Cheat Days, Willpower & #Fitspo Online: The Fitness-to-ED Pipeline with Michelle Carroll

Here’s a run down of what we discussed in today’s episode: How Common Is Disordered Eating in Fitness Culture? Does Fitness Culture Attract Disordered Eating — or Cause It? How Restriction and Obsession Become Normalized in Fitness Spaces Discipline vs. Disordered Eating: How to Tell the Difference How Fitness Messaging Impacts Body Image and Motivation Why Fitness Competitions Often Lead to Extreme Binges The Physical and Mental Costs of Extreme Dieting Cheat Days Explained: Why They Backfire for So Many People What Research Really Says About Cheat Days and Weight Control How to Pursue Fitness Goals Without Triggering Disordered Eating Reframing Exercise: From Changing Your Body to Experiencing It Check in with today’s amazing guest: Michelle Carroll Linktree: https://linktr.ee/michellecarroll Website: www.michellecarroll.co.uk/ Podcast: Weightless Podcast Course:Disordered Eating Informed Instagram: www.instagram.com/michellecarroll1 References: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25240638/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22668844/ Disclaimer: The content in this episode is for educational and entertainment purposes only and is never a substitute for medical advice. If you’re struggling with with your mental or physical health, please work one on one with a health care provider. If you have heard yourself in our discussion today, and are looking for support, contact the free NEDIC helpline at 1-866-NEDIC-20 or go to eatingdisorderhope.com. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •✨ Reach Your Weight & Health Goals — Without Dieting! Pre-order The Hunger Crushing Combo Method, Abbey’s revolutionary additive approach to eating well. Learn how to boost satiety, stabilize blood sugars, reduce disease risk, and improve your relationship with food — all while getting the best nutrient bang for your caloric buck. With 400+ research citations, cheat sheets, evidence-based actionable tips, meal plans, and adaptable recipes, The Hunger Crushing Combo Method is the only nutrition bible you’ll ever need. 👉 Pre-order today! 🛒 Where to Purchase: Amazon Barnes & Noble Amazon Kindle Apple Books Google Play Kobo Apple Books (Audiobook) Audible abbeyskitchen.com/hunger-crushing-combo • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •✉️ Subscribe to My Newsletters: Abbey’s Kitchen Newsletter 📘 Check out my FREE E-Books: Hunger Crushing Combo™ E-Book Protein 101 E-Book 👋 Follow me! Instagram: @abbeyskitchen TikTok: @abbeyskitchen YouTube: @AbbeysKitchen Blog: abbeyskitchen.com Book: The Mindful Glow Cookbook • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 🎧 Don’t forget to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen — and leave us a review! It really helps support the show ❤️ 💬 If you liked this podcast, please like, follow, and leave a review — and let me know who you’d love to hear about next! ⭐ ⭐ ⭐⭐ ⭐ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

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• 0:31Speaker 01

  People will accuse you of fit shaming or saying that you're doing too much and that we're concerned about you and worried about you. And you have to ignore them because they don't want you to succeed. And all of this kind of language just reinforces people and isolates people and keeps them on this hamster wheel of disordered eating.

• 0:50Abbey Sharp?

  Welcome to another episode of Bite Back with Abbey Sharp, where I dismantle diet culture rules, call out the charlatans spinning the pseudoscience, and help Uchi food freedom for good. Today, we are diving into a topic that sits right at the crossroads of fitness culture, mental health, and our relationship with food and our bodies. And honestly, it is one of the conversations that I wish more people in the wellness and fitness world were having. I'm joined by Michelle Carroll, a PhD candidate specializing in the intersection of disordered eating, eating disorders, and fitness culture, with a particular focus on how these issues show up for athletes and fitness professionals.

• 1:35Abbey Sharp?

  In addition to her academic work, she runs a coaching program that helps women repair their relationships with their bodies, food, and movement, blending the latest research with compassionate, lived understanding. In our conversation today, we explore everything from the thin line between discipline and disorder, the binging behavior behind the facade of control, the truth about cheat days, how to explore fitness goals if you have a history of disordered eating, and how to reclaim fitness as a vehicle for embodiment, confidence, and healing.

