Speaker 1: I won't lend my body out out everything that I'm
Speaker 1: made do, won't spend my life trying to change. I'm
Speaker 1: learning to love who I am. I get I'm strong,
Speaker 1: I feel free, I know who every part of me.
Speaker 1: It's beautiful and I will always out way if you
Speaker 1: feel it with your hands in the air, she'll some
Speaker 1: love to the poet there. Let's say good day and
Speaker 1: time did you and die out? Welcome back to that way,
Speaker 1: Lisa here again, and today we're bringing back Matt Stranberg,
Speaker 1: who you probably remember from our last episode where we
Speaker 1: learned all about how to figure out if our relationship
Speaker 1: to food is healthy versus dysfunctional. We explored the differences
Speaker 1: between men and women in eating disorders, and what I
Speaker 1: really loved about that episode, which was how we can
Speaker 1: support men in getting the help that they need. So
Speaker 1: if you didn't listen to that episode, head on back
Speaker 1: to listen to it. Matt is phenomenal. So welcome back. Matt.
Speaker 1: Your registered dietitian, but you're also an exercise science specialist
Speaker 1: and you help athletes and individuals improve their relationship to
Speaker 1: not just food and exercise. So today I'd love if
Speaker 1: we could talk about how to approach fitness from a
Speaker 1: healthy place. Starting out the door with what is exercise addiction? Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1: And this is a great topic as well. And actually
Speaker 1: it very much relates to the previous conversation that we
Speaker 1: just had, So I would strongly encourage you to actually
Speaker 1: go back and listen to that because that will help
Speaker 1: kind of get chap to speed with some of these
Speaker 1: thought processes. That being said, you know, something that is
Speaker 1: really important to this topic is is understanding these categories
Speaker 1: because they can be helpful in some respects and at
Speaker 1: the same time, they might not capture your experience. And
Speaker 1: so and that is actually something that's really important because
Speaker 1: a lot of times people will say, you know, I
Speaker 1: think it's time for a change, or I'm thinking about something.
Speaker 1: They'll google something and they're like, oh, I don't fit
Speaker 1: that correct here, I'm all good, and they'll move on.
Speaker 1: And so, for instance, with you know, the concept of
Speaker 1: extra size addiction, exercise addiction UH is a term that
Speaker 1: is commonplace in our society because the word addiction is
Speaker 1: something that's very much talked about and at the same time,
Speaker 1: from my experience, doesn't necessarily kind of flesh out, you know,
Speaker 1: what is going on for an individual. So you know,
Speaker 1: when I talk about these topics, um, it's really important
Speaker 1: to first understand, you know, what is exercise versus physical activity,
Speaker 1: because that, you know, it can help people further understand,
Speaker 1: you know, what's going on. Because I will talk to
Speaker 1: a lot of people and if in my assessments or
Speaker 1: when I talk to someone, if I say, you know,
Speaker 1: tell me about you know, what you do on a
Speaker 1: weekly basis for exercise, and they're like, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't exercise that much. Maybe I'll go to the jam,
Speaker 1: like you know, three times for an hour or whatever.
Speaker 1: And so like when you're listening to this, you go, Okay,
Speaker 1: you know this person exercise for three hours per a week.
Speaker 1: But if you said, can you tell me about your
Speaker 1: physical activity, they go, well, you know, I only exercise
Speaker 1: like three times a week, but my physical activity, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm hiking all the time, I'm walking, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: I take my bike everywhere, etcetera. And they're racking like
Speaker 1: hours on hours of physical activity every single day. That
Speaker 1: wouldn't have been captured if you would just asked about exercise.
Speaker 1: Because people define exercise in a very particular way, and
Speaker 1: for some people is something is not considered exercise unless
Speaker 1: they're sweating and their you know, their hearts pumping and
Speaker 1: their muscles are burning. So I talked to a lot
Speaker 1: of people who do like hours of intensive yoga and
Speaker 1: like go for these hikes, and they're like, oh, that's
Speaker 1: not exercise, that that's easy. Exercise is when I kill
Speaker 1: myself and CrossFit. So you know, first, if you back
Speaker 1: up for a moment, it's really important to kind of
Speaker 1: think about you know, physical activity exercise, and physical activity
Speaker 1: is just any movement in general that's using your skeletal muscle.
