Childhood Emotional Abuse: Changing the Script

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We were never told we were loved. The words “I love you” were not part of our family culture.

Heart of LoveMy siblings and I never heard our parents say it to each other, and they never said it to us. So of course, we never said it either.

I remember trying to say it once in a while. The phrase was wrought with tension, and it was really uncomfortable to try to form the words and get them out of my mouth. I was usually unsuccessful. I would be overwhelmed with the anxiety of it all, and decide not to say it. I remember thinking it was weird that we didn’t ever say it in my family. Once in a while, I’d be at a friend’s house and and the phrase would be used, and I wondered why we didn’t say it. I was aware that it was absent from our family. I didn’t know why. I didn’t know why it was so stressful to try to say it.

Now, it may seem like a little thing. Just a few words. We told each other we loved each other with our actions, right? No big deal.

But the notable absence of those words was actually the tip of the iceberg.

It was one small symptom of a much worse disease. We didn’t say we loved each other, because we didn’t treat each other with love.

My parents ridiculed our feelings, called us names, screamed at us, and told us in countless other ways that we didn’t matter, didn’t deserve compassion and respect, and were not loved. We learned from the day we were born that our parents’ behavior could change on a dime. One minute we were happy and joking around, and then someone would say something wrong and everything would change. It was like Jekyll and Hyde on a family level. We would switch from people who liked each other to people who hated each other in an instant. When they were angry, our parents said horrible things to us. Mean things. Humiliating things. Humiliation was their preferred form of discipline. They treated us as if they hated us. And that was how we learned to communicate. That is what we grew up thinking was normal. For people to spit cruel and venomous things at each other when they were angry. We grew up thinking  everyone communicated that way. And for the first few years after I moved out, I treated people that way. I would scream and call names when I was angry. Because I thought it was normal.

And then I caught a break.

In my early 20’s, I got a job as a nanny for a family with two daughters. They were happy. They had healthy communication skills. They parented with love and compassion. The phrase “I love you” flowed like water. No one was stingy with it. Mom and Dad said it as they left for work, when they got home, when they tucked the kids into bed. They said it to each other often, and when there was a conflict they would treat each other with love, even when they were angry. When the kids shared their feelings, their parents listened to them and respected them. They never ridiculed their kids’ feelings, as I was used to in my own family.

I worked for them for 13 years (yes, 13), and was welcomed as a part of their family. They treated me with respect. They valued my time, and said thank you every day. I went on vacations with them, and spent holidays with them. When I needed a place to sleep, their guest room was always there for me. I helped pick out and name their pets. I spent 13 years observing and taking part in this kind, gentle, healthy family. I watched how the mom raised her daughters. I didn’t know it then, but she was modeling healthy parenting for me, and ultimately she shaped the way I parent my kids. You know how people say they turn into their mom as they get older? For me, it’s the mom I nannied for that I’m turning into. I hear her words come out of my mouth, I even absorbed some of her mannerisms.

This family modeled healthy communication for me. I learned that the way my family communicated wasn’t the way everyone communicated. It wasn’t normal. And so I took responsibility for my behavior and did the work to change it.

I learned, through therapy and lots and lots of practice, better ways to communicate. I learned how to speak with love and compassion even if I was angry. It was really hard. Even today, 25 years later, I have to consciously work at it. Especially with my own parents and siblings, who are still  stuck in our family’s toxic communication culture. When they begin to speak with hate, I have to resist the urge to do it back, and consciously form the words “I love you” in response to the venom spit at me. Of course, my family doesn’t trust love. But ultimately, I do it for myself, not them. I hold love in front of me like a shield, the way they hold hate. It is SO much better for my mental and physical health to hold that love, even if my family distrusts it.

But with my own kids? The words flow like water. They are told every day that they are loved. Over and over. When they are angry and lashing out, they are told they are loved. When they do something they shouldn’t, they are told they are loved. When they slam the door and yell “I hate you!” they are told they are still loved anyway. And their feelings aren’t ridiculed. When they are anxious, they don’t get called names like ‘Drama Queen’ and ‘crazy’, but rather are offered a hug. Rather then ridiculing them, I tell them explicitly that they don’t deserve to be ridiculed. Rather than call them names, I tell them explicitly that they don’t deserve to be called names. Rather than betraying their trust and trying to humiliate them, I hold their secrets dear, and respect their time and space, and protect them from people who try to hurt them. I am not perfect, though. Like all parents, I still slip up and yell at them sometimes when I am stressed out and overwhelmed. And when I slip up and treat them unfairly, I come back and tell them I am sorry and that they didn’t deserve it, and that they are loved. And they are growing up believing that they are valuable and worthy of love. Something I didn’t get. I was taught that I was shameful and deserved to be treated with contempt, and so I spent many years treating myself that way.

I was so fortunate to be welcomed into a family that modeled healthy and loving communication. It showed me that the way I had been taught was wrong. But it took work, through practice and therapy, to learn new skills.

You, reading this, may not have been gifted a family like the one I was welcomed into. You may only have the model of your own abusive and toxic family. But, I believe that if you are reading this, you recognize at some level that what you were taught was wrong. And so, I encourage you to take responsibility for your actions and become the model you didn’t get. Speak with love when you are treated with hate. It may take help from a Coach or Therapist. Therapy is awesome. My family still treats it with disgust and me like I’m weak and crazy because I go to therapy. But therapy is the tool that has given me to skills to speak with love, rather than hate. The tool that has taught me I’m worthy of love and respect. The tool that’s taught me how to recognize when I’m being treated abusively, and to walk away, or to meet that hate and abuse with love and compassion.

Mostly, though, therapy is the tool that has allowed me to change the script with my own children. The tool that reinforced the lessons I learned by watching the family I worked with. The tool I needed, to put the love I knew I deserved and the love I wanted to give to others into practice.

Therapy is the tool that gave me the ability to say the words “I love you”.

