Break Free from Your Exercise Police!

Do you need to break free from your Exercise Police?

Like your internal Food Police, the voices in your head that try to enforce food moralism and the unreasonable food rules our diet, wellness and fitness cultures have created, your inner Exercise Police are the voices in your head that try to enforce rules regarding what is and isn’t acceptable when it comes to movement.

Your Exercise Police may sound something like this…

• It’s not really exercise unless you get your heart rate up or break a sweat.

• You must work out for at least X minutes, otherwise it doesn’t count.

• You can’t stop until you go a certain distance or burn a specific number of calories.

• If you skip a workout, you need to eat less to make up for it.

• No matter how your body is feeling, you have to do the workout you planned.

• It’s not worth it if it doesn’t burn very many calories.

• If you don’t work out today, you’ll have to work out twice as hard tomorrow.

• You don’t have the right body for that type of exercise.

• If you ate “badly,” you have to work out to make up for it.

• If you want a “bad” food, you have to work out to earn it.

• If you don’t exercise, you’re bad, lazy, undisciplined and unhealthy.

• If it doesn’t result in weight loss, there’s no point to doing it.

Does any of this sound familiar? I bet you can think of some rules that aren't on this list. I could have gone on and on!

Squash Joy and Connection
When your Exercise Police are driving your decision-making, you may find yourself frequently ignoring the messages your body is sending you, like pain or fatigue, to adhere to your exercise rules.

You may also find yourself feeling less motivated to move, dreading your workouts, pushing your body beyond its limits, experiencing frequent injuries, exercising when you’re sick, or prioritizing exercise over friends and family.

With their very black-and-white, all-or-nothing approach to movement, your Exercise Police likely amplify your stress rather than alleviate it, leave you feeling depleted instead of invigorated, and make you feel guilty and ashamed when you break a rule.

Basically, your Exercise Police suck all the fun and joy out of movement and disconnect you from your innate body wisdom.

How to Break Free
The good news is that you can break free from your Exercise Police by recognizing their presence, challenging their commands, defying their rules, and giving yourself permission to experiment with other possibilities based on what feels right to you.

Instead of adhering to external rules, plans or authorities when it comes to movement (and eating!), listen to your internal cues. This means checking in with your body and honoring what it’s needing and desiring.

Perhaps it’s gentle stretching instead of a fast-paced yoga class, a relaxing walk versus a vigorous run, or a kitchen dance party rather than a boot-camp workout.

Or maybe it’s a rest day, a soak in the tub, or a nap!

Joyful, Intuitive Movement
To help you cultivate a relationship with movement that’s joyful, flexible, balanced and intuitive, ask yourself questions, such as:

• What is my body truly needing and desiring right now?

• What is my motivation for moving right now?

• What am I hoping this activity will do for me?  

• If this activity had zero capacity to decrease my weight, would I still do it?

• How is this movement making me feel?

• Does this feel kind and respectful to my body?

• Does this feel pleasurable or punitive?

• Am I having fun right now? If not, what would be more fun?

There are a million ways to move your body. Why do something that doesn’t feel good and that you don’t enjoy?

Beware of Exercise Moralism
Despite what our diet, wellness and fitness cultures want us to believe, exercise isn’t a moral obligation.

How you choose to move your body, including choosing to not exercise at all, isn’t a reflection of your moral character. (It's important to keep in mind that it's a privilege to even have a choice.)

Just like with food, your exercise choices do not make you a good or bad person or superior or inferior.

What matters most is that you honor what works the best for you and feels the best for your body. 

What Food Freedom Tastes Like

With the Fourth of July upon us, I’ve been reflecting on what Independence Day was like for me as a kid.

Naturally, the fireworks were the highlight of the holiday. However, I also have very fond memories of the food.

I recall kicking off the festivities with a pancake breakfast at our local pool. I happily gobbled up syrup-soaked flapjacks topped with strawberries, blueberries and whipped cream in honor of the occasion.

After hours of swimming and playing with my neighborhood friends, the day would end with a big block party. What a thrill it was to be able to ride my banana-seat bike down the middle of our street!

Picnic tables were hauled from backyards and covered with an array of homemade summer dishes, while a couple of grills smoked away on the sidelines.

Food-Fueled Fun
My nighttime fun was fueled by ketchup-covered hot dogs, honey baked beans, buttery corn-on-the-cob, juicy watermelon wedges, salty chips and dip, and very patriotic Jell-O salads. All of this was washed down with thirst-quenching cups of lemonade.