Speaker 1: It's not necessarily planned or like intended to try to
Speaker 1: improve a fitness quality per se, while exercise, conversely, is
Speaker 1: planned out, it's intended, it's it's designed, you know, in
Speaker 1: many respects to change a particular fitness quality. And so
Speaker 1: that's yeah, yeah, often, so it seems that for people
Speaker 1: to qualify their exercise it needs to be within a
Speaker 1: fitness facility, on a piece of equipment as a part
Speaker 1: of their day that is very different from the rest
Speaker 1: of their day. So they're not going to count things
Speaker 1: like gardening or walking to the park with their grandchild
Speaker 1: or daughter or son, you know, So that's super interesting
Speaker 1: to just kind of think about the two and why
Speaker 1: people think of them as so differently. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: with all these definitions that we've been talking about, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: because of the explosion of information as well as like
Speaker 1: you know, overall distrust and authorities, it's been really fragmented.
Speaker 1: So nowadays people really have their own definition and their
Speaker 1: own symbolic and emotional meaning attached to words. So you
Speaker 1: can talk to like ten different people about exercise and
Speaker 1: they might have ten different definitions of exercise. You can
Speaker 1: talk to ten different people about a carbohydrate or starch
Speaker 1: or health and they'll have ten different definitions. So in
Speaker 1: many instances, people are talking past each other and they're
Speaker 1: essentially talking different languages, which make it really difficult to
Speaker 1: understand kind of what the overall experience might be. And so,
Speaker 1: you know, going back to this concept of exercise, addiction,
Speaker 1: you know, addiction summons this this very wrong effective term
Speaker 1: that really generates a lot of feelings and emotions and
Speaker 1: immediately people are kind of like a repulse by it,
Speaker 1: or they don't feel that way that they're like, I'm addicted,
Speaker 1: you know. And so for instance, if someone said, oh,
Speaker 1: are you struggling with exercise addiction, and the person might say, oh, no, no,
Speaker 1: it's just a lifestyle. I just love being a high
Speaker 1: activity lifestyle. So in that respect, you know, it can
Speaker 1: really miss the mark in a way that we can
Speaker 1: flush this out to help maybe people explore this a
Speaker 1: little bit more. Is once again revisiting that original concept
Speaker 1: that I talked about that the map is not the territory.
Speaker 1: So just because these categories are describing particular patterns or
Speaker 1: experiences doesn't mean necessarily it captures everything or it's indicative
Speaker 1: of reality. They're more so describing patterns that might give
Speaker 1: you ideas about what's going on. But it's really key
Speaker 1: to talk to individuals on a personal basis. Now before
Speaker 1: we go into the individual basis and exploring that, going
Speaker 1: back to the categories of archetypical patterns that you might observe,
Speaker 1: you know, in the literature, there are some patterns that
Speaker 1: have been described, such as exercise dependence or compulsive exercise,
Speaker 1: or obligatory exercise or excessive exercise, and each one of
Speaker 1: these has some kind of understanding of what's going on. So,
Speaker 1: for instance, dependence is usually describing this cluster of cognitive,
Speaker 1: behavioral and like physical symptoms um similar to like substance
Speaker 1: use disorders or dependence. So an example might be kind
Speaker 1: of similar how we talk about substances in relation to you.
Speaker 1: One takes a dose or you know, engages in a
Speaker 1: certain dose of exercise and they establish a tolerance and
Speaker 1: then they need more and more to obtain the same effect.
