EP 20 - Joyful Movement with Kim Hagle

In this episode I am joined by my friend and colleague Kim Hagle.

Kim is a certified Personal Trainer, Registered Holistic Nutritionist, mom of four and founder of Radiant Vitality Wellness.  Kim hosts The Joyful Movement Show podcast and through her signature program “Discover Joyful Movement”, she helps women who feel unmotivated to discover what moves them through intuitive movement, eating and mindset coaching so they can heal their relationship to exercise and feel confident in their now body.

Remember from episode 14, Intuitive Eating principle 9 Exercise Feel the difference, I shared I was going to bring on some special guests? Kim is one of these special guests!  I wanted to bring her on to talk about joyful movement, what that is and how we can find it for ourselves. Join us as we discuss Kim’s awareness of emotional eating and how that shifted and how she was able to get out of the traditional fitness world to create joyful movement for herself and her clients. 

Mentioned on the Show

Kim's Motivation Secret

Find Kim on IG

Find Kim on FB

Healthily Ever After info

Healthily Ever After Application

Am I an Emotional Eater Quiz

How our thoughts and emotions affect our eating

Transcript

Sabrina  0:01  
I am so excited to share this episode with you. I am joined by my friend and colleague Kim Heiko. Kim is a certified personal trainer registered holistic nutritionist mama four and founder of radiant vitality wellness. Kim hosts the joyful movement show podcast. And through her signature program discover joyful movement. She helps women who feel unmotivated to discover what moves them through intuitive movement, eating and mindset coaching, so they can heal their relationship to exercise and feel confident in their now body. Remember, for Episode 14 intuitive eating principle nine exercise feel the difference. I shared I was going to bring on some special guests. Kim is one of the special guests, I wanted to bring her on to talk about joyful movement, what that is and how we can find it for ourselves. Join us as we discuss Kim's awareness of emotional eating and how that has shifted. And how she was able to get out of the traditional fitness world to create joyful movement for herself and her clients. Are you ready, friend? Let's do this. Welcome, welcome. Thanks for joining me on the emotional eating therapist show. How are you doing today?

Kim  1:18  
I'm doing great. And thanks so much for inviting me on to chat.

Sabrina  1:22  
Yeah, I am super excited to bring you on and talk about exercise versus movement and in all things, that sort of fitness realm and being in the non diet space. But before we jump into that, I'm curious, what's your experience with emotional eating?

Kim  1:38  
Yeah, you You definitely got me thinking about that. I knew you were gonna ask this question. And I pondered it a little bit. At first, I was going to respond and say, well, I've never been an emotional eater. But I know that's not true. Because everything that we do in life is emotional on some levels. So while I wouldn't say that I was ever that person who like, quote, ate my feelings, like I was never someone who ate when I was sad, or lonely or bored. What I did notice is rebellious or jealous type eating. Like I always, I always felt that my body was wrong. And I know we'll talk about this throughout the interview needed to be controlled, and I would be jealous of the people who could quote eat whatever they wanted, right? While I was having to restrict and watch everything and make sure that I was doing it right and doing it perfectly perfectly. And especially when I entered my career in the fitness world that was even more heightened so emotional eating for me became like secret binge eating in private that had more to do with that jealousy and anger around what everybody else was allowed to have that I was not. Hmm

Sabrina  3:05  
Yeah, and I hear that a lot, especially from people in the like the fitness industry, I think that the phrase has always been your body is your business card, and having all of that pressure to look a certain way and and then maintain that. And you know, since we know from intuitive eating, everybody is different. And so yes, there are people who can eat everything and have super high metabolisms, and just genetically have different makeup. And then there are people like you and I who have similar body styles that try as hard as we want. There are, we're never going to be a size to

Kim  3:47  
well, we mean we can be but it certainly isn't sustainable. Uh huh. Yeah.

Sabrina  3:53  
Yeah. So tell me and the listeners a little bit more about you and who you are and kind of how you came into this. Non diet fitness space.