No matter what I ate, I always had room for a fudgy brownie or strawberry shortcake topped with rapidly melting vanilla ice cream.

I ate what looked good, sounded good and felt good in my body. Sometimes I ate it all, and sometimes I left some behind.

I ate freely and intuitively.

Not Yet Tainted
My young mind hadn’t been tainted yet by diet culture—an oppressive system full of food rules, eating restrictions, good/bad food lists, careful counting (e.g., calories, points, macros, etc.), weight stigma and false promises.

I hadn’t been taught yet that I should be hyper-vigilant with food and micro-manage every morsel.

No one had told me yet that my body couldn’t be trusted and that I needed to rely on a plan or program to tell me how to eat.

I hadn’t learned to abhor my belly, demonize certain foods, feel ashamed about my eating and compensate for my food “sins.”

I didn't worry about others judging my choices nor did I play Hide & Eat to keep myself safe from scrutiny.

Do I Want It?
While I loved all that food, I had more exciting and important things to focus on, like water-balloon tosses, sparklers and bottle rockets.

As an Intuitive Eater, I just ate and moved on.

Eating was simply a matter of: I can have it. Do I want it?

Diet Mentality Takes Over
Unfortunately, all of this changed as I entered my teenage years and began adopting the diet mentality powered by salads, rice cakes and diet sodas (hello, Tab!).

My desire to achieve the “thin ideal” led to decades of disordered eating.

Thankfully, with help from some very wise guides, I eventually broke free from diet culture and made peace with food and my body.

The healing process wasn’t easy or fast. Some days, I feel like I'm still a work-in-progress. But, it’s all been worth it.

Ending the war I was waging against myself enabled me to return to the food freedom and body liberation I experienced as a young girl.   

It’s Still Within You
I’m sharing this story as a reminder that we all came into this world as Intuitive Eaters—that is, we ate based on our instincts, inner cues and desires. We ate without worry, guilt, fear or shame.  

Sadly, we’re losing touch with our ability to eat intuitively at a younger and younger age. Shockingly, an estimated 80 percent of 10-year-old girls have been on a diet.

I’m also sharing my experience to assure you that if you’ve become disconnected from the Intuitive Eater within you, you can reconnect with it.

It hasn’t gone away. It’s just buried under layers of diet-culture gunk, which today, is often packaged under the guise of “wellness.”

Magical Powers Not Required
I don’t have any magical powers. My clients don’t either. If we can relearn how to listen to and trust our bodies, so can you.

“I’m no longer searching for the ‘answer’ to the perfect way to eat. I don’t stress about how I eat because it isn’t that big of a deal anymore. I no longer believe those food guilt thoughts and that is F-R-E-E-D-O-M!”
–Client Molly

The Pizza's Aroma Hugged Me Like a Warm Blanket

Last week, one of my favorite bakeries reopened.

It’s a neighborhood co-op I’ve been going to for decades that closed in mid-March due to the pandemic.

I quickly ordered one of their half-baked pizzas. I had been craving their pizza for months and wanted to ensure I got one before they sold out.

As I baked it later that evening, the distinctive aroma of its sourdough crust wafted through my apartment.

My body responded as if it was being hugged by a warm blanket.

The aroma transported me to a time years ago when I frequently picked up one of the bakery’s pizzas to bake for dinner.

It was a time in my life when things felt simpler, less uncertain, less heartbreaking.

I was struck by how much just the smell of the pizza comforted me—even more than its taste, which I also quite savored. 

Of course, it didn’t take away my sadness, anger, pain and uncertainty.

But, for a brief moment, it did provide some much-needed comfort.

Demonized by Diet Culture
Despite its tremendous power to soothe, diet culture has demonized comfort food.

It has taught us to feel bad, guilty, weak or ashamed when we turn to it to navigate tough times.

As a result, we often feel we have to justify our desires, hide our eating, and make up for our “food sins.”

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Rightful Coping Tool
Food’s ability to soothe our mind, body and soul is something to embrace and celebrate.

Providing comfort is just one of the many roles it plays in our lives, one of the many ways it meets our needs, and one of the many gifts it gives us.

For many of us, food is an easily accessible coping mechanism—one that has a rightful place in our emotional coping toolkit.