“Scrap the Exercise” - I have your attention don’t I? What on earth is this Naturopath talking about!? Exercise is good for us right!? Yes, yes it is. Hear me out.
I am not talking about scrapping moving your bodies (please don’t, it really is great for us), I am talking about scrapping the word ‘exercise’ from your vocabulary. For some people, this won’t even be a thing (which is great), but for others - you will know exactly what I am talking about.
What do you think of when you hear the word ‘exercise’? How would you feel if someone said ‘you need to exercise more’? How does that word make you feel?
My take on it: When I was in the midst of my ED, I was completely and utterly obsessed about this word ‘exercise’. Back then, for me, ‘exercise’ meant to completely and utterly punish and exhaust my body through movement, leaving myself with literally nothing left in my tank. It wasn’t ‘exercise’ unless I was dripping with sweat, completely breathless and shattered. And rest days were a completely foreign term to me. Allow my body to rest and incorporate days of no high intensity ‘exercise’ into my week!? I just couldn't allow myself to do it. Coupled with under-eating and undernourishment, my precious body and mind suffered BIG time.
SO, I have recently scrapped the term ‘exercise’ from my vocabulary (because it certainly wasn’t serving me) and have replaced it with ‘movement’, and I encourage you to do the same. Moving my body in ways that I feel like and enjoy each day. I am all for moving our bodies daily. We certainly weren’t designed to sit still, our bodies were made to move in all kinds of wonderful ways. But punish ourselves and completely exhaust the s*** out of ourselves all in the name of ‘exercise’ and ‘health’ - nope. No sir. This can do waaaaayyyy more damage than good.
Fast forward the clock, having been in recovery for 3+ years, I LOVE moving my body and I also love my rest days. Part of my recovery journey (with the help of my glorious Psychologist) was incorporating rest days into my week whilst reducing the intensity of the movement I was doing. This my friends, was where the magic started to happen. My periods became like clockwork and I slowly learnt how to;
- stop punishing my body through ‘exercise’,
- allow myself the very much NEEDED rest days from more high intensity movement,
- ENJOY MOVEMENT for all the great things it brought me. And here I am talking about blood flow/organ functioning, bone health, heart health, strength, happiness, overall health/well-being and the list goes on and on.
Guys and girls....we need our rest days, Every. Single. Week. LADIES with HA (lost period): If you want your periods to kick back in for good...this is paramount.
And perhaps we start replacing that word ‘exercise’ with ‘movement’, simply moving our bodies in a way that we EENNJJJOOOYYY - both mentally and physically. Dancing anyone? ❤ 💃🕺
Nutmeg xx
