Physical

Hello, everyone, welcome to another episode of The Midlife Revolution. I'm your host, Megan Conner. Today I'm gonna give you a heads up about the topic of this episode, I don't like to issue trigger warnings, because I believe that when someone's emotions get activated by a subject or a topic that comes up, that should teach us, that's something that we need to address in therapy with a professional, or something that we need to work on. So, today, if your emotions get activated, or you find yourself feeling some really uncomfortable feelings, and you need to step away, please do that for your own self care. But also make note of what it is that bothered you and why. And see if you can work that out with a mental health counselor.

Today, we're gonna be talking about body positivity, body shame, food, clothing, there's a big intersection here for me. So let's get into it. Many of you know that I was raised in a very strict Mormon household. And by strict I mean that it wasn't just the Mormon rules. But all the rules in my childhood growing up were very important. It was very important to my parents to have obedient children. And so a lot of the strictness that I grew up with had to do with everyday things like food, there were a lot of rules about what we could eat, when we could eat it, how much we could eat. And I learned very early on that if I wanted to have a happy and peaceful mealtime experience, that i There were certain things that I had to do. And some of those involved, making sure that I was careful about how much food I put on my plate. My parents had a little saying that if you were in the clean plate club, then you could get dessert. They appreciated us eating everything that was on our plate, we were not allowed to waste food. And we had to be careful to measure things. So cold cereal was like the norm breakfast food for a lot of my growing up years. But we had to not take too much cereal, because my mom didn't want all the cereal to be gone just a couple days after she went to the store. And so we had to be careful about how much we put in our bowl. And then we had to also be careful about how much milk we put on the cereal. Because if we ended up with leftover milk, at the end, we were expected to drink it. And to me, that felt pretty gross to drink milk that was laden with cereal dust. And so I was always really careful to make sure the milk was just under the top of where the cereal was, so that I didn't end up with leftover milk afterwards. So I sort of developed all of these habits around food, about restricting the amount of food that I had, my parents didn't like us to eat, when it wasn't meal time, I got into the habit of measuring everything I got into the habit of just being really careful to not waste food, and that just all sort of snowballed into some unhealthy habits and feelings about food. I think some of these rules about food came from my parents, my mom, especially living with parents herself, who survived the Great Depression era. So my great my grandmother and grandfather, who were my mom's parents, both came out of the depression area era. And that was a time where people did not waste anything.

It wasn't just food, it was anything that you could use, there was a saying that was use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without. So we were not gonna go out and buy new shoes, if the ones we had were perfectly good, except they just were a little worn out or they had you know, a hole in the soul, you would go get them resold, you would go get zippers fixed, you wouldn't throw things away. And you would sort of try to repurpose or retool things to make them work for you. So growing up with that with those parents, my mom, I'm sure developed some scarcity mentality. They also lived on a farm. And so, you know, it was making sure that the animals had enough to eat making sure that my grandmother made bread every single day. They use their resources wisely, they didn't waste things. And so while none of those things are inherently bad, just living in that mentality for a long time can be detrimental. The scarcity mentality of always worrying what if always saving things just in case. And so you develop habits of holding on to clutter and things you don't need, just in case you might need it at some point. And you don't throw things away. You repurpose all of that scarcity mentality kind of comes together. So So it wasn't just food, but it was also clothing. So when my mom would buy us clothes as kids, we would go not to a department store. Usually we would go to a discount store like a Ross or TJ Maxx, or Michaels. Michaels, what's the other one Marshalls, but not just go to the, to the discount store, but go to the clearance rack at the discount store. And always buy things on sale, always use coupons. If there's a points program or a loyalty program, you would do that just to make sure that you're getting the most bang for your buck, getting everything you could out of your money. So I also developed this idea that I was not worthy of new clothes, or well made clothes, I was only worthy of clothing if it was on sale. And so and as a as an adult, instead of buying clothes that I really wanted, or I really loved, I would buy clothes just because they were on sale, or just because they were a good deal. And, you know, of course, I would try to find things in colors that I liked and styles that I liked and things like that. But I didn't believe that it was worth it for me to buy clothes that were well made. I always tried to get the least expensive things, I thought, well, especially if I'm just buying, you know, a pair of shorts to work out in, then I just need to get the cheapest shorts, I can because I'm not going to use them, you know, all day every day, I'm not going to be in them all day, it's just going to be for a short workout. And that's it. And so it took me a really long time. Until I got to the point that I appreciated well made clothes and was willing to spend money on well made clothes and well made shoes. Instead of buying my shoes at like a Walmart or a Target or something, buying shoes that actually fit me really well that were made of good materials that were going to last a long time. And then making an investment in something like that. And realizing that it's less expensive to invest in a good pair of shoes, it's going to last a really long time than it is to buy several pairs of cheaply made shoes that are going to wear out and be uncomfortable, etc. So food and clothing.

