Lifestyle Blogs
Exercise & Feel the difference
Exercise & Feel the difference.
Why we exercise guides how we exercise.
How we exercise determines and guides what we feel when we exercise.⠀⠀
Exercise should bring pleasure, not pain.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
If you are a listener of the Going Beyond The Food Podcast ( we have 100’s of episodes ready for your listening pleasure) you know I have started a new series recently title: She’s Beyond The Food where I share my personal journey going beyond the food. Episode 183 I shared my life journey with exercise which has been for most of my life one of “burning calories” not one of pleasure.⠀
Your journey with exercise⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
For many of us who have had life long journey of dieting, exercise is something we use to lose weight. Over time that relationship became really painful and in some cases traumatic. I call it “exercise trauma”. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
My relationship to exercise was a source of trauma until I came to Intuitive Eating. Just like an abusive relationship, exercise caused me a lot of pain (in all 4 bodies).
Today’s my form of exercise is walking. Walking in my own backyard or hiking in nature’s setting.
For years I thought that walking wasn’t enough. That walking wasn’t a form of exercise that was strong enough to bring me health.
I needed to sweat and have pain for exercise to be effective. If that you right now I totally get it! I mean that’s what we’re told everywhere right?!?
I just want to share with you that for me that way of thinking got me to one place: “on and off the wagon” of exercise. Meaning I would exercise hardcore for 6 months maybe 1 year and the “fall off the wagon” for 3 years.
Move and Feel the difference⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Intuitive Eating taught me that my intention was key to healing my relationship to exercise. I call “exercise” movement today. In part because of the trauma associated with the word exercise.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Intuitive eating recognizes the need for the movement to chase health and ask you to focus on how it makes you feel instead of the calories burned so that you can desire to move because of how it makes you feel.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Intuitive Eating inspires you to focus on the joy you find in moving. Find a form of movement that you desire to do without having to resort to willpower. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Intuitive Eating teaches us to forget militant exercise and just get moving and feel the difference.
Intuitive Eating is more than just food. It’s a self-care eating framework so yes movement is part of self-care but we seek to find joy in movement instead of calorie burning.
I choose to talk about “movement” instead of “exercise” in all of my programs since many of us have been traumatized by exercise. So simply using a new word make a big difference.
What is intuitive eating?
Intuitive eating is proven and well-researched self-care eating framework that makes YOU the boss of YOU.
Intuitive eating teaches us to have a healthy relationship to food empowering you to trust your ability to meet your needs, distinguish between physical and emotional hunger and ultimately develop body wisdom.
Get started with intuitive eating
If you’d like to explore intuitive eating and discover how it can help you make peace with food download our Get Started with Intuitive Eating Guide.
This free (and highly detailed) cheat sheet will give you a 3 easy to follow step process to help you get started with intuitive eating right away (and give you a shot of confidence to stop dieting … perhaps ).
Intuitive Eating and Body Image… FOR KIDS!
The foundational information you need to teach your children how to be competent eaters – with the ability to manage food, weight, & health successfully for the rest of their lives.
Majority of the women in my community share my story of being introduced to the world of dieting at an early age. And for years we believed that it’s the way to go to control our eating and improve our body image. Until such time we finally realized that diet doesn’t work. It’s just a band-aid solution to something that needs a permanent solution. We don’t want to pass this kind of relationship to food to our children. We don’t them to live their whole lives restricting, which actually brings about more craving. Instead, we want them to practice intuitive eating and learn to be competent eaters as they grow up.
But how do you raise your kids to become competent eaters and body confident? No need to Google the answer because I have the best suggestion for you.
Intuitive Eating and Body Image… FOR KIDS!
My friend and colleague, Dr. Jillian Murphy, ND, creator of The Food Freedom/Body Love Method for women, is sharing with us her 5-part podcast series on Intuitive Eating and Body Image FOR KIDS!
Recently, I interviewed Dr. Jillian on our podcast, The Going Beyond The Food Show. We covered the basics of integration of intuitive eating in a family setting. I’d suggest listening to this interview first then moving on to the specialized series below.
In this podcast series, Jill will acquaint you with the concept of Intuitive Eating for kids. She’ll introduce the Ellyn Satter Feeding Competency Model and address common misconceptions, objections, and mistakes made when implementing this model.
Here’s an overview of the podcast episodes:
- EPISODE 1: Competent Eaters. The skills and structure you need to raise competent eaters. We’ll discuss Ellyn Satter’s Division of Responsibility, why we want to raise competent (not healthy!) eaters, and the research on long term outcomes with regards to food management, weight, and health. This is the foundational theory you’ll need to move forward.
- EPISODE 2: Obstacles, Resistance & Nutrition: What about picky eaters? Compulsive eaters? WHAT ABOUT HEALTH?! We’ll trouble shoot common parental worries and discuss why HOW you feed your children is ultimately more important than WHAT you feed them.
- EPISODE 3: Understand Appetite, Weight, and How to Help your Child Without Harming. This is a BIG one. The majority of methods for helping children “manage their weight” actually backfire – resulting in children with more food issues, body image issues, and higher weights. So what to do? How can we help our children without interfering with their normal physiological processes?
- EPISODE 4: Body Talk. Learn how to talk to your children about their bodies, other bodies, and foster a sense of body confidence in your children – even while living in a thin-is-best, diet culture!
- EPISODE 5: Permission & Discipline. The key concepts you need to master in order to feed your healthy family and raise body confident, competent eaters. Here we take the theory and turn it into practical strategies you can get started with today!
Teach your Kids NOW!
