Satisfaction Factor
Satisfaction Factor
#99 - Debunking Weight & Joint Pain Myths with Dr. Lisa Folden
Have you ever been told that losing weight is the key to relieving joint pain? Prepare to challenge that belief as we explore the complex relationship between joint pain, weight, and overall health with Dr. Lisa Folden!
Dr. Lisa N. Folden is a North Carolina licensed physical therapist, NASM certified behavior change specialist and Anti-diet Health & Body Image Coach. She owns Healthy Phit Physical Therapy & Wellness Consultants in Charlotte, NC where she provides trauma-informed and weight-inclusive care to clients in diverse bodies and those in eating disorder recovery.
As a health at every size (HAES®️) ambassador and movement expert, Dr. Folden assists clients seeking healthier lifestyles. Her weight-neutral approach encourages intuitive eating, joyful movement, body acceptance and breaking up with toxic diet culture.
Dr. Lisa is a mom of three, published author and speaker whose goal is to see as many people as possible living their best lives without worrying about their weight!
In this episode, we're chatting about:
- the misconceptions surrounding body size and health
- the importance of self-compassion, and the impact of anti-diet work far beyond food and exercise
- the significant roles of age, activity levels, strength, flexibility, injuries, posture, and lifestyle changes in managing pain
- the myth that weight is the primary cause of joint discomfort, and how bones and joints are designed to handle progressive loads, even for those who have always lived in larger bodies
- the pervasive anti-fat bias in the medical and fitness industries, where weight gain is often lazily cited as the root cause of various health issues
- the importance of a more compassionate and comprehensive approach to health.
You can connect with Dr. Lisa and learn how to work with her on Instagram @healthyphit, on Facebook, on Pinterest, or at her website. And be sure to check out her 30-day Body Respect Journal!
Stay in touch with the pod on IG @satisfactionfactorpod!
And here's where you can continue to find us:
Sadie Simpson: www.sadiesimpson.com or IG @sadiemsimpson
Naomi Katz: www.happyshapes.co or IG @happyshapesnaomi
Welcome to Satisfaction Factor, the podcast where we explore how ditching diet culture makes our whole lives more satisfying. Welcome back to Satisfaction Factor. I'm Naomi Katz, an intuitive eating and body image coach.
Speaker 2:I'm Sadie Simpson, a intuitive eating and body image coach. I'm Sadie Simpson, a group fitness instructor and personal trainer. Before we dig into this week's episode, just a reminder. If you would like to support the show, we have merch. We have a handful of designs we'll keep public that can be printed as stickers, t-shirts, sweatshirts, mugs, tote bags and whatever else you like. T-shirts and sweatshirts come into sizes up to 5X and you can check that out at the link in our show notes.
Speaker 1:Also just a reminder that if you're looking for some support in your intuitive eating and anti-diet work, I've got availability for all of my coaching options. I've got spots available for one-on-one intuitive eating and anti-diet coaching. I have spots available for my individual pay what you can calls mindset reset calls, and the wait list is also open for the next cohort of my group coaching program, Nourish and Bloom, and you can get all of the information about all of those options on my website, happyshapesco.
Speaker 2:Today we're talking to Dr Lisa Folden about weight-neutral approaches to joint pain, mobility and other physical health issues. Dr Lisa Ann Folden is a North Carolina licensed physical therapist, nasm certified behavior change specialist and anti-diet, health and body image coach. She owns Healthy Fit Physical Therapy and Wellness Consultants in Charlotte, north Carolina, where she provides trauma-informed and weight-inclusive care to clients in diverse bodies and those in eating disorder recovery. As a health-at-every-size ambassador and movement expert, dr Fulton assists clients seeking healthier lifestyles. Her weight-neutral approach encourages intuitive eating, joyful movement, body acceptance and breaking up with toxic diet culture. Dr Lisa is a mom of three, published author and speaker whose goal is to see as many people as possible living their best lives without worrying about their weight.
Speaker 1:And we are so excited to talk to Lisa, because this is a topic that we've been wanting to cover for the entire time that we've been doing this podcast, which is three years now, and Lisa is specifically who we've wanted to invite to talk with us about it. And we got it in just in time, because our next episode, on October 2nd, will be both our 100th episode and our last episode.
Speaker 2:Ah, cue like the sound effect music here.
Speaker 1:We have a lot of thoughts and feelings about this and we are going to be sharing all of them with you then, so be sure to tune in on October 2nd for our 100th episode, our third anniversary and our goodbye episode. But for now, let's talk to Lisa. Welcome, lisa. Thank you so much for being here with us today. We are so excited to be getting to talk to you.
Speaker 3:Thank you for having me. I'm very excited to have this conversation also.
Speaker 1:We are somewhat local, like we're all in North Carolina and we have been wanting to invite you on the pod for a while, so we're like very excited that you're finally here.
Speaker 3:Same same same. What part of North Carolina are y'all in? We're in Asheville. Okay, that's right. I remember that I love Asheville. Yeah, so not too far yeah.
