The Science of Fitness Podcast
Welcome to the Science Of Fitness podcast where we aim to inspire you to live a healthier and more fulfilling life as we share evidence and anecdotes on all things health, fitness, performance, wellness and business.
Hosted by Kieran Maguire, Co-Owner and Director of Science Of Fitness with an Undergraduate degree in Exercise Science and Masters degree in High Performance, the podcast includes guests and friends of SOF from all walks of life sharing their knowledge and stories within their field of expertise.
Join us as we provide listeners with digestible and relatable educational tools and entertaining stories to inspire a healthier and more fulfilling life.
The Science of Fitness Podcast
S2 EP 016 - Exploring empathy and eating disorders in holistic care w/ Dr. Kim Hurst
What role does empathy play in treating eating disorders, and how can personal journeys shape professional expertise? On this episode of the Science of Fitness podcast, we welcome Dr. Kim Hurst, a leading expert in eating disorders, to explore these compelling questions. Dr. Hurst offers invaluable insights from her extensive work at Robina Private on the Gold Coast, where she heads a multifaceted eating disorder service. Her approach integrates both inpatient and outpatient care, featuring pioneering treatments for binge eating and holistic therapeutic programs. This episode is rich with detailed discussions on how Rubina Private addresses the intricacies of eating disorders through a blend of clinical rigor and compassionate care.
Unveiling Dr. Hurst's journey from her high school aspirations in Brisbane to her transformative experiences in Perth and beyond, we delve into the personal motivations that drive her commitment to mental health. Her international experiences have profoundly shaped her professional empathy and understanding, highlighting the importance of inclusive and evolving solutions within the health and fitness industry. We also examine the broader challenges of connecting with a diverse clientele, emphasising the role of life experiences in fostering deeper professional relationships and creating more effective, patient-centered care.
As we navigate the intersections of exercise, nutrition, and mental health, Dr. Hurst sheds light on the complexities of balancing self-compassion with discipline. Our conversation extends to the societal pressures around body image and self-esteem, offering practical strategies for parents to engage meaningfully with their children. From the psychological benefits of physical activity to managing screen time and social media, this episode covers a spectrum of topics essential for holistic well-being. Join us for an episode that promises insights, practical advice, and a deeper understanding of the human experience in the realm of mental health and fitness.
Welcome to the Science of Fitness podcast, where we aim to inspire you to live a healthier and more fulfilling life, as we share evidence and anecdotes on all things relating to health, fitness, performance, business and wellness. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. Back to the Science of Fitness podcast. A very exciting guest today Kim Hurst. Is it Dr Kim Hurst? Correct? Yes and yeah, jumping into an area that I've really wanted to unpack with an expert and Kim. Thank you very much for your time. I'm very excited for this.
Speaker 2:No problem, it's great to be here.
Speaker 1:So let's get things going, and then I do want to talk about you and your story a little bit and then we can get into the whole sort of topic. But for the rapid fire to get our brains going, the listeners' brains going, we're going to go with a this or that questionnaire and to, I suppose, give this context for you, what you would do for you in this sense, and it's not to say and you can detail whether it is to say, the science says or maybe there's 50-50s with that, but your preference for these in a this or that perspective. So for mental clarity exercise sorry, exercise for mental clarity or physical health, what do you look at it for?
Speaker 2:Mental clarity.
Speaker 1:Mindful eating or tracking macros.
Speaker 2:Mindful eating A hundred percent.
Speaker 1:Endorphin boosts from exercise or serotonin boosts from food, if you had a preference.
Speaker 2:I like the serotonin. I'd go with that one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's an interesting one Routine-based exercise or listening to your body.
Speaker 2:Listening to your body.
Speaker 1:See, I'm a routine man. I wonder if there is a gender difference, because I've had a few people discuss that Balanced diet for mood stability or weight management. Mood- stability Social media.
Speaker 2:Positive body image campaigns or negative comparisons? 100% positive body image.
Speaker 1:Bit of a no brainer. Yeah, mental health therapy or physical activity.
Speaker 2:This one's a hard one. I certainly am going to say therapy, but I love physical health like physical activity.
Speaker 1:So it's one in the same to a certain extent, and we'll get into that, and I think the beauty of the world that we live in is it doesn't have to be one or the other True Short-term diets or long-term lifestyle changes.
Speaker 2:Long-term lifestyle changes.
Speaker 1:Stress relief. This is a fun one Exercise or meditation for you.
Speaker 2:Exercise for me. My mind is like a wild, untamed beast and meditation for you. Exercise for me. Yeah, my mind is like a wild, untamed beast and meditation is pretty hard yeah, yeah, interesting and we'll talk about that for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and an obvious one to finish it self-compassion, um or self-discipline in health goes.
Speaker 2:I'm a self-compassion girl yeah, cool.
Speaker 1:Okay, let's get into your story. So, dr Kim Hurst, you currently work down the Gold Coast Rubino Private and tell us what you do down there and then, I suppose, a little bit of a backstory of how you got to where you are. Sure.
Speaker 2:So currently Rubino Private has an eating disorder comprehensive service. What that means is we've got 10 designated beds for patients that have restrictive eating and overeating that can come in and access care through an inpatient facility. We also have nasogastric refeeding if nutrition has kind of been depleted to a point of. You know, it's really difficult for the patient to consume the nutrition that they need to get well and we do a therapeutic program five days a week with those patients and they have supported meals. We also have an outpatient day program. Again, that's for the restrictive eating diagnoses and that is more about kind of translating the knowledge that they have into daily practice. So there's lots of experiential stuff that we do with the patients and we go out for social eating and really expose them to the things that I guess the eating disorder puts restrictions on them for. And we also have a binge eating program. So that's probably one of only I think maybe two in Australia. So that's pretty unique and I also do private practice and do things like this and supervise students and things like that.