Speaker 1: When they try to do less exercise, they start to
Speaker 1: experience withdrawal, so they start to feel irritable or off,
Speaker 1: and in many respects, this causes them to up the
Speaker 1: dose again and exercise more. Oftentimes, there can be moments
Speaker 1: where they feel like they have challenges with intentions. So
Speaker 1: for instance, like I'm gonna go, you know, go for
Speaker 1: a run for thirty instant, it's like an hour and
Speaker 1: a half later, they're going longer that's intended, and you know,
Speaker 1: maybe there's feelings of like lack of control, like I
Speaker 1: can't stop myself, I just need to run more, salience
Speaker 1: like it's it's it's taking up a large part of
Speaker 1: their life. And you know, we can look at like
Speaker 1: how this relate to other activities. Are they're reducing other
Speaker 1: activities so they can exercise more. And then one of
Speaker 1: the key features in terms of like exercise dependence would
Speaker 1: entail that there's continuance and people persist in these behaviors
Speaker 1: even when there's negative side effects. So, for instance, the
Speaker 1: person breaks their ankle and they're still going on runs.
Speaker 1: You know, they're not feeling well and they're sick, and
Speaker 1: they're still going out for runs. They feel like they
Speaker 1: can't miss the gym, and you know, they're feeling dizzy,
Speaker 1: but they still going out on runs. And so as
Speaker 1: with other forms of dependence, that really depends on the
Speaker 1: context in the person's life because you know, these varying
Speaker 1: levels might not capture their relationship. And so really a
Speaker 1: good question is like, what would happen if you couldn't exercise,
Speaker 1: and that will start to you know, flesh out what's
Speaker 1: going on. Yeah, and I know from from sinal experience
Speaker 1: to just humanize kind of what we're talking about here.
Speaker 1: For me, exercise addiction. When I think back on that
Speaker 1: part of my life, I certainly wouldn't have called it
Speaker 1: that then. So looking back, I can tell you that
Speaker 1: it was an addiction for me because I only deserved
Speaker 1: to eat if I worked out, or you know, it
Speaker 1: was a compensatory relationship I had with exercise. And food.
Speaker 1: It was also the only way that I could create
Speaker 1: serotonin in my brain, meaning when I felt high and
Speaker 1: good on life naturally, the only way I could derive
Speaker 1: that was from exercise. And while that felt really good
Speaker 1: at the time, I now know stepping back, that I
Speaker 1: should get joy from micro moments of my life, such
Speaker 1: as sharing a meal with somebody, going for a walk
Speaker 1: that isn't quote unquote exercise, or making my heart pump
Speaker 1: or sweating and all these little things during the day.
Speaker 1: And I could not miss a day. And during that
Speaker 1: stage of my life, Matt, you know, I was studying
Speaker 1: to be a nutritionist and my masters was an exercise physiology.
Speaker 1: If you told me that I had an exercise addiction,
Speaker 1: that would have felt incredibly confusing, just like many of
Speaker 1: our listeners might feel confused, like my doctor told me
Speaker 1: to get this much in a day, and I'm doing that.
Speaker 1: How can what we were told to be good moving
Speaker 1: our bodies, lifting weights, walking, whatever it is, How can
Speaker 1: that become negative the same way healthy eating can be?
Speaker 1: And so how can we know if we're flirting that
Speaker 1: line in the moment rather than being reflective like I
Speaker 1: am now on the past, Yeah, totally and and we
Speaker 1: can certainly explore that because one thing that I think
Speaker 1: that would be important is actually what you just described
Speaker 1: is sounds more along the lines of another kind of
Speaker 1: archetypal kind that I described, such as compulsive exercise, so
Speaker 1: for instance, using exercise persistently and maybe excessively as a
Speaker 1: way to relieve anxiety or distress with perceived negative consequences
Speaker 1: from abstaining from the behavior. So for instance, maybe you
Speaker 1: have avoidance or rule trip and behavior or exercise is
Speaker 1: being used as a weaken role mechanism or like you
Speaker 1: have mentioned, a primary means of mood improvement. And then
Speaker 1: maybe there's even elements where even though you don't feel
Speaker 1: good and the exercise is not enjoyable, you still find
Speaker 1: yourself doing it and you're you know, exhibiting this rigidity.