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Published 11/17/2016
By Amber Rogers
Certified Health Coach,Certified Health Educator, Certified Personal Trainer, Behavior Change Specialist
Focusing on recovery from abuse, through a health and fitness lens

The Sneaky Trap that Diets Set to Keep You Stuck (and how to break free)

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There’s a hidden trap in all diets…

 

From point tallying to low carb to “clean eating” to the latest cleanse…

 

It’s in all of them, waiting to ensnare you into years or decades of dieting attempts.

 

It’s not something that the different diet gurus tell you about. They don’t need to put words into your head to get ya.

 

It’s built into the very fabric of diets themselves. And it’s what keeps you going from failed, miserable attempt to failed, miserable attempt over and over again.

 

The trap that turns you into a victim and lifetime customer of the diet industry… is excessive outcome focus.

 

When you become excessively outcome focused (“I really want to lose weight and I want to lose it NOW!”), you put more faith into the promises of quick fixes and magic solutions.  And you put your energy into enduring the diet hell that comes with those promises, then you become even more outcome focused.

 

It’s normal to want to be compensated for your efforts.  Let’s picture 2 scenarios.  In both scenarios, you are working a job on the weekend to get some extra money for going on vacations.

 

Scenario #1 – you’re spending your weekends Alaskan crab fishing, enduring freezing rain, icy decks, and rough waters.

 

Scenario #2 – you’re spending your weekends working in a bookstore where you get to talk to people about your favorite books.

 

Now let’s say your boss tells you that they can’t pay you for 4 weeks, but would like for you to keep working until then.  In which scenario would you be most impatient (“Hey!  What the hell?!  Where’s my money?!?!”)?  For the job that you endure physical hardship or the one that you enjoy?

Obviously, you’re going to be more patient in the scenario where you’re doing something you like. The more unpleasant something is, the less easy going you’re going to be.

 

It’s natural that if you’re enduring a miserable experience that you will want to receive a handsome reward for it.  And that’s how the diet industry turns you into a customer for life.

 

When you put yourself on an extreme diet, it puts you in the position of feeling like you “need” to lose weight ASAP.

 

When you tell yourself you “need” to lose weight ASAP, it puts you in the position of feeling like you need to go an extreme diet.

 

The level of outcome-focus (“OMG what’s my weight today?!”), not only creates the impatience and urgency that traps you into cycle-after-cycle of restrictive dieting, it’s also what erodes your chances of success.

 

When you are focusing excessively on outcomes, you’re stuck in “reactive mode”.  Instead of having a clear plan that you’re going to execute no matter what, you’re at the mercy of the scale.

 

The scale goes down a lb, you celebrate.  Scale goes up a lb, and you immediately start looking to see what food you can restrict.

 

By definition, you’re focusing on what is outside of your control (your weight is going to go up and down several lbs per month whether you like it or not) – and then you’re highly prone to get frustrated, and lose motivation.  

 

And since you’re in reactive mode, you’re not taking the steps that actually matter.  

 

You could be getting better everyday at the skills and habits that will enable you to control your weight for the long term, instead you keep repeating the cycle of restricting and re-introducing the same foods over and over  You keep going back to the same tricks you’ve always used, even though you know that they don’t work.

 

How to avoid this trap:

 

  1. Stop trying to endure miserable experiences. Focus on behavior changes that actually work for your body and your life. Without having to grit your teeth and try to tolerate an aggressive diet and/or exercise regimen, you’re not going to feel entitled to and be impatient for instant results.
  2. Turn your outcome focus into a performance and process focus. Instead of putting all your attention on the scale, identify in what general direction your health behaviors need to go. To borrow a concept from sports psychology, these would be our “performance goals”.  Decreasing the frequency or intensity of emotional eating episodes, eating less food per day, and hitting a total amount of servings of fruits and veggies per day would all be examples of performance goals.  From there, choose a process goal (aka “habit”) to practice whole-heartedly that will relate to your performance goal.

 

Here are some examples of what I mean for performance and process goals for the desired outcome of weight loss:

 

Performance: Eat 100-120 grams of protein per day

Process: Have a primary protein source such as a lean meat with all 3-4 meals

 

Performance: Eat less

Process: Eat more slowly at lunch and dinner, aiming for 15-20 minutes from first bite to last bite.

Performance: Walk 10,000 steps per day

Process: Look at your FitBit every hour, and if you did not already get at least 500 steps in for that hour, go for a walk.

 

Performance: Decrease emotional eating intensity and/or frequency

Process: Ask yourself what specific emotion you’re feeling when you’re feeling compelled to eat your afternoon chocolate (not accepting “because I want it” as an answer).

Talk soon,

Sean

 

Sean Flanagan is a weight loss & fitness coach who helps people burned on restrictive dieting to develop the skills and habits for lasting weight loss and health.  In addition to co-founding the coaching program the Habit Project™ with Amber, they’ve also co-written the free download “21 Habits for Lasting Fat Loss”, which you can download HERE:  http://seanflanaganwellness.com/21habits

Diet Culture is abusive. But why are some more susceptible than others?

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I’ve been writing for years about the ways Diet Culture manipulates us. It plays on that little voice in your head that tells you you aren’t good enough. That your body is unacceptable, you don’t try hard enough, you should be more successful, you’re lazy, no one likes you, that you’re unlovable. It takes advantage of that voice, and amplifies it. What if I told you that voice wasn’t YOUR voice? That it is the voice of someone else, someone who told you those things, or made you feel them by the way they talked to you and treated you, and you internalized the message so completely that you think it’s your own voice?

It very like IS someone else’s voice. A parent or a partner, most likely. Emotional and psychological abuse instills messages of worthlessness in it’s victims. And Diet Culture swoops in to exploit it. I want to delve deeper than I have so far on my blog. I want to examine the behaviors and messages that create that internal voice. And it’s a deeply personal examination, which is why my blog has been so quiet lately. I have about a dozen blog posts that I’ve written over the last year or so, but not published because of their intensely personal nature. But, I feel ready to start publishing them, and I’m starting out with this post where I’m going to explain what Emotional Abuse is.