Speaker 2:So yeah, for me, I think the reason that working for Rabina Private works so well for me is that I had a basis in Queensland health and developed services in the public system and I guess I saw over time just some of the really inadequacies in our treatment and our care approach with patients that are really suffering with, you know, severe body image issues or health and concerns about their, like, physical being and their appearance. And you know the quick fix is, oh, we'll just this sounds terrible, but shove nutrition in them and get them well and send them on their way. But you know, eating disorders are way more complex than that. So I kind of had that kind of spurred in me, this desire to make radical changes. So for me it was about listening to patient experience, so those with lived experience and their families. You know what works for you, what doesn't.
Speaker 2:Lots of our patients have trauma and, yeah, I kind of think we had to do better, and so I was really passionate about creating a service that was really trying to do better and we're constantly getting feedback and we're constantly evolving the programs. Know, I think that's a part of evolution and learning and changing um, and my team's amazing. I've got, um, uh, psychologists, art therapists, dietetics, exercise fears, um, nurses, psychiatry, you know we're all in it. Um, all my team's passionate. So, yeah, yeah, I hope that's answered the question.
Speaker 1:It sounds incredible. I guess someone that's passionate about what I do and we are passionate about what we do here and what we're trying to achieve, and, looking at the industry standard, it was a similar sort of thing. There is an abundance of health and fitness solutions for everybody. Majority of the industry is selling to the same person and it's selling something that we don't necessarily, as a brand, believe in, in that you need to look a certain way, you need to train this hard, you need to smash yourself and, okay, that's for what the young, fit, healthy people and what about the rest of the world?
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:And there's so many other layers from an exercise science perspective. So you know, in your case, from a health and a clinical health perspective, it's obviously the government-supported programs and we're so fortunate in Australia to be able to lean on the government for our health care. But the complexity of jumping through those loopholes to build a program that is productive or actually effective enough for such nuanced subjective conditions like eating disorders, body image issues, I can imagine it's hard.
Speaker 2:It is.
Speaker 1:So let's go back then a little bit. Queensland girl, and what sort of got you to where you are? You graduated high school, did you go? I'm a passionate health practitioner and this is what I want to do, and that's it. Or tell me about that journey.
Speaker 2:Great question. Have you got an hour? Look, initially, I was always interested in how people behave, why they do the things that they do, what motivates them and how their perception is shaped by, you know, their experience or not?
Speaker 2:experience you know their experience or not experience. So I was kind of somewhat guided into psychology from high school because my first initial passion of being an actress was really not going to be a sustainable career. In those days that I grew up in and you know, my career advisor essentially said to me when you're serious about, you know, looking at your profession, come back and talk to me. Acting is not a profession. I was like what?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Since. When.
Speaker 1:I don't understand. I watch movies, yeah.
Speaker 2:So you know, there was enough of a passion for me in human behaviour to go to university, so I went to UQ. That said, I was quite distracted. They have this fabulous they used to have this fabulous little cement box theatre and I seemed to spend more time in the cement box theatre doing productions than spending time on my psychology degree.
Speaker 2:Anyway, I did graduate, which was lovely, and my parents were really happy to support me to go overseas. Because I also think that another reason I'm passionate about eating disorders is that sense of not knowing yourself or trying to discover who you are. Sense of not knowing yourself or trying to discover who you are. And although I've never, you know, had a lived experience of an eating disorder, I understand that complexity of trying to find. You know how you fit into society, how the visual aspects of you translate, you know how we form connections. So that was something that was always there for me At the time. I just was trying to understand myself.
Speaker 2:So for me, going overseas post-uni was about me trying to figure out you know where I was, who I was, because I was kind of torn between this idea of being a psychologist at like 21. And I was thinking how am I going to to, you know, have a woman, maybe in her 20s, talk to me? Yep, okay, I've got that, no worries, I've got ideas. A woman of 40, who's, you know, going through something really difficult that I have no life experience of. Of course, I've got theoretical concepts, but how do I?
Speaker 1:relate, yeah, have empathy. Yep, you know it's such an interesting topic, like I mean, I've thought about it a little bit. I'm one of the. I honestly consider myself one of the fortunate ones. I was born in Zimbabwe. Yeah, I lived there for seven years. I then left and moved. We moved down south to South Africa because obviously Zimbabwe was tough, yeah, and I said goodbye to all my friends. That's it Like done. Okay, there was no social media. I mean, I'm not that old, but I'm old enough to remember that and start new friendships.
Speaker 1:Off you go. You're seven years old and off. I did Six years in South Africa, built my identity and your role in, like a junior school kind of you know, became the big fish in a small pond and then we moved to.
Speaker 2:Australia.
Speaker 1:Goodbye everybody, never see you again. And we had Facebook and like it had just launched in like 2008 or something, and I remember getting and being like I'll stay in touch and I'll stay friends with you all Within six months you're not talking to them and you're 13 years old at the time moved here whole new identity shift. I had to be this whole new person. No one gave two shits about who I was as this 14 year old little boy with a funny accent. That was weird and for a year I honestly felt alone and it was really really hard, but it shaped me to go.
Speaker 1:I can be a chameleon and fit in and work out people. And then that finished. And then I moved to Perth and so I finished high school with all my mates like this I just want to come back, live in Brizzy, go to UQ, drink, piss, play footy, yeah. And suddenly that was gone. And then the reality dawned that I can't live on my own at 17 in Queensland while you know I had family in Perth.