• 2:10Abbey Sharp?

  This is a rich, eye-opening chat and I cannot wait for you to hear it. A quick reminder that my brand new book, The Hunger Question Combo Method, is now in stores and online, so I would love if you would check out the link in the show notes on how to order. And if you are not already, I would also really, really love it if you would subscribe to the podcast and also leave me a comment because it really does help me out. All right, folks, let's dive in.

• 2:41Abbey Sharp?

  All right. Thank you so much, Michelle, for joining me. I'm really, really excited about this chat.

• 2:46Speaker 01

  Yes, I'm really excited to be here.

• 2:48Abbey Sharp?

  Okay, so first of all, I want to kind of get a little bit of the like a lay of the land here. How prevalent are disordered eating or like body damage concerns amongst fitness professionals compared to just like the general population? Are there any stats on that?

• 3:03Speaker 01

  And that's really interesting because I just published a study on this. So I just published a systematic review that was looking at the prevalence of disordered eating in fitness professionals. And one of the key findings from the study was that we actually don't know a lot about the prevalence of disordered eating in fitness professionals, simply by virtue of the fact that there is a lack of wide body of research, but also the quality of the research. So for me, this was a huge surprise and it's kind of why I started to study this a little bit more as part of my PhD, because for me, the repercussions of coaches and fitness professionals not being aware of disordered eating themselves can inadvertently negatively impact the health of clients and the wider public, you know, given that there's almost this expectation now that as coaches, we have to be posting

• 3:47Speaker 01

  on social media, you have to be quote unquote, visible. And if you haven't addressed your own relationship with food and your own relationship with your body, you know, there's, I think it's a fair assumption to make that you inadvertently model these behaviors as healthy to your clients and the wider public who may also engage in these behaviors because they see you as a role model as you are. For these kind of behaviors. So again, it's not just the negative impacts of disordered eating impacting the individual fitness professional, which is obviously awful. But society in general, I think, can be shaped by the fitness industry's conflation of health with being a certain body fat percentage.

• 4:24Abbey Sharp?

  Oh, totally. And so it's very interesting because, you know, we have some research in my industry, which is dietetics essentially, that shows, you know, higher levels of dietary restraint and binge eating, disordered eating, eating disorders, especially orthorexia in nutrition and kind of naturopathic programs and studies. You know, what do you think comes first, the disordered eating or the interest in the fitness and nutrition? Or is this like a chicken and the egg situation?

• 4:52Speaker 01

  This is something that I think I've grappled with for a long time. And for a long time, I thought it was a bidirectional relationship, you know, that kind of chicken and the egg thing.

• 4:59Abbey Sharp?

  Uh huh.

• 5:00Speaker 01

  But so far, from what we've seen in research, from what we know about general body image concerns is body image concerns tend to be the precursor to disordered eating. So I would imagine it's similar, this similar mechanism for fitness professionals. But I kind of imagined it can also go both ways. You know, I got into the fitness industry because I wanted to help people and I wanted to, you know, learn a lot more about exercise science. But it very quickly became the opposite of that. It just became, how lean can I get? How lean can I stay? And how can I showcase leanness as being this kind of badge of health?

• 5:35Abbey Sharp?

  Right. Yeah, no, in my experience, you know, I went into studying nutrition because I had orthorexia, which I didn't have a name for at the time. And I was obsessed with healthy eating. And I'm so grateful that in my dietetics program, it did help me deprogram that in some ways, because the focus was so much more on the science, not seeing food as like a moral issue. But I've heard that that's not the case in a lot of kind of like more naturopathic or holistic nutrition programs. And I assume that's also maybe true in the fitness world. What language or behaviors do you see fitness professionals using to essentially like justify unhealthy restriction or obsessive tracking and these kinds of things?