Speaker 1: And so you know, as I had mentioned, with the dependence,
Speaker 1: like this is one cluster of maybe a relationship, there's
Speaker 1: lots of relationships exercise that are much more compulsive, and
Speaker 1: and they fly into the radar because when someone says, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm not feeling good, I need to go out for
Speaker 1: a run, people like nice work. That's a really healthy
Speaker 1: way of doing that. But the question would be like,
Speaker 1: can you actually feel your emotions and can you process
Speaker 1: them without going for a run. And when the person
Speaker 1: starts to feel like they're having these compulsions to go
Speaker 1: for a run no matter what and they can't feel good,
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, something's beginning to evolve there. And
Speaker 1: I mean, I see this all the time and I've
Speaker 1: been there, and I also kind of have this two
Speaker 1: prong approach to it where I do feel better when
Speaker 1: I moved my body. It's great for my mental wellness
Speaker 1: and my mental health. However, we also hear be will
Speaker 1: say I need to move my body every day to
Speaker 1: feel good, and we clap for both, but there's a
Speaker 1: distinguishing factor of do you take rest days, you know,
Speaker 1: if life gets in the way because of family commitments
Speaker 1: or school commitments, or you're just feeling tired, can you
Speaker 1: take a break and find another way to be okay
Speaker 1: that day. And we have to stop applauding, like you said, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a healthy behavior, you know, and instead allow people
Speaker 1: to find more ways, more tools in their toolbox to
Speaker 1: get that joy to feel good, to not just be
Speaker 1: out running themselves. And I don't know if this is
Speaker 1: similar for you or not. But for me, exercise was
Speaker 1: exactly what you said away to run away from my
Speaker 1: emotions and my body. And it's interesting because I'm still
Speaker 1: exercising moving my body, but oftentimes when I'm coming to
Speaker 1: that place of I'm going to move my body, even
Speaker 1: though I'm in a kind of crappy place mentally, I
Speaker 1: don't feel like I'm running. I feel like I'm coming
Speaker 1: even more in my body. I don't know if that
Speaker 1: makes sense. And so, for instance, of activity is is
Speaker 1: something that is potentially very therapeutic and potentially very transformative
Speaker 1: and and and potentially very life enhancing. You know, when
Speaker 1: we think about, you know, that differentiation between physical activity
Speaker 1: and exercise. The reason why I said that, or another
Speaker 1: reason why I said that, is because people can realize
Speaker 1: the benefits of movement and not necessarily have to fall
Speaker 1: into the societal conception of you know, why is legitimate
Speaker 1: versus what's not? What is exercise versus what's not? And
Speaker 1: in many respects, like you had mentioned, it's overtly seen
Speaker 1: as a good thing. But similar to other things in
Speaker 1: our life, you know, it can throw us out a
Speaker 1: balance if that's the only tool in our tool kits.
Speaker 1: So for instance, like emotional eating, Like this is a
Speaker 1: term that's often thrown around is like something negative. But
Speaker 1: you know, in most cultures and throughout time and a
Speaker 1: lot of other areas, like people eat with emotion and
Speaker 1: that's actually part of the experience. So eating with emotion
Speaker 1: or soothing your emotions with food is not necessarily a
Speaker 1: bad thing. Um, same thing with doothing your emotions at
Speaker 1: times with physical activity and moving your body in particular ways.
Speaker 1: The analogy that I often make, you know, to help
Speaker 1: kind of clarify this is so for instance, like let's
Speaker 1: say you had a really long, tough week and you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, that was just a really stressful week. I
Speaker 1: feel like, you know what some retail therapy, and you
Speaker 1: go on to Amazon and you just buy those new
Speaker 1: shoes that you've been uh, you know, iron for a
Speaker 1: while and it comes to your door, and like, hell, yeah,
Speaker 1: treat yourself. That was awesome. You know, that feels great.