And then there was an additional layer of purity culture, having been raised in the Mormon church, and modesty, culture, modesty culture, meaning just that I was taught as a very young girl that I needed to cover up my body, and especially that I needed to cover up any parts of my body that might be sexualized by men. And I was made to feel as though it was my responsibility to keep covered up so that my body would not be a temptation to men. And that was a harmful teaching because it it made me believe that it was my responsibility for other people's thoughts and feelings. And it also made me believe that there was something shameful about my body, that the parts of my body that could be sexualized by someone else were shameful needed to be covered up and hidden. And so I did my best to minimize the appearance of my body as feminine as female. I tried to wear big baggy clothes a lot of the time, because I felt ashamed of what my body looked like. Add to that the fact that my mother was often talking about dieting, or losing weight, or exercising for the purpose of losing weight, making sure that she got a run or a walk in because she was working towards a goal of losing weight. She went through a series of super restrictive diets when I was a young adult. And she also because she I think was focused on her own body and the size of her body. She would also comment on my body and the size and shape of my body. And I remember as a freshman in high school, I joined the track team. I have no idea why because I don't enjoy running at all. But I wanted to do something that was sports. I had played football in middle school, but didn't want to have all of those fights and conversations about being in football in high school. But I wanted to do something active. So I joined the track team. And after the first couple of weeks, we were we were running all day, every day, a couple hours a day at least.

And you know, I had shin splints, I was sore. I was tired. It was awful. But I remember my mom making a comment that my hips were looking slimmer since I started running. And that really stuck with me. It was a message to me that she was it was a positive comment from her. So I got the message that if I wanted my mom to think positively about my body, that I needed to continue to exercise and I needed to continue to stay slim. And so that became a focus for me for a really long time. And all of the scarcity mentality, and unhealthy relationship to food, and unhealthy body image messages got all jumbled up in my mind. And it took me a really, really long time into my adulthood before I started to work things out. So this takes us up to about four years ago, I was working as a choir teacher, and my co director, who became my good friend, and now is actually my partner in life. He was doing CrossFit. And if you don't know what CrossFit is, it's a really extreme form of working out and weightlifting, it combines cardio and weightlifting, and gymnastics all together. And usually, lots and lots of repetitions of movements. So meaning you would do 20 squats, and then you would do 50 dumbbell rows, and then you would do 20, push ups. And all of these exercises are timed. And there's gymnastics skills mixed in there too, that you have to work on all the time. And they have a competition every year called the CrossFit open, or the CrossFit Games. And the person who wins that is declared the fittest woman and the fittest man. And it is a culture. It is it's absolutely a culture, there are CrossFit gyms all over the place. And CrossFitters consider themselves kind of a tribe of people together. And it's definitely 100% The hardest workouts that I've ever done in my whole life. But before I joined CrossFit, Samuel, Mike, my co director at the time was talking about it and onStop and how much he loved it, and how supportive the community was and how he loved the gym, and all of those things. And I just had all these excuses about working out. I didn't want to, I always want to take a shower after I work out. And so I thought I don't have time to do that, because it's an hour workout. And then also I have to shower and how do I juggle that and I was a single mom at the time trying to to also work full time as a teacher. And man, it just felt overwhelming to add one more thing to my day. But Samuel kept bugging me about it over and over. And as CrossFitters do was always talking about his workouts, what he did on the workout that day, why he was sore, whatever. And one day we were sitting down talking about it. And I was kind of contemplating this idea of maybe starting CrossFit. I was like, but I told him all my excuses. And he said why don't you just come to the gym on a Saturday. It's a more chill day. It's not it's usually a shorter workout. We don't do an entire hour, half hour of weightlifting and then a half hour of a workout. People are just very casual. They come and go, you can meet some of the people at the gym, see, see how you like it, see what you think about it. And I was like, I just don't know if I can fit working out into my life. And he knew me really well. We had had lots of conversations together. He looked at me and he said, when you were a kid, you played sports, right? And I said yes. I said I played soccer a lot when I was younger. And then I played football with the neighborhood kids. And I was always playing sports. It's like, Yeah, and you wanted to be a figure skater. So you went ice skating. You went skiing as a teenager. You said yeah, he said, You played football when you were in middle school, like Yeah. And he said, then you did track. Like, yeah, but I hated it. And, and he said there was, you know, you are always doing something like that. What are you doing for yourself? That's like that now. And I was like, huh, you're right. There's something missing from my life. I love working out. I enjoy physical labor. I enjoy working hard. I enjoy wearing myself out. Physically, I just feels good to me. So you're right, I probably should just go do it.

