Q&A: Is your eating and exercise routine a coping mechanism?
Hi Abbie!
I’m hoping you can help me. I’ve realized over the last several months that I live in this constant fear of my body changing. I think I convinced myself there wasn’t a “problem” because it always felt so normal to feel this way. And all the thoughts are SO SUBTLE! Everyone I know seems to complain about their body, want to “eat healthier”, or use exercise to look a certain way. Even when it’s not all about it, underneath, it really is.
But over the holidays it really came to light for me how problematic and disruptive my thoughts are to my daily life. I found myself feeling like I need to be “careful” around certain foods, and was anxious being out of my exercise routine. I think I’ve finally seen how much time and energy it takes up — the mental space it uses is insane. It’s this constant humming in my brain telling me what I should or shouldn’t eat, how I look that day, and whether I need to do something to “fix” my body if I’m having a bad body image day. It’s almost like this super weird and harmful hobby — as if it gives me something to focus on. I think it’s gotten worse as my anxiety worsened with the pandemic, and all the stress of the last two years has just taken a toll.
So I guess my question is: How do I stop? How do I let go of this pattern of thinking? I feel stuck and I’m not sure how to begin releasing these feelings and thoughts. It’s exhausting, and I don’t want this to be the way I feel for the rest of my life. Thanks so much for all you do — it’s really the reason I’ve been able to see what’s happening in my own brain, and make the choice to break free from it. I just wish I knew how!
Ashley
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Hi Ashley, and thank you so much for this question. I’m sending you compassion, and I also want to add that writing me this note is a huge step in itself. I hope you can recognize that and celebrate it. The “subtle” signs of disordered eating and exercising behaviors thrive in secrecy and isolation — the more we keep them hidden and tell ourselves they’re “no big deal”, the more they stay normalized in our culture, and the longer we stay stuck in a cycle of body fixation and chronic restriction. There’s so much to unpack here, but a few things jumped out to me in your note that I think could be a helpful jumping off point for your question.
First, you mention the normalization of these feelings of anxiety and fear around continuing to keep your body exactly where it is. You’re absolutely right. And what I want you to remember is that just because something has been normalized, that doesn’t make it normal — or, put differently, that doesn’t make it healthy. Spending a large percentage of your day thinking about food, exercise and body image is NOT good for your well-being, and is actively harming your mental and physical health, while also stealing precious time and energy from you (that you could most certainly be spending somewhere else!).
Second, the reason this fear exists for most people is due to our rampant societal fat phobia — that is, the fear of fatness or of becoming fat. It’s embedded into our thinking because of diet culture, which is a system of beliefs that equates thinness to moral virtue and health. It’s likely that unlearning your own fat phobia will be the most important piece of the puzzle in terms of moving forward and releasing these negative thoughts and beliefs surrounding your own body. As long as you keep viewing weight gain as a “bad” or “unhealthy” thing, or as a sign of “letting yourself go” (these are all things I hear so often from clients!), then of COURSE you will continue to live with the anxiety and fear of your body changing. I suggest following fat-positive social media accounts, and continuing to surround yourself with HAES (Health At Every Size) content. It takes time to rewire the way you think, and you’ve been swimming in this sea of diet culture your whole life. You’ll have to be deliberate about filling up your brain with NEW information about weight and health.
Lastly, I sense that based on how you’ve described your mental health, that food and exercise might be your only coping mechanisms for your anxiety. This is something I’ve been through myself, and through my clinical practice and lived experience, I find it is so commonplace in the world we live in — controlling our food, our exercise, and our bodies is a comforting distraction from whatever else feels out of control in our lives. But the TRUTH? That’s not the solution, and it will never bring us the peace and happiness that we believe it will. It’s only harming you in the long-run, and causing unnecessary pain, self-criticism, and disordered behaviors. You even pointed this out yourself — it’s worsened with the pandemic anxiety (not surprisingly!), and you also say “It’s almost like this super weird and harmful hobby — as if it gives me something to focus on.” This is such a great explanation of how diet culture becomes a literal hobby. And that hobby becomes so safe, so familiar, and provides such a sense of control, that it’s very hard to turn to anything else in times of discomfort or hardship. In order to take a step towards self-acceptance, it’s important that you have the ability to cope with your emotions without using self-harming behaviors (like restriction and over-exercise). That only adds to the burden of stress on your body, and sends the message that it’s actually in a state of famine or scarcity. It drives this unhealthy cycle of dependence on diet culture.
So, to get to the point of your question: “How do I stop? How do I let go of this pattern of thinking? I feel stuck and I’m not sure how to begin releasing these feelings and thoughts”…
Recognize that feeling this way about yourself is actively harming your mental and physical health. Make a list of reasons for why you want to change your narrative, and break free from this spiral of body shame.
Unpack your fat phobia, and begin filling up your life with more body diversity and messages around anti-diet and HAES. Weight and health are not one in the same, and your worth has nothing to do with your body size or appearance. That’s the diet culture lie.
Begin to build out NEW coping tools that aren’t harmful to your health (i.e. tools that aren’t about restriction) so that you can slowly stop relying on food and exercise as a means of taming your anxiety. Sit down and make a list: What brings you a sense of calm? What helps you get back to yourself and your true values? (Hint: shrinking your body and controlling your food are probably not high on your list of values!)
Have compassion for yourself, always. If you beat yourself up for feeling the way you do, it’s going to be hard to take steps towards more self-kindness, more body respect, and more respect for ALL bodies. When you have a negative thought about yourself or your body, can you acknowledge it and reframe it? Instead of just allowing the thought to be fact, challenge it and question it.
I believe in you. I know this work is hard. I’d really recommend working with someone, either 1-1 or through a group program, to help as you move through some of these challenging components of unlearning.
I’ll be offering another group program in March of this year, and you can apply here to get on the waitlist. There are plenty of other wonderful providers out there in this space too!
I hope this helped, and I’m sending you strength as you start to work towards a more peaceful relationship with your body. Be patient with yourself!
xo
Abbie