All abuse is abuse. And all abuse damages the victim equally.

There is a palpable mythology that Emotional Abuse isn’t ‘as bad’ as Sexual or Physical Abuse. And in fact, Emotional Abuse can be so subtle and insidious that a lot of people don’t even realize they’ve been abused. But Emotional Abuse is still abuse, and it IS as damaging as other kinds of abuse (Vachon DD, Krueger RF, Rogosch FA, Cicchetti D. Assessment of the Harmful Psychiatric and Behavioral Effects of Different Forms of Child Maltreatment. JAMA Psychiatry. 2015), and the fact that it is so subtle can make it even more damaging and long-acting than other forms of abuse because the victim doesn’t know they’ve been abused so they don’t seek help, and the damage compounds over years and generations.

Everyone knows that molesting a child is abuse. But how many people realize that expressing indifference to a child’s emotions is abuse? (“I hurt your feelings? So what?”)

Everyone knows that hitting a child is abuse. But how many know that threatening to end the relationship if a person doesn’t do what the other person wants is abuse? (“I can’t have a relationship with someone who won’t do that thing I’m demanding.”)

Name calling (“You’re such a drama queen.”), ridicule (“Oh boo hoo, cry me a river.”), sarcasm employed during disagreements (“Is that evidence enough for you, Ms. Scientist?” <– one I’ve had directed at me), betrayal of trust (such as the abuser using things that the victim has confided in them against the victim in anger), withdrawal of affection as a form of punishment, screaming and yelling, taking stress out on the victim, being unpredictable (being fine with something one day but becoming angry about it another), blaming their own behavior on the victim (I only did that because you drove me to it!), insinuating the victim is crazy (“you’re really worked up, why don’t you go to the mental health clinic and get some help” <– another one I’ve experienced),  denying they’ve done what the victim knows they did (gas lighting – something I’ve written about before), invalidating the victim’s emotions or perceptions (“that never happened”, “you don’t really believe that”, etc), constantly reminding the victim of their shortcomings, controlling behavior, and so much more. These behaviors are all abusive. And ALL of us have done them. I have done them. I try very hard not to, and apologize when I do. That is the difference between doing something abusive and being an abuser. All of us fall into abusive behavior now and then. But abusers abuse all the time, and don’t try to change their behavior, and never apologize. In fact, they blame the victim for their own behavior.

The problem is, all of these things can be subtle, and if a person grows up with an emotionally abusive parent, they likely won’t even recognize this is abusive behavior. Until my mid-20’s, I thought it was just normal, the way people communicate when emotions run high.

Emotional abuse erodes the victim’s sense of self. It can erode their trust in their own thoughts and perceptions. It can make them feel deeply ashamed of themselves. It can fill them with self doubt, and make them believe they are worthless and unlovable.

And that is why it’s so easy for Diet Culture to swoop in and pick right up where the abuser left off. The victim already feels worthless. Diet Culture confirms their worthlessness and promises that if they eat the right foods and do the right exercises, they will become lovable and worthy.

I’m an adult survivor of childhood emotional abuse, and in fact, even today, it continues. I see my experiences echoed by the experiences of WAY TOO MANY of my clients. Emotional abuse primes us to be further victimized by Diet Culture. And THAT is why some people are more susceptible to it than others. I have very few Diet Recovery clients who had truly supportive and emotionally healthy parents.

I want to begin to shed light on this insidious form of abuse, and the ways that it drives so many of us to self-destructive dieting and exercise behaviors. And it involves telling my own painful and personal stories. But I know I am not alone. This blog is going to become a place of healing, for me and hopefully for you too.

 

Further Reading:

Signs of Emotional Abuse

How to Begin to Recover

Psychological Abuse

Emotional Abuse

 

 

Forget Weight Setpoint. What’s Your SANITY Setpoint?

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Weight setpoint is a topic that comes up in diet/fitness/health circles quite often. If your body has a natural weight setpoint that it defends, is there a point in trying to change your weight? Will you end up back at your setpoint no matter what you do?

There is no question that calorie balance is the ultimate determinant of weight. Every metabolic ward study ever conducted confirms this. While different kinds of calories and different conditions can affect how many calories you consume and burn, in the end that balance is what determines your weight. Lyle McDonald wrote an excellent piece on this, so I will simply link to his rather than reinvent the wheel (although I’ve discussed this myself, here and here).

Additionally, there is ample evidence that roughly 20% of dieters are able to reduce their weight and maintain the loss long term. This review looked at several studies on the subject of long-term weight loss maintenance as well as the members of the National Weight Control Registry. If some people DO lose weight and keep it off, there is more to this setpoint theory than meets the eye.

What’s your Sanity Setpoint?

There are a few common behaviors that tie the people who are successful at maintaining weight loss together. I don’t think the specifics of those behaviors are really what is important (they are: reduced calorie and fat intake, regular exercise and eating breakfast daily – I know lots of people who’ve successfully lost weight and kept it off who don’t do all of those things). I think what is really important is that they all made permanent changes to their behavior.

I propose that it is their new behaviors, and not their new weight, that is the real setpoint.

Rather than focusing on a goal weight, or weight at all, perhaps it would be better to focus on goal behaviors. This is something I have talked about numerous times before (here, here, here, here). Systematically change your behavior, and over time your new behaviors will change your body.

So what is your sanity setpoint? It’s the level of behavior change that you can sustain comfortably, indefinitely. Perhaps exercising for 90 minutes a day six days a week and eating 1500 calories a day of chicken breast and broccoli (behaviors that will support a low goal weight, depending on numerous factors) is too extreme for you to maintain long term. Perhaps a more moderate approach, that is more sustainable, but that will support a slightly higher weight, is more realistic. Your sanity setpoint is the range of behaviors that you can incorporate into your lifestyle consistently and remain sane and happy.

