The Value of Incremental Progress

This week we are exploring the importance of recognizing incremental progress on your journey to food freedom. I draw parallels from my current personal journey of recovering from a severe ankle injury during the Ironman World Championships.

Join me as I reflect on insights from The Gap and the Gain by Benjamin Hardy and Dan Sullivan, emphasizing a mental shift from fixating on the daunting gap between where we are and where we want to be to celebrating the gain and the strides we make on our journey. 

Drawing parallels between physical recovery and our relationship with food, I discuss how important it is to celebrate all wins, big or small. From navigating pain during physical therapy to dealing with discomfort in changing eating habits, we uncover the truth that healing is not a linear process. 

Join me in understanding the significance of any progress on the path to food freedom and overall well-being as I’m reminded that it's the journey, not the destination, that makes the process meaningful.

To hear the full story of my ankle injury during the Ironman World Championships, tune into Episode 51.

Define Your Food Freedom Workshop

Have you ever defined what food freedom actually means for YOU? Knowing what you don't want isn't enough. It's important to know what you are working towards and to make sure that your definition is supporting you, not sabotaging you. 

Join me live October 5th - Save your spot.

Want to know why you struggle with food and what to do next? Start watching The Food Freedom Mini Series today. 

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Binge Breakthrough, a podcast designed to help you finally break through the barriers that keep you stuck, feeling out of control around food. I'm Master Certified Coach Jane Hoker, and I want you to know that no matter how long you've been struggling or what you've tried, food freedom is possible. And I'm here to show you how. After years of therapy, eating disorder treatment, restrictive diet, and reading all the books, I will still stop in the on-again-on-again cycle of restricting and thinking and how I was able to see it all from a new perspective that changed everything. Each week I will share the strategies, tools, and mindset that allowed me to overcome my decades-long battle with binge eating. Your journey to body trust starts now. Let's dive in. Hello, trusted listener. Welcome to Binge Breakthrough. I consider you a trusted listener because I trust that you are listening to this podcast for a reason. I trust that you're going to hear something today that is insightful and impactful on your own journey with food. So today's episode is inspired by my own healing progress with my ankle. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, um, I shared the story in episode 51, which is titled When Things Don't Go According to Plan. So I was competing in the Iron Man World Championships in Kona, Hawaii back in on October 14th of this year. And during the run, about 15 and a half miles into the run, I um I basically hit an uneven surface of road and twisted my ankle very severely. I attempted to keep going and I walked on it for another four miles before I decided that I just simply could not go on. And I ended up um in the hospital getting x-rays. And they told me in the hospital that my ankle was broken. Well, turns out my ankle actually wasn't broken, which I did not find out until uh after I got home. I went to see a general um physician's assistant, uh, orthopedic specialist person who uh indicated that it was broken. Same uh same diagnosis as the ER doc gave. But I decided, you know, I think I want to go see a foot specialist. And I went to a foot specialist, and the foot specialist said, based on what I'm seeing in your x-rays and what you can do with your foot right now, I don't think this is broken. And so he did some more x-rays, he did some more examination, he said, your foot's not broken, which was the best news ever. So I've been on this journey. I've been on this journey of healing and recovering. And I started this journey literally not being able to put any weight at all on my foot, uh, to now where I'm I'm not running yet, but I have made a tremendous amount of progress. And through this process, I've really been noticing and thinking a lot about the value of recognizing incremental progress. And because this is such a clear, it's it's such a clear scenario for me personally right now with my ankle, and also in the work that I do with my clients on a daily basis, I wanted to do a podcast episode talking about the value of increment incremental progress, how this shows up for me personally, uh, even right now with my foot and this recovery from this injury, and also how it shows up just on the journey to creating more peace and ease with food. So, with this said, I want to recommend a book. There is a book called The Gap and the Gain. It is an incredible book. And then here's the summary of the book. The summary is that most of us spend our time focusing on the gap. The gap being the distance between where we are now, where we are today, and where we want to be, where we want to go. We see this gap and we think, oh my gosh, I will never get there. It will take so hard. It will take so long. It will be so hard. We see this gap as kind of an insurmountable