• 6:18Speaker 01

  Well, it's kind of textbook orthorexia, textbook disordered eating. You know, I like to kind of refer to these kind of pillars that we see in unhealthy relationships at food and exercise. And I think the most common one that we see in fitness is this idea of like, discipline, which again is just dichotomous thinking and kind of this all or nothing mindset to food, being on and off the wagon, you know, using kind of how long you have a MyFitness Pal streak for as this kind of badge of honour, how lean you can get, you know, avoiding social occasions or, you know, we see the same thing in the maintenance factors for eating disorders or eating disorder communities. And that's obviously not to conflate the fitness community with the eating disorder community. But this idea of like, nobody understands you except for people involved in the community.

• 7:03Speaker 01

  Other people don't want to see you succeed or be healthy, you know. I saw some post earlier just today about someone saying, you know, people will accuse you of fit shaming or saying that you're doing too much and that we're concerned about you and worried about you. And you have to ignore them because they, this all knowing they don't want you to succeed, they don't want you to be successful. And all of this kind of language just reinforces people and isolates people and keeps them on this hamster wheel of disordered eating and chasing leanness at any cost because you are not invited to question things. And anytime anyone raises the question, it's you don't know what you're talking about or it's automatically glorifying obesity.

• 7:44Abbey Sharp?

  Right.

• 7:44Speaker 01

  Or letting yourself go. People don't want to have a discussion, they want to be right.

• 7:48Abbey Sharp?

  Right. Like, and obviously this idea of discipline, like it's so deeply ingrained in the fitness world. And, and there's no question that some level of commitment is needed to achieve like certain fitness or body comp goals or sports goals or whatever. But how do we distinguish between the important intrinsic motivation for your sport or whatever it might be versus disordered eating in disguise?

• 8:11Speaker 01

  One of the most powerful questions at its simplest is not just what would you do if you had to weigh yourself every day for the rest of your life, but what would happen if you couldn't engage in this behaviour? So oftentimes it's not necessarily the behaviour itself, it's what would happen in its absence. So for example, you know, and we can use the example of tracking calories, right? Because people will often say tracking calories is always problematic or it's always unhealthful. And it's kind of, both sides are wrong, right?

• 8:37Abbey Sharp?

  Right.

• 8:37Speaker 01

  Because you can have two clients. Both of them are tracking calories. One is tracking for educational purposes. You know, if they miss a day or two, it doesn't really bother them. Versus you have another client who's tracking calories. They both have the same goal, but the client that can't track, that gets very obsessed, gets stressed if they miss a day, they bring Tupperware with them to social occasions. The behaviour is the same, but the impact that behaviour has is unhealthful. And I think that it comes down to knowing the difference. And for me, I think the biggest impact or the biggest deciding factor as to whether or not a behaviour is quote unquote disordered or unhealthy is the impact it has on a person, with the exception being obvious red flag signs like binge eating and losing your menstrual cycle.

• 9:18Abbey Sharp?

  Of course, yeah. Oh, wow. That's a really interesting, I love that. That's incredibly helpful for people to kind of keep in the back of their mind when they are, you know, we're in the kind of like New Year's resolution world where so, you know, I think that's something that people can ask themselves, is this healthy? Is this helping or is this going to harm me long term? And I'm sure, you know, that the fitness community and coaches, they play a massive role in shaping how people feel about their bodies within the fitness spaces. And, you know, we, we see this all the time, that the culture often feeds into this like militant no pain, no game tropes. Like, obviously, at worst, I'm thinking like Jillian Michael level workout till you puke kind of situation, like abuse, I would call that. But, you know, even in like your lighthearted like spin classes where there can be a lot

• 10:03Abbey Sharp?

  of like, let's work out those weekend drinks, ladies. You know, even that kind of moralizing language happens. Can you talk about what approaches actually work when it comes to motivating goal focused behaviours in kind of a healthy, sustainable way?