Kim  4:03  
Yeah, well, it's it's a bit of a story as most things are. So I My name is Kim hagl. And I am a non diet personal trainer, and I'm also a registered holistic nutritionist. I've been a personal trainer for almost 10 years, I guess now. And if you would have known me growing up, when they talk about like most likely to be whatever, I would not have been most likely to be a personal trainer. I was the kid who was picked last for all the sports teams. I was clumsy, I was slow. I couldn't run the length of my driveway. And I really judged myself very harshly for that. And I avoided anything athletic for my entire childhood, teen years and even early adulthood. I just I just wouldn't even try. But I don't remember a time where I didn't have body image issues like I Like I said, I believe my body to be wrong for ever. And I started probably restricting food when I was about 12. And that morphed into official dieting and to my 20s on and off diets you know, I did the whole yo yo thing for for quite some time. And I have four children now but it was after I had my my third one where I wasn't returning to work, I was a stay at home mom, kind of struggling with my identity, really struggling with my body image at a whole other level and desperately wanted to change my body, but desperately did not want to dye it because I knew it didn't work. And a friend of mine had had success hiring a personal trainer and doing exercise in that. So I thought, well, maybe I could try that. So I hired a personal trainer, she came to my house, it was really private and safe and everything and she was lovely. And we're still friends. So I'm I think very highly of her. And she taught me how to move my body in a different way. And I was started lifting weights and doing things and I felt strong and powerful and capable in my body for the first time in my life. Which immediately morphed into an obsession and a need to prove myself mostly to myself, but also to everybody who ever cut me from their sports team and picked on me as a child. So being that I was a stay at home mom at that time and working out kind of became my full time job. I made it my job. And I went and became certified as a personal trainer and I worked for several years under the traditional paradigm of like, move more, eat less, and everybody can have this body if they just train hard enough. And I did go back to dieting, of course.

And yeah, I got a lot of praise and a lot of acknowledgement for my thin body. And also I had some pretty, I don't want to say success. But in athletic pursuits, I started running and I was winning races and like I was doing all these things that I had never had been able to do. And I was so praised for it. And that's kind of how my life went for a few years. And it was wonderful. I thought, even though like it wasn't because I was having to very closely monitor what I was eating. And I was having all this jealous eating that I told you about and the secret binges and always having to make sure that I didn't gain weight because I had to like protect this identity I had created for myself, but you know, it was taken along pretty good until it didn't anymore. So life kind of caught up with me and a few things kind of happened in over the span of a couple of years I went through a divorce and ended up falling in love again and getting remarried and having another baby and he had special needs and like through all that whirlwind whirlwind of everything. I had way bigger fish to fry in my life than trying to maintain this than ideal. And I gave up on the whole dieting and exercising to to lose weight sort of thing and stumbled into intuitive eating and intuitive movement all on my own. Realize that I actually do really enjoy moving my body but more for the the mental benefits of it and how it helps me clear my head and just how it makes me feel. So that was great, except that I could no longer be a personal trainer because or I thought because I was a fraud in my industry, right? Like I didn't I could not live longer maintain that perfect body. I was like, well, your body's your business card. And how can I help anybody when I look like this. So I left for a couple of years. And in that time, I worked in a job that I really, really hated. And I wanted to come back to the fitness industry so badly, but I just felt like I can't like I can't do that I can't go back to that restriction. And that obsession, it's not good for me. And somewhere in there, I stumbled upon the non diet world and the non diet approach and really dug into educating myself. And that's where you and I met was in the non diet mentorship with Stephanie DOJ. And that changed everything like you know, not only was this transformative for me in finding the non diet approach, but like there's a whole world of people who need this too and in fact, the traditional paradigm of fitness really isn't helping anybody at all and we can talk about that later but yeah, so that's how I ended up in the non diet world. It is a bit of a story but

