Welcome to episode number 10 of the Balanced Vibes podcast!
FREE 5-day video course on Burnout Recovery! If you're like me, and have suffered from burnout, metabolic damage and/or obsessive food and exercise behavior, this course is a must-do. Get all the details, and sign up HERE: https://kerstenkimura.lpages.co/burnout-recovery-spectrum/
Other resources:
Simple Strength For Women: A Bodyweight Strength Training Program for Women After Hypothalamic Amenorrhea recovery: https://kersten-kimura.teachable.com/p/simple-strength-for-women
Is Your Metabolism Slow? FREE guide to faster metabolism: https://kerstenkimura.lpages.co/slow-metabolism/
How to Eat to Get Your Period Back: https://kerstenkimura.lpages.co/how-to-eat-for-ha/
5 Tips to Reverse Overtraining Quickly: https://kerstenkimura.lpages.co/overtraining-recovery-new/
Your Fit Personality Quiz: https://kerstenkimura.lpages.co/fit-personality/
Inspiring success stories: https://kerstenkimura.com/testimonials/
Work with me: https://kerstenkimura.com/work-with-me/
When Change Is Scary But Necessary: Why I Changed My Focus and Business
Today’s episode is different because I don’t have a list of bullet points and major takeaways for you.
Instead, I’m sharing what’s on my mind regarding the change that has been happening in my life and business — why I’ve stopped talking so much about, and coaching only, Hypothalamic Amenorrhea recovery (although I still do coach women who have this issue) and switched to other topics of health and fitness.
I’m going to share why this change, as scary as it seemed, had to happen.
Hundreds Of Posts On Hypothalamic Amenorrhea and Recovery
I started blogging about Hypothalamic Amenorrhea in early 2017, when I first found out that I have it. My initial goal wasn’t to coach anyone, I just wanted to blog about my own journey. But after I got my period back five months later, with the help of my acupuncturist and the book No Period, Now What and the Facebook group associated with it (I am no longer part of the group), I realized that I can help others do the same.
I had been through the whole journey and was happy to help other women understand the symptoms of Hypothalamic Amenorrhea, what they have to do in order to recover, and hold them accountable as they were going through this.
Over the next three years, I wrote literally hundreds of blog posts on the topic of Hypothalamic Amenorrhea, and filmed hundreds of videos which are all available on my YouTube channel.
The Need for Change
After being in this space for quite some time, and being fully recovered, I had realized that I want to change and pick up more active lifestyle again.
I addition, I wanted to change my body a bit, after I had been in the recovery weight for years (and actually gained some even after recovery).
So, I wanted to start watching my food a bit more and increase my exercise, but as I was thinking about it, I felt somehow wrong: I had been talking about Hypothalamic Amenorrhea, food freedom, resting and recovering, for such a long time, that I started wondering if it’s even okay to share my new goals and how they would be perceived.
But inside I knew that while what I was teaching was still true for someone in recovery, for me personally, it no longer was. I had moved on and wanted to live, and share, what I'm doing now. I was also hoping that doing so would inspire those who are in recovery, and show them that they don't have to be in recovery mode forever!
I Felt I No Longer Fit In
Moreover, I had started noticing more and more messaging in the anti-diet and body positivity communities that were hard for me to agree with. You can read my other post on this topic here and here.
I would see statements like:
Regular exercise is bad and wrong because it means you’re obsessed.
Wanting to change your body is wrong. If you do, you don’t love yourself.
You should never track anything, even if it’s for educational purposes (most people in these circles seemed to say that this is not even an option — any tracking and awareness was automatically “obsessive”).
Making an effort to eat organic food is “too clean” and obsessive.
Weight loss is a bad idea, under any circumstances, but especially if you want to lose fat.
Bodyweight never matters.
I’ve seen people being judged when they simply say that they don’t enjoy fast food but prefer pizza — that, too, was judged as obsessive.
Don’t get me wrong — not all body positivity is like that. And it has done a lot of work helping normalizing various types of bodies. But there was more and more content that I could not agree with. Parts of it started to feel unhealthy.
Physical activity has been very important for me for as long as I remember.
I do shop mostly organic food when I can.
I do have a preference in the way I look.
So, many of these things went against of what I believed in, so I had to distance myself from it.
Why The Change Was Scary At First
At first, when I started putting out different content, I was scared to be judged. Whether I like it or not, deep inside, I’m a people pleaser. I am working on it continuously, because I know that people pleasing is not healthy nor helpful to anyone, even if it may seem like it at first. At the end of the day, I teach my clients all the time that they can’t worry about what others think!
At the same time, I was worried: What if I start admitting that sugar is not that great for me? I had figured out that eating sugar caused me terrible menstrual cramps.
What if I start sharing that I actually do work out, would that make my followers mad? It did, but only a few of them.
What if I say that I track my protein intake? Someone actually sent me a direct message on Instagram and asked why do I want my followers to go back to eating disorders… Which is the last thing I want.
And finally, what if I admitted that today, 3 years after recovery, I actually do want to lose some body fat? I was really scared of that.
But eventually, I realized that if I don’t talk about these things, I’m not being authentic. Showing my life on the Internet is a huge part of my job. And if I wanted to continue to do do that, if I wanted to keep it as part of the brand, I had to admit that I have changed.
Ultimately, it had to be my followers' choice whether they want to follow along, or whether they want to stop following. Also, I trusted that they're responsible enough to understand that where they are now, is not where I am 3 years after recovery.
I Was Craving More Positivity
In addition, I wanted to surround myself with more positivity, and become more positive myself too. I no longer wanted to emphasize the message about how our culture and society are forcing us lose more and more weight and measure our value based on our looks.
There’s a lot of truth to it as the pressure is huge, but on the other hand, we have the power and freedom to say that we don’t want that! No one can force us to lose more weight or make us listen to those messages that are telling us that we have to shrink ourselves. It's far more empowering to realize that we have a voice and we don’t have to do what the society wants us to do.
We get to make our own choices — and isn’t that freeing to stop living in the victim mode?
Conclusion
Health and fitness have always been my passions. But I have been in different phases in my life with it. There was a major burnout, then there were years of healing, and finally, I feel like I’ve arrived at balance.
I hope that no matter where you are on this journey, this will be your goal as well.
And at the end of the day, if no change happens and if we always stay the same, isn’t that a tragedy? I know I don’t want to be stagnant.
Join me on the FREE 5-day video course, Burnout Recovery Spectrum!
In this program, we’re going through all 3 phases of the Burnout Recovery, I will teach you exactly how to do a self-assessment and understand where you are on this journey, learn about our metabolism and why it has slowed down, and how to heal it.
We start on Wednesday, June 3rd! Sign up HERE.
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