Speaker 1:Not too far at all. Okay, so we're going to start with the first question that we ask everybody. Can you tell us a little bit about your experience with diet culture and maybe how that's led you to the work that you do today?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's a loaded question, but absolutely, diet culture was like my whole life and it was, I would say, primarily self-inflicted. I did not have a mother that grew up like you know, body checking and doing a whole lot of that. So that was nice. But my dad was a fitness competitor and I didn't live with him. But you know, he was very influential in my life. I just I looked up to him, I put him on a pedestal and he was Mr Michigan in 1989 for the lightweight division, so oh, wow, and so I watched him work out and when I got into high school and I got into sports, he would have me come to the gym and I would work out after working out at school and I would see, you know, all of these people with these, you know muscles or really tone, tight, thin bodies, and that was just my perception of health.
Speaker 3:That is what I thought health was, and the irony in that is becoming an adult and recognizing that all of the things that my dad was doing in his fitness competitor life was like absolutely disordered and I mean severe, under eating, working out hours a day and then, when competition season was over, just binging like crazy. So, um, but I back then that's what I pictured to be health, and so, um, I I'm always a very short statured woman and I just wanted to be small, like I just believe that my body getting big was bad, and so I probably started dieting as early as 14. And everything, all the things over the course of my life. It wasn't until I was about 37. And I'm only 43. I was 37 when I finally stopped, but I think the culminating moment of it all was after having my third child and I was done breastfeeding him and I started gaining weight and I was like Whoa we can't do this.
Speaker 3:How dare we gain weight? I went into overdrive and so this is sort of the beginning of, like, my really really disordered behaviors I would say, exercising daily and severely under eating, all of those things and I just got to a point where I couldn't hold on Like I didn't know left from right. My mind was consumed with thoughts of food and movement all day long and I was overwhelmed and I really, you know I know not everyone believes in God or higher power, but I really feel like God conspired with the universe to plant a book in my face and it was health at every size, because I never searched for this. I certainly didn't search for it in this moment. To this day, I can't really recall how I stumbled upon it. My Instagram feed was not that of anti-diet or body neutral or anti-fetal. It wasn't. So I don't know how it happened, but it came to me and I read that book and, for someone who's very into science and research, reading about it, I don't love doing it, but it was mind blowing to understand finally, to have a, to have the, the vocabulary to explain what my body had been doing to me my whole life, or what I had been doing to my body my whole life, and having the language and and understanding the science behind it blew my mind. And once I had that knowledge, it was like I can't keep living like this. So I, I mean, I took a hard left down from diet culture lane and I just started reading and learning and listening to podcasts and connecting with people in this community.
Speaker 3:And then I had to change the way that I approached my work. Because of a physical therapist, I was very you know, very traditionally trained and again associated weight with worsening health, weight with joint pain, weight, all these things. And so I had to shift from that and begin teaching my clients in a new way and coaching my clients in a new way, and it was so affirming and so freeing. It's like the weight is just lifted off your shoulders this idea that you have to ascribe to these these rules and these principles, and you must do this and this and this, and then, when it doesn't work well, you must've done something wrong, so do it again. So letting go of that, it was just. It completely changed my life and I couldn't practice in the same way anymore. You know, being a part of the health and wellness world. So that's the condensed but still long version, part of the health and wellness world.
Speaker 1:So that's the convinced but still long version. Yeah, no, I mean, I love that story. It's so. I love hearing people's stories of how they come to this stuff. It's always it's amazing to me how our stories overlap on this, like everybody's stories overlap on this, and what's so funny is people are always like I have no idea how I came across this, it just showed up when I needed it and like and I just love that. And then it just clicks because it's so representative of your personal experience A lot of times of what you're seeing with your clients but can't explain, of times of what you're seeing with your clients but can't explain, and it just like opens up this whole world and like, and also just like, takes this huge weight off your shoulders of like, so much self blame, so much beating yourself up on a personal level, on a professional level, and then it's like oh no, this is actually just how things are supposed to be actually just how things are supposed to be.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, go figure right. And it played into other areas of life. You know, always like aiming for perfection, um, seeing, you know, and I always caveat this with you know, no one is saying hard work isn't, you know, great thing for achieving certain goals, but I overemphasized, like the self um, the, the, the role that you play in in your health and in everything. And so, for me, controlling my life and making it go the way I believed it should go was about being perfect and doing all the things right. I was a very good dieter.
Speaker 2:Let me just put that out there.
Speaker 3:Okay, I was good at it because there was a time in my life when I could follow the rules to a T. But then I looked in other, like I was a very good student as well. I was a very good employee, you know, because I I believed in the value of hard work, and I still do to an extent. But but I let it drive me to this idea of perfectionism. If you can just work hard enough, you can change and do anything in your life, and that is what I believed about my body for so long. Like you can beat this body into submission and make it exactly how you want it to be, and recognizing like no, you can't Right, right, and even trying is so harmful to yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, I mean even the language there, like beat this body into submission. That sounds terrible, it's awful.
Speaker 3:It's awful, but in the fitness world mainstream fitness culture that is the language that you know we use. Beat myself into submission, suck it up, no pain, no gain, like what. But that's how I grew up and what I thought was, you know, the road to good health and recognizing that it was not even good health for my body, but it was like even worse for my mental and emotional health. That was the part where it was like, oh, I've been neglecting. You know two thirds of who I am Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:My body look a certain way so, and then you can start blaming yourself for that too. So you have to kind of let go.