For me, the behaviors that I am able to maintain consistently, and without undue stress, support a weight of between 165 and 170 pounds. I can, and have, gotten lower than this in scale weight, but I could not sustain it without making some serious quality of life sacrifices. The costs to my mental and physical health outweighed the positive effects of staying at that weight (most of which were social, not health-related).

All of our behaviors are shaped by the complicated interplay of cost and reward we experience. Focus on creating behaviors for which the rewards outweigh the costs, so that you set yourself up to maintain those behaviors long term.

Change your behavior and your body will follow.

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Learn to change your behavior systematically and sustainably. The Habit Project was created by the pioneers of habit-based coaching (me and Sean Flanagan) and is one of the only Body Positive habit-based coaching programs in the industry.

The next session of the Habit Project ON-Ramp is starting next week, Monday August 1st!!! Find your own Sanity Setpoint with a group of other people, all working together to change their habits in a supportive and fun environment. Click here to learn more: The Habit Project On-Ramp

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The Healthiest (and Leanest) I’ve Been Was When…

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A few years ago I had a blog series called ‘Inactivity and Metabolic Health‘. It was an examination of the science of physical activity as treatment for metabolic issues caused by insulin resistance. Exercise improves insulin sensitivity. As far as I’m concerned, that is exercise’s most important effect on the human body. The reason I was interested (and continue to be) in the subject was my own experience – a long history of hormonal and metabolic issues that disappeared when I changed my habit of inactivity and became physically active.

I’ve written about it before, but to review: from my early teens I struggled with a constellation of symptoms that traced back to insulin resistance. Severe cystic acne, weight gain, irregular (and frequently absent) periods, ovarian cysts, fibrocystic breasts, elevated blood pressure as I got older, blood sugar dysregulation and panic attacks, depression, migraines. My doctor told me year after year after year to exercise, and I resisted and resisted. Went so far as to convince myself she was ‘blowing me off’ and just didn’t know what to do. I consulted natural health books and tried things like putting garlic suppositories in my vagina and drinking bentonite clay. Funny thing, those things never worked. I tried fad diet after fad diet, some worked temporarily, but most just made the problems worse.

At 35 (eight years ago), weary from the decades of being battered by the predatory winds of natural health mythology, I decided to finally do what my doctor had been admonishing me to do for so long – start exercising. And the rest is sort of history. It completely changed my life and my health. I lost weight I’d been unable to lose for years. Many of my health issues resolved. My depression and anxiety receded. It was pretty amazing. And flew in the face of the entire diet industry which ties weight and health almost solely to diet, and the fitness industry, which fixates myopically on the aesthetic results of exercise with very little attention to the health benefits (which are much more profound).

As I got more into fitness and began to lift weights, I became aware of the ‘cardio bunny’ meme, and noticed a certain disdain for cardio among the crossfire/strongman/dude bro element of the fitness industry. I read lots of blog posts about how ‘cardio makes you fat’ (hahahahahhhhaaahahhaahahahhhaah, yeah right), and how people who did cardio were all ‘skinny fat’, blah blah blah. If you’ve been around for a while, you are probably aware of the memes I’m talking about.

But I did enjoy cardio, especially the way it made me FEEL, and so I kept doing it even if it meant I would end up the dreaded skinny fat (PS, what the fuck is wrong with being skinny fat? Nothing.)

The more cardio I did, however, not only did I not get fat or even skinny fat, in fact I continued to get leaner. And I continued to get healthier. By 2012 I was training for a half ironman. I was doing as much as 4 hours of cardio a couple times a week. Don’t get me wrong, I was lifting too, but not nearly as much as I was doing cardio. I can look back at the time I was training for the half ironman and see that that was the leanest and healthiest I’ve been in my life. I had tons of energy. My depression was non-existence. My blood tests showed I was off-the-charts healthy. My period was like clockwork. And I was maintaining a body fat percentage of like 15% while eating as much as 4000 calories a day. See for yourself:

160-ish pounds. Training for a half-ironman. 1-4 hours of exercise a day, 4 days a week, including 2 strength trainign sessions a week. 4000+ calories a day.

I. Felt. Fucking. Awesome. I felt like I could take on the world, and win. I didn’t just feel physically awesome, I felt emotionally awesome. Confident. Strong. Outgoing. Optimistic. It was one of the best times of my life.

And so, I talked a lot on my blog about the benefits of exercise, especially for those with predispositions to insulin resistance (like me). Exercise did for me what no dietary intervention had ever been able to – normalize my blood sugar regulation, improve my insulin sensitivity, allow me to eat anything and my body metabolize it just fine and use it for fuel. Exercise made my body work right. And all of this was supported by decade upon decade of credible peer review research showing exercise – specifically cardio – is a primary intervention for metabolic syndrome and insulin resistance. Exercise improves insulin sensitivity, there is absolutely NO question of this in the scientific literature.

And when my body was working right, it was able to use the food I ate – WHATEVER food I ate – to build muscle and create energy. Energy I used to go out and live an awesome life. Write prolifically. Make huge waves in the fitness industry. Piss off the fad diet gurus ROYALLY.

Ah, but it was fun.

Things started to fall apart a little about a year and a half ago when my knee arthritis got really bad, bad enough to affect my ability to exercise the way I had been. The first thing to go was running. Then cycling. Then I had to cut down the amount of time I was spending on the elliptical, because it would make my knee swell and ache badly. I had surgery 9 months ago in an effort to increase my range of motion and pain levels. That sidelined me completely for a couple months, and then when I got back to exercising, it was more lifting than cardio. I like lifting, don’t get me wrong. And I’m glad I’ve been able to keep doing it!  but it’s been a long slog through recovery and trying to get back to the amount and intensity of cardio that was so helpful for me. I’m still not there.