Speaker 1:And so I was like okay, I'll do a year, maybe one year turn into five, re-identified myself again wow and then I've come back and so I've had these multiple moments in my life where I'm like, okay, that's actually really shaped who I am and I'm so grateful because I've got all these lived experiences and a degree of empathy and the ability to connect with multiple cultures and whatnot. For someone doing psychology, it's as you said yeah, I can read all the books I want, but how can I relate to you? How can I actually help you as a psychologist? It makes a ton of sense. So you just jumped overseas to you probably had that calling in the moment, you didn't really know, but you wanted to go find, feel something, learn something you know, I had this idea that I was going to maybe go to Broadway in London and you know just break in and prove that guidance officer wrong and get a career.
Speaker 2:But you know, I went over there and travelled and you know, honestly, if I would say one thing to like the young people of today, I would say take a moment and get outside the bubble in which you live and just see the world, because it just puts everything in perspective. And I know that we're not all privileged and fortunate to be able to do that, but if you ever get an opportunity, do it, Even if there's anxiety and fear and worry or uncertainty.
Speaker 1:Run after it almost.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:To stay on that. If you were to say three things that you learnt about yourself you came back with after doing that, what would they be?
Speaker 2:That I was probably more confident than I realised, that I was more resilient than I realised and that I was smarter than I realised.
Speaker 1:That sounds lovely. Oh bloody, every 21-year old in Queensland's gone after listening to this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but maybe if we think about what was the, you know, determinants for me going overseas, those things were probably, you know, my, maybe my personal inadequacies, maybe it was hard for me to see those things inside of myself. And once I was able to go overseas, I don't know, just through the experiences, the challenges, the navigating, you know different cultures or languages or you know, the rail system in India.
Speaker 2:Wow. So yeah, and that was amazing. But I came back to Australia eventually, which was, you know, a good thing. Australia's always going to be my home, 100%. But, yeah, the calling for overseas has been a constant for me. Yeah, yeah, do you want me to keep going?
Speaker 1:Yes, let's keep going.
Speaker 2:I'm loving this After that I kind of felt like I needed to reconnect with my degree. So I went back to uni and did another psychology degree, I don't know. It kind of was okay, but then I switched and I did theatre and writing again. So I've had this real kind of push-pull between who I was and trying to bring it together and integrate it.
Speaker 2:So we'd speed a struggle. So yeah, then I switched and did some theatre and writing and then actually found myself in the film industry Interesting, but not on the right side of the camera on the other side.
Speaker 2:So I was doing wardrobe because again, all through school and overseas I'd done visual merchandising and retail and things like that. So that kind of creative side of putting things together and I'm a bit of, I love a bit of fashion. So I kind of thought, oh well, let's just get into the film industry. And I did that for a couple of years and look, it was fantastic some big movies, some really great experiences. But it's really hard, like it's really challenging, and I was like, oh, Challenging from a work sense or a cultural sense or a demand both.
Speaker 2:Oh, on so many levels. You know we work minimum 14 hours a day. It's like hard and fast. You've got to be on the ball, you're working with hundreds, sometimes thousands of people, and then you've got the actors that need a special kind of attention and a special kind of interaction. So between the crew and the you know cast and then our extras. It's kind of like this minefield, but very interesting. And I guess I just got to a point where I felt a little bit disenchanted by what was happening. I was also trying to still I don't know ignite the flame of me being an actress. Hello, dead horse, stop beating me. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm there, I'm that close, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And it was like that, like I would always get to the final call but never get the cut. So I had a couple of like bit parts and things like that, but I was never the one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the lead.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was like, okay, I kind of think enough's, enough now, and I think I'm pretty good at gauging that, I'm pretty good at going okay, you've given that a really good crack.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Let's think about something else. So I went back into uni again and did another degree, so I've got five in total Chiefess. I know overachiever much, yeah. And I think then I started to go yeah, you know, I was probably in my late twenties and I in my mind think the best years of my life were probably early thirties. I just really started to settle, understand myself and know, you know, what I wanted and I was able to kind of go, yeah, all of this, all this work that you've done, all of this exploring that you've done, all of this exploring that you've done has led to this moment. You're now okay, let's just go with that. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And when I was finishing my degree, I had already decided I was going to work in the child and youth space and I wanted to work in public health. That was always kind of for me and I was just so lucky I had this amazing supervisor, jodie Watkins, call out you're awesome, and she was kind of passionate about eating disorders and so by default, I kind of just fell into her passion because she was passionate about it and I have never looked back. You back the consultant psychiatrist at the time, nigel Collings, call out awesome person as well, they had started forging these really amazing relationships on the Gold Coast and I was just in awe of them. I was like you guys are really making a difference in these kids' lives. And you know, the kids are coming and they're so tortured, yeah, and they're not okay, and I'm like, right, this is where I'm at Awesome and I really just haven't looked back since then it's funny.
Speaker 1:It's funny how, I mean, I turned 30 a few months ago and there is a degree of just calmness and settling. Yeah, there is a degree of just calmness and settling. Yeah, I've stopped asking the question of myself, which I asked for a long time, is I will get there, I will get there, I will get there. Yeah, that's who I want to be, that's who I want to be, and I'm sort of like, in fact, I am doing it.
Speaker 1:That's beautiful, and with that you know the money and the wealth and all that world. I'm lucky.
Speaker 1:I get to work with a lot of various people from all walks of life and it's not about, you know, that money element, as much as you might be motivated by it. It's what you wake up every morning and do and it's the day-to-day thing, what brings you joy truly. And you know, we played the thought experiment at home with my housemates Okay, bank account is as full as you ever wished it could be. Money doesn't exist in terms of an issue. Status doesn't really exist in terms of something that you want. What are you going to do tomorrow? Like you have to do some sort of work. What is that? And I think for a lot of us, particularly in Australia, we live in a world where we can go and do that and, coincidentally, have a career and that sort of thing. And for me it was like. My answer was like, oh man, I'm waking up and taking class, like it brings me so much joy. And then I went gee, I really am one of the lucky ones.