Sabrina  9:38  
but it sounds like it was the holy grail that you were looking for that you had this passion for for movement and moving your own body and helping women move their bodies. But in the traditional fitness sense in the traditional diet sense it just didn't align. But there wasn't a lot out there in the okay, but what else

Kim  9:58  
it's all we knew, right? And when I I studied as a personal trainer like that's how we're taught like, of course, the only reason you would exercise or move your body is to try to lose weight or to change your shape in some way, shape or form. Right? So it was just, yeah, originally, it just felt good. And it was this way to connect with myself, but it morphed into the diet thing, because that's just how the fitness industry is built. Mm hmm. Talk to me a little bit

Sabrina  10:23  
more about this idea of exercise versus movement. Yeah,

Kim  10:29  
I think it's such an important distinction to make. And I every now and then I do use the words interchangeably, but they are, they are different. And I like to focus on movement more than exercise, because exercise is kind of a made up phenomenon. And if you go back, you know, 50 years in history, that wasn't even a thing. Like we didn't have gyms, we didn't have treadmills, we didn't have weight machines. And I mean, if you mentioned to one of your, your girlfriends that are going out for a run, they'd look at you like you had a third head, right? Like, we don't need exercise, exercise is littered with rules and all or nothing. And there's a right and wrong way to do it. And it has to include weights, and it has to include HIIT training, and like that's all structured black and white, right and wrong, where human beings just need to move. And I do believe that every human being regardless of ability level needs movement. But it certainly doesn't need to look like lifting weights in a gym, there is so many options available to you. And I think when we get stuck in exercise, we feel really limited. And we can get into a lot of self judgment and yucky stuff.

Sabrina  11:41  
Yeah. So you were predominantly on the movement piece within your program. Correct. So as you're working with women, what is maybe the first step, and maybe like a an easy step that the listeners can take to help heal their relationship with exercise movement and their body?

Kim  12:01  
Oh, that's such a good question. I love that so much. I really think it starts in our mind, right? Like, we all like to target the action, right? Like, oh, maybe I just need to find a different trainer that I resonate better with, maybe I need to find a new piece of equipment or a different program that I like better. But I really think that it starts in our mind because our thoughts create our feelings. And then that's going to impact how we how we behave and what we choose to do. And I think the most important mindset shift to make is to disconnect your movement practice, from body goals, right? So if you can ditch the diet mentality, or even just the idea that moving your body has anything to do with changing your shape, that's the first step and look instead at what are the other benefits to movement that are important to me. Everybody, it still happens to me now when people come to me wanting to start a personal training program, they always say they want to lose 10 pounds. And like, Why? Because I want to feel better. Okay, so like, let's unpack what feeling better actually means to you. Right? Is that feeling stronger is that having more mobility, more energy and stamina to get through your day, you won't be able to carry your groceries into the house without getting winded, like what is feeling better look like. And that's, that's what we really all want. And when we can focus on those benefits, then we can connect to our movement practice in a way that actually allows us to progress and enjoy it and feel better without any expectation that losing weight is the outcome.

Sabrina  13:43  
Beautiful, I think you outlined so well, almost all of your 10 principles from your joyful movement Manifesto. And if anybody is listening to this, and you want to go check that out. I will put the link in the show notes. But Kim has this wonderful list and we're both purple ladies. Color is also mine so I love all of the purple within the website. But you talked about rejecting the diet mentality and being more than your physical body embracing embodiment. Hmm, talk a little bit more about me with this challenging the gym police who are the gym bullies.

Kim  14:23  
Yeah. So they're not real people. So my 10 principles of joyful movement are kind of a spin off of the 10 principles of intuitive eating. So if any of your listeners I know they're probably familiar with intuitive eating because you talk about that and in within intuitive eating. We talked about challenging the food police. So I've extrapolated that and made up the Jim police but they're they're just these voices in our head. They're just thoughts, that natter at us about all of the ways that fitness is supposed to look all the rules all the shoulds and shit ends whether you're doing it right or doing you're not or not doing it right. How many reps, how many sets So much cardio, and blah, blah, blah. And really their only goal in life, the gym police is to highlight everything that we're doing wrong, or not doing in comparison to all the other people and basically remind us that we are no good and will never be good enough. So yeah, they just need to go.