Speaker 1:But yeah, that that's a huge thing, like so many, so often, when people get to that point, when they do have that like aha moment of like, oh, I actually can't hard work and control my way out of genetics and social determinants of health and like structural and systemic issues and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:Like you have that aha moment and then you go oh my God, what have I been doing with my life? And there's this other, and so like it's just, it's just this ability to like, access, compassion for yourself, all around, that's the key.
Speaker 3:That is the key.
Speaker 3:If I had a dollar, for how many times I said compassion in a session, you know, in sessions with clients, because that's all it is.
Speaker 3:It's giving ourselves a compassion we give other people every single day, like every single day we're nicer to other people than we are to ourselves and it's a shame and so, yeah, that's my whole goal now like to be kind to myself. And it shows up in letting go of diets and letting go of you know all the toxic messages we get from from that industry. But even things like just giving myself a pass, like I, I would never I used to never cancel a thing. I said I was going to a thing, my word is my bond, I am at the thing or we are doing the thing. But this past two years, just being able to say, you know what, when I scheduled this, I thought it was going to work and I feel awful today, or something's off or I just need a day, or I just need a minute and it's. It's been so beautiful to see the response that people give you like okay, absolutely, I understand and you're like yeah absolutely.
Speaker 1:I have never that was a huge learning curve for me too, and, like when I started doing that, I have never had anybody give me a hard time about canceling something like, and that has blown my mind.
Speaker 3:So silly how we do that to ourselves.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. But it's so interesting how like, ultimately it's all just perfectionism, like the, the dieting, the, like the, the health stuff, the um, like all of that, like controlling and everything, and ultimately that's. There's no way that's only going to show up in relation to food and our body. It's going to show up in all kinds of places in our lives. And so there's like such a larger path here to like deconstructing perfectionism, when we start to let go of it around food and bodies, like deconstructing perfectionism when we start to let go of it around food and bodies.
Speaker 3:Oh gosh, you are just, like I don't know, bringing up too many things, because what I'm finding is it's in every part of my life yeah, every part and you know, not something that I've talked about publicly very much, but I'm in the process of going through a divorce and that whole process is bringing up so many of the same things that came up as I as I divorced diet, culture like letting go of these ideas of what your life is supposed to look like and what you're supposed to look like and what your family is supposed to look like.
Speaker 3:And, oh my God, it's kicking my whole butt. I mean, I'm still in the thick of it, obviously, but it's just been astonishing to see the parallels in different aspects of my life. But you're right, it comes, it comes around in in so many other issues and relationships and areas of life. For sure, and it's perfectionism is a big part of it, so yeah, thank you for sharing that with us.
Speaker 1:And like, and yeah, I mean that's something I see, I've seen in my life, I've seen in with clients is that like our relationships, like how we show up in our relationships and how we offer ourselves compassion in different areas of our lives, how we handle transition, and like all of that stuff is just so heavily impacted by all of this? Yeah, it really is. I love that you already have all of these self-compassion tools to offer yourself right now. That's so nice.
Speaker 3:I need them trust me. Yeah, for sure, A lot happening, but yeah.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Well, just to sort of transition the topic a little bit works from this health at every size, weight neutral, weight inclusive perspective for health overall, but also specifically for physical therapy things, you know, joint pain, mobility, flexibility, physical wellness in general and I'd love to talk a little bit more about that, because so often the like controlling narrative, especially around joint pain, is oh, you have joint pain, well, you should lose weight, right, and I think that's something that's really really hard for people to let go of. Oh yeah. So I'm kind of curious like, first of all, is that true? Do we actually need to lose weight in order to improve our joint pain, our mobility, all of that stuff?
Speaker 3:the science, people listening. The science behind bone building, bone strengthening is that our bones respond to the progressive load that they receive, and that is why we have people doing strength training where they're loading their bodies with weights or doing body weight exercises. That weight bearing through the bones specifically we're talking about the lower extremity bones and joints is actually helpful to building strong bones, and so this concept, especially when we're talking about people who have always lived in larger or fat bodies their bones are made for them, are made for them. So this idea that your joint pain is heavily impacted by the size and weight of your body is it's just a flawed concept, and I'm not saying that there's never an instance where your weight can can impact your joints.
Speaker 3:Of course and I see this more when people gain a large amount of weight in a very short window of time, which is usually when someone is on some sort of medication that makes them like really shift bodies, like really quickly, right, that can have an impact, because it's not the progressive load of normal weight gain, right that your joints have the opportunity to adjust to. So that would be like an example of where it might be a direct correlation impact or causative impact is what I'll say. What most people experience is that correlation right? They're like when I was younger and I was thinner, I didn't have joint pain. Now that I'm older and I'm heavier, I have joint pain. It's the weight and I get that. I get why you see it that way, but I just want people to think a little deeper, because you said two things.