Dr. Jillian Murphy is one of the Naturopathic doctors I know who shares my passion in teaching women to have a healthy relationship with food. Using a combination of research and clinical experience, she was able to discuss how parents can help their kids. Particularly, to develop intuitive eating and a positive self-body image, which they will carry until they grow up.
I highly recommend that you listen to Intuitive Eating and Body Image FOR KIDS! So, start NOW and teach your kids to become competent eaters with this 5-part podcast series.
8 Powerful Questions For Your Life Transformation
The moments with the biggest impact in my programs such as Going Beyond the Food Academy or my retreats are when powerful transformation questions get asked at just the right time. These 8 powerful questions for transformation have allowed many amazing transformation.
The right question can do more to motivate a student into playing a bigger game than reading a whole bookshelf of inspirational books or attending several ‘how to’ seminars.
Why is that?
Transformation questions, when phrased and timed well, entice us to go inside and look around the many rooms of our body-mind. We emerge knowing ourselves better than we did before and willing to take on new challenges.
https://youtu.be/39E8OqyWPg8
Transformation Process
These questions are the kick starter to any profound and permanent transformation process and that’s exactly what I teach. I simply chose to use food as a tool to teach transformation. That you try to transform your diet or your love life or your health the process is all the same.
You must first get clear with yourself on what you want.
Then learn new skills and or make a decision that will allow you to reach your goals.
8 Transformation Questions
You will need a journal for this exercise, a place where you can gather your thoughts, observation, and feelings.
I would suggest reading all questions at first without answering any. Let the questions sit with your spirit for a few days.
In the following days take 1 -2 question at a time maximum per day and write your answer in your journal. Set the environment that will allow you to get the life-changing answer you are looking for: be alone, no one to disturb you, be in a relaxed state with no pressure about time, in a positive mindset.
When you write your answer leave plenty of space for each question to be answered as you may want to add to it in the process. Read your answers and add more thoughts as you go.
- Where do I want to be in five years?
- How do I want to feel on the inside in 5 years time? Where will I be emotionally, physically and spiritually?
- What bad habits do I need to stop? What do I need to take responsibility for?
- What mistake have I made? What would I do differently?
- What story have I told myself? What conditioning did I receive?
- If no one judged me, who will I be?
- Who would you be if you weren’t concerned with pleasing and caring for others?
- Why do I like food more than my own health (self)?
So, next time you feel stumped, stuck, or unsure where to go, ask yourself these powerful questions that will serve as a kick starter to your transformation.
If you ready to start your journey in transforming your health with nutrition you should check out my free Crave Cure Guide.
Body Messages: A Personal Story
What are body messages?
As I teach the ladies in my tribe, think of it as a knock on the door. It is a way your physical body talks to you.
Let me give you an example from my own life…
Body Messages: My Personal Story
My latest project of taking my nutrition practices and my business in the stratosphere in the online world is so scary, yet so exciting all at once. I have fears just like all of you. Fear is an absolute normal emotion. Fear means that we are working outside of our comfort zone which also means that we are growing.
My comfort zone didn’t include being in front of a camera because of my body image. I had huge issues looking at myself in the mirror – let alone having someone take a picture of me.
I have conquered this fear by working on my body image during the past three years. Am I now super comfortable to be in front of a camera? No, I’m not but it is much better than it was. I can now see beauty when I look at pictures of myself… I can see now what others see…because we are all beautiful. Yes, we are.
This weekend was another one of these moments in my life – professional photo shoot with a designer, makeup artists, and the best photographer in town.
Body messages
I felt nervous for 3-4 days leading up to the shoot.
I was anxious and craving carbs.
My body was tense which, for me, equals pain in my lower back.
I had poor sleep quality the night before.
I listened and observed my body messages with interest. I realized through my body that this experience was a huge and significant step for me in my life journey because of the intensity of the messages. I didn’t worry about the “symptoms” (body messages) or take a sleeping pill or supplement to help me sleep. Rather, I enjoyed the process. I felt the sensation in my body of each body message and was grateful for the growth that was happening within myself.
How to listen to your body messages
What are your body messages when you are working outside your comfort zone?
Do you listen to your body messages or simply ignore them?
Do you find that your body messages are just an annoyance?
You just can’t wait to shut them down with food or another drug of choices?
Guess what happened the day of the shoot? I had the best time of my life with the best team…. I shared with my team of three brand new people that I had never meet before, my life journey and my anxiousness about the day.
I was vulnerable and shared in a positive manner so they resounded with nothing but love for me on my journey. Without their support, I couldn’t have put my true self out there and the pictures wouldn’t have been nearly as gorgeous and powerful as they are. I’m so grateful that I have crossed paths with these three professional and loving human beings – Nikki, Luis and Onna = xoxox. I will forever be grateful to have met you.
Listen and Feel
Listen to your body messages aka symptoms, disease, discomfort and imbalances with care, patience and love.
Feel your body messages – the intensity, the location, when, where and how it happens.
Learn from your body messages.
Make decisions in your life based on your body messages and on the communication between you and your body.
Everything happens for a reason for the best outcome possible.
Welcome!
I’m Stephanie Dodier
Non-Diet Nutritionist & Coach
I teach and coach women how to break free from the socialized thinking of diet culture and liberate yourself from unrelenting pressure to be thinner so that you can eat in a way that truly supports your well-being and start living the life you’ll look back on with no regrets.
Join me in leading the feminist health coaching revolution!
Ready? Let's do this!
FREE QUIZ & GUIDE
Let's see just how much diet culture has a grip on you
I curated 3 questionnaires to evaluate your body image, eating behaviours and mindset to see if you have been just how much your life has been impacted by diet culture.
Get ready to completely change the way you look at health?
JOIN OUR COMMUNITY TODAY AND RECEIVE OUR NEWSLETTER!