gap. And we keep moving the finish line on ourselves, as many of us are have a tendency to do. So we move the finish line on ourselves, always creating an even bigger gap. We get closer and then we we move the finish line. So that there's always this gap, and we're focusing on what we don't have, where we aren't, where we are not yet. We're not there where we want to be. So most of us focus on this gap. What this book talks about is the value in focusing on the gain. The gain being where you are now compared to where you have been. So, for example, I can compare where I am today with my ankle to where I was on the evening of October 14th, when I literally could not put any pressure on my foot at all without a tremendous amount of pain. So I can compare the gain and be like, wow, what a difference. But I could also look at the gap and I could think, oh man, I'm not running yet. I have all of these things I want to do. There's there are still things I cannot do. I am not back where I want to be. And if I keep focusing on that, then all I'm gonna focus on is where I'm not, instead of just how far I've come. And so in this incremental progress, I've really been focusing on, I do have a very clear picture of where I want to go and what I want for myself with the healing and with my ankle. I have a vision for myself, um, participating in the Eugene Marathon on April 28th. So I am absolutely holding this vision for what I want for myself. But along the way, what I'm doing is I'm really recognizing how I'm very in very slow incremental pieces getting closer and closer to the ability to do that. So, for example, places where I'm really seeing incremental progress and where I've been paying a lot of attention is during the swim. So for I don't know, probably at least a couple of weeks, I couldn't swim at all. Then I got in the pool. And when I got in the pool the first time, I was not able to even push off the wall with both feet. I was swimming with uh what's called a pull buoy between my legs, which is basically like a piece of foam that you hold between your legs that keeps your legs kind of floating up. And when you have this, you don't end up kicking at all. So it's a it was great for me to be able to use this so that I was wouldn't be using my legs or kicking or, you know, doing anything that might make my ankle hurt. So I was it, but I was still able to get in some movement uh with swimming with my upper body, but I could not even push off the wall with both feet. It was so much pain on my right ankle. Well, then I got in the pool. Maybe then maybe a few times later, I got in the pool and I thought, hmm, I wonder if I would be able to push off with both feet. And I tried. Maybe the second time, I think I tried and I thought, nope, that still hurts a little too much. Then the next time I would try again. And I got to the place where I was like, oh, you know what? I can push off with both feet. Then I got curious, huh? I wonder what it would feel like if I tried to take the pull buoy out and swim without the pull buoy. First time I did it, I was like, nope, not ready. Too much pain. So then I thought, okay, but at least now I know what it feels like. So now I know the next time I try, I'll know: is it getting better? Is it the same? Is it potentially worse? I have something to give me some feedback. So then a couple of times later, I tried again, took the pole buoy out. I thought, hmm, you know, this still feels a lot better than it did, but I'm not quite ready to take it out. Then after a few times, I was like, okay, I think I am ready to take it out just for some period of time during my swim, not the entire thing. I didn't, I wasn't gonna go from swimming with a pole buoy to not swimming with it at all. I had to gradually, slowly, incrementally progress to where I could do some swimming without it and some swimming with it. And my foot gave me the feedback that I needed to know when was kind of an acceptable level of pain and when was a level of pain that I knew, no, this probably is not helping me. This probably isn't beneficial. So over time, and now just I would say, so it's been almost eight weeks since uh the race, since I rolled my ankle. And I would say, just in the last two weeks, have I been able to swim. I'm still swimming with the pool buoy sometimes, but now when I'm swim without it, there is very little pain. I feel some, still a little remaining, but it's much, much, much less than it was before. So I can see literally every single time I swim, I can notice the difference and the slight improvement from the previous time. So it's this amazing way of incremental progress. I can also see how in the beginning, even when I did take the pull buoy out, I was still kind of protecting it. I was worried about it. I was thinking about it. And I was actually changing my stroke a little bit because I think I was worried about hurting, about my ankle hurting or what it would be like. And literally just today, I swam this morning and I was telling my husband, today felt like the first time that I was actually swimming without really worrying about my ankle. I wasn't trying to protect it. I am now have more confidence in myself that I'm not going to injure it, that I'm not going to do something in the pool that will make it any worse. And so I'm able to get more back into kind