Exercise - no more, no less

In my latest interview with NowTV, (stay tuned for that - coming soon!!), I share a little about the role that fitness played in my recovery. 

A lot of people ask me how I approach fitness and exercise in recovery - how I differentiate between compulsive and enjoyable movement, and how I maintain a balance between exercising and the rest of my life. 

To that question, my answer is this: My biggest perspective change was learning to see exercise as no more and no less than it actually is. 

What does that mean? It means that I realized that exercise is MUCH more than just a way to burn calories - it’s a way to get my happy hormones, a way to amp up my mental focus and a way to spend time with my one of my favorite communities. At the same time, my performance in the gym does NOT equate to my self-worth - I don’t deny that being part of my gym community contributes to a large part of my identity and that my achievements in the gym are some of the ones that I’m proudest of, but my value and my confidence is not defined by any number, whether this is my weight, how many reps I got, how much weight I lifted, how many calories I burned, etc.

Today, I see exercising for everything that it is - the mental, physical and social benefits that it brings - and this has allowed it to be enough for me, in and of itself. I no longer need to use my physical appearance as a projection of who I wish I could be internally (i.e. Believing that confidence comes with being a certain body size) because I am much clearer about who I am - recovery has allowed me to really hone in on what is important to me and what my values are. I no longer need to use exercise to numb away or superficially deal with negative feelings, because I know that I am capable of facing these feelings head on.