Speaker 1: Nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with that. Same
Speaker 1: thing with all the things that we talked about. The
Speaker 1: question is is every time you get stressed or feel off,
Speaker 1: do you find yourself loading up your Amazon cart and
Speaker 1: starting to deliver stuff to your door, or reaching for
Speaker 1: that ball of wine, or going for a run, or
Speaker 1: eating as your only ways of coping. If that's you know,
Speaker 1: something that you're observing, the question would be am I
Speaker 1: becoming increasingly dependent on this? Or is it becoming compulsive?
Speaker 1: You know, this is something that we ask ourselves and say,
Speaker 1: you know, how does this relate to the other aspects
Speaker 1: of my life? How do I self soothe in ways
Speaker 1: that go beyond on maybe just food and just exercise.
Speaker 1: Maybe food and exercise and these things that we're talking
Speaker 1: about can be one thing of many instead of just
Speaker 1: you know, alternating between food and exercise. And unfortunately, in
Speaker 1: our society, many people reward these unidimensional relationships with certain things,
Speaker 1: and in many respects it flies into the radar because
Speaker 1: what is often seen as dedication and passion um is
Speaker 1: really compulsion or you know, a feeling of obligation where
Speaker 1: someone has an obligatory exercise pattern where they feel like
Speaker 1: they can't take a day off. They're rigid and you
Speaker 1: know they otherwise they're starting to feel anxious or guilty
Speaker 1: if they missed that day um. Similarly, in excessive exercise,
Speaker 1: you know, this is once again very much dependent on perspective,
Speaker 1: and you know, what is excessive for one person might
Speaker 1: actually be very much in line with, you know, what
Speaker 1: helps them live their best life. So for instance, like
Speaker 1: if you're an Olympic athlete, yeah, you're gonna be exercising
Speaker 1: all the time because that's your job and that's what
Speaker 1: you do. And at the same time, you know, maybe
Speaker 1: you also have another a visual who goes to cross
Speaker 1: fit five times a week and everything else is pretty
Speaker 1: well balanced, and this is just kind of, you know,
Speaker 1: how they want to live life, and there's nothing wrong.
Speaker 1: The question of excessive is are they consistently going over
Speaker 1: their body's capacity to recover mentally and physically. And so
Speaker 1: for instance, if you do that temporarily, that can be beneficial,
Speaker 1: but if you're chronically doing that, it's going to have
Speaker 1: negative effects. So the question be why are you consistent
Speaker 1: going over your capacity to recover? Why are you consistently
Speaker 1: doing more and more and more and and these kind
Speaker 1: of things often fun to the radar because people often
Speaker 1: look at it as a sign of delay, gratification and control.
Speaker 1: It's something like that aligns with like maybe Tom Brady,
Speaker 1: no days off, um, no pain, no gain when it
Speaker 1: all costs, like, you're doing what it takes to get
Speaker 1: to the next level. This is part of your fitness lifestyle.
Speaker 1: And so I think something that we can talk about
Speaker 1: a little bit more is like, well, how do you
Speaker 1: explore this relationship to kind of understand, you know, what's
Speaker 1: working for you versus what's not working for you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I can tell you as a practitioner, when I
Speaker 1: started my business six years ago and I wanted to
Speaker 1: get my clients who didn't exercise or have much physical
Speaker 1: activity in their life, i'd prescribe them to walk ten
Speaker 1: k steps a day. That was like, you know, just
Speaker 1: get out there and walk tank steps a day. And
Speaker 1: then they'd come back and I started to see how
Speaker 1: unhelpful that advice was because they'd spend a day. I'll
Speaker 1: say it was a Saturday, and it was a male
Speaker 1: client who went golfing for two hours, walked the entire green,
Speaker 1: then went kayaking, and when he was done kayaking, he would,
Speaker 1: you know, instead of just resting or spending time with
Speaker 1: his family, he had to get those tank steps in
Speaker 1: and he felt the pressure to get them in. And
Speaker 1: we talked about it, and I really, you know, learned
Speaker 1: from that experience as to there's not just one way
Speaker 1: to move, and there's not just one way to get
Speaker 1: that exercise in. So, especially as we head into the
Speaker 1: warmer months, I encourage everybody to just kind of recognize
Speaker 1: what feels good today, And it doesn't have to be
Speaker 1: you know, running two miles or six miles or even
Speaker 1: walking in that linear plane that you know we're taught
Speaker 1: is exercise. So explore what feels good. Is it gardening,
Speaker 1: Is it going for a swim, Is it you know,
Speaker 1: just even parking a little bit further and getting to