Speaker 1:That was my first choice and like I went, okay, I'm going to go and try this Cert 3, 4 thing at 17. I was like this is who I want to be, but only now, 12 years in the industry.
Speaker 2:That's it.
Speaker 1:I'm going oh okay, yeah, this is right, and if I do this every day for the rest of my life I'll be happy. I don't need to be anything else that I thought I might want to. But it does take a long time and you've got to ask a lot of questions of yourself and go to those things that scare you. Be it overseas, be it overseas, be it the job, be it you know, and then turn around and go. This isn't for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And have the bravery to say, oh, the last five years I've spent trying to fulfil something that I think I should have hadn't fulfilled me. So, yeah, I'm sure it sort of stands true for a lot of people out there Amazing, okay. So then you jumped in and just got straight into that space and chipped away and gradually built out this amazing clinic in the Gold Coast. I'm very jealous. Gold Coast, you called it early. You're like 20 years ahead of everybody else who's now moving down there or moving up there.
Speaker 1:Let's get into the actual conceptual stuff from a psychological perspective around eating disorders, body image, mental health, et cetera. When it comes to exercise and exercise, I live in a little bubble of exercise. Everyone that is around me exercises, yep, and I tend to see a lot of one end of the spectrum. I say a lot. I see one end of the spectrum where exercise becomes unhealthy for a lot of people. They overdo it, yep, and they know they're overdoing it, but they can't. It almost is like they can't help themselves, as opposed to those that do nothing and are really unhealthy Yep, be it are really unhealthy, be it weight or just lack of strength or lack of physical confidence and isolating themselves. I don't get to see them. Those are the people I should be working with really, but I'm stuck here. How do you define exercise in the context of mental health?
Speaker 2:Well, firstly, I would say that it has to be kind of like physical activity that we do for our total wellness. So, in terms of our mental health, we don't want it to be just focused on oh, I need to alter my appearance, or I need to be focused just on that and it needs to be a tool that we can improve our mood, we can improve our stress levels, that we can kind of generally just feel good about our body. You know, we occupy a shell, right?
Speaker 2:so we should take care of it and look after it. And moving it is a part of that process and our brain benefits exponentially when we exercise. It does because it releases endorphins, you know. It helps with our physical, it reduces, reduces stress and anxiety. There are so many, so many positive aspects of exercise for our mental health. That is really fantastic becomes so almost obsessed and attuned to that kind of hit of the endorphins or the serotonin dopamine kind of feeling and it becomes addictive. And in addition to the addictive nature of it, it's well, I did it yesterday, so I've got to do it today. Okay, well, I did it yesterday. I to do it today? Okay, well.
Speaker 2:I did it yesterday, I better do it today. I mean, we have this cycle of, you know, not being able to then allow flexibility into a space. So we kind of have to think about the brain and how it works. It does, you know, some people only it's a sub kind of population Some people have sticky brains. Something sticks and it burrows in and it's really hard to get it out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, let's stay on the brain from a defining concepts perspective, because I love the brain. We're drinking a little brain juice right now, not sponsored, but coincidentally working in what I work in teaching people skills and learning and understanding that everything we are and who we are and what we are exists in our brain. Everything we want to be does too. So when we say the brain, there's obviously multiple structures and layers within it. If we go into that, the sticky brains, what part of the brain is that? Because I'd like to define certain things to people, as it's not you and it's not in your head, but it is. But it's not a personal attack. It's probably something that I really try and clear up really quickly. So structurally, what's going on?
Speaker 2:Well, I like to make it really really simple for people, and maybe it's oversimple, but usually it hits the mark. So I'm holding up my fist and I'm putting my other hand over the top of my fist. So think of the brain like that. If I think about the fist area, this is our emotion center. So our emotion center kind of drives our desires, our motivators, our kind of you know, our emotional experience, our feelings, all of those things and what is overlaying. That is kind of like what we would call the executive functioning or the thinking part of the brain, the organizing part of the brain, that upper, higher level kind of thinking. What happens, though, when we get emotional particularly distressed I don't know if you've heard of the expression flip your lid the brain literally kind of goes offline. This thinking part of our brain shuts down because the emotion centre needs to either take charge because we're not feeling okay.
Speaker 2:So there's three responses we either fight, we completely shut down or we flee, and so the emotion centre in our brain really needs to take charge of that. We don't need to be sitting there thinking about which is really kind of, you'd think, counterintuitive, but it's that we're not safe, and so that's kind of the best way that I can describe it. When we think about the sticky part of the brain it's that overlaying part, that thinking rigidity part, the planning part it's really hard to shift from one kind of focus to another. We become kind of stuck and the brain pathways or the neural pathways kind of just fire in that way. So we need to kind of think about mindset shifts. How do we move from this one way of thinking to move from this one way of thinking to, okay, what's a possibility? So I like to use the word let's be curious. I wonder if what could be different, how could it, rather than it's only just this one way. Okay, I hope that makes sense.
Speaker 1:No, it does. I love it and I think a lot of what I like to work with with people when they're trying to learn a specific exercise or change a movement pattern is yeah, you've almost got to envision this potential. I can execute it like so, yeah, and then let's go and learn that. And then you are firing new neural pathways. And most of the fatigue people feel initially when they're learning, say, an Olympic weight lift or a new movement, a new skill of any kind, is neurological fatigue. It's like it doesn't burn the muscles but it's exhausting.