of my regular stroke. But I didn't allow the fact that I was probably hedging, I was probably protecting myself a little bit, which means I was swimming slower. And in my mind, there was like, oh, wow, okay. But I also knew it's not always going to be this way. It's likely because I'm injured, I was so grateful to just be moving and to be able to swim and just noticing, noticing that progress every time. Another place I really noticed the incremental progress was at night. So initially, just having sheets on top of my foot was very painful. And then there would be some nights. It was, it was probably, I don't know, it's probably at least a few weeks before I had a night where I slept through the night without waking up in some sort of pain. Was like, wow, first time without any pain. And now at night, there are still some nights where I feel it, but they're much farther and few between. So I can really see the incremental progress over time. The other thing that's really important for me and really looking at this is that it's not black and white. So as I heal, it's not like, okay, it's either completely painful or the pain is entirely gone. There have been variances in the pain. My pain has really varied. It's varied from day to day. It has varied over time. And so I've really gotten to know what type of pain is helpful, what type of pain isn't helpful, what type of pain are signals where my body's kind of like, nope, we're not ready for that. And what type of pain is the type of pain that is okay to have. Now, I've been injured before. And so I have some knowledge in history about the type of pain to work with and the type of pain to avoid. And this just comes from, I think, more connection and more being able to kind of distinguish the nuance and the pain. But what I do know for from previous injuries and from so much work with my physical therapist is this about pain. The existence of pain does not mean that healing isn't happening. I think a lot of people, if they're injured, they think, oh man, this hurts. So it's still like it must not be getting better. I must not be healing because there is still some pain. It's kind of this idea of like the black and white thinking. I either need to be in zero pain at all, or I'm just in this pain and I'm always gonna be in pain and I'm always gonna have this problem. The same thing shows up with us with food, right? The all or the nothing thinking. I'm either eating perfectly, or if I'm not, I think I'm never gonna get over this. I'm always gonna have this problem with food. So I went to the foot doctor uh for my follow-up. This was a couple of weeks ago, but it was so interesting to talk to him about uh my next steps. And he said, you know what? I think you're doing great, you're healing. I'm gonna release you. You're just gonna go to your physical therapist. And what do you think about that? I was like, great. I am all about physical therapy. I've already been doing some of my exercises on a daily basis. And he said, he said, that's wonderful. He said, you know what surprises me is he said, a lot of people don't want to do physical therapy because they don't want the pain or the discomfort. I was like, oh, wow, isn't that fascinating? Because the way that I see physical therapy is, yes, there is going to be some pain and discomfort involved in going through physical therapy and in doing these exercises and in getting my mobility back and my range of motion back. But that's the path to the healing that I want. I don't get where I want to go without going through some of the pain and the discomfort of physical therapy. But what some people think is, oh, that's too painful. Pain, I don't want to do that. So I'm just gonna sit. I'm gonna do nothing. And then I'm likely gonna complain because my foot or my whatever is just constantly in pain. The other thing he said is that a lot of people, uh he was asking me about using a particular uh cream on my foot. And I said, Yeah, I think he said, What do you think of it? It's called Voltarin. It's like an arthritis cream, V-O-L-T-A-R-E-N. I said, Yeah, I think it's great. And he said, So many people say that it doesn't work. But we got to talking about it. And we think that the reason they say that it doesn't work is because there's still some level of pain. You don't just put this cream on and it's like magically you go from having pain to zero pain. But if you can look at the incremental progress of the pain, even for me, I'm not saying this cream works for everybody because it may not. I am not in other people's bodies. But I do think there's likely a lot of black and white thinking going on here. So we put the cream on, and yeah, is does it still hurt? Yes. But does it hurt less than it did before I was using the cream? Yes. Also. Yes, and both can be true. So, what's an example? Like, how does this show up with food? So, this is it shows up with food, this kind of like black and white thinking, this all or nothing, this like not wanting the pain or the discomfort. And so, like, I'm just not gonna do anything by the times when we think it's just too hard, it's too uncomfortable to sit with my urges and not respond to them. So, I'm just gonna keep responding to them. And basically what we're doing there is then we're continuing the pain of the overeating, of the binging, of the emotional, um, just