So on a Saturday morning, I went to the CrossFit gym. With Samuel it was called Bedlam CrossFit in San Antonio. And we met there at the gym. He introduced me to a bunch of people. And I did the workout that was on the board. It had been I had only ever lifted weights when it was like weight day at you know, football practice or it was weight day at track practice. And all all I had ever done were the machine weights. I had never used free weights before. But I somehow got through that workout. And I really loved it and I loved the people and I loved the atmosphere and you know if you were the last one finishing the workout, everybody would gather around you and cheer you on until you were done until your last rep was finished. And I just loved that I thought that was such a great atmosphere. It was wonderful and I went home And I let my dogs out into the backyard. And I sat there on my patio and it just cried and cried. Because I was so happy that I had found something that was going to be really fulfilling in my life. And I was excited about starting something new and challenging myself to learn all these new gymnastic skills and things I had never done before. And lifting weights just made me feel like a powerful person for the first time in my body. And it was so exciting and wonderful for me. And I spent the next year working really hard to get good at CrossFit. I went every single day during my lunch break. And I would, I'd go during my lunch break. And then I just learned to deal with being sweaty, putting my hair up in a ponytail, using, you know, body wipes to get as clean as I could and put athletic wear on to go back to school and teach my last two classes, and then shout or when I got home. It was it was hard, it was hard to make those changes because I was doing things that were really uncomfortable for me. And almost every time I drove into the parking lot of the gym, I would get this rush of adrenaline like oh, no, what's the workout gonna be today, it's going to be hard, it's gonna hurt, I'm going to be sore. But I really enjoyed that process of pushing myself. So I did that for about a year. And at the end of the year, I thought to myself, you know, I'm doing these workouts every day. But I sort of felt stalled. Because I still couldn't do a strict pull up, I still couldn't do a handstand push up. And I was kind of stuck at this, you know, level of beginner weights, and I wanted to get stronger. And I wanted to know how to do that specifically for my body with my strengths and weaknesses, the places where I hold tension, all of those things. And so the owner of the gym was doing personal training. So I hired him to write my programming my workout programming for me. And for an entire year, I went to the gym again, every day, it wasn't every day, it was probably five days a week, I would go at 530 in the morning, because I enjoyed getting the workout done, and then having the rest of my day ahead of me. And so I did that for an entire year. And over the course of that year, I also decided that I was dissatisfied with my body shape. Even though I was the healthiest I had ever been. I was not the weight that I wanted to be. And I still had little problem areas that I was worried about thinking about, you know, little punch here and a little roll there that I wanted to get rid of. And the the trainer's wife was working with people on nutrition. And it was something that was not foreign to me having a diet plan. But this was a little bit different because you were counting macronutrients. And so for those of you who don't know, it's it's keeping track exactly of how many grams of carbs, how many grams of fat and how many grams of protein you consume in a day. And so she observed my she said, Just keep track of everything that you eat for a week. And then we're going to make a plan from there. So for an entire week, I there was a little app that I would put in every single thing that I ate or drank. And I would estimate the the weight of the food and so we could keep track of of the macronutrients. And so I did that for a week. And then after a week, she told me, okay, this is how many calories you need to consume in order to be at a little bit of a deficit. But it was a very high protein, very low carb, low fat eating plan, so that I could build muscle and get rid of some of the fat, the body fat that I had. And I had a goal of the weight that I wanted to be and I had a goal of the body fat percentage that I want it to be.