Speaker 3:Two things Right, right, older, yeah, so. Is it the weight? Or is it age related changes? Hello, because that is just the nature of our bodies we age the nature of our bodies. We age, things get older and some things are, are less competent than they are in our youth. Such is life, right, yeah? Or? And? Or. Because more than one or two or three or five things can be true.
Speaker 3:Is it the changes that your lifestyle has sustained over the course of time? Right, and people naturally associate that. Well, the weight change? Well, yes, and that will change. But did your activity level change, right? Has your strength changed? Has your flexibility changed over the course of all these years? Did you incur any injuries in this joint? You know what I mean. Has your posture changed? All of these things impact our joint health, and so when we just narrow in and decide it's just the weight, we're really doing our bodies a disservice, because we're not looking at the whole picture. And you can find a correlation, I think, the one that comes up all the time, I think is it bald men and lung cancer? That?
Speaker 1:could be wrong, but yeah, no, it's something like that, but this correlation.
Speaker 3:So many bald men they have. So many bald men have a higher occurrence of lung cancer and literally we know from science the baldness and the cancer have nothing to do with each other. They're just correlated. Just happens to be that way for other factors outside of those two things. And so when we're talking about weight and joint pain, a lot of times people just pull those two entities out and be like, well, you cause this and that's not what's happening. There can be correlations because, yes, if you go from being a very active person to being way more inactive, if you have an injury and find that you can't do the things you used to do, if you are expending less energy than you used to, and add in just aging, hormonal changes, all that stuff, it's very likely that you will gain weight. But that doesn't mean the weight is causing the pain in the joints. What is likely causing the pain in the joints are the degenerative changes. We know that is directly causal to joint pain and a lack of strength and flexibility that you're experiencing the joint because of the lack of activity or whatever, and hydration and supplementation, all the things. There's so many factors that directly impact the joint pain. Um, and weight is not necessarily one of them.
Speaker 3:So that's one of the myths I like busting for people, because people come in with a lot of self blame around joint pain and our medical system is so unkind to people in larger bodies and I mean I have clients right now that they their joints are done from life not from anything to do like, just from life and they need to have a joint replacement surgery and they're denied because they're too large, their BMI is too high, which is a whole thing. It's a whole thing. Advocacy is so important and that's, you know, for me, the work that I do is so important because I have to show these if I can't get them the surgery which you know we try but I have to show them so much compassion and help them be more compassionate to themselves, because they take on the blame of like, well, this is my fault If I had just figured out how to lose weight or figure out how to stay small and it's like this is not your fault. This is something that you don't deserve to just happen to happen, like so many other horrible, annoying, upsetting things in life. You didn't do this to yourself.
Speaker 3:Other horrible, annoying, upsetting things in life. You didn't do this to yourself. So taking that blame away is huge because our medical system puts it, puts it on us. So we need to know we didn't do this ourselves.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. You said so many things that I loved there and so I just want to backtrack to like a couple of parts of that. So, first of all, I loved what you said about the kind of progressive load, and I want to kind of talk about that a little bit more, because I think what's really really interesting and I think this is something that is honestly going to like blow people's minds when they think about it, because we don't think about it this way but like, like why wouldn't you know we don't talk about the harms of progressive overload in squatting or something like that? Like that's fine, definitely do that, but but you definitely can't just have body weight that does that. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:That's, that's bad.
Speaker 1:Right and like when you put it in that perspective, it's like why? Why do you think that your body can adapt to one of these things and not the other? Like why is one of these things okay and the other is your fault?
Speaker 3:Yeah, because the pathology of of weight and body size is a lucrative business. So if we can make people believe that they are the cause of their problems and fatness is a problem, then we can get money for fixing the problem. And that's what it is. I mean, that's all it is, unfortunately, and it's lazy medicine. That's what I call lazy medicine. It's like I'm not going to dig to figure anything else out, I'm just going to see it's anti-fat bias, that's what it is. I'm going to see this person in this large body and make assumptions about what they do, what they eat, how they live and I'm going to say if you just worked out more and ate a little less, change your diet up and lose some weight, you probably won't experience that pain anymore. Change your diet up and lose some weight, you probably won't experience that pain anymore.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and and even though the science doesn't support it at all the research doesn't support it at all we just, it's a low-hanging fruit, it's just, it's the easy grab so, and it's also so interesting because it's like it's counterintuitive too, because part of that prescription for weight loss is probably going to be exercise, which probably is going to include some kind of strength training and progressive overload.
Speaker 1:And so it's just so interesting that, like, you're basically prescribing for somebody to do something that their body is actually already doing and having trouble with and like needing some support with anyway.
Speaker 3:Yep, absolutely. It literally makes no sense when you think about it that way. There's no rhyme or reason to it. Because if that were the case, we would tell people, especially we would tell everyone in a fat or large body don't lift weights, because more weight on your joints is just going to make that joint pain worse. We don't do that. We encourage them to lift weights and also to overdo cardio, but we encourage that we don't tell them like, oh no, that added weight is going to blow your knees out, because, one, it's not and two, because that's not how our bodies work. Our bodies literally adjust to the load that they are given, and that is especially true when we're talking about, you know, strength training, building up our bones, building up our muscles. So, yeah, it doesn't.