• 10:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I think it ties back to motivation theory, like you've touched on extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. So we know from motivational psychology research that individuals that are primarily extrinsically motivated, so this is doing things for other people, doing things for validation outside of yourself, or in many cases, a fear of what would happen if you don't, you know, for example, I can't track or I'll gain weight and go off the rails, are less likely to be successful or adherent long term. Term than intrinsically motivated people. So if you're intrinsically motivated, you tend to do things for yourself for the challenge of doing the thing and not because it's, you know, for weight loss or anything like that, but just simply because it's something that you deserve.

• 11:04Speaker 01

  You know, again, we can tie this back to looking after yourself or eating well. You can do that because maybe you don't want to gain weight because that you correlate that with being the worst, the worst thing you can be, or you can eat well because you are a person that deserves respect. You know, you deserve to feel healthy and you deserve to be looked after. And it's a lot easier for you to start to eat healthy for those reasons versus if you're primarily extrinsically motivated. So if you're only eating well because you want to lose weight and then one day, or maybe over a couple of days, particularly over the holiday period, you've stepped on the scale and the scale has gone up. Why? It's a lot more difficult for you to keep going and keep eating healthy if it's quote unquote, not working.

• 11:44Abbey Sharp?

  Right.

• 11:45Speaker 01

  But if you don't have a physique cutoff, it's a lot easier to keep going and keep showing up when it gets difficult.

• 11:50Abbey Sharp?

  Yes, I, I love that. Absolutely. And, you know, speaking of, I guess, this, this, this kind of more kind of physique grounded goals, you know, I've never been interested myself in competing in any kind of fitness competition world, but I know a lot of both men and women who do or have. And I remember my trainer, who was heavily involved in the fitness competition world. He would always tell me these stories about how, you know, some of his clients, his female clients would show up to their fitness competitions with a suitcase of kind of quote unquote junk food. So like donuts, cookies, candies, like anything that they weren't allowed to eat while they were on their prep diet, they would get off stage and they would go hog wild. They'll eat

• 12:35Abbey Sharp?

  supersized pizzas, fries, like full out bender style. Can you kind of explain first of all, like, what is going on here, like physically and psychologically that is driving folks who have been in this state of like, Hyper restriction to go hog wild the moment they get off that fitness stage.

• 12:55Speaker 01

  And I think this kind of illustrates the point across all the kind of like physique spectrums, right, where a lot of people assume that, you know, dieting will bring them closer to getting control of their eating. And we see this, again, we bring it all the way up to elite bodybuilding level, where it's like dieting, no matter how quote unquote flexible or how generous your calorie target or your deficit is, dieting will increase your physiological hunger because when you spend an extended amount of time in a calorie deprived state, your body perceives that as a threat to your survival. So it will ramp up your ghrelin and your leptin levels. So what that means is you will be hungrier more often and you will find it more difficult to feel full.

• 13:37Abbey Sharp?

  Yep.

• 13:38Speaker 01

  And again, that is just your body's survival mechanism, which again, if your goal is weight loss, you're probably a bit annoyed about, but again, your brain perceives not eating enough to be a threat to your survival. But then also, we see psychological restriction. So again, this is things like dietary restraint. So again, it is a lot of brain power to be thinking about hitting your macros, staying within a certain amount of range, and also reminding yourself that there are certain foods you can't have, there are certain amounts of food that you can't have because again, you need to be in a calorie deficit to lose weight, you know. And again, because your brain is hungrier, your brain will increase food preoccupation and body preoccupation. So your brain will make you think of food more because you are not fueling it enough. So again, it goes back to caveman

• 14:22Speaker 01

  days where your brain was like, we're hungry, we don't know when we're going to get food again, don't want to be eaten by the dinosaurs, we better go out and get something to eat.

• 14:42Speaker 01

  But all of these kind of things are kind of conspiring against you being successful and increasing the risk of you binge eating later on. So again, none of these behaviours are ever going to lead to long-term success. If the goal is to stop binge eating, that has to be the primary goal and no physique goal will ever get you closer to that successfully.