Sabrina  15:18  
Yeah. And I'm curious, how have you seen that shift for yourself in challenging them? Like, what did that look like when you first started out?

Kim  15:27  
Oh, that's, that's a brilliant question. Um, one way in particular is like, my favorite way to move my body is to run I love to run. And in the past, I would track all of my runs. And I would, I'd have all the audio cues turned on to tell me what pace I was going and I'd be able to check in and be like, Oh my gosh, I'm slower than I was the other day or and then I would like check the leaderboards and see who's running faster than me, or who's running more miles than me and like, play this whole comparison game in my head and ranking myself and basically proving that I don't measure up to anybody. So that's taken some unpacking right and some unlearning to just silence that voice and I'm like I'm only doing this for myself like what what are the benefits of running for me? And that for me is just an opportunity to get out of the house and have some time to myself to listen to the podcasts that I enjoy to fill my brain with good things and be in nature and listen to the sounds and sights around me like that's what I love about running so I don't need it doesn't matter how fast I go doesn't matter how far I go It doesn't matter if I walk a little bit it doesn't matter if I start out running and five minutes in go like this isn't working for me and walk the rest or come home and do stretching instead like having that whole like it must be 5k It must be this fast and like Yeah, no, I'm over it

Sabrina  17:00  
sounds like they had kind of very similar journeys in that regard of like when I was a kid I hated I hated running and I would try to make up every excuse I could to not run the mile in gym class. And then for whatever reason, like I decided one day I woke up and I'm like, I'm going to be a runner. So I researched off like the couch to 5k programs and like yes, focusing on how far I was going and how fast I was going and how much I was running and how much I was walking. And then I signed up to do a half marathon with one of my best friends and part of the reason I signed up with her is because she she's younger than I am she can run faster than me so I figured she's gonna push me she's gonna help me be better but it didn't work that way and I ended up comparing myself to her and like well why like why why can't I run as fast as Mary Why can't I run as far as her and it ended up being kind of the opposite effect whereas now I had to take I think I took a whole year off of movement like completely other than like some gentle walking here and there I started going to classes I stopped lifting weights I stopped running because I had to seriously take a look at why I was doing all these things and I was like no I really enjoy running I really enjoy it okay but I I'm not going to go I'm not going to download any more apps and I'm not going to set my too bad a timer to tell me when to run and when to walk I'm going to get out there and Mrs. My dog we're going to run and when we're tired we're going to stop and are ready to run again we're going to run and when we're tired we're going to stop Yeah, and it has been such a beautiful shift of like I still track my miles because I signed up to do a 600 mile challenge this year. But it's not like I have to get these miles this year I have to do this I had like I track it because it's a really pretty picture of them coloring.

Kim  18:54  
Oh fun. Yeah, you know I still track my miles too but for a totally different reason than I used to where before it was totally a comparison game and did I do enough and you know, what's everybody else doing and how's my speed and blah blah blah. Now it's more I set goals based on my real life. Right and like I backed away from a lot of movement too when I was doing all this unlearning and as such my cardiovascular fitness kind of went in the tank. So you know my real life goal is to see my cardiovascular fitness improves so I track to see okay at the start of the month I felt like this and I describe it and then I see how many times did I get out and either bike walk, run swam, whatever what activities did I do to try to improve my cardiovascular fitness and then I look at the end of the month Okay, I did this much how do I feel now? right and so it's it's purely just to kind of check in with myself and and see Am I on track to improve And meet my fitness goals.