Speaker 2:It does not translate, and I think sometimes people just need to hear it out loud to be like oh, I mean, I needed to hear that out loud Because as somebody that works in fitness, like personal training, teaching, group exercise this comes up all the time and to have this language of progressive overload of your body, like building this progressive strength more or less over time. Like I'm literally just going to send everybody to listen to this podcast episode because this like puts into words a lot of conversations that I have that I felt like I've just kind of muddled my way through this makes so much sense to me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Absolutely and I also liked the framing of like that. There are some exceptions like that. There is occasionally an instance where you do see, like rapid weight gain, where your body has it doesn't have the the time to adapt the way, the way it needs to.
Speaker 2:But I also.
Speaker 1:I also like your framing of it is like rapid and unusual, usually from a medication Cause. I think a lot of times people are will be like, oh well, I've put on X amount of weight over the past year and it's like, yeah, but like that's essentially progressive overload. You didn't just like snap your fingers and add a bunch of weight to your body. You've gradually been adding it over the year, which means your body is adapting to it as you're adding it.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. That's very different than I started this steroid, steroidal medication for this condition that I have, and in a week I was up 20 pounds. You know that's very different than than gaining the weight over the course of a year or six months or whatever. So, yeah, I do think those are situations, and then, you know, a lot of times that's fluid and fluid impacts us in different ways as well. So so, yeah, there are some definite considerations for changing in body size and dealing with pain in our joints, but it's, it's just not the old school lazy medicine thought process that you got fat and now your joints hurt, so fix it Like that's just. It's just dumb, it's and it's not, it's not right. That's really just the bottom line.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and then I also really appreciate the like, the perspective of multiple things are often happening at the same time. And like weight gain may be a symptom of the thing that is also causing the joint pain or the change in mobility or things like that, and so, like it's easy to say well, both of these things happened at the same time, so the weight gain is the reason. But like that, it's so important to to kind of look at the bigger picture of like no, what else is happening that could possibly have led to both of these things?
Speaker 1:Like that's a conversation I have with clients all the time about like well, I felt better, Like my body felt better, I was able to move better, like when I was in a smaller body, and it's like, okay, but what else has changed since you put on the weight? Like what? Else have you? What in your lifestyle has changed, Like that could also be making things not feel so good.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's, and I have that conversation. Sometimes it's on social media when I talk about. Like you know, you didn't cause your joint pain by gaining weight and losing weight won't necessarily change it.
Speaker 3:And people are like, well, I felt so much better when I lost weight and I'm like, okay, that's really good for you, I'm so glad you feel better. But maybe maybe it was the weight. In your case I don't live in your body and I trust that you are the expert of that and I'm not but maybe it was the changes in the nutritional intake, like maybe you were eating more nutritionally dense foods, or maybe you were drinking a lot more water, or maybe you were taking some really good supplements for your bones, or maybe you were moving more, maybe you were stretching more, maybe you were doing more functional tasks like those things aid in the lessening of joint pain far more than changing your body size. So having that conversation on the other end but also I like to remind people that if weight, body size, fat composition whatever you want to say is the culprit for joint pain, why are there thin people with joint pain?
Speaker 1:Always. There's nothing that only fat people deal with, except for, like anti-fat bias, obviously.
Speaker 3:Exactly Just weight-based discrimination, Absolutely. Why is? Why are there thin people with joint pain and why are there larger body people who don't have joint pain?
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. If we can't explain that, then like, yeah, that's the whole basis of the conversation. And so when I am trying to, you know, help my clients advocate for themselves, I often say you know, if you're going to the doctor for joint pain and you happen to exist in a larger body, just just preemptively tell your doctor, or wait till after they make their recommendations, but tell them I would like some treatment options that you would give a person in a smaller body. What would you say if I weighed 100 pounds less or whatever? What would you say if I was in a straight size, thin, normal, quote, unquote normal? What would you say to my joint pain? What would be your suggestions, your treatment options? Because they wouldn't be weight loss. So just dig a little bit, you know like, force them out of that lazy medicine box and see what they come up with then.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Well speaking of that. So you are a physical therapist who does not treat joint pain with recommendations for weight loss. So how do you support people in, you know, improving their joint pain, their mobility, things like that, without focusing on weight loss? What are things that actually do work and do help?
Speaker 3:Great question. So, first and foremost, I complete an actual physical examination. Again, if I had a dollar for every time, someone told me they went to see a physical therapist, a medical doctor, whomever, who didn't even touch them, just ask a couple of questions or sometimes don't even ask questions and just made a treatment plan. So the first thing I do is I do a complete physical examination and then I ask you a million questions. The first half of our session is talking, because there's no way I can help you if I don't have an understanding of who you are, what your lifestyle looks like, and I can't make assumptions about that. I need to know from you and I need to look at your body and check the range of motion in your joints and test your strength and and check your ligamentous integrity. And you know, palpate and feel and see if there's tender points or pressure points. All of that, all of that is a part of the full picture of who you are. And once I know that, then I see, oh okay, we're lacking in range of motion in here. These muscles are really, really weak. These muscles are excessively tight. There's an imbalance from here to there. These ligaments do not seem to be doing their job. Maybe they need to see their doctor and get an MRI. You know there might be a special test we do and I'm like they might have like an actual tear of a ligament that needs to be looked at. So, giving people actual information based on an examination and an interview of them, the expert they're the expert I'm just there helping them figure it out and doing that, then I can create a treatment plan that makes sense. And so, primarily what happens, what I see most of the time is there's a severe lack of range of motion in the joint and often it is because of a very tight muscle group.