• 15:02Abbey Sharp?

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, And what are like, what are the repercussions of going on, you know, from one extreme of this like super low carb, low calorie, low fat, lean protein, copious amounts of like cardio to an all you can eat candy bender? Like, what happens? I get this question often. What happens in that moment? Or moments if, you know, doesn't just take, you know, not, not just like one meal. These things tend to persist.

• 15:28Speaker 01

  So I think, again, it's incredibly subjective and incredibly individual, right? And that's kind of the nature of binge eating. But for many people, that's when we start to see the biggest threat to long term adherence to plans. And that's shame will start to creep in, embarrassment and self blame. So you'll start to say, it's my fault. I can't stick to anything. You know, if I had have just tried harder, if I had more discipline, this wouldn't have happened. You know, it starts to chip away at your beliefs about yourself, you know, and you can often resolve to just try harder and kind of, again, more of this discipline. So it becomes very difficult for people to keep showing up because it doesn't allow you to be reflective and be curious about what actually happened. So, you know, for example, if someone binge ate rather than say, I wonder what are the

• 16:13Speaker 01

  things that potentially led up to this? Or what would I do better next time? Instead, it's, it's me issue, you know, and that's all it is. And I just need to sort myself out and then I'll be able to do better. So again, you can kind of see how these behaviors are, you're going to stay stuck on the binge restrict cycle.

• 16:29Abbey Sharp?

  A hundred percent. And as a less extreme example of this, I want to talk about cheat days. And anyone who follows me knows that I hate the term cheat because it obviously denotes some kind of moral indiscretion based in like likening eating a donut at the office to like having an affair at the office, which is pretty crazy when you actually think about it. But I digress. How are cheat days used by dieters? And I'm not just talking about those that are doing fitness competitions. I'm talking about just like your, you know, someone who's trying to lose 10 pounds. And, and like, what are the like most, some of like the most popular claims that we see about their benefits? And are there any benefits to this cheat day?

• 17:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I think that's something that, you know, is kind of thrown around a lot in the fitness community. So there's cheat meals, refeeds and cheat days. And again, they are all different things, you know, with various evidence to support different things. But oftentimes, people will say cheat meals keep me on the right track because I can stick to my diet six days a week if I know I have the chance to quote, quote, let go or have whatever I want. And unfortunately, these things don't necessarily teach you control around food. They actually keep you trapped. Because, you know, from the start, we have, we can see horrendous language around food. You know, you've demonized food straight away.

• 17:51Speaker 01

  Like you said, you know, conflating food with this kind of, as a kind of moral failing to quote, unquote cheat, you know, people often talk about how sustainable their diet is. And I think, well, if your diet was so sustainable, why would you have to cheat on it?

• 18:06Abbey Sharp?

  Right.

• 18:07Speaker 01

  And people will often make claims like, you know, it increases satiety so that you can, or, you know, it'll give you extra fuel for your gym sessions. And people will often kind of justify what I would consider glorified binge eating episodes by saying, oh, well, I'll just use it as fuel to burn off later. Which again, to me is potentially suggesting that people engage in sort of exercise bulimia style behaviors, which again, is incredibly problematic. And I think if you, you know, if you have such a healthy relationship with food, you would never risk it by cheating on it or doing something like that. So for me, I think it is a big no go. And I do not really see a situation where something like that would be helpful for people.

• 18:49Abbey Sharp?

  Yeah. I mean, I gotta just tell my own piece here, but like, I definitely, when I was in the throes of my ED, I lived, literally lived for my cheat day. There was nothing else in my life, like, worth living for. Like, I justified it in my mind by telling myself, well, you know, again, like, for folks who know my story, I, I had diagnosed, or, well, really not diagnosed, but suggested orthorexia, which also had kind of other binge eating and anorexia flavors to it, because these things were all wrapped into each other. But I would justify it by telling myself, well, you know, I'm I'm sensitive to all these bad foods because I was told I'm allergic or sensitive to a million things that I really wasn't. And so, you know, I might as well just eat all the bad things that I'd that make me