Speaker 1:You come to a handstand session the first time you do it, it's all these micro little skills and you're like I'm knackered after 45 minutes. Why, like I didn't run, I can go for a run, but I'm more exhausted from this and it's that cognitive fatigue to a certain extent. To find new neural pathways, yeah, okay, I like that. And so, yeah, I suppose, back to you know defining some of these concepts. What role does food play in mental health? You know, beyond just nutrition, yep, and in relation, I suppose, to those sort of specific structures of the brain.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you know, of course the nutritional value of food is important and crucial in our mental health. But there is a deeper kind of connection between food and our wellbeing. So sometimes we can think about food as providing social connectedness. We can have cultural kind of relationships with food in terms of, you know, the way that we either experience religious activities or rituals or those kinds of things. We have a sensory experience with our eating. That's kind of really important to understand and sometimes that can make eating not pleasurable and therefore cause mental health difficulties for some people. We need to also understand the mind-gut connection. So the gut is like our second brain. It tells our body and our brain what's going on.
Speaker 1:Gut instinct right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, totally. And then we've got to look at whether we're either under fueling or over fueling our body, because that can have kind of effects on our mental health and well-being as well. So it's, yeah, it's. There's a lot of things other than you know. Of I like to say, uh, food is my fuel. Or, in the case of when we're unwell, food is my medicine, and that's the way that I kind of operate. It's something that we put into this amazing shell that we occupy to take care of us, but it also has other external kind of extraneous factors that also kind of need to be woven into how we interact with people and think about people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's very interesting because for a certain population, I'm sure they can be really objective about food and go this much in, equals this much out, shift this number and they can get really numerical about it to a certain extent, which might be incredibly healthy and effective for them. But the most deleterious thing another person can do for themselves and their relationship with it, in and amongst that exercise, food and how it sort of sits together from a definitive perspective, what have you seen? How do you sort of communicate it to people?
Speaker 2:um, so obviously, when I think about, firstly, let's talk about food. When I think about food, I do because of the context that I work in. I really have to be quite I don't know like. It just is what we need to do. We just need to you know Objective almost Objective. I don't want there to be any kind of judgment associated with it. There are so many myths and fallacies out there that people come oh you know, with these ideas about this type of superfood. There is no superfood, food is just food.
Speaker 1:Well, it's marketing. It's the sort of criticism of the marketing world, right it's nuts.
Speaker 2:One of the things that I love saying is the brain does not differentiate and the body does not differentiate between the type of carbohydrate that we put in our mouth right, it doesn't go. Oh, that's the super version of the carbohydrate. It's a carbohydrate. It gets broken down, it becomes glucose and the brain synthesizes only glucose.
Speaker 1:This is where I'd like to flex and quote the chemical compound of it. I think it's C6, something, something. But yeah, you know, chemistry is chemistry, yeah, and look there are.
Speaker 2:chemistry is chemistry, yeah, and look, there are certain types of food that we want to have obviously more of, but nothing should be off the table. So, for me, we need to be flexible, we need to have a good variety, we need to be able to be intuitive with our eating. You know, sometimes I feel more hungry, sometimes I feel less hungry, and, outside the context of an eating disorder, we actually need to pay homage to that. It's our body saying oh, you know, hey, kim, you've done that extra, whatever activity, you kind of feel a bit hungry, or gee, I'm feeling a bit tired, my brain's getting a bit foggy, I need to put some more fuel in. It's not?
Speaker 1:you know, I don't want it to be a rigid thing yeah, I will warn you I speak to mr rigid here right here like I'm funny with it. I mean, a lot of people make funny fun of me and joke about it in whatever sense, and I I play along with it because I've just there's certain things where I'm just like no yeah but it's much more.
Speaker 1:It's not a reflection of I don't want to look a certain way if I eat that or yeah you know, there there's no guilt associated with it, it's just purely it's the feeling that I get after it and it's a representation of effort I'm prepared to make to take care of myself. Sure, and that's sort of the way I like to look at it in terms of, like, my discipline. I haven't had McDonald's since I was 18 because I went out on my 18th and I had McDonald's that night, you know, walking home hungover. It was at Woolingabba. I remember waking up the next morning and feeling like rubbish, obviously because of the drinking. I blamed the Maccas and I locked it in my brain. That's what we do, yeah, and it's hilarious. But I'm like I'm happy with that little narrative that I've got because it made me feel unwell.
Speaker 1:But it's not to say I walk around and go, no one should eat Maccas, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, you know, it's just for me. I look at alternative options and be a bit better organized, or whatever it might be. But it's quite funny. From a when does rigidity become problematic? I don't know, we're going to get into this now. And when is it good? You know, it is such, I'm sure you'd say it, it's such a fine line of when it can become. It's so beneficial until it's not. Yeah, how do we define that? How does someone know?
Speaker 2:Well, I think, firstly, if we be really specific, you know our body needs a minimum of three solid meals a day and X amount of snacks. That can be one to three snacks. So I think of our intake as a sliding scale. If we kind of have that as our rule, we kind of go okay, well, I need to have three meals a day and, you know, a snack every now and again. Again the rigidity in me might go I must have three more meals and three snacks every single day. But that's not going to be helpful to me because sometimes I may not need that or I may not want that. And again, this is someone that doesn't have an eating disorder. That is healthy and well. So that kind of flexible rules is what I would kind of aspire to. I would say I adopt a predominantly more kind of fruit, vegetable, seafood diet, but that's preference.
Speaker 2:It's for me, that's what I enjoy eating. That's what I kind of do.
Speaker 1:Feel best doing yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I still like to have some champagne. I still like to you know have cake. You know, if I'm at a birthday party, then cake's 100% on the table.
Speaker 2:I think when we have a kind of blanket rule and there's no way that we can bend it, that's when rigidity becomes a problem. So let's say, I don't eat cake and we go to a birthday party and it's, you know, our best mate and you know they've gone to this effort of making their beautiful cake and they're like offering it to you and for me, even if I don't even like, like I do not like fruitcake. If it was a fruitcake I would take a piece of the cake and I would have a mouthful, just because and I would do that because I have respect for that person and I want to kind of share in that experience. That's my rules, they're my kind of belief systems. It doesn't have to be everyone's, but the rigid, like the rigidity would be, I do not eat cake, and and then I would go and lecture everyone about it or I would, um, you know, try and push people into my way of thinking and or isolate yourself from that situation not go um, so you prevent yourself from having those interactions.
