Is Your Relationship with Food and Exercise Healthy?

I'm going to write the code for an eating disorder on your insurance form, my therapist told me one day as she looked at me very seriously, as if she were about to cry. 

I thought I was going to throw up. That couldn't possibly be the code she'd selected based on her assessment. I wasn't underweight. I didn't have an eating disorder. Sure, maybe I was a little too intense with exercise and restricted my food too much. But that seemed dramatic, for sure. 

No one will see it, right? I asked her flippantly, unwilling to match her sobriety. I felt exposed. I needed to take control here. 

It will just be used to process your insurance claim, she told me. But it's important for you to understand that, based on what you've told me, this is the accurate code. 

It's fine if you want to code it that way, I told her. I'm not sure I agree with you, but if it's the only code you can find, it's OK with me. 

She nodded seriously, gently. 

This is a stalemate, I thought as I held eye contact.

I left her office with my insurance form and looked at it over and over again. I'd gone to therapy to get over my ex-boyfriend and now, here I was, being told my relationship with food and exercise was unhealthy and obsessive. 

I never should have told her I'd lost my period, I thought as I signed up for a FlyWheel class.

I spent hours on her couch.

She was right. My relationship with food and exercise was no longer healthy. It had escalated and the degree to which I was restricting my food had gone too far. My body was breaking down. I had amenorrhea, the stomaches from my IBS had gotten out of control, my hair was brittle, I had insomnia and was calcium deficient. Exercise had taken over my life - all of my free time was spent either planning workouts or doing them. My diet consisted of about six foods because everything else had become, in my mind, "bad."

But I wasn't underweight. So I thought everything was fine.  

I am not a doctor (or anything in the medical field) and I understand, clinically, that there are differences between food restriction, disordered eating and an eating disorder. But, sometimes women who aren't underweight can have very unhealthy relationships with food and exercise and are overlooked because they don't check certain boxes when it comes to a clinical eating disorder.

What my experience taught me is that you don't have to be clinically diagnosed with anorexia or bulimia, to have a disordered relationship with food and exercise.

If you're wondering if your relationship with food and exercise is healthy, perhaps you could consider these questions:

1. Do you schedule each day to revolve around your workouts?
2. Is it your top priority to exercise daily, even if you're super busy, on vacation, sick, traveling, slammed at work, exhausted, etc...
3. Do you go to an early morning workout, even if you couldn't sleep the night before? 
4. Are you doing two workouts or more each day?
5. Do you workout before you meet a friend for a walk or run, just in case she doesn't want to go as hard as you?
6. Do you have entire food categories that are off limits because you think they're bad? (Think: bread, dairy, sugar, alcohol, desserts...) 
7. Have you convinced yourself you "don't like cheese" or "aren't really a sweets person" because you don't want to eat those things? Some people don't like cheese, I get that. But if you did a few years ago, cut it out, lost weight and now don't like it - do you actually like it? 
8. Are you obsessed with spicy foods because they boost your metabolism and make you drink more water at meals?
9. Do you feel panicked when someone asks you to go out to dinner because it's just so much easier to control what you eat when you cook it yourself? Do you want to lie to get out of it or, perhaps, attend the dinner but tell your friends you already ate?
10. Do you consistently miss your period? 

I can't reiterate enough that I am not here to give medical advice. But, if you find yourself nodding yes, yes, yes in agreement with these questions, I want to challenge you to think about your relationship with food and exercise. 

We live in a really dichotomous society that forces us to label everything. If we took away every label around eating disorders, where would you fall on the scale of an unhealthy to a healthy relationship with your body? Are you free? Or do you feel like you're being suffocated by the constant need to exercise and count calories? Does the idea of losing weight consume the majority of your thoughts? 

In our society, it's so normal for women to talk about wanting to lose weight and diet. I've noticed that we've all sort of adopted this mentality that being a little weight- and exercise-obsessed is OK. But it doesn't have to be this way. 

One day at lunch in college, a sorority sister was talking about a friend of hers who was always trying to lose weight. Wouldn't it be so sad if you were always trying to get skinnier? She said as she took a big bite of her grilled cheese. I mean, to always feel like you wanted to lose weight and were unhappy with your body would be so tiring. 

I was shocked at her words - not just at the flippancy - but that this was foreign to her. I didn't realize there were girls who didn't feel this way, I remember thinking as I pushed around my limp iceberg lettuce. 

I know now that it really doesn't have to be this way. These days, I still love to exercise and eat healthily. But, I've found freedom from them. If I eat a donut or miss a day of working out, I don't feel my chest tighten or my pulse begin to race. I don't read nutrition labels obsessively or feel panicked when I eat bread. I love veggies and ice cream and burgers and coffee. When I go out to dinner, I don't automatically order a salad; I order whatever sounds best in the moment. Kale is not my king.

But, I'm far from having a perfect relationship with my body. Anyone who has struggled with this topic knows that aiming for perfection is, in fact, the exact opposite of the end goal. The goal is healing and healing means learning to move with the rhythm of the world - not against it. Healing means understanding that some days will feel harder than others. Some days, the allure of exercising just a few more times (what's one more walk? that little voices asks) or the sense of control you get when you restrict your food will feel more tempting than on other days. 

Healing, for me, looks like asking for help when I need it. It means telling Chris when I need him to take a rest day with me for solidarity. It means admitting to a friend when I'm struggling with my relationship with my body. It means going to see my therapist when I find myself exercising just a little too much; when the allure of extra endorphins feels overwhelmingly tempting.

Most importantly, it means remembering, in these moments, to step back and take a deep breath. It means reminding myself that I don't want to live that way anymore - I want a life of freedom, not of restriction. It means affirming myself with the truthiest of truths:

Your worth is not in the number on the scale or on your pants. Your worth is not in how far you ran or how much you ate today. Your body is not valuable because it is tight and tiny. It is valuable because it is alive. 