Sabrina  20:02  
So it's not it's a different sense of accountability. Whereas you know, when we're in like the the diet space, and I hear this a lot from both my coaching and counseling clients of like off, I just had more motivation Oh, I just I just need accountability, I just need you to, like, hold me. I'm gonna do it, make sure I do it. How do you work with that? Because it's the mindset thing again? Oh, 100%

Kim  20:27  
it is. Yeah. And I mean, if I had a nickel for every time I heard somebody say they need me to hold them accountable or that they struggle with motivation. I'd be retired A long time ago. Whenever I hear somebody say, I need you to hold me accountable. I go, No, you don't. But we do need to look at why you think you need to be held accountable, it's kind of goes back to that willpower thing, right? Like, employing willpower really just means you're doing whatever you got to do to get through this thing that you hate. So when you're asking me to hold you accountable, it's like you don't like this, I know that. But you want me to stand here and yell at you and tell you to do the thing? Like how is that actually going to improve your motivation? It might get you through that one workout? But does it help you to like experience joy for movement and give you that sense that you want to keep doing this? No, no. So motivation is a pretty is a well studied topic and in our industry, because it's such a huge study, or such a huge struggle for most people. And we know that there are some things that lead to motivation. And one thing that is a big motivation, killer, and if anybody wants to read more about this, I've got a free guide on my website they can go get. So I'll give you the link to put in the show notes. But I wrote the motivation secret that people people can go grab. But you know, when we feel positive feelings towards the way that we're moving, we're gonna feel a lot more motivated. So if you like what you're doing, and you feel like you're competent at it, and you're part of a community of people that you enjoy moving with, and you have choices, those are the things that motivate you. But if you're only chasing body goals, or weight loss, it's pretty much a sure thing that you will struggle with motivation. It's just not going to keep you going. Because it's unsustainable, right? We know that, like it's just the same as dieting, it doesn't work long term.

Sabrina  22:21  
When if it did, you know, we'd all you and I probably wouldn't have jobs. It would just be easy, and everybody would be doing it. Mm hmm. Sure that so you have your own podcast, right?

Kim  22:34  
I do. Yeah. It's called the joyful movement show.

Sabrina  22:37  
Yeah. Tell me more about that. I mean, tell my listeners because I already listened.

Kim  22:42  
So I started the joyful movement show almost a year ago. We're coming up on our one year anniversary in October. And yeah, I talk about all things related to movement, and just unpacking that whole diet culture nonsense that's infiltrated the fitness industry and really help people. just dig into that mindset of what why are you engaging with exercise? And why do you struggle with motivation? Like we pick that all apart and help people create the mindset that they need to have a more enjoyable experience when they're moving your body? So yeah, it's been so much fun. Working through the podcast, I never ever thought that I'd be doing something like that with my life. But it's my most favorite thing. It's my most favorite part of my job now.

Sabrina  23:33  
I agree. I, I never never pictured myself doing this. And when Stephanie said, that's one of the requirements in our mentorship program. I was like, Oh, yeah. And now here I am. And honestly, like, I love it. It's, I don't know why it's so much fun. I think it's just, it's neat to be able to get out there and share our messages with so many people across the globe, rather than, you know, our little circle.

Kim  23:59  
Yeah, it's true. I live in a really small town and everybody knows me and I know everybody and yeah, through the podcast, I've been able to, like you say reach people, and all the continents of the world. And you know, and when I hear messages or get emails that they've been listening and that my words have impacted them in some way. I'm like, wow, that's, that's really touching. And that's all I've ever wanted, right is to help people change their relationship with themselves and their bodies and movement. So it's pretty gratifying.

