FROM THE VAULT

Reframing My Relationship (To Exercise)

TW: weight loss/gain, diet culture 

I’ve been getting a master’s in psychology since January 2020. While each class has unique subject matter, there is a fair amount of overlap. I actually enjoy relearning certain things because it helps drive home their importance and makes the information more memorable. One topic that has been covered in pretty much every class, however briefly, is the overwhelming evidence that exercise helps our mental health. There is even research suggesting it has similar effects as antidepressants. Despite passing my psychopharmacology class, I’m still not super comfortable explaining the science of it all, but this much I know: exercising is a huge resource when it comes to improving your mental health and brain plasticity. So, if you want to care for your mental health and are physically able, incorporating exercise into your daily/weekly routine is a great addition to your life.

Easy, right? Not so much. For starters, I need to acknowledge that promoting exercise is inherently ableist and isn’t an option for everyone. That’s where all the other resources we can give ourselves come in, including therapy, mindfulness and good sleep hygiene. But even for those who can exercise, it’s often not as simple as deciding to exercise. There are a lot of barriers when it comes to working out routinely. The biggest one, in my opinion, is that our society almost exclusively links the main value of exercise to weight loss. The result is that we often approach exercise in an unhealthy way because we singularly see it as an opportunity to change our bodies. Framing exercise this way can be triggering and harmful, resulting in many people (understandably) avoiding it altogether.

We already live in a world that is obsessed with an “ideal” body type. So if you view exercise solely as a method to get you closer to that body type, exercise becomes part of the problem. It gets absorbed into diet culture. If you don’t see noticeable changes both in the mirror and on the scale, you end up feeling like a failure. Or, conversely, you start to get obsessed with the changes you are seeing and your drive to exercise can become compulsive. It’s not about feeling good, it’s about looking a certain way. And feeling like you have to look a certain way in order to be happy or have value isn’t ideal for one’s mental health (or life).

What I’m proposing is that we break the connection between exercise and physical change. Instead of viewing exercise as something we are doing for our bodies, we start to view it as something we are doing for our minds. What if exercise became a way that we showed ourselves love instead of using it to imply that we aren’t physically good enough? What would that look like? One of my favorite definitions of self-care is defining it as any action that shows we hold value and deserve to be cared for. This definition blows out the concept beyond bubble baths and pedicures to encompass everyday tasks like brushing our teeth and taking a shower. I think approaching exercise as something we do because we care for ourselves is helpful and healing. The next step is figuring out what type of exercise makes you feel cared for instead of tortured or triggered.

So much of exercise culture is based around “seeing results.” Burn 300 calories in this class! Lose fat with this machine! Get ready for summer with this bikini body workout! Once again, it’s a fixation on seeing physical change. But let’s get rid of looking for the most “effective” workout and instead ask, what type of exercise do you actually enjoy doing? What could you see yourself successfully incorporating into your routine long term? How do we make this part of your day something you look forward to instead of fear?

Full disclosure, I am not someone who inherently likes working out. For years, I actively dreaded it. The only way I could enjoy my day was to do it first thing in the morning and get it out of the way. Over time, I’ve also gotten less strict about when I work out, which has helped my frame of mind around it. I still work out five times a week but now I often do it in the middle of the day, which gives me a nice work break. I’m not as strict about it, which has helped make it something I want to do versus a compulsion I then feel guilty for not doing. Becoming more flexible with my routine has helped me have less negative associations with it.

Figuring out what type of exercise you like (or in some cases dislike the least) is another important step in repairing how you interact with exercise. I bought an elliptical after my gym closed during the pandemic because I realized it is my favorite form of cardio and using it doesn’t make me want to drop dead. I pair it with strength building videos and have recently found a channel that I enjoy and find manageable. But if the video I happen to click on is too hard, I find another one. I am also doing a better job of recognizing that some days my body can handle less than other days. And since I am no longer fixated on burning a certain number of calories in order to lose weight, it’s easier for me to cut myself a break on the days I don’t have a full work out in me. Because I know that just by raising my heart rate at all, I am doing my mind a favor.

I think another reason so many people struggle to exercise regularly is the time that it takes. But what if you only did shorter at-home workouts before work or went for a hefty walk during your lunch break? What if instead of “hitting the gym” for a “solid workout” the only goal was to get your body moving and your heart pumping? That suddenly feels more manageable than making it to that intense cardio class all the way across town. The way we approach things heavily impacts the way we experience things. If we view exercise as something that should be incredibly strenuous and only worthwhile if it results in physical changes, we are setting ourselves up to have an unhealthy relationship with it. But, if we start to view exercise as something that we can enjoy while also helping our mental health, chances are we will have an easier time incorporating it into our lives.

Shifting exercise from the category of something I do for my physical health into something I do for my mental health has been a welcome and important change. I no longer feel guilty if I don’t push myself to my physical limits. I know that simply getting my heart rate up is helping. It is also a tangible thing I can do to help a sometimes nebulous issue (i.e., my anxiety) and this makes me feel empowered. Exercising gets me in touch with my body and (however briefly) out of my own head. It is a time in the day that is dedicated to taking care of myself for myself because I am the one who benefits from a better internal life. And it has absolutely nothing to do with losing weight, getting toned or attempting to emulate someone else’s ideal body type. It is a crucial part of my mental health routine. And I can’t recommend it enough.

xoxo,

Allison

***This blog was originally posted in July, 2021. I post new (old) blogs on Wednesdays!***