And the result has been that in spite of still lifting, I’ve seen my depression came back. BOY did it come back. I’m still really struggling with it, somedays I can’t even get myself out of the house. Recently my cystic acne has cropped back up. I recently had my first migraine in 6 or 7 years. My HDL is creeping downward. My period is no longer like clockwork. And my weight has crept up in spite of reducing my calorie intake (this is due in large part to some meds I’ve been taking, but I have a gut feeling that my weight gain would have been smaller if I’d been able to keep exercising the way I need to exercise). Creep may be an understatement, I gained 25+ pounds in 2015.

A year without the kind of cardio that my body needs has resulted in a lot of my health issues re-emerging.

FUCK.

Cardio, not lifting, completely turned my life around. And the more cardio I got, the better. My friend Sol (from examine.com) did a guest post here a couple years ago addressing head on the ‘cardio makes you fat’ meme. In short, it’s bullshit. Cardio does not make you fat. And if you’re like me and prone to insulin resistance, it may even make you leaner and healthier than lifting alone. The research certainly bears out the value of cardio for metabolic health. Sure, ‘lifting weights faster’ may work for some young healthy people. Heck, it may work for some older healthy people.

For me? Older and predisposed to insulin resistance? I need the cardio. And lots of it. I get my hour a day of heart pumping cardio and I can eat pretty much anything and take it in stride, and THRIVE. Take away my ability and access to that level of cardio and my health deteriorates.

This is important. KEEP THIS IN MIND next time you start judging ‘lazy people’ for not ‘doing what it takes’ to get the exercise they need to be healthy.

Some people simply don’t have access. You know what I had that allowed me to get 1-4 hours of cardio a day? Lots of spare time. A gym membership. Safe spaces to exercise. Money to spend on equipment. Did I mention time? Lots of free time? Oh, and transportation to and from the gym. And different options at that gym. I can swim, well, because I had years of lessons as a child and access to a pool.

Do you know how many people don’t have any those things I just mentioned, let alone all of them? At times, I fell into thinking ‘if I can do it, anyone can’. But, not everyone can. Many, MANY people can’t, whether it be because they don’t have access to a gym, a safe space to exercise, money for equipment, or the ability to swim (or one of any number of other privileges that makes exercise a luxury).

For many people, exercise isn’t a matter of ‘priorities’. They are not ‘making excuses’. They simply do not have access.

Let me tell you about how things are for me now. I am semi-disabled. There are a lot of physical things I can’t do. Yet, at least. My knee is healing very slowly. And, I am depressed. There are days I can’t make it out of my house. This isn’t a matter of not being motivated. This is a real medical condition. I know that getting more active will help with the depression, but sometimes the depression is so bad it keeps me from being active. And when I CAN be active, I am not strong enough yet to exercise as long and as intensely as I could when things were going so well for me physically.

I have lost several of the privileges I enjoyed 3-4 years ago that gave me the option of getting the exercise I needed to thrive. I will probably get them back – and I still have several other privileges that increase my likelihood of getting them back. I still have the gym membership. I still have transportation. I still have a safe space to exercise. I still have enough money to afford equipment. As my knee (and head) heals, I’ll be able to continue building my activity back up.

But there are many people out there that are far more trapped than I am. Who may not have ANY of the privileges I enjoy. People for whom the fight to be active isn’t currently winnable. Judging those people as lazy and unmotivated isn’t fair. The answer isn’t to judge and ridicule them. It is to create safe spaces. Make facilities accessible. Provide reliable transportation. Provide fair and equal medical treatment (I will be writing about this in the near future). Taking mental illness seriously. No, it’s not laziness or lack of motivation. Depression is REAL, and debilitating. Mental illness deserves compassion and treatment. NOT ridicule. And that’s just the invisible disability. Many people are visibly disabled, and they need access to safe fitness options as well.

Why? Because fitness isn’t about APPEARANCE. It’s about health. It’s about quality of life. It’s about saving our country billions of dollars in medical costs. It’s about guaranteeing everyone the same quality of medical care, fitness accessibility and compassion.

We need to do a couple things.

  1. Reframe fitness from ‘aesthetics’ to health.
  2. Improve accessibility. The Y is on the frontline of this massive endeavor, and has been for decades. Look into what your local Y is doing in your community. Volunteer, donate.
  3. Stop judging and ridiculing people for not exercising (if you do). You don’t know what barriers they may have, and just because YOU have been able to overcome barriers doesn’t mean everyone has the same barriers and abilities to overcome them. Welcome people of all shapes and sizes and colors and ages and abilities to your gym. Fitness can and should be for everyone. Not just the already fit and able.
  4. Stop spreading the elitist and misguided meme that cardio makes you fat. It can be LIFESAVING for people with insulin resistance. It can also be more accessible than lifting for many people without access to a gym and equipment. And it doesn’t need to be an either/or question either – both are beneficial and it’s perfectly fine to combine them. And EVEN IF CARDIO DID MAKE YOU FAT, there are worse things to be than fat. Like, an elitist asshole.
  5. Stop, also, spreading the myth that exercise is for aesthetics and isn’t important for health. IT IS VITAL for health. VITAL. An exercising body doesn’t need fad diets. An exercising body can metabolize carbs and fat and protein and use it all for fuel. People with medical conditions may need special diets, but those diets should be prescribed and administered by medical professionals, not diet books and internet gurus. Fad diets serve NO ONE, except the bank account of the fad diet book authors. They are also generally quite elitist, time consuming and rely on expensive, and hard to find foods that most people simply don’t have access to. OR NEED.

Cardio is awesome (especially for people with a predisposition to insulin resistance). Lifting is awesome too. Fad diets SUCK and no one should be using them. People with medical conditions that require dietary intervention need to work with a medical professional to administer that dietary intervention. Fad diets offer false and misleading hope that all our problems can be solved with diet. NOPE. The research suggests that if there is anything close to a magic pill, it is EXERCISE. Not magic diets.

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Got something to say about this post? Join the discussion on Facebook!