Speaker 2:so then you know, going out socially becomes quite problematic because of your opinions about food and eating and that kind of interaction. So you know, when I think about rigidity I think, okay, we've got a black and white way of thinking. It is either this or it's this. Again, you'll hear me say curious a lot. How can we be curious in this situation? Is it okay for us to do something different? What would happen if I chose a different option? And you know, having a piece of cake is not going to change my life on one day it really isn't but it might socially and emotionally change an experience that I have. That's where I guess for me it's kind of important to balance things out. But again, we can get into our brain way too much.
Speaker 1:And I think we all do. You know it can be so beneficial and so deleterious in the same time, in the same breath, in the same moment. Yeah, very interesting. I guess that sort of contributes to you know how can we distinguish healthy and unhealthy relationships from an exercise perspective? Probably would be similar.
Speaker 2:Yeah, certainly. I think when we think about unhealthy relationships with exercise, we're kind of talking about that again obsessionality, rigidity, and then the other things I like to think about is intensity, frequency and duration. Think about is intensity, frequency and duration. So you know, if we're not able to miss a day of doing our 5k run because it's pouring down, raining, and we strap our shoes on in the pouring rain and run because we have to, I kind of think there might be a bit of an issue. You might say to yourself oh look, it's raining outside, we can't go for a run today.
Speaker 2:I'm not saying you cannot exercise, maybe do some stretches or do something else. You don't have to be just focused on that one activity. And when the intensity gets out of control, so you're doing it, you know it starts quite reasonable and it gets more and more and more and never feels like it's enough, and then you start to feel like you're beating yourself up and then the guilt happens and again we've got this negative spiral and the feedback loop and the way that we talk to ourselves becomes problematic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it makes a lot of sense and from a performance perspective, you know I spent my Masters looking at high performance how we can get 1 makes a lot of sense and from a performance perspective, you know I spent my master's looking at high performance, how we can get 1% more out of athletes. And there's a very important cyclical nature with training and stress that we've got to bring in and you do have to deload.
Speaker 2:Yeah, rest days.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like critical, you know, and it's have that rest day, have that light session where it's 30 minutes and you just feel sexy and you walk out of and feel great and you're like I could, I could rule the world. Right now it's like cool, it's part of the plan, don't because you're going to race on the weekend, whatever it might be. Yet in gen pop and and I will say it is evolving really quickly there are a lot of good brands now that are introducing periodized cyclical nature to their group fitness programs. These are the bigger brands and I love that we're moving in that direction, because more is not more.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:And you know, I think, when someone, you know, as you said, in that pouring rain, miserable, I'm going, had a late night, I'm going.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Feel sick, I'm going and the big one we see is I've got a tendinopathy or a really sore foot. I'm going.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And that you know, big star, that we're going. Hey, your body is trying to say something to you. Take a breath and listen to it. You probably shouldn't.
Speaker 2:That's it.
Speaker 1:What are the signs? Things that people can see, maybe from a mental perspective, or, you know, things that you might have come across professionally personally where, hang on, you might be doing something less good than more, harm than good in this situation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, probably the most obvious thing and I kind of caution myself in saying this, but probably the most obvious thing is that there's been unintended significant weight loss. Obvious thing is that there's been unintended significant weight loss. So when we're noticing that people have, you know, increased their exercise and really obsessional, oftentimes because they're not fueling their body properly, you know we have this unintended consequence when there is damage, like you said, to their body and they're not listening, and you know everyone around them is resting and they are not able to rest, mood changes. So you know, they can be really irritable if they don't exercise or if they're not doing their routine or if plans change and they become really like upset. These are all kind of things you're like okay, okay, we're getting into a really rigid kind of negative space with exercise and we can kind of start to see maybe we need to have a conversation with that person. Have you noticed? Are you okay?
Speaker 2:um, link them to health professional yeah get them to kind of just take a moment to be introspective. You know. What is it really meaning for me, and is the benefit outweighing the risk, or is it the other way around at the moment, it's a strong point and I mean so much, particularly from the training end of the spectrum.
Speaker 1:Say to people don't miss, like mate, you've promised me who you want to be, lose that 10 kilos, et cetera. And it's like rigid, rigid, rigid, rigid, rigid. And then it's like turn around to this person and go, whoa, like you need the other end of the spectrum, but the introspection, as you said I love that word, it's you know where am I in this? And that person that isn't disciplined struggles to adhere to the program and can't quite achieve the person they want to be, the outcome, the goal, whatever, if you will, yeah, and that negative voice in your head becomes relentless yeah, and then you have that other person who is so relentlessly not missing that it also becomes negative.
Speaker 1:It's like this tandem it's probably an inverted you in that there's a sweet spot right there, absolutely, and you never sit on that sweet spot for a year, not even a month. You'll have a good week, and then you might slide over one edge, or you might slide over the other edge and again not being defeatist. Whichever side you are, it's just introspectively looking and going okay, I see that, and then I want to get to here.
Speaker 2:I think the tricky thing about exercise is that it makes you feel good. It is. It has an addictive quality. The endorphins, the things that kind of happen to our body neurologically and physically. They're like you know things we want.
Speaker 2:So that makes exercise tricky because you do have to have that balance. So I kind of like to think about this idea of it has to be flexible and it has to be social. So when we're alone, just exercising in our own little bubble, you know, relentlessly, that's not connecting with anyone and being healthy, right when we're not even seeing the world around us. So we're doing our you know X number of K run and we don't even take in oh wow, what a beautiful sunrise or what a beautiful sunset. We're not even taking it in, we're just like head down looking at the you know.