And so for almost six months, I kept track of every single thing that I put in my body, whether it was food or drink, and I tracked the macronutrients, I weighed everything. Even when I went out to eat, I tried to really estimate carefully about how much I was eating, I kept track of sauces, I kept track track of toppings, everything that was on my food. And at the end of the week, I would take screenshots of my weekly results, and I would send them to the nutritionist. And then she would evaluate them and say, Okay, here's where we need to tweak. And I also would take body measurements of I would weigh myself every day. In fact, I was weighing myself multiple times a day which really was not healthy at all. And because I was seeing King, okay, when is the optimal time to weigh myself. So I would weigh myself before the shower after the shower before peeing after peeing, and I got really obsessive about it, and it was just not healthy. So at the end of six months, I just made the decision that I was not going to be worried anymore about what? Well, I let me rephrase, I made a decision that it was not healthy, healthy for me to keep track of every single thing that I ate and drink, it became obsessive, and it was not healthy. And furthermore, I was at a weight that was very healthy. My body composition was very healthy. I was looking muscular and toned and lean like I wanted to. But I was obsessed with the number on the scale. And I realized that the number on the scale is an important metric. But it's not the only metric. And so I decided that I was going to stop weighing myself every day, and that I was only going to weigh myself once a week. And that little change started a revolution of me being less concerned about the numbers that were associated with my body. And so I stopped doing the nutrition thing, but I still ate very healthy, I just wasn't obsessive about keeping track of everything. And guess what, my weight really didn't change. It didn't go up. And it didn't go down that much. I just continued to eat the way that I knew was healthy, which is to eat real food as much as possible to eat the rainbow meaning lots of colors of fruits and vegetables. And also Yes, including carbs in my diet and allowing myself to have treats from time to time and to not be to not shame myself, for allowing myself to enjoy my food. A few months later, I decided to stop with the personal training, I went through the personal training for an entire year. And at the end of the year, I still could only do one strict pull up. I still could only do half a handstand push up. But I was stronger and healthier than I had ever been. And I was really happy with the progress that I made. I proved to myself that I could show up by myself at the gym every single day, I didn't need any external motivation to do that. I enjoyed working out I enjoyed feeling strong, and I enjoyed the community aspect of CrossFit. So I went back to the class setting, instead of being by myself and doing my own workouts every day. And I enjoyed I enjoyed being back in there with everybody, it was so much fun.

So for a few months, I went back to that class atmosphere. But my mind started to gradually change. By not shaming myself about food anymore, I came to my workouts very differently to see CrossFit can also be unhealthy in some ways. Because there is a sort of attitude that if you shave reps, meaning it says 15 reps, and you only do 10, then you're cheating. Or if it says to, you know, run 400 meters and you decide to row instead because your knees are hurting or something, well, that's cheating, you're not actually doing the workout. Now that culture wasn't really prevalent in the gym, I went to the gym I went to was actually really supportive of all skill levels, all body types, just show up and do your best kind of thing. So it wasn't harmful at the gym I went to, but those were some of the expectations I was putting on myself. And so my mind started to gradually change. And I decided that I wasn't going to do every workout exactly as prescribed, that I was going to do a little bit of a lighter weight sometimes that I was going to shave reps sometimes. And that it was okay to do that. And I just gave myself permission to show up and work out and not push myself so hard. Because the voice in my head of pushing myself really hard, was not a kind voice that was not my voice. That was somebody else's voice who had some expectation of me pushing myself and not slacking and not being lazy. And I proved to myself that I was not lazy. I proved to myself that I could show up and do the workouts and not need someone else's motivation. So I stopped allowing that voice in my head to have space. I told it to be quiet. I said that I told it that it had a purpose and a place and I was grateful for that voice that pushes me to go beyond the limits and to work hard. But right now I needed that voice to take a seat and let this other voice come forward, which was the voice of kindness and positivity towards myself and towards my boss. And towards my worth work ethic. And I gradually came to the conclusion that if I wanted to have a healthier attitude, about working out and about my body that I needed to stop doing CrossFit, because it was a constant struggle for me between being kind to my body, and finishing the workout and making progress and getting stronger. And so I just made the decision that I was going to step away from CrossFit. And it happened gradually. And I'm also going to just put this little plug in here that almost all the revolutions that have happened in my life have happened when I've taken a step away from something to reevaluate it and decide whether or not it's healthy for me, or whether or not, it's still serving me whether or not I would choose it right now today, in the mindset that I'm in today.