I mentioned that it was the habit of inactivity that kept me from improving my health. In order to make long-term changes, I needed to change my habits to support regular and sufficient exercise. I did it by focusing on making one small change at a time, and practicing those changes consistently over time. It worked. It worked so well that it’s the approach I take with my coaching clients. And it’s the foundation of the group coaching program I created with my coaching partner Sean Flanagan (The Habit Project™). We’ll be enrolling our next session of the Habit Project on April 5th. If you’re interested in learning more about this approach to behavior change that we’ve seen work for hundreds of clients over the years, get on our pre-enrollment list here. Only people on the list will be getting the invitation to enroll in the program! Putting your name on the list does NOT obligate you to join the program.

 

 

Want to get started making new healthy habits? (here’s a free habit from the Habit Project)

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On Tuesday, Sean Flanagan and I will be enrolling the next group of the Habit Project On-Ramp.

We know that the approach we use is in such a stark contrast to the rest of the fitness industry, that it’s tough to be an outsider looking in and imagine what it’s like to go through.

But while you need to experience focused community support, and autonomy-focused coaching, to know what those are like, there is one aspect we can easily give you an inside look at…and that’s the habit building approach itself.

For this next On-Ramp group, we’ll be using a different habit sequence than with previous groups.  

And while we have had a great results starting groups off with the “Record What You Eat Without Judgment” habit, we had to make the tough decision and remove it to make room for the other habits we want to walk you through.

However, there’s no reason you can’t do this one without us.  🙂  

This pseudo habit (“pseudo” because it’s only intended for you to do it temporarily) is a great way to supercharge your awareness of your current eating patterns (without unnecessary negative self-talk), and use it to practice the art of habit personalization (and re-personalization) as you get some initial momentum.

If you end up joining the On-Ramp, this will help give you a running start for your future habits and will directly lay a foundation that can help you with the first habit we’ll do as a group. And if you don’t join us this time around, this habit will give you some insight into what’s going on on your plate, so to speak!

The Habit:  Record What You Eat Without Judgment

“Why Do I Want to do This Habit?”

Getting a really good picture of what you’re eating now, and what your eating patterns are like day to day is going to be a great starting place for your habit change process. The most important step in change is to create awareness.  If we can get an honest look at what “Point A” is, we can be more realistic with what we’re aiming for when we try to define “Point B” for a given habit.

As crazy as it sounds, at this point we don’t want you to work at changing your diet.  You’re not trying to get the “perfect” balance of carbs, protein, and fats; or hit a certain target with your fruits or vegetables; or even trying to keep your number of treats low.

You might be tempted to make drastic changes – but here is a good opportunity to practice the courage it takes to make slow changes.  Drastic changes are easy – do something big all at once and crash and burn.  Instead, you need to sharpen your commitment to realistic change.

The goal with this habit is creating awareness without judgment.   The goal is not to say to yourself “this is what I ate today. I’m such a bad person for eating all this junk”; the goal is to simply say “this is what I ate today”.

“How Can I Make This Habit Easy?”

You might want to track only specific meals (just breakfasts, lunches, or dinners) or only one component of your diet such as treat foods, vegetables, or protein.  The more you can track this week, the better for your potential at getting really great insights.

There are two apps that seem to have been the biggest hits with Habit Project members.  The first is YouFood (formerly known as TwoGrand), which helps you to journal with photos and notes.  The second is Recovery Record, which was created for patients with eating disorders and also is great for this habit as it allows for detailed journaling but from an awareness perspective rather than a good foods vs bad foods or calorie perspective.

You’re welcome to use a tracking app that has calorie counting such as MyFitnessPal, but be careful that you don’t end up turning this into an “Aim for a Specific Calorie Count Every Day” habit.  Calorie counting itself isn’t always helpful for the habit creation process we’re embarking on and for some people can even get in the way.

This is very important: Whatever you pick, it should be as easy as brushing your teeth. You start the process of habit change by choosing a behavior you know you can succeed at. And then, when that behavior is a habit, you add something slightly more challenging. And so on, and so forth. This way, the process never becomes overwhelming.

“When Am I Going to do The Habit?”

You should plan to do the recording right after a habit you do already. So if you are going to track what you eat during dinner, finishing your dinner might be a good trigger to remind you to track what you just ate.

If you’re doing this habit with pictures as with using YouFood, you’ll want to take a picture when you’re about to start eating (and maybe for what remains as well, depending how you want to roll with it).

If you can’t for whatever reason record what you eat at the mealtime, my suggestion would be to choose a habit trigger that is as close to your mealtime as possible.  For example, if you have a meeting every day after lunch, you’d use the end of the meeting to do your recording.  You may also want to send a reminder on your phone.

Personalizing This Habit:

Once you know what the habit goal is, you personalize it to your specific schedule, skill level and personal tastes. Here’s your template for personalizing this habit:

“I am 90-100% confident that I will record what I eat without judgment by [insert how] after I [insert the thing that reminds you here] every day for the next 14 days.”

Here’s an example:

“I am 90-100% confident that I will record what I eat by writing down what I eat at dinner in my journal after I am done eating dinner every day for the next 14 days.”

If you come up with a version of this habit where you’re less than 90% confident, you’re almost there!  Now you just need to identify the part that is giving you less confidence and either remove that from the habit or figure out a way to increase your chances of success with it.

Every day for the next week, I’ll make a post on my facebook page to follow up on this blog post. Join me there to let us know how you’re doing (and what you’re learning) from this habit. I think it’ll be fun community building!

If you can learn how to increase your awareness without engaging in negative self-talk about your eating, that will be a very valuable skill that can serve you for moving towards your goals.

Every day for the next week, I’ll make a post on my facebook page to follow up on this blog post. Join me there to let us know how you’re doing (and what you’re learning) from this habit. I think it’ll be fun community building!