When Life is Crazy

This week, I did my first yoga class since before Kenya, which was humbling, to say the least. I think (/know!) I was the least flexible person there.  I was real sore afterwards!

During the class, while the instructor absolutely crushed our core with a sequence, she said, What if you acted like you actually wanted to do this? After she said it, the entire group's energy shifted. People went from groaning to taking a deep breath and pushing through. I went from feeling tense to smiling and relaxing into the sequence. I paid for this pain; I wanted this to be hard! I thought as I held Boat Pose just a litttttle longer.

She's been in my head since Monday as I have gone throughout my days. To best honest, this week has been nuts. We're still settling into post-Kenya reentry. I was pretty sick the first few weeks we were home, we've had (amazing! and awesome!) guests in town, I'm catching up on Letter Requests, email, writing, blogging, life... Basically: I feel behind.

As I started to feel stressed about it, inwardly groaning, I caught myself: What if I acted like I wanted to do this? I thought as I plowed through work. I did, after all, choose it.

The simple mindset shift changed my week. I found the administrative tasks to be more enjoyable. I didn't let myself perceive stress, but, instead, focused on the excitement of what I was doing. When I felt worried that I was behind, I tried to remember to breathe. I tell ya, does anyone else ever get in bed feeling like it's the first deep breath they've taken all day? Intentionally taking deep breaths is a game changer!

I tried to take everything a little less seriously, remembering I'm grateful for another day. I am grateful for the life we live. I want to be here and I want to do this.

Have the best weekend!

Instagram Photo Books

A few months ago I blogged about things I was loving annnnd I'm back to tell you about Chatbooks again. This isn't a sponsored post or an ad or anything - I just love them and think you will, too! :) Some of my best pals were in town this past weekend and, once I told them a little more about how great Chatbooks are, they all got on board. 

Here's the quick+dirty: 

1. You can print gorgeous photo books directly from your Instagram without having to do anything at all. It is SO much easier than making manual photo books or printing individual photos. 
2. You can print from your Instagram account (which most people do) OR phone favorites. Or you can link it to a private account. I do it this way so I can upload a bunch of photos at once without spamming the internet. 
3. When you hit 60 photos, Chatbooks asks you if you want to print your book. If so, just click print and it'll send you a beautiful book for $8. If you don't want to print, it won't autobill you. 
4. You can also assign a cover, delete photos, add a title and make edits as needed. Or you can skip all that and have even less work to do! 
5. It prints a date stamp on each photo, which is so great for the mems :) 

Still confused?

Watch this video. It's super mom-focused but I think y'all will still get the idea - it doesn't require having kids to be too busy to make pesky photobooks, amiright?

We absolutely LOVED it for our Kenya trip. While we were there, we posted photos to a private Insta account as we took them. Now? We have a photo book on its way to us and barely did any work! It's so much easier than making manual books. My friends are making them for their babies, recent trips and puppys' lifetimes. It's easy peasy. I wish I had been using it for our honeymoon and wedding!

Like I said, this post wasn't sponsored (in any way!), but if you do want your first book free, you can use this referral link. I will receive referral points from you if you do. So thank you very much!

Do You Over Apologize?

One of the clunkier parts of The Letter Project is that every bundle has to be individually weighed. It requires me to physically go to the Post Office and wait as they enter the class of service + destination. On days when I am super busy, I'm tempted to guess how many stamps each one takes. But, time and time again, I get them weighed and they vary just enough to make it worth going in person.

I always get the same Clerk when I'm there. Some days, he's happy to see me - asking questions about where we are sending letters, telling me about his time in the Army. Other days, he's less friendly and I try to give him extra understanding, knowing it takes a while to weigh each bundle. And, seeing that people are often rude to Post Office employees, frustrated with wait times and having to run an extra errand, I can't imagine how old it could get.

Last week, I took a big batch to be weighed. I felt nervous with so many envelopes and tried to go when I knew it would be a little less busy. I walked in and he waved, but his demeanor shifted when he saw how many there were. I totally felt him. It was a lot. 

I waited in line and, when it got to be my turn, asked him if it was too many to do at once. I can do half now and half later, I told him as I swiped my credit card for 100 stamps. I know it's a pain. I'm so sorry. He didn't say anything in response, but began weighing each one. My hands were shaky as I tried to rush through them, slapping the stamps on quickly, when I'm normally so careful to line them up. Sorry, I know it's a lot. I said again.

I kept checking the line behind me and, as we finished up, apologized to the next customer. He told me he didn't mind at all and smiled. His smile calmed me and suddenly I felt frustrated with myself. I was a paying customer and the entire transaction took less than 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, I was practically groveling. Why did I feel so guilty? Why did I feel like I was inconveniencing everyone, as I tried to execute a task that is crucial to my business? 

I recently saw an Instagram that, in our overly apologizing [often female] culture, we should replace our sorries with thank yous. So, instead of "I'm sorry I have so many letters" I could have said "Thank you so much for taking the time to weigh these letters." I often aim to be kind by apologizing and, in reality, saying thank you is equally as polite and appropriate. 

Later that day, I was checking out at IKEA (bless it.) and apologized to the cashier that it was taking a while for me to bag my items. This time, though, I caught myself. I just bought this stuff and, PS, why doesn't IKEA have any boxes or bags for customers? Are they sorry about this? :)

I have a long (long) way to go, but I'm confident that the less we over-apologize, the more our sorries will mean when we actually need them. 

PS: This quiz! Nothing like making you realize how much you say sorry!
PPS: With me on this one? These were some good tips. 
PPPS: Sorry for multiple postscripts. 
PPPPS: JK.