So I want to encourage those little step away m oments, I went on a skiing vacation for spring break with my kids. And during that week, I just enjoyed being outside, I enjoyed the physicality of skiing, I took a lot of long walks in the snow. And I just really enjoyed moving my body just for the sake of moving my body and not having a specific goal in mind or a specific workout that I wanted to finish. And that little revolution over the course of the week of spring break made me change my mind about CrossFit, and decide to step away and take a break. And so for an entire year, I did nothing, but walk, I didn't lift a weight, I didn't do a workout. I didn't get on the treadmill, I didn't get on the bike. I went to the gym occasionally, from time to time on a Saturday just to see people and move a little bit. But I didn't do a CrossFit workout. I did nothing but walk long, long walks for for an entire year, I would get up really early in the morning, and I would go walk for a half an hour or an hour. And just listen to podcasts enjoy being outside and learn to love and accept my body. So it came this revolution over the course of time of changing my mind about food of changing my mind about my body and about working out. And it really did have a big impact on how I feel about myself now today, that year of just only walking made me realize that my body is acceptable, exactly how it is. And even though it's capable of incredible, amazing things like birthing six children, and lifting weights, I can just be amazed at those things. And I don't have to push myself to keep improving all the time. I don't want to be skinny, I want to be strong. I don't care how much weight I can lift, I just want to be able to lift for the next 20 years. And so I found a new coach. And I explained to her about my body positivity journey. And I told her that I wanted to go back to the very beginning of weightlifting because when I jumped into CrossFit, I'd had no weightlifting training. And I would just get a little bit of instruction at the beginning of a workout. But I didn't have somebody to really work with me on form. And I knew that also as a sexual abuse survivor, that I had certain ways that I held my body to protect myself. And I knew that that was affecting the way that I was lifting weights. And so I wanted to go back to the very beginning to the very basics, start over and work only on form. And so that's where I am today, I'm about two months into that journey of working with a personal trainer who is just helping me get really good form. And she writes workouts for me. And then I either workout in the gym where the coaches there can observe me, or I make videos of my workout to send to my trainer, she watches them and then tells me where I need to tweak and adjust. And I'm really excited about this new part of this journey because it is helping me to realize what's important. It's helping me to prioritize my mental health. It's helping me to realize that my physical health is a big important part of my life. But I'm learning to be more kind to myself about it. And I'm learning to be more accepting of myself where I am, only took me 50 years to get here.

So, today's episode, I want to encourage you about a few things. Number one, maybe doing some journaling and thinking about how you feel about your body and the different opinions that you haven't how you formed them. And then maybe asking yourself some questions about your habits and routines right now. What are you doing to move your body what are you doing to take care of your body? Are you being kind to yourself? Are you being kind to your body? Or are you allowing the voices of other people's expectations to form and shape how you feel about yourself in your body? I think it's really important for us to review the thoughts in our head and think about where they came from. And is that how I want to feel? Is that how I want to talk to myself, I just want to encourage everyone to be kind to yourself, be even more kind to yourself than you would be to someone else. Don't tell yourself things that you wouldn't tell your best friend, or your daughter or your partner or your spouse. Just be kind to yourself and take a step back from something, quit something for a little while, reevaluate it, make a decision about whether it's serving you in your life. Make a decision about how you feel. Observe how you feel over the course of quitting something for a week or two. And then come back to it and reevaluate it and see if it's something that is really necessary needful in your life or if there's something that needs to change. I always want to encourage you to make that one small change that is going to create a revolution for you. I will see you next time. The well