Speaker 1: going into the grocery store, and that's your quote unquote
Speaker 1: exercise for the day. Allow these things to count without
Speaker 1: counting them, I think could be helpful. So I worked
Speaker 1: with a woman in New York City who I adore dearly,
Speaker 1: a client of mine, and she came to me because
Speaker 1: she was working with a trainer who put her on
Speaker 1: a macro counting diet, and although she was hitting her
Speaker 1: goals quote unquote at the gym, she started to notice
Speaker 1: that this restrictive diet was not very different than calorie counting,
Speaker 1: something she had already conquered. And I hear this a
Speaker 1: lot when it comes to trainers. Specifically. And that's not
Speaker 1: to say all trainers are bad or or that all
Speaker 1: trainers can't help us be healthy as well as help
Speaker 1: us form a healthy relationship to food an exercise. But
Speaker 1: this is a theme that we can't really ignore. How
Speaker 1: can trainers play a role in keeping us mentally well?
Speaker 1: What are some things that they can do and say
Speaker 1: not do and say that can motivate us but not
Speaker 1: steal from our internal knowledge of knowing exactly what we
Speaker 1: need to do when it comes to both food and exercise.
Speaker 1: I think, in order the best answer this question, we
Speaker 1: can actually generalize it to most practitioners as well in
Speaker 1: terms of you know, what we've been talking about. So
Speaker 1: before we delt in, I think it's important to note
Speaker 1: that although physical activity or exercise can be beneficial, it's
Speaker 1: not a moral imperative, and it's actually okay if people
Speaker 1: decide to not engage in activity or exercise. And every
Speaker 1: choice that we make has its pros and cons gifts
Speaker 1: and take in, and the same thing with quality of life,
Speaker 1: quantity of life, etcetera. Some people want to live a
Speaker 1: certain lifestyle that they find works best for them, and
Speaker 1: that isn't necessarily a bad thing. If if they decide
Speaker 1: to not exercise at all, sometimes they might invest all
Speaker 1: that time and reading and writing in the arts and
Speaker 1: so at the same time, you know, people might find
Speaker 1: and explore that, like we have been talking about, varying
Speaker 1: degrees of movement might actually enhance their life. So I think,
Speaker 1: you know, going back to the practitioner standpoint, a lot
Speaker 1: of practitioners, especially personal trainers, but also doctors and psychiatrists
Speaker 1: and psychologists often look at the patient as a collection
Speaker 1: of problems to be solved and therefore extend you know,
Speaker 1: the life experience as a collection of problems to be solved,
Speaker 1: when in actuality, you know, although it is nice to
Speaker 1: maybe change certain things in our lives or quote unquote
Speaker 1: overcome a certain problem, life as core, you know, one
Speaker 1: might argue, is a reality to be experienced. And if
Speaker 1: we're always focusing on having versus have not and always
Speaker 1: focusing on solving problems, um at the core in many respects,
Speaker 1: we're not allowing ourselves to experience our day to day moments,
Speaker 1: in our day to day being and in had are
Speaker 1: perpetually in the state of lack and trying to view
Speaker 1: ourselves as lacking and as a project to be completed
Speaker 1: and as you know, a problem to be solved, and
Speaker 1: when you begin to view yourself in that manner um,
Speaker 1: it can really rob us of the other dimensions of
Speaker 1: life that you know, can often make movement really enjoyable. So,
Speaker 1: for instance, if we approach movement and physical activity has
Speaker 1: simply you know, stimulus response, question, answer, problem solution, I'm
Speaker 1: feeling this way and I want to feel differently, it
Speaker 1: really robs us of the ability to open up the
Speaker 1: experience of simply being in the world and being you know,
Speaker 1: like for instance, like going for a run and feeling
Speaker 1: the sun on your face and feeling your feet touched
Speaker 1: the pavement. And this is something that is totally removed
Speaker 1: from the experiences offered by most practitioners, and so something
Speaker 1: that you know, practitioners and trainers alike can probably benefit
Speaker 1: from is it's moving beyond what I had mentioned in
Speaker 1: the last episode. Is this procedural kind of approach where
Speaker 1: everything is viewed as a collection of boxes and objects
Speaker 1: and problems that need to be checked and manipulated and
Speaker 1: tweaked like a car mechanic opening up the hood of
Speaker 1: our brain and saying I gotta tweak this and got
Speaker 1: to tweak that and by the end of that, you
Speaker 1: know you'll look better and you'll feel better. Instead, I
Speaker 1: would sit down and encourage the trainer and the client
Speaker 1: to have an open conversation and say, hey, let me
Speaker 1: get to know you. You know, what's important to you.