Speaker 3:You know we were not taught to stretch. You know our emphasis in our culture is on like a bunch of cardio. If you're a woman or someone who identifies as a woman, it's like do your cardio to try to get as small as you can. And you know squat, of course, because you know we like to have a big. You know booty now because that's popular. So that's like the extent of like our exercise prescription for people like what's healthy and good for you.
Speaker 3:But we're not taught to stretch. And I tell people all the time your muscles are only as strong as they are flexible. If you do not have muscle flexibility, I don't care how big that bicep looks, how formed and beautiful it is, when you go to reach for something it's going to tear and that's a whole problem. So flexibility is like number. That's the number one thing that I see.
Speaker 3:It stops us from doing everything and then it impacts our posture. So how we normally sit and stand, this muscle group is short. That muscle group is long and stretched out and weak, and so we have to, like, reverse engineer what we want to see. We want good posture. Her shoulders are forward. We have to relax the muscles in the chest wall, strengthen the muscles in the upper back. That's instant, Like that's what we do, so recognizing where the instability is, where the insufficiencies are, where the imbalances are, and then, like, we're going to stretch this group, we're going to strengthen this group.
Speaker 3:You're going to do this at home. And then we're going to work together once or twice a week and and push into it even deeper. We're going to do manual therapy things to kind of relax certain areas and help with alignment. You know, we're going to do endurance training, we're going to do balance training. That's another thing we don't work on as a culture balance, um, but there's so many other areas, but it's usually somewhere around the strength issues, the flexibility issues, the range of motion issues in the joint that require, like, manual therapy and then again other things like balance, proprioception and things like that, but it's it's almost never.
Speaker 3:Really I haven't seen a case where it's your joint pain is because of the size of your body it has.
Speaker 3:It's always something else.
Speaker 3:Now, I will, you know, understand, for some people and I've had this come up, especially, like in discussions and forums on social media where people are like, listen, I understand that maybe losing weight is not what's going to cure my joint pain, but being in this body makes it very hard for me to move and I do like to just recognize that there there are limitations that we can experience in our bodies, especially if we're managing changes that have occurred in our bodies over time and so leaving that space for people to have their experiences right and to say like, okay, I don't live in your body Again.
Speaker 3:You're the expert of your body and you have a frame of reference for when you were a certain size and age and now a different size and age and now this what you notice is it is harder to do certain things, and we can absolutely accept that and acknowledge that. But again, we can absolutely accept that and acknowledge that, but again we we do ourselves an injustice when we blame it on the weight, because it's not just the weight, it's a lack of mobility. There are people in large bodies who are extremely flexible, who can put their foot behind their head. So it's not, it's not always the weight. Maybe the weight and the size of your body, because it's new to you, is impacting what you feel comfortable and confident doing. But that is something we can work on and we can get better at that, even if your body doesn't change. And that's that's what I want people to know.
Speaker 1:Oh my God. Yes, that was yes, Because that's a thing that absolutely I think you see a lot of honestly like to be totally transparent. It's something that I have been dealing with recently. I started my career as a Pilates instructor in a body that was quite a bit smaller than it is now. Right, I stepped away from it for like 10 years and, over the past year, started taking Pilates classes again not teaching, but taking Pilates classes again. Started taking Pilates classes again, not teaching, but taking Pilates classes again and I have had to like relearn how to do a lot of stuff in my body as it is today.
Speaker 3:And there have been moments of friction about that.
Speaker 1:But you know, because of my background and what I do, I also am able to recognize, like that is not. First of all, that's not. For the most part, physical discomfort is mental discomfort, which is something not to discount, that Like that's, that's very real for people to work through. And just because something is uncomfortable, the way that I know how to do it, doesn't mean that there isn't a way I can learn to do it that is more comfortable for my body.
Speaker 1:But, I have to allow myself to. Like I have to let myself access that comfort. Like I have to know that it's okay to do it the more comfortable way. Like that's not a lesser version, that's not like you know. I have to not judge myself for doing it that way. And I think that that's really hard for people to do it doesn't look like it did before. It doesn't look like it does when other people do it Like I should be able to do it. The quote unquote right way.
Speaker 3:I hate the shoulds. I always say don't should yourself.
Speaker 1:Exactly, and so there's this like whole process that people have to go through to like essentially relearn how to move in a body that's larger than it was maybe the last time they were moving, or things like that. And that's very real and so like being able to support people through that is really big.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, it's a. It's a real thing. I too have experienced it and I it's kind of what I do on the coaching side of my business. I offer anti diet, health, movement and body image coaching, and the movement is really around this idea that modifications are brilliant, modifications are smart, modifications are wise, modifications are kindness, modifications are how we show our body the respect that it deserves and take away the blame of like, oh, I can't do it how I used to do. You know, when I go through this myself, I'm like so what? I don't say that to clients because you know I want to offer more compassion, but just recognizing that there's no rule that it has to be done this way.
