Since lockdown started, and we've been exposed via every medium to online workouts, whether we ask for them or not; I have noticed something. I have noticed my own motivation to move my body be lower than usual, I have noticed resistance, and I have felt a lot of internalised pressure to workout and be active. I have felt a sense of inferiority as I see others following home workout plans, making goals, looking like they have it ALL together (which of course, they haven't!)..
I started to ask my self why am I feeling uncomfortable with all of this? I am bringing something internal to this situation which is making me feel this way. Diet culture influenced the movements that I did for years. Sometimes it still does. Diet culture has enforced that we need to exercise to achieve and then maintain the ideal body; if you're a woman in 2020 that generally means curvy hips and bum, but a small waist, not too skinny, because men like girls with some meat on them, but not too muscly either, because it's not attractive to look like a man, and so on. Ultimately it all comes down to the type of body diet culture wants us to avoid? A fat one. If you aren't losing the weight you want, then you just aren't working hard enough. You should probably just eat cleaner, be more disciplined, get up a bit earlier for an extra HIIT workout or take more steps a day. Anything to avoid being fat. If you DO have a fat body, you just obviously don't care enough about your goals, you're a bit too lazy, and you definitely won't be able to be happy until you've changed yourself Diet culture makes these brash, uninformed and shaming assumptions of fat bodies all the time. .
Maybe you read the above and feel like it's all a bit over the top; a bit dramatic. It's not that bad is it? Well diet culture doesn't use these exact words, but you don't have to be a genius to see under the very thin and permeable surface of how diet culture sells exercise. Diet culture wants us to "Go hard or go home", "Get bikini body ready", and reminds us that "Sweat is just fat crying", "The only bad workout is the one you didn't do". And we are SO conditioned to all of this. We know no other way.
I suppose I am feeling extra sensitive to this subject at the moment, having experienced unhealthy relationships with exercise and food for many years as a teenager and in my twenties, and seeing now how negatively they impacted me physically and mentally. I am angry at diet culture, because on the day I graduated with a Bachelors Degree I tried to estimate how many calories had been in the celebratory cupcakes and drinks I'd enjoyed that day. I am angry because I spent years unable to accept a compliment from my partner, now husband. I feel angry because I never felt enough, and I constantly put faith in those next X pounds being the ones that FINALLY meant I felt comfortable and good in my skin. I feel angry because despite all that I believe, and all the owrk I have done around this, I still have a deep rooted fear of gaining weight. I have gained weight. I am gaining weight now, most probably, and I don't want to care, I don't want to feel less worthy of respect and acceptance because I'm a bit fatter,, but I do. That isn't my fault.
Since I have been at home, away from the gym, away from my normal work schedule which keeps me very active, I have made a promise to myself. I will ask myself every day how I would like to move my body. This week the answers have looked very different, day to day, hour to hour. I have investigated my internal dialogue; "I should go for a walk" versus "I could go for a walk". I have really tried to ask myself why I want to do a sweaty HIIT workout rather than go for a walk when I feel tired or sore. Deep down it often comes down to me wanting to do something "worth it", "hard enough", to "burn abit more"., do move in a way that "counts". On these days I urge myself to resist these feelings and go for a walk. My body normally thanks me. On the days when I am well rested, well fueled, and not suffering with any anxiety or depression, I LOVE a sweaty HIIT workout, because my nervous systems copes well with the additional "stress" of the workout and I can use it to celebrate having a body that moves and is powerful and strong.
This week I have varied my movement, between dancing, yoga, short walks, long walks, doing nothing at all, HIIT and pilates. I have tried to put my faith in my body and it's ability to know what it needs and wants. I have tried so hard to trust. I have tried so hard to lean in and let it lead me. This has been hard sometimes.
So far? I have felt a lot of joy whilst working out and afterwards. I have tried to end each workout with gratitude or with a sense of appreciation. I have asked myself; if exercising had no affect on what my body looked like, if it was guaranteed not to make my body look different; how would I move then? It's an interesting question to ask yourself.
Intuitive movement for me, is a work in progress. It's me finding more and more and more compassion and less judgement. It is me rejecting the "body ideal" that I spent years chasing. It is me challenging my internalised phobia of being fat. It is teaching me how to be a better instructor and teacher. It is inspiring me to step up to help others build this relationship with movement too, should they want to. It is constantly reminding me the remove the morality around my choice of how and if I move my body. That I am worthy nonetheless. I want to move for life, I want to live longer, I want to have a healthy heart, I want to keep my mind strong and resilient. I want to be so much more than the "failures" diet cultures places on me for having more body fat than I once used to.
I am not saying this is the only way, or the right way for you. However it seems like the only way for me to continue life happily and healthily. For me to be free of diet cultures chains and restrictions.
And I so want to be free.
댓글