Sabrina  24:30  
And I'm so glad you came on today. Well, before we wrap up fully, is there anything else that you want to make sure that people know about movement or you or the joyful movement show or your program

Kim  24:46  
um, I guess the only other thing I like to talk about is you know, the whole No pain, no gain mentality. I guess it kind of goes along with what we've been talking about, but I think that's probably the most overused fitness. as motivation saying, and by that, I mean it's not at all motivating. Yeah, so exercise shouldn't hurt, there's no need to, to push yourself to that level like, and I know that. sayings like that are often said with the best of intentions and we say these things to try to get our clients to work harder, and maybe it works in the moment, but I think we're really there's a fine line between pushing yourself and pain and yeah, it's, it can be fun to to push yourself and challenge yourself to reach a new level. But if you've got in your brain that things have to hurt, to succeed or to make improvements, it's not good, it's not good. And, you know, I've seen too many times where people like hurt themselves, like legit cause an injury because they're buying into this whole mentality. And it's just, it's not necessary. Like we don't, we don't need to hurt ourselves to make gains, like, I just really want people to understand that movement is meant to feel good. And it's a way to honor your body and to show your body respect and care. And, and that can totally be done in a fun way, regardless of your ability level, or what injuries or conditions that you have. And yeah, you mentioned my program. And that's kind of the thing that we I teach inside my program discovered joyful movement is like, how to disconnect that whole diet mentality in your movement, practice, and then create a way to move your body that's honoring to you and meet you where you're at, and helps you meet those real life goals that you have for yourself that have nothing to do with, with weight loss.

Sabrina  26:40  
And I think coming back to that, no pain, no gain mentality of, if we look at pain, as a message from our body, it can be a very fine line of Okay, my body is telling me that I did too much. And I need to take it easy. Rather than getting back into the gym or getting back out on the treadmill, and pushing pushing through it. Versus my body's saying, Oh, I'm a little stiff, because we haven't moved in a while. And I think as far as like mindset work, how much do you go into that into your program of helping people get into your bodies and differentiate that fine line?

Kim  27:23  
Yeah, we go into it deep. Like that's what the whole, the whole thing is about. And I teach my clients three really important questions that they can ask themselves at the start of every movement session, which is how do I feel today? And how do I want to feel at the end of this movement session? And then what does my body need in order to get that desired feeling? And like you say, yeah, there there can be a time where, yeah, your body's sore, and it's achy. And pushing yourself hard in the gym would not be a good idea. But then there's other times that you're sore, and you're achy. And it's because you've been sitting at your desk for too long. So how do you know the difference? Well, it's by really coming into your body and learning how your body feels and what each signal means. And I talk a lot about movement cravings, kind of like how we have a hunger signal, we also have a movement signal. And your body is really capable of letting you know what type of movement it needs to feel better in any moment.

Sabrina  28:25  
That's beautiful. And I think it's it's so great that you spend all of that time really focusing on the individuality of what what my body is saying probably feels different than what your body is saying. It sounds like you really take the time to help the women that you work with. Really tune into what that is. Yeah,

Kim  28:44  
yeah, cuz that's, that's really what the goal of movement is right is to help us feel better like if we're not exercising to lose weight, then we're moving to feel better so what does feeling better mean for you Only you know that so my my role is to teach you how to tap into that to be in your body embrace embodiment, and figure that out for yourself. So yeah, it takes a bit of work takes a bit of experimentation. But when you can get it it's then that light bulb comes on and suddenly you have that joy for movement and that intrinsic motivation to do it for just the good feelings that it brings.

Sabrina  29:23  
Okay, if you are on Facebook, Instagram, you have the joyful movement show people can find you and I'll post links in the shownotes where people can find you at radiant vitality wellness, correct? That's right. Yep. Okay, anywhere else that people can find you or you want to send people.

Kim  29:39  
I think that's about it. My website is radiant vitality.ca and it's on there that they can go grab that motivation secret, it'll pop up as soon as they land on my website, but I think those are the main places that I hang out.

Sabrina  29:51  
Awesome, awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on. And I would I would love to bring you back and I because I think we can dive even deeper onto some of these other principles that you have. And so if you gals are listening and you have any questions for Kim, let me know and we'll definitely invite her back.

Kim  30:08  
I could talk about this stuff all day, so I'd be happy to come back. Thanks so much for having me.

Unknown Speaker  30:13  
You're welcome. Thank you.

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