Speaker 3:And, like you said, this isn't a lesser version. Sometimes I will do it how I modify for my body, sometimes I will do it how I've helped other clients modify movements for their bodies, and sometimes I'll do it, you know, from a seated position, so that people recognize like movement is movement. You know, you don't have to be able to jump and flip and do aerials to like move your body. You can do it from sitting, from lying, and there's no shame in it and it's not like oh, this is the easy version or the beginner version. Oh, this is the you version. This is the version that makes sense for you and your body and that is the kindest, most compassionate thing you can do. Is give your body what it needs, instead of trying to say, well, they did it that way, well, that's what their body needs. That's not your body. Don't. Don't think that you have to emulate other people to take care of you, because you're different people, you know. So, giving yourself the permission to do it exactly as you need it and it could be something simple.
Speaker 3:Like you know, for years I did child's pose and I could do it, but it always felt a little uncomfortable. And as I've gotten older and I have this belly that I didn't have before, I realized, like child's pose should be legs open every time. That's the only way I do it, and I tell all my clients like, open those knees, honey, give yourself space for that body and take care of yourself, because contorting yourself and making yourself uncomfortable, especially in a position like child's pose, that's supposed to be relaxing for your body. It literally it ruins it and it's no point then. So, modifications for the win every day, all day. Sometimes I mean I can.
Speaker 3:I don't do jumping jacks. I can jump. I can still jump. Yeah, I just don't see a point Right. I don't enjoy them. I feel like it puts a lot of pressure on the inside of my ankles and knees and so I don't. I don't jump and jack, I do a sidestep, like, and I'm so happy with it, and guess what, my heart rate gets up and I get a workout. So giving people the permission to say like, yeah, I don't, I don't have to do it like you, and feeling no shame around that, that's really, really important and that's it's hard work, but it's worth it for sure.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Especially like sometimes you, you have an instructor who's like telling you to do it one way and you're like nope, that's not how my body does this, but thanks, yeah, well, I definitely found that to be like, true, like as an instructor and as a participant. But I mean, I pretty much every time I'm teaching a class I tell folks I'm like, okay, if you want to do jumping jacks, go for it, but I'm not going to do it. And I feel like it's validating for people to see the person in the front of the room take the alternative movement because they're like okay, well, if she's okay not doing jumping jacks, I will be also okay Not doing jumping jacks.
Speaker 3:I totally agree with that and I think more instructors need to be open to that. What I have experienced and let me let me just say this when I'm talking about these people, I am talking about myself, because I used to be this person. Okay, I used to teach exercise classes and I was fiercely competitive. I told you my dad was a fitness competitor, so I was fiercely competitive and I was always in competition with myself or someone, and so when I was teaching, I was doing the hardest version and and trying to will everybody to to do that too.
Speaker 3:So I don't pass judgment, because I understand the thought process that goes into that, but it's it's not healthy or sustainable long term, and people do need to know and see it from instructors long term.
Speaker 3:And people do need to know and see it from instructors. And so you know, when I'm in a situation now where I have an instructor and typically I haven't had any like really negative situations except for once but when I get, um, like when I pick up on that energy, that it's like all right, no pain, no gain, go hard or go home I just like take a deep breath and I get into my bubble and I'm like I'm doing this, how I'm doing this. The one time I did have like an icky sort of I won't even call it altercation, but like exchange was I was there with a friend too and she was maybe like four weeks out from a major abdominal surgery and she was modifying everything you know, having the knee lifts, and the instructor came down into the audience and was like get those knees up. And she and so I was like ma'am, get out her face. Yeah no.
Speaker 3:She is recovering from surgery and leave her alone Like she's doing the workouts the way she needs to. And she was like, oh well, why is she here? Then? I was like to work out, why are you in her face?
Speaker 3:So I didn't go back there, because me and that lady were going to end up arguing, and that's not what I need when I go work out, but I typically work out at home for that reason. But yeah, it is, you're right, it's very validating to see the instructor doing alternative moves, modifications, so to take away that, that shame and that stigma around, like, if you're doing this, this is like the easy version, the weak version, the beginner version. No, it's not. It's the best, best version for you. And I think we do our clients a service when we show them different ways of doing a movement so that they have more options for them, cause that's, you know, the training we have. They don't you know. So helping educate people in that way is, it's very important.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that and I I love the, the framing of like that. This is a way that you show your body, respect, absolutely, Speaking of which. I know that you have a body respect journal out. Can you tell us a little bit about that? What that is, where people can find it?
Speaker 3:cover, but it was just a little labor of love. I have played with the idea of doing more because I really enjoyed it. But it's an affirmational journal for 30 days and there's an affirmation for each day and then a space for you to sort of write what that means for you and then how it applies to your day to day life, and it's really just about affirming the beauty and the utility and the importance and the significance of our bodies, without putting our bodies above the rest of us, if that makes sense. So your body is wonderful and great and it's your meat suit that carries you through this world and you should treat it well. But also, you are so much more than just a body and I'm pretty sure you are more than a body is one of the affirmations in the book.
