How To Exercise For Pleasure Rather Than Punishment
3 min read
If exercise didn’t change how your body looked what exercise would you do?
Why do you move your body?
Do you move your body for pleasure, enjoyment and strength?
For punishment or because you’re supposed to?
If it’s for punishment you’re not alone.
Diet culture tells you that you must exercise to:
Earn back calories
Punish yourself for eating a ‘forbidden food’
Lose weight or reshape your body
It teaches you exercise isn’t for pleasure but to whip you into line for all your failures, lack of willpower and inability to stick to a diet.
I commonly see this with my clients with binge eating disorder and bulimia who use exercise to punish themselves.
Diet culture may promise this will work, however it rarely does. Instead of helping them lose weight or earn back calories it quite often does the opposite. It leads to binge eating, further lowering self-esteem, creating feelings of guilt, shame and self-blame.
Impact of using exercise as punishment
Ever wondered why you can’t stick to an exercise plan. Why you jump from failed diet to failed exercise program without success?
We’ve all been there. Here are a few reasons why exercising for punishment or to earn back calories doesn’t work:
Creates short term motivation for exercise. When you’re doing something you don’t like you aren’t going to stick to it.
Increases stress and fatigue levels leaving you susceptible to binge eating.
More likely to injure yourself.
See your body as the enemy - you become disconnected from what your body needs.
Increases self-loathing and poor body image.
Creates a negative relationship with exercise, constantly fighting with yourself to go ‘burn some calories.’
How to shift your relationship with exercise
Exercise is more than just a tool to ‘burn calories.’ It is a way to connect and celebrate what your body can do. How incredibly strong, resilient and capable your body really is. Here are a few ways you can start to shift your relationship with exercise:
Focus on what your body can DO instead of how it looks
Exercise with a friend or join a sport
Priorities pleasure and enjoyment by finding movement you enjoy
Ask yourself
what exercise do I actually enjoy?
if exercise didn’t change my body what exercise would I do?
Exercise should add value to your life. It should increase energy, mood and health not increase fatigue, reduce body image or lead to further self-loathing.
Creating enjoyment around exercise will help you make sustainable habits that you look forward to and you’ll experience even more benefits as a result like elevated mood and feeling connected to your body.
When you feel good about your body you’re more likely to treat it better and nourish yourself in a balanced and enjoyable way.
If you want to heal your relationship with exercise reach out and start your recovery journey today! You can email me at deb@debsarah.com.