Speaker 1: How do you feel? How would you like to approach this?
Speaker 1: I have some ideas. Would you be open to this?
Speaker 1: How does that make you feel? Would you be open
Speaker 1: to experimenting with this? And now you have a mutual
Speaker 1: collaboration of therapeutic alliance where people are able to collaborate
Speaker 1: together and explore together various frameworks, various perceptions, various ways
Speaker 1: of looking at things, various patterns of behaviors as well
Speaker 1: as thought patterns, and all these various aspects that we
Speaker 1: can use to navigate our day to day and figure
Speaker 1: out over time what works in relation to the day
Speaker 1: to day experience, but also in relation to the overall goal,
Speaker 1: but also creating space for simply experiencing each other and
Speaker 1: experiencing the moment. So I think it's really critical for practitioners,
Speaker 1: trainers included, to sit down and really enquire about, you know,
Speaker 1: those subjective experiences and how things are being experienced and
Speaker 1: then from there begin to tailor the approach in a
Speaker 1: way that is not split in that dualistic thinking that
Speaker 1: I was talking about as subject and client or subject
Speaker 1: and object, but more so as a unified intersubjective kind
Speaker 1: of like experience where they're joined together, exploring things together
Speaker 1: and developing things together. That helps people really develop the
Speaker 1: relationship that they're looking for and that really can only
Speaker 1: truly evolve through a mutual interaction as opposed to expert
Speaker 1: and um subject. So that means there's two different responsibilities
Speaker 1: that need to change, both of the practitioner therapist, trainer,
Speaker 1: dietitian da dada, and let's call it client person paying
Speaker 1: for services whether it's covered by insurance or not, which
Speaker 1: means the you know, the practitioner cannot feel like it's
Speaker 1: their job to find the problem and then just provide
Speaker 1: a solution based on the problem that they see, and
Speaker 1: the client cannot walk in because they're paying or because
Speaker 1: it's a service, or because they're working with an expert
Speaker 1: and say I have this problem and I want it fixed.