• 19:32Abbey Sharp?

  feel bad once a week. So, you know, I'll feel sick just once versus just feeling a little bit sick every day. And that was my justification in my mind for like, why this was a good idea or normalizing it. And really, it was just like a massive binge in response to me under eating and avoiding literally anything with flavor or joy in my week. And I would like go to dinner to eat the most calorie dense meal I could imagine. Like, I didn't even necessarily like these foods that much, but because I wasn't allowed to have them. And also, I was in such like, a deprived state that my brain was just like, give me the most calories humanly possible. Like, and then I would feel so physically ill the next day and emotionally guilty. It was

• 20:12Abbey Sharp?

  like, full on depression kind of thing. And I was stuck in this cycle for years. So I'm curious now, for folks who have body composition goals, or sports goals, or fitness goals, or, you know, things like that, who perhaps have this kind of history with disordered eating, like, what is your suggested approach?

• 20:36Speaker 01

  For me, I think for anybody that wants to diet, you need to have a rock solid relationship with food and rock solid relationship with your body first. And I would always ask what you hope fat loss or body composition goals being achieved will give you. Because oftentimes, it's things like being in control around food, being more confident in your body, you know, we often think of like, fat loss or having this kind of ideal body at the end of the rainbow, where you're, you know, things will fall into place and your life will have meaning. But oftentimes, dieting will not only not give you those things, but will move you further away from these things. So if your goal is to finally have control over food for the first time in your life, that needs to be the focus. And fat loss can potentially come in after that. But

• 21:20Speaker 01

  unless you have a rock solid relationship with food and a rock solid relationship with your body, you will never sustain this behavior change long term. And oftentimes,

• 21:30Speaker 01

  And people come to work with me on their relationship with food. They have these goals and I say, okay, great. Let's just work on your relationship with food first. And then most of the time they never end up wanting to diet because they've gotten what they came for.

• 21:42Abbey Sharp?

  Hmm, that is fantastic news. And, and, and so when, when this is kind of happening, what is it, at least from, you know, your perspective or, or from what they tell you, what is it that happens in their mind that allows them to almost shift that goal? Where perhaps in the past it was something more aesthetic, more surface level to, you know, I'm feeling fulfilled in other ways.

• 22:08Speaker 01

  I think it's that people start to look within themselves and believe that they are capable of the change, rather than constantly believing that you don't know how to trust yourself. You know, if you let yourself eat whatever you wanted, you would just eat chocolate all the time or, you know, having a positive body image means letting yourself go. And oftentimes the only thing people let go of is the belief that you have to be a certain size to be happy, because we are taught that from society and from a very young age. So when people, the light switch kind of goes off or people realized, I've been duped a little bit here. You can't un-flick the switch, you know, you can't work on your relationship with food and fall back into the same clutches of diet culture because you are too smart now.

• 22:51Speaker 01

  You know, the triggers, you know that it hasn't served you, but you also know what it's like to follow through. So you can say, well, I know what happens every single time my diet, so I need to try something different because if diet, dieting worked for me, and we so often convince ourselves that diets did work, or we all have this magic diet that got us to a certain goal weight or a certain physique once. And then we spend the rest of our lives chasing that diet and think, well, if I could just do that again, I'd be happy and it worked. And in actual fact, it didn't because if it had worked, we wouldn't be back asking these questions.

• 23:23Abbey Sharp?

  That's a really great reminder and I think a really nice place to, to end off because I think when people actually frame it that way, that, you know, that, that diet actually didn't work because we're still here or we've done this 10 million times or we haven't sustained it. You know, people always ask me when I'm at like dinner parties and someone finds out I'm a dietitian, of course they're going to say, oh, like they want to tell me about their diet and they want to get my take on it as a good diet. And my response, doesn't matter what the diet is, what they're cutting out, I always just say, Can you eat this way for the rest of your life and be happy and not let it run your life and think about it 24/7? If the answer is no, it's a bad diet, like, you know?