continuing in this cycle. We're we're basically just continuing with that kind of pain, thinking that we don't want to have to go through pain in order to get to the other side of it. It's the same type of, it's the same type of thinking that has people not doing their physical therapy exercises, but they still end up in pain. Then they still can't do what they want to do, but they think it's because they don't want the pain. There is going to be some discomfort in healing from an injury. There is going to be some discomfort in choosing different choices, especially in the beginning when you are so used to responding to your urges in that way. The other way it shows up is thinking, well, I'm still binging, I'm still overeating. So this must not be working. We it's the all or the nothing, the black or white. The existence of binging, the existing of the overeating means it's not working. This is not true. We need to be able to see the the incremental progress. If I was thinking, oh, my ankle still hurts, it must not be healing. How I mean, I can't even imagine like what I would not have done over the last seven weeks. All of the exercises I wouldn't have done, all of the continuing to proc pro to progress both in the pool and on the bike. I started using different pedals, different shoes, a shoe that I could actually put my foot into with the brace and everything else, but I managed through it. Another place this shows up is thinking, I'm always gonna be this way. I'm always going to overeat. I'm always gonna binge. And so we don't even try. I'm always gonna be in pain. I'm always going to, my knees always gonna hurt, my ankle's always gonna hurt. Ever since I had that one injury, it just always hurts. It doesn't have to be that way. It doesn't have to be that way with food or with recovering from our injuries. So, what we want to do is keep a firm vision for where you want to go. So, for example, I said I'm currently holding this vision of doing the Eugene Marathon on April 28th. For you, keep a firm vision, a vision of where you want to go with food. What does food freedom look like for you? Have that vision in your mind. Then we have to recognize progress along the way, the little bits of progress. So, examples of food progress that you might notice. Noticing thoughts where you didn't notice them before. So, for example, if you're a person who normally has zero recollection, zero idea of what you're even thinking while you're eating or even before you eat, you just are the type of person who the next thing you know, you're just surrounded by food. You're surrounded by rappers. You have no awareness of anything else that was going on, either before or especially while you're eating. Progress, even if you still end up surrounded by rappers and surrounded by food, progress would might look like, wow, you know what? I actually heard what was happening in my mind for the first time. Or I was way more aware of what was happening in my mind this time than I have before. That's the progress. Maybe you even had thoughts of, you know, you could stop, but you decided not to. That's still the progress, even if you decided not to. Just having the thought, you know, I could. That is the progress. Stopping sooner, eating less, recognizing signals from your body even if you choose not to listen to them. Being able to look back afterwards and understand why a binge or out-of-control moment with food happened in the first place. Reconnecting with yourself sooner afterwards, less criticism and judgment about your behavior. The cycle being shorter from the end of the binge to when you feel like you're able to reconnect with life. Or even the amount, the frequency, the frequency of your binges, this is progress. Maybe you're you binge one or two days versus multiple days in a row or weeks on end. All of these are areas of progress along the way. Maybe it's noticing the times when you actually do feel more calm and relaxed around food, noticing that it's maybe not a hundred percent of the time. This is all incremental progress. And the more you recognize progress, the more evidence you give yourself that what you are doing is working. And when you don't recognize it, you're more likely to give up, to think it's just not working, and to go back to your old conditioned patterns of thinking and behaving. To create new patterns and new pathways will take some time. It will take a lot of repetition. And that's okay. While you're creating these new patterns and the new repetitions, some of the old patterns will still come in sometimes. But that is not evidence that it's not working. So look for the progress, even in the little things. The big things are going to happen too, and you will recognize those for sure, but also look for the small things, the incremental progress. Because when these small things add up over time, this is what creates big results. All right, that's what I have for you this week. I'll see you next time. Thank you for listening to Binge Breakthrough. If you want to understand why you feel out of control with food sometimes, I've created just the thing for you. Discover the number one reason why and get three things you can do today. Visit binge breakthrough.com forward slash quiz, and you'll have your answer in your next step. That's binge breakthrough.com forward slash quiz.