Speaker 1: The relationship, the trust needs to be established, a conversation
Speaker 1: needs to be happening, and other things outside of the
Speaker 1: obvious quote unquote problem being overweight or wanting to hit
Speaker 1: a specific goal at the gym, whatever. You know, you
Speaker 1: can't just look at that in isolation. You need to
Speaker 1: look at what else is going to be affected by
Speaker 1: pursuing that goal, maybe not even reaching that goal, but
Speaker 1: by pursuing it in that method. And I think that's
Speaker 1: a brilliant framework to take beyond even working with a
Speaker 1: professional or not. Is. We have problems, period it. We
Speaker 1: don't need to fix every single one of them. You're
Speaker 1: not lazy for not being quote unquote proactive about all
Speaker 1: of those things. And by doing so, we're surrendering to
Speaker 1: life again. And like you said, going for a run
Speaker 1: and feeling your foot on the earth is very different
Speaker 1: than going for a run and I need to hit
Speaker 1: those two miles at this speed and blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: So what you really did today, Matt is you gave
Speaker 1: us an invitation to actually be part of reality rather
Speaker 1: than craft or reality that may or may not ever exist. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's super passionate. That hits home for me totally. A
Speaker 1: lot of times I meet people who actually, I mean,
Speaker 1: I would say most people I meet are in a
Speaker 1: perpetual managerial mode where they spend eight to ten hours
Speaker 1: of work per day or in school. And the way
Speaker 1: that the approach that is question answer, stimulus response problem,
Speaker 1: you know, solver. And this can be really effective in
Speaker 1: the work environment. At the same time, if it's generalized
Speaker 1: to all other aspects of our life, it actually becomes
Speaker 1: incredibly dehumanizing and mechanical and dysfunctional in manty of respects. So,
Speaker 1: for instance, I always joke about it with my clients
Speaker 1: because I meet with a lot of clients who very
Speaker 1: much espoused this perpetual productivity managerial mode. And so the
Speaker 1: joke is like, Okay, I'm going to schedule and some
Speaker 1: relaxation and then I'm gonna prep myself. I'm gonna read
Speaker 1: a book about how to relax, and then I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go in there. I'm gonna try to relax as hard
Speaker 1: as possible, and you know, I'm they are really concentrating
Speaker 1: relaxing And we laugh about it because that's the antithesis
Speaker 1: of relaxation. And so, you know, if we approach everything
Speaker 1: from that fix our mindset, we actually lose out on
Speaker 1: a lot of the experiences that actually bring us are
Speaker 1: probably the best moments of our life. So, for instance,
Speaker 1: our friends and you know, maybe you know a romantic partner.
Speaker 1: You don't go into a situation saying we need to
Speaker 1: have the best time together, and we need to advance
Speaker 1: our friendship and we need to be best friends. By
Speaker 1: the end of this, you know, we're on track to
Speaker 1: being good friends and we're gonna fall in love at
Speaker 1: this time here. No, what happens is that you create
Speaker 1: space without intention of how you're going to feel at
Speaker 1: the end of your hanging out with a friend, and
Speaker 1: then you sit with that person and you explore being
Speaker 1: in the moment together and it flows and you know
Speaker 1: when it happens, whether it's a date or whether it's
Speaker 1: your friends or whether with your partner, you begin to
Speaker 1: feel woa, time is just flowing by and we are
Speaker 1: simply being in the moment. And people know what this
Speaker 1: experience is like, they strive for it. And actually most
Speaker 1: of the people who are quote unquote struggle with exercise
Speaker 1: feel themselves compulsed to go back to exercise because this
Speaker 1: is maybe the only moment in the day when they're
Speaker 1: actually maybe present or actually maybe they're tuned out from
Speaker 1: constantly being a manager and so creating more space in
Speaker 1: your day to day life. To simply experience reality and
Speaker 1: not approach it as a problem allows us to actually
Speaker 1: experience a lot of the things that make us humans,
Speaker 1: such as love and friendship and connection and and so
Speaker 1: I think there's some hints there in maybe you know,
Speaker 1: if you look at the things that really help you
Speaker 1: be present in the moment when you're with your partner,
Speaker 1: with your friends, your family, or whoever. Might be lost
Speaker 1: in a good book not for the sake of completing it,
Speaker 1: but rather just reading it. I mean, this is something
Speaker 1: that we can start to explore in other areas as
Speaker 1: opposed to look at everything as another work problem. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, like I said, I expected to really talk
Speaker 1: about exercise addiction in a different way, and I think
Speaker 1: this conversation took such a beautiful turn and has allowed
Speaker 1: us to really think about life in such a multidimensional way.
Speaker 1: So thank you, Matt. Thank you for being on the
Speaker 1: show twice, and we hope to have you as a
Speaker 1: third time later on. So thanks for being you doing
Speaker 1: the work that you do, and we'll see you soon.
Speaker 1: So that's great. Thanks for having me, Lisa