• 24:08Abbey Sharp?

  So I think that's a good reminder. And in some cases, that may mean recalibrating what the kind of physique goal may be. And I think that's hard for a lot of people to let go, especially in today's day and age. I mean, we're in an era of skinny talk again and we're in, you know, we're seeing like bodies shrink at a rapid clip and it's becoming, you know, the standard and the goalpost is getting farther and farther away and honestly, basically impossible to reach for most people without pharmaceutical support. So we're up against a lot. We're up against a lot. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you so much.

• 24:51Abbey Sharp?

  This was incredibly helpful, really echoes everything that I talk about in my book, The Hunger Crunch and Combo Method. I've actually got a whole chapter on how to use this kind of gentle additive approach, even if you do have more sports or fitness related goals. And I'm going to leave a link in the description to where you can get it. And thank you so much, Michelle. This was so enlightening, so interesting. And I also can be leaving links to where people can find you and your amazing content in the show notes. So thank you again. Thank you for having me. Okay, this was so interesting and I really honestly feel like my younger self could have used this conversation. And, you know, even as someone who is not deeply engrossed in fitness culture specifically,

• 25:35Abbey Sharp?

  something that I really took away from this is the importance of reframing movement from something we use to change our bodies into something that we experience through our bodies. So instead of chasing the smallest waist or the most dialed in physique as you head to the gym this week, I want you to ask yourself, what do I actually need today? Maybe that is strength. Maybe it's stress relief. Maybe it's connection. When we move with Intention rather than punishment. Our workouts become a source of embodiment instead of anxiety. So here are just a few little tips and takeaways

• 26:17Abbey Sharp?

  that you can consider to help you make that powerful mindset shift. Number one, shift focus from aesthetics to experience by setting a feeling-based intention before each workout. So instead of just looking snatched, maybe you want to feel grounded, energized, strong, or calm. Number two, swap aesthetic goals for functional ones. So replace "I want a flatter stomach" with "I want more endurance on my hike" or "I want to be able to lift my toddler without pain." Unlike aesthetic goals, functional goals build confidence because they are rooted in capability, not comparison.

• 26:59Abbey Sharp?

  Number three, adopt embodiment cues during your workouts with prompts like "where am I holding tension?" or "how is my breath moving?" These help to pull you out of parasympathetic mode and anchor you in your own body. Number four, diversify your fitness feed and community. So unfollow accounts that trigger body comparison or glorify grind culture. And try to avoid coaches that use moralizing motivation strategies by telling you to earn your food or work off those weekend cheats. Number five, practice fuel without fear. So treat pre- and post-workout nutrition as care, not compensation.

• 27:42Abbey Sharp?

  So ask yourself, "What fuel will help me feel strong today?" Not, "What is the lowest calorie, highest protein option that I can choke down?" And finally, give yourself permission to rest. Rest days are not failure, they are strategy. And if you are struggling with guilt, scheduling rest in the same way that you schedule in your workouts will help it feel more intentional and strategic. I hope this episode was as enlightening to you as it was to me. But on that note, that is That's really all that I have for you guys today. And of course, a quick reminder to check out my new book, The Hunger Crushing Combo Method, if you are looking for a gentle, non-obsessive,

• 28:26Abbey Sharp?

  non-restrictive strategy for fueling your body well for fitness and sports goals, weight management, blood sugar balance, menopause, and so much more. Signing off with Science and SaaS, I'm Abby Sharp. Thanks for listening.

• 28:47Speaker 03

  LinkedIn is pretty amazing at helping you grow your small business. We cannot stop your new clients from emailing you at 3 a.m.

• 28:56Speaker 03

  We can help you sell, market, and hire in one place. We cannot help you be in three places at once.

• 29:04Speaker 03

  And while we can't help you organize your calendar, LinkedIn can help you land more clients so you have a calendar to organize. Grow your small business on LinkedIn. Learn more at LinkedIn.com/smallbusiness.