If you want to get coaching and community support on the 8 habits in the Habit Project On-Ramp, Click HERE.  Enrollment for the April group will open on Tuesday April 5th and this time around, we ONLY plan on announcing enrollment to those who are on the VIP notification list.

Here’s that link again:  http://seanflanaganwellness.com/comingsoon2

-Amber
P.S. Got questions about the On-Ramp?  Email Sean: Sean (at) SeanFlanaganWellness.com

What it Means to Take Up Space

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Screen Shot 2016-03-16 at 11.41.43 AMTaking up Space means recognizing your right to exist, have opinions, speak without apologizing, pursue your own goals, and have a body. Any kind of body. A body you don’t apologize for. A body you don’t feel ashamed of. A body you get to dress and decorate and shape and display and use exactly the way YOU want to.

That’s it. You can stop reading now.

But, if you’re still reading, Taking up Space means YOU get to choose. You get to choose what to eat. You get to choose how (and if) to exercise. You get to choose who to love. You get to choose who to have sex with. You get to choose how big or small to be. You get to choose what to think. You get to choose what to say. You get to choose what to wear. You get to choose how to behave. You get to choose. You get to choose. You get to choose.

This may all seem obvious, on the surface. But from day one we are inundated with messages about the appropriate way to exist. The appropriate way to have a body. The appropriate things to do with our bodies. The appropriate way to behave. The appropriate way to love. The appropriate people to have sex with. The appropriate amount to eat. The appropriate THINGS to eat. The appropriate amount to weigh. The appropriate way to feel. The appropriate way to speak. The appropriate opinions to have.

And those messages become so deeply ingrained that we don’t realize they are messages from outside. We don’t recognize that they are cultural demands that we are expected to bow to. We just accept them as The Way Things Are. The Way WE Are.

Taking up Space is the gradual recognition of the way we’ve been conditioned. The gradual discovery of our own voice, our own opinions, our own preferences for our bodies. And then the expression of those things. The defiant acceptance of our natural healthy bodies as perfectly NORMAL. The rejection of the expectation of culture that we change ourselves to conform to it’s demands. It’s not just about our bodies, although our bodies are the most outwardly visible manifestation of Taking Up Space. We stop trying to shrink into nothingness in the physical world. We allow our bodies to be the size of strength, and health, and power.

But we also raise our voices to fill a room. We remain confident in our choices even when others try to undermine us. We cultivate within ourselves the strength and resilience to meet and conquer challenges and doubt. We decide what is right for ourselves. We decide. We decide. We decide.

Call it the patriarchy. Call it the suffocating weight of cultural expectation. Call it the overbearing voices of shame. Whatever it is that is holding you back: Taking Up Space means recognizing it. Taking Up Space means rejecting it. Taking Up Space means replacing it. Taking up Space means overthrowing it. Taking Up Space means becoming wholly YOU. Choosing. Deciding. Acting in ways that honor YOUR goals and preferences and opinions.

And that is what Taking Up Space, The Coaching Program is here for. To teach you how to recognize what isn’t working. To reject the expectations of others. To replace them with your own goals and preferences. And to cultivate the internal resilience and strength to keep doing it even when the dirty rotten fingers of doubt and discouragement start to creep in.

Taking Up Space isn’t a diet program or exercise routine. Those things are a dime a dozen all over the internet. It’s something BETTER. It will give you the tools to change the behaviors holding you back from your goals. It will build your self-reliance and self-confidence, so that you’ll know when something isn’t serving you or supporting your goals. It’ll give you the perspective to spot people and programs that are designed to keep you spinning your wheels. It’ll teach you why true, lasting change only happens when it comes from a place of self-love, not self-loathing.

Taking Up Space teaches you how to be a badass. And once you know that, nothing can stop you.

Taking Up Space: Three Years Later

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Amber_Rogers_Cover2Three years ago when I wrote my eBook “Taking Up Space: a Guide to Escaping the Diet Maze”, I had an idea that I’d like to ultimately create a coaching program to go along with it. “Taking Up Space” isn’t a diet book or exercise program, it’s actually much more than that. It’s the story of all of us – the story of how we’ve been conditioned to make our lives small, to keep our goals and dreams within the confines of our bodies, to expect perfection from ourselves and then punish ourselves most cruelly when we fail to live up to those expectations. to prioritize looking good over being good or doing good or creating good.

The coaching program I envisioned to accompany my book wasn’t a nutrition or exercise coaching program. It would focus on the thought processes that keep us spinning our wheels in the endless pursuit of smaller. It would create a support system for establishing new ways of thinking and communicating and moving through life.

But instead of creating that coaching program, I ended up creating Eating the Food, my Facebook group. Now, don’t get me wrong, ETF is awesome, and I’m SUPER proud and honored to have been the one who started it. And, it took off and grew and evolved in ways I NEVER imagined it would. I’m so grateful and honored to have been supported by my moderator team and the community in creating the living, breathing, vibrant force that it has become!

ETF took all my emotional and mental energy for the last few years. And I don’t regret any of it. Bt what it meant was that that coaching program I’d wanted to create kind of got pushed to the side, where it waited patiently, waving hello from time to time, imploring me not to forget it – but not getting the attention it needed to become a real live thing.

Screen Shot 2016-03-14 at 4.36.22 PMA few months ago I approached Sean, my coaching partner over at The Habit Project™, with the concept of a new kind of Habit Project, one devoted to body image rather than nutrition and exercise habits. It took a lot of hashing out and rehashing, but as we zeroed in on a way to make it work, it kind of became clear that what we were talking about creating WAS the Taking Up Space coaching program I’d envisioned all those years ago.

And, over the last few weeks as a confluence of unrelated and unplanned events have resulted in me handing the reins of leadership of ETF over to my moderator team, my ability to really devote my time and energy into this program has blossomed.

Screen Shot 2016-03-14 at 4.35.24 PMThe time is finally right. That coaching program I wanted to build to support Taking uUp Space is being born, at long last.