Speaker 1:What's my next step? Am I fast enough? Ignore that pain? Look at the watch, whatever.
Speaker 2:Let my watch tell me what I'm fast enough. Ignore that pain, whatever. What am I doing after this? What am I eating? Yeah, um, and the other thing is that you want it to be sustainable and have a really good, positive relationship with your body. So take care of it, don't destroy it.
Speaker 1:It needs rest, it needs care, it does need attention, so let's attune to that if someone wants to improve their introspection, if they want to really observe how they are narrating their eating habits, exercise habits, et cetera. What tools, what do you guys use in terms of starting that process from a psychological perspective?
Speaker 2:Well, there is this wonderful concept called self-compassion. We're probably going to talk about that later, but I'm bringing it up now. So when we think about self-compassion, the kind of underpinning of it is that as human beings we all suffer and in our shared collective union around suffering it makes us feel connected, so that we're not alone.
Speaker 1:I'm going to sorry to interrupt. There is no better way to connect a team of people than to put them through something quite difficult.
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly.
Speaker 1:And that might be a hangover session as a group when you go on tour or anything in between, because there is that connection in suffering. Yeah, I'm so big on from a psychological perspective as a strength and conditioning coach in performance. Yeah, that's our number one job, absolutely Before injury prevention, that's like bring the team together. We're better than anyone else at doing it, coincidentally, because we can inflict suffering.
Speaker 2:Anyway, sorry to interrupt, yeah, and then, once we're aware that obviously we all suffer, we have a concept of that and that we can have connection through our suffering, we actually want to alleviate our suffering. We don't want to kind of drown in it and, you know, suffer even more. We want to actually work through it. So when we think about applying self-compassion to our cognitive style, the things that we want to think about is acknowledging firstly this is really hard for me right now I'm really struggling, I'm not alone in this struggle. Either I know other people have gone through this or I can connect with someone to feel like I'm not alone in this struggle. And then we say to ourselves what do I need right now? What's going to kind of help me through this? What's going to propel me or just allow me to take the next step?
Speaker 2:So it's kind of this idea of you've got to have your own internal best friend. Okay, Because the inner critic is not going to be helpful. It's okay that we evaluate and we want to kind of understand and make sense of the world, but we don't want to criticize, you know, and criticism comes with, you know, judgment and negativity. We just want to go. You know what? That wasn't the best version of you in that scenario. I understand, that's okay. What do you think you would do differently next time? Or what do you need right now, just to feel, okay, that you could make amends or do something different? You know, it's not like oh my God, you're such a stupid, effing wanker or whatever.
Speaker 2:You've just totally screwed up. Oh my God, no one's ever going to like you. You're a waste of space Like that's not going to be motivational. You do want to own your behaviour, but do it in a way that you would your best friend. So that's the other thing I say. What would you say to a friend in this scenario If someone was going through what you're going through right now and they needed you just to be there? What would you say?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's very powerful because how many people and I mean they've seen it where they're aware now they're probably overdoing it, and then they'll say things in passing in a session where they're going oh, my body just, oh, my anxiety, this, oh I always do this and I'm just this and I'm like hey, hey, hey, hey, like this is just one moment and it will pass and you can be a totally different version of you in the next. That is a little bit more nurturing, like the, that feedback of just harden yourself, harden yourself, yeah, and again it's like you've slipped off that edge of that beautiful top of the you. You know you've gone to that self-deprecation yeah I'm not good enough kind of perspective.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's either side you know whether it's I'm not doing enough and you do need to do more and you slip back into bad habits of you know, sleeping in or missing or whatever, not having the discipline and then too much well, self-criticism still holds, in lots of people's mind, a benefit, because they think that if they're critical they're going to motivate themselves and sometimes it might work initially, but over time it actually reduces motivation, it reduces self-esteem, it reduces your mood, it increases your anxiety and it's not helpful at all, but in the first instant it might like kick you into it yeah, and get you going.
Speaker 1:It's funny because then you know I look at it again, reflecting back on the performance perspective and high performance and in teams you can only motivate a team so far with a stick and at some point it's got to be a carrot and it's not. You know, sometimes, depending on the age and the population, who you're working with young teenage boys it might be a stick to go hey, like everybody, get your ass into gear and let's go. But then there's also got to be that hey, you're striving for something better.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I also think, though, you know you're striving for something better. Yeah, I also think, though, you know you're targeting responsibility, or you know um respect, or you know where I guess in in your examples, that's where I would see that that would be useful and it has value, not when someone's sitting there going oh my god, I always do this. I'm such an idiot, you know. Then you don't go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you are yeah, yeah, I agree. What a stupid thing to do.
Speaker 2:You'd be like okay, let's just take a minute yeah, where are we at?
Speaker 1:yeah, what's good about this? Yeah, yeah, okay, very interesting. Um, in terms of, yeah, someone's body image and differentiating between a healthy body image and then a harmful body obsession, and I think this this like when we think of eating disorders. You know, there's obviously a predominance for females in terms of the traditional sense of what someone might understand it.
Speaker 2:That's not a higher percentage of them being seen and observed yeah.
Speaker 1:However, moving forward and I've seen this in young men healthy body image, unhealthy body obsession, obsession it's an abundance. Now particularly, I mean we can. We will hopefully get into social media, because it's a whole new can of worms. But you know, when does it shift, and a lot of from a young man's perspective. Initially get into strength training and exercise because you want to look a certain way, because you think that's what chicks want yeah, and it's so funny once you get to well exactly, but once you get to know women, they couldn't really care less about your body.
Speaker 1:It's much more. Are you actually a nice person, exactly a nice smile and all that other stuff? Um, but that's where it really starts, and it can lead to unhealthy relationships with their body as a male obviously. Then there's a female perspective, which I know less about, but when does that shift happen? How would you define that?