Speaker 3:But it's just an opportunity for people to reflect. You know, it's not about body positivity or this idea that, oh, I look in the mirror and I'm so happy with what I see and I love it because that's nobody has that. I don't care what size you are, but just what I see and I love it because that's nobody has that. I don't care what size you are, it's just. We just don't live in a world that allows that. You know, when I was like, I laughed at my niece and my daughter actually one of my daughters. They spent a lot of time in the mirror like so happy, like just loving on themselves, and we maintain that probably till we're about five years old, and then after that it's downhill, right.
Speaker 3:So you can't just wake up and look at yourself and be happy with what you see all the time because we have so many icky negative influences on us. But you can wake up and respect yourself and respect your body and think. You know what I'm struggling with, the image that I'm seeing reflected back to me. But I do know that my body has carried me through this life and I do know that it deserves to be treated well, that my body has carried me through this life and I do know that it deserves to be treated well. So just respect and recognizing that the body is housing the essence of who you are your mind, your soul, the things you do, the things you say, the impact you have, the way you treat others. You know all of that is what matters about who you are.
Speaker 3:But in the interim, while we're navigating this earth in these bodies. We want to treat them well and not demean them or tell them you know they're bad or they're wrong or they need to change so. So the affirmations are centered around that and there's a lot of it's a big one. It's like eight by eight and a half by 11. So lots of space to write. And yeah, I'm very proud of it because I enjoy it. I'm doing a talk in Atlanta next weekend to some girls ages 12 to 18 and they'll all be getting one as a part of their little swag bag.
Speaker 1:So I'm excited to like love that. Spread that out. That's awesome and I love that. Like I tend to be very like skeptical about affirmations because so often they're. They're basically like stand in the mirror and like pick out a part of you that you love and they're just, they feel very hollow, but like this is like this is bigger than that, like this is not body positivity, it's body respect.
Speaker 3:And like.
Speaker 1:these are different things and I think so often affirmational types of things stop at body positivity. And as a result they don't really, they don't really create a lot of change they don't really like, but this is, this is the big picture. This is the body respect journal. These are body respect affirmations and that that's huge, that's that's awesome.
Speaker 3:I'll send you one. I'll send you one. You should have mentioned it. I should have thought about that. I'll send you one.
Speaker 1:That would be amazing, thank you.
Speaker 3:Making my note right now.
Speaker 1:I appreciate that. Yes, so Lisa, it is. This has been amazing talking to you. Where can people find you, how can people work with you? Other than the journal, of course, which everybody please go check that out on Amazon. But other than that, what? How can people find you and work with you?
Speaker 3:Well, my website is healthy fitcom. Fit is spelled ph it, but I live on Instagram, so you know, just DM me. I'm fairly responsive. You know to be like a mom with three kids and a business. I get on there probably too much. I do have time limits, but still, Instagram is Healthy Fit Same spelling H-E-A-L-T-H-Y-P-H-I-T. And then I do coaching, I do virtual physical therapy. If you're in North or South Carolina, everything is weight inclusive, size inclusive and trauma and eating disorder informed. So if you need support, I am happy to help.
Speaker 2:That is amazing. It is good to know that you see clients virtually in North. Carolina, because we tend to refer people to all kinds of different therapies and physical therapy comes up at least once a week.
Speaker 3:So, oh, awesome, yes, I love it, and you know it can be tough to do physical therapy virtually, but a lot of people can still benefit and for me it's being in a safer space rather than just going to some random clinic. You know it's, it's just better. So so yeah, happy to help if I can. Yeah, awesome.
Speaker 1:Well, lisa, the last question. We ask everybody what is satisfying you right now?
Speaker 3:Oh, I'm, you know I've. I told y'all earlier I'm struggling with a lot right now, but what is going to sound hilarious, what has really been satisfying me is is really good food, and not just the food, but like the combination of really good food and conversation. So literally when we get off of here, I'm going to meet a good girlfriend for dinner and I just can't wait to just sit and eat especially when I don't have to cook it or clean it up to sit and eat and talk with my friend who I haven't gotten to catch up with in a few months. So, yeah, that has been very satisfying. The, the communal support with good girlfriends over good food. That's my thing at the moment.
Speaker 1:It's getting me through lovely, that is the greatest. I love that. And also just like so representative of like a thing that you lose out on when you're stuck in diet culture, like it's just like yeah, so that I mean like perfect, perfect, awesome. Well, lisa, thank you so much for coming to talk to us. This is huge. I know our listeners are going to get so much out of this. We definitely did, um, and it was just great to be able to connect with you.
Speaker 3:thank you for being here thank you, I really enjoyed the conversation. I appreciate you all.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me thanks again to dr lisa fulton for coming to talk to us. If you enjoyed this episode, consider leaving us a rating or review on apple podcast or spotify, as those ratings and reviews help us reach more people, which means more people get to hear the anti-diet message. We are also on instagram at satisfaction factor pod. Be sure to drop by and let us know what you thought about the episode that's it for us this week.
Speaker 1:We'll catch you next time.