This program is designed to address, and change, the psychological and emotional barriers to success that keep SO many of us from being able to effectively reach our goals (whether they are weight or fitness related, or something completely unrelated). It’s not a diet program. It’s not a fitness program. It’s a finding-your-voice program. It’s a claiming-your-space program. It’s an owning-your-power program. It what’s MISSING from the diet and fitness industry. It’s the work so many of us need to do before we can even start to THINK about losing weight or getting in shape. It’s the program that will teach you how to find, within yourself, the power to overcome the barriers and obstacles that have held you back your whole life.

It’s Step One. And the entire industry, our entire culture in fact, has been operating as if we can all simply jump straight to Step Two and begin kicking ass. And it’s pretty clear that that is not the case.

So. Watch this space over the next few days as we roll this new program out. I think it’s going to be big. I think it’s going to change everything. I think it’s what we’ve all been waiting for all along. I think the time is finally right, and the program is finally here.

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Imagine, If You Will…

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Imagine, if you will…

Screen Shot 2016-03-11 at 10.19.35 AMA person. A person who is afraid of food. A person who has eliminated multiple foods and food groups from their diet because they believe those foods are ‘toxic’ or unhealthy or fattening. A person who spends a tremendous amount of their day worrying about food and eating. A person who agonizes over their weight every moment of every day. A person who’s primary focus in their life is making their body smaller and smaller. A person who collects recipes but never prepares them because they are too high calorie, or contain foods they’ve forbidden themselves from eating. A person who starves themselves for days on end, and then binges uncontrollably when their willpower finally fails. And who then heaps shame and punishment upon themselves for being so weak, and goes back to eating as little as possible. A person who collects and reads diet books, and jumps from diet to diet in search of the one that will finally give them the perfect body. A person who exercises to extremes, and injures themselves repeatedly because of it. A person who believes their value as a person hinges upon the size and shape of their body, and who goes to extremes in the pursuit of perfection, always falling short, and believing they are worthless as a result.

Imagine that person now.

That person has disordered eating. Maybe even a full blown eating disorder.

And, if that person you imagined is thin, it would be obvious that they need treatment for their disordered eating.

But. If that person you imagined was fat? What if that person is fat? If that person is fat, then most people, including most health professionals, would dismiss all the signs of disordered eating, and fixate on the person’s weight. That person may be judged as being weak, or lacking willpower. That person may be told they’re just not trying hard enough. That person would maybe be put on another diet by their doctor. That person may consider themselves a failure at weight loss.

We treat thin people and fat people differently. And nowhere is it more obvious than by the way we treat them when they exhibit disordered eating. A thin person is afforded compassion, and prescribed treatment. The fat person is shamed and prescribed another diet.

This has to end.

Disordered eating can affect ANYONE, any size, any age, any gender. We MUST stop treating some of them and shaming others. They ALL need and deserve compassion, and appropriate treatment for their disordered eating.

A diet is not an appropriate treatment for disordered eating.

Eating Disorder Resources:

http://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/find-help-support
http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/eating-disorders/index.shtml
http://www.helpguide.org/mental/eating_disorder_treatment.htm
http://www.something-fishy.org/treatmentfinder/

Check out my ebook ‘Taking Up Space: A Guide to Escaping the Diet Maze’.

 

So This is Obesity, Huh?

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One of the reasons I’ve been laying low lately is that I just haven’t been well. My health (mental AND physical) started deteriorating about a year and a half ago. I had a surgery, I’ve been on several different weight-gain inducing pain medications and my capacity for exercise has deteriorated significantly.

I tried to power through for a long time, knowing that I am a role-model for my kids, and that many people ‘out there’ expected me to maintain a certain level (and look) of fitness. But recently I realized I need to take my own medicine and back-the-fuck-off of pushing myself so hard when my body is demanding rest and recovery time.

I wanted to post this now because I’m at a weight I doubt I will stay at, and I wanted to use it to make the point (again) that BMI is a God-awful measure of a person’s health status, and that when people imagine what overweight and obesity look like, they aren’t always right. What do YOU imagine an obese person looks like? I doubt you imagine this:

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According to BMI, I am obese now.

I’ve gained roughly 25 pounds over the last year and a half. My ‘Sanity Setpoint’ weight is 170-175 pounds (which is itself overweight). I am now, depending on the time of day and where I am in my menstrual cycle, 195-205 pounds. I say I doubt I will stay here because I am successfully reducing the number and amount of medications I’m using, and my capacity for exercise is slowly, slowly increasing. But my current weight, at my height of 5’9, puts my BMI right at 30, the point where ‘overweight’ ends, and ‘obesity’ begins.

I am obese! Huzzah!

Up until the last year, I’d been successfully maintaining my Sanity Setpoint weight for several years. It was a weight I could maintain without having to engage in any extreme measures. A reasonable amount of exercise, a reasonable level of calorie intake, and a balanced, varied diet that included both foods I eat for nutrition and foods I eat purely for pleasure. I don’t doubt that as I slowly work back to those behaviors and continue to reduce the medications that have affected my weight, my weight will trend downward and I’ll eventually get back there, or close. But hell, if I stay where I am, I don’t think it would be the end of the world.

The reason I wanted to share this image and this post is that I want to provide perspective for all the people out there agonizing about the obesity epidemic, BMI numbers and the number on the scale. See that picture up there? That’s what obesity can look like when the obese person is active and eats a relatively healthy diet. In spite of my pain, arthritis and surgery, all my health markers are excellent. My pain is affecting my health, but my weight isn’t.

I’m going to continue to call on healthcare providers and the general public to shift their focus away from the number on the scale, and toward BEHAVIOR. Balanced, healthy habits will contribute heavily to health outcomes, regardless of what the number on the scale is. It’s clear that our cultural fixation on numbers hasn’t resulted in improvements (and in fact is probably making the problem worse). I’m calling for a complete paradigm shift. Screw the numbers. Work on the habits. And we’ll begin to see progress.