Skip to main content

No place for shame in self-improvement

When I began this blog I wrote a post that outlines my ethos in health and fitness. I want to take those ideas and expand upon them.

Today I want to look at this bit

"Positive results are achieved through positive means."

And more specifically I want to take a quick look at the culture of shame and guilt that sometimes creeps into fitness, and why I believe it is detrimental, to individuals and "Fitness" as a concept, and an industry.

There's a theory that says that we have to hit rock bottom (or some variant therof) before we can truly commit to a major lifestyle change. That people need to feel dreadful about their current situation before they can properly invest in the change. I'm not sure whether I buy into that or not. I think that it is definitely possible to make small, manageable changes to our lifestyle, by choice, from a positive place. A complete change in lifestyle does take a serious trigger - but I would question whether, as a personal trainer, I should be encouraging people to make difficult, major changes that they are unlikely to sustain. Surely it's all about gradual, achievable steps. Baby steps forward, not a giant leap followed by the inevitable slide backwards.

Even if we assume that the rock bottom theory is true, is it ethical, or even helpful, to "encourage" the process by adding to the negativity? In my mind, that's just bullying, and certainly not behaviour becoming of anyone who states an aim to help an individual improve their circumstances.

When I decided to expand my work from dance/yoga instruction into Personal Training, I really wanted to work with people who didn't consider themselves to be "gym people", and that made me think hard about what it was about gym culture (real or perceived) that was putting people off exercise.



Coming out of the bellydance community, I am very acclimatised to a culture of body positivity. Within the dance community women are considered beautiful not because of the shape or size of their body, but for how they move it. At the same time however I see dancers, pros and hobbyists, who are working on their fitness. Hard. Not to change their looks, but to improve their body function.

18 months ago I was 20kg heavier than I am now. I was still very fit, smashing my way through 5 HIIT workouts a week, plus around 10 hours of dance training and teaching. But I wasn't losing weight, because I wasn't trying to. When I decided to lose the weight, it was not a decision that came out of shame or self loathing. I was happy with the strength and function in my body, I was performing regularly and feeling good about myself. I just didn't feel quite like me and I wanted to see if returning to my pre-baby weight ironed out the last niggles and made me a bit more comfortable within myself. I can guarantee that if someone had told me to lose weight because I looked somehow unacceptable I would have retreated to a quiet corner and quite possibly ended up caring less about my fitness.

Everyone has their own story, but I know that in mine, being accepted as I was helped me to have the drive to take care of my body, out of love, not shame. That's something that I believe is very important.

Negative emotions often lead to negative behaviours. Learning to be positive and non judgemental about your own choices keeps you on track. It is shame that leads you to the chocolate box when you "mess up" and "break your diet", because somehow you decide that a single choice defines you and your potential. It is shame that keeps you away from the gym when you've fallen out of the habit and regressed a little, because you forget that you are worth the effort.

Shame is a natural response, when it grows organically we can work with it; but lets be mindful of it and lets not introduce or feed it, because there's little place for it in a healthy mind or body.

Brene Brown has some interesting things to say about dealing with shame, starting here:






Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Managing Fibromyalgia flares

I've written before about living with EDS and Fibromyalgia ,  much of my personal fitness and health practices are geared around managing those conditions and keeping me as well as I can be. When managing a chronic health condition, particularly one that involves fatigue and potential flare ups, pacing, good nutrition, good sleep and generally taking care of yourself is always the first priority. Ideally we want to have as few flares as possible. But sometimes they still happen, and when they do, it's good to have a strategy in place. And I'm going to be talking in fairly general terms, because while EDS and Fibro are my personal experience, there is so little understanding of the mechanisms behind these conditions, that most strategies are going to be applicable to a number of conditions where crashes of exhaustion and pain are a feature. So what is a flare? A flare is a period where someone with chronic illness suffers increased symptoms for a short while. The
3 comments
Read more

Wellbeing is not a competition

I want to have an in depth look at another aspect of the Free Living Fitness manifesto .  Wellbeing is not a competition. Sports are competitive by their nature, some fitness activities like body building are also competitive, but taking care of your body should not be, that's between you and your body. Often when I am in the gym, I see people lifting weights with bad form. They lift the weight, then drop it, not completing a full cycle of the rep. Or they lift too fast to properly get the benefit of using the whole muscle. Or they use form that reduces the isolation, for instance using more of their back than necessary in a shoulder exercise. All of these things achieve one "false" result: They allow you to lift a heavier weight.  Why lift in a way that reduces the efficacy of the exercise, gets you slower gains and potentially hurts you? Because the number on the weight is bigger, and being able to quote a big number puts you ahead in the gym competitio
1 comment
Read more

My top apps for supporting a healthy lifestyle.

The hardest part of making healthy choices and lifestyle changes is making it a habit. It's easy to make a decision to "eat better", "exercise more" or whatever your current plan is. It's a lot harder to stick to it on the rough days, for long enough that it becomes a habit and part of your life that you can't imagine being without. I love a bit of tech. I am a super geeky science nerd and finding ways to use technology to support my health and fitness makes me very happy. So with this in mind I thought I'd give a quick run down of my favourite smartphone apps for developing and maintaining healthy habits. Habitica I'm starting with this one because it's mad and I love it. Habitica is basically a to-do list app, but it's specially for the gamers among us. If you are familiar with Dungeons and Dragons, and all the games that grew out of that system and fantasy world, you will recognise Habitica. The app allows you to create 3 t
Post a Comment
Read more

Is being polite sabotaging your weight loss?

I've been thinking a lot lately about the barriers that make it hard for people to stick to healthy habits, or even take them up in the first place. My personal training clients are a lovely bunch, and one thing I can certainly say is that none of them have come to me completely uninformed about healthy eating. Most people have done some homework before they get to the point of hiring me, and while I always go over the basics (never assume anything) I know that when I tell them stuff like this, it's not new information to them: Eat less to lose weight Eat protein with every meal Eat 5 portions of fruit and veg a day Consume high sugar and fat treats rarely and in moderate portions Drink water with every meal or snack Exercise regularly That's not rocket science, so why are so many people still struggling with it? Is it because "the rules" are more complicated? Are they missing the "weird trick" (spoiler alert, there are no weird tricks
1 comment
Read more

4 reasons why you should eat

I feel ridiculous writing this post. It should be excruciatingly obvious. But it's not. Everywhere I look I am seeing messages about not-eating. "don't eat these things" "don't eat very much" "don't eat at this time" And frankly, it's not very healthy. Physically or mentally. So what I'm going to talk about today is why it is important to focus on eating, rather than not-eating, when working towards your health-improving goals. And yes, even, no, especially, when one of those goals is fat loss. Fuel for your activities So food is fuel for your body. It provides the energy you need to function. Your body uses carbohydrates and fat as fuel. It can use protein, but only when under quite a lot of pressure. Your brain can only fuel itself on glucose (carbohydrate) and you can only metabolise fat in the presence of carbohydrate ("fat burns in a carbohydrate flame"). When your body runs low
Post a Comment
Read more