a lot of people that work in the fitness industry actually struggle with their own body image and feel like they have to look a certain way in order to I don't know feel good about themselves or maybe be respected as an individual. Fitness professionals who look healthy or who, like definitely look like they work out like. I'm not saying everyone does it for those reasons and some of them are healthy, because, I mean, anyone could say that about me as well but I'm just saying like I've just noticed by a lot of the way that people in the fitness industry, the way that they talk about their services and like how they help people, I can just tell that well, when someone talks about anything, that's a direct. It's a direct inside clue to their beliefs and what they you know how they perceive themselves. So it's just something that I'm kind of like hyper aware of. On how people talk about that kind of stuff, how they just talk about exercise and nutrition in general. If they really like correlate it to physique and like not a lot more, that tells me more about them than like I don't know. Just like it just tells me a lot about them and their perception of themselves and fitness overall. So, just like, try to be aware of those things, especially if you're trying to look for someone to work with or maybe your feed is really filled with a lot of fitness people. I think that there's a lot of fitness professionals out there who give great, fantastic advice and help educate, and I think that that's what we're here for help educate, and I think that that's what we're here for. But I think we also need to be aware of, like the narrative that we're continuously like filling, because a lot of people already struggle with the body image narrative and the struggles with that, and I think if fitness could like get more away from that and be more about like helping people integrate it into their lifestyle and like just making it more about the benefits of like their health overall that it's going to give them, as opposed to the body that they're going to get from it. I think it would be a lot like people. It would be more sustainable for people is what I'm trying to say. Okay, the last thing that I want to touch on for things to avoid in the fitness industry is this concept of like cheat meals. I think that I hear I can't remember this girl's name on Instagram. I'm you might've seen her, cause she's like super, super well-known, but she talks about like if you have to cheat on your diet, then like it's not a diet you should be in and it goes like the same with. She compares it to relationships Like if you have to cheat on someone just to like I don't know keep going in the relationship, then like obviously that relationship's not for you. It's the same concept as your nutrition. So if you feel like you're constantly having to quote unquote cheat on your diet, then it's probably not a sustainable diet for you and I can understand why some people might struggle with. I guess, like if you are working towards losing weight and maybe you're in a calorie deficit, feeling like you need a cheat meal or whatever. There's still ways throughout your week that you can enjoy food and still be in a calorie deficit and still like achieve whatever goals you're working towards. And I think if you can have that approach, it's going to set yourself up for more success, because like food is meant to be enjoyed. Now, if you live in America, you know that like food is in our face like 24-7 and it's super. A lot of the way that it's like fed to us is super unhealthy. So, yeah, like America has taken it like to the extreme of like enjoyment, which has led to so much disease and sickness in people at such a young age. So like, yeah, I understand that it's hard when that's all like constantly in our face and we're surrounded by it so much, but there are still ways that you can enjoy your food in a healthy way. That isn't going to lead to you sabotaging yourself, especially if you're used to maybe you're used to eating out a lot and then you try to go from that to eating super healthy food. Maybe you jumped on that meal plan that that person told you to and it's just like completely different than what you're used to. It's very it's going to be very likely that you're going to self-sabotage that because it's just, it's not part of your lifestyle, it's not part of your belief system, I guess yet and I could get into the psychology of that, which I have gotten into the psychology of self-sabotage in previous episodes but yeah, I think if you are just able to allow yourself to enjoy what you enjoy throughout the week and just make sure that you are minimizing it, then you're going to be less likely to sabotage yourself because you're not feeling like you're being super restricted anyways. So I can share an example of what I do right now. So I am in a slight calorie deficit. However, I kind of agreed with myself that I wasn't going to be like I wasn't going to take this calorie deficit like very strictly because I didn't want to feel like I was like just feeling restricted all the time. And I am okay with that Because I told myself like that, with that, because I told myself like that means that, um, if I am losing fat, like it's not going to be at a very fast pace, it's going to be at a very slow pace. And I'm completely fine with that because I'm not super tied to, I'm not emotionally tied to how much fat I'm losing. Um, a lot of it has to do with me working on calisthenics, training specifically, and just wanting to be able to do these things, these skills that I'm working towards, a little bit easier and quicker. And I know that if I am able to like lean out a little bit more, then I might be able to achieve these things a little bit easier because it'll be less body weight that I'm like trying to move and carry and pull and all these things. But I told myself I'm like I don't want to feel like restricted, like if we go out to dinner, if I want to get a glass of wine, like I don't want to be like oh, how many calories do I have for the day, like I didn't want to feel like that because I come from that background of like struggling with like toxic eating behaviors and you know I would have. I feel like it's taken me a long time to like actually feel okay doing a calorie deficit and like actually tracking my calories a little bit, without it being this very like dooming, like guilt ridden type of feeling, because that's how it used to feel a lot. But I don't really feel that and it's like it's because throughout the week. Like I, I eat Rice Krispie treats like I, I eat those like and I'm not going to feel guilty about it. And I eat pancakes every single day, but they are protein pancakes and I eat maple syrup with them, but I measure out my maple syrup. So it's not like, yeah, like I'm eating the things that I want to eat. I don't feel restricted but I'm doing it. I'm like also paying attention to how much I'm consuming. So it's like you know I'm still getting to enjoy it. But it's like I still am able to achieve my goals because I have a lot of intention behind it and I'm not super emotionally tied to like what my body's looking like from this deficit. So cheat meals are tricky, especially if you really are working towards achieving your goals. I understand wanting to just like have a meal that you can enjoy and not feel guilty about it, but we shouldn't feel guilty about eating in general. So if you want me to talk more about like the whole nutrition side of things and like how you can balance that type of stuff out without feeling guilty, you know we've talked about being able to heal your relationship with nutrition and just like kind of like get away from the diet culture mentality. We can definitely talk more about that on the podcast. So let me know if you have specific topics that you want to hear the podcast. So let me know if you have specific topics that you want to hear. If you're watching this on YouTube, like, feel free to drop in the comments different topics that you'd like to hear on the podcast. I talk heavily about how you can integrate health and fitness into your life. Okay, so I ran out of storage on my phone, but that's okay because we were basically wrapping up anyways. Um so, yeah, again, if you have topics that you want me to cover on the podcast, just let me know and I will chat with you next time. Thank you so much for listening. 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.