Speaker 2:I think the first thing that we need to understand is what body image is, and it encompasses how we perceive ourselves. So it's a see thing. So I see myself it's a functional thing. What does my body do? It's a thinking thing. So I see myself, it's a functional thing. What does my body do? It's a thinking thing. How do I think about my body and what it does? And then it's kind of tying all of those things together in a kind of appreciative acceptance way.
Speaker 1:Okay. So how do I see, what does my body do? And then how do I think of it? Yep, okay, I like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So when we have and, by the way, no one has 100% body positivity all of the time, that's ridiculous and it's never going to happen. What we're striving for is acceptance, that we accept our body as it is in this moment and it has its strengths and its weaknesses and it's got its function and it's got its. You know good bits and you know.
Speaker 1:Areas of opportunity, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Like there's always going to be parts of ourselves. We're human beings. We're smart human beings. We have a brain. We want to grow and learn. So, having again I like to refer to it as this shell we want to make it pretty. Sometimes, if we're a girl, we want to make it kind of sporty if we're a girl, we want to.
Speaker 2:Whatever we want, that's okay as long as something yeah as long as it doesn't become the only thing that is relevant about me or the only thing that you're going to like about me. So yeah, we kind of need that neutrality of thought. You know, I can tolerate that some days I actually don't feel good in my body, some days I feel a bit sluggish, or other days I'm like energetic and love it, and then the self-care that we're kind of, you know, adjusting our routines and our actions in accordance with those things. So when it slips to the other side, we get this again negative, judgmental, rigid, obsessionality that just dominates and nothing else is important except for making this appearance-based thing happen. And it often is just unrelenting and unrealistic, Like nothing is ever enough. We maybe aspire to reach a goal and we get there and we're like, oh, we just got a bit further or I need to do more. Like it's not enough, it's not like, yay, you did it.
Speaker 2:Great, good work okay next task or whatever that we're going to do more like it's not enough. It's not like, yeah, you did a great good work. Okay, next task or whatever that we're going to do, it's well, I need to do more. Now I have to, you know, change it in some other way. The issue is also we have outfacing reinforcement, so other people I don't know why weight is something that people persistently comment on as if it's you know like Determining factor of success. Yeah, you know. So we get reinforcement when there is weight loss.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And when we move into maybe a higher body, you know, it's kind of shamed and scorned and I'm like the person's, the person I don't understand. Yeah scorned and I'm like the person's, the person I don't understand.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know, really obviously, shut your mouth and keep your thoughts to yourself yeah, but just put it in perspective, like if a murderer loses weight, they're still a murderer, you know but you also don't know what's going on for that person.
Speaker 2:You know it could be health related, it could be physical. You know that might have just come out of, you know, having I't know some kind of injury where they couldn't move their body and now they're trying to get their life back in order and you're making these just subjective judgments.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it drives, me crazy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's stay on that. Sorry, because I do agree, like viscerally. Where do you think it went wrong? Was it an unintended circumstance that we went into the medical world and we looked at people that maybe held more weight, borderline, you know? Then bmi was the thing for a long time in terms of determining. Oh well, you guys are more at risk if you're in this category from a bmi perspective, which we now know is like it's a lot more complex than that. Do you think it was there or do you think it was sort of more hedged on a marketing? Maybe so should my eyes be like you know, or is it a sort of double whammy?
Speaker 2:I know it's a really interesting question. Um, we were looking at, um the, the thin ideal and body, um women's bodies, over like different centuries and just looking at the evolution of where we've come from. So the perception of what is attractive has changed over time. So I kind of think, okay, well, that's a part of human preference. Someone decides that this is going to be the thing and we're going to go with that. Like, for example, you know, in the 80s with the perms, some hairdresser thought let's shove big curls on women and men's heads.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And we all jumped on board. And now we look back and go oh my God.
Speaker 1:Isn't it so fun, just that sort of collective think, for lack of a better term.
Speaker 2:And someone goes this is important, let's push this. So there's an agenda and there's a preference, and I think that we kind of um perpetuate that by comparisons.
Speaker 1:So, oh, that person's you know, oh, now I want to do that and and so then we kind of have this slippery slope.
Speaker 2:now the beast of all beasts is social media. It has diabolically changed the interface between how we, as human beings, perceive ourselves and our world and how we perceive other people. Now most people are really smart and they can look at a picture on Instagram and go I know that isn't one photo that they've taken. I know that there's a lens on it. I know they've done this. I know they've done that right, we logically know that. But what happens is we flip our lid and we go into the emotion. We're like oh my God, look how glamorous that light is. You know it's a snapshot, it's one second, yeah.
Speaker 1:And manipulated.
Speaker 2:second I'm just going to go on a side tangent. I had this awesome teenager in my room and she was talking about this very thing. She said you know, I had this friend over and we were in my room and she spent her whole time on the phone taking photos and ignoring me. And I'm like, why were you with that person? And she was like, oh, I don't know. Anyway, the person left and then posted all these photos about. You know how much fun she had and these great photos and the girl's experience of it was so different to the person taking the photo.
Speaker 1:The reality.
Speaker 2:And so for me I know logically, we all know that about social media but, don't we get hooked into it and you start looking and then there's a deep dive. So I mean, yeah, social media, look I I don't even know where to start with that. But I hope that kind of people still try and take a step back and think this is not real. This is a snapshot in time. Um, you know you don't have to. This is not real. This is a snapshot in time. You know you don't have to see this as being real. You don't have to be envious of that.
Speaker 1:And it's that old adage of comparison is the thief of joy.
Speaker 2:Beautiful, beautiful words.
Speaker 1:And it's you know, and yet. Yet here we are and it's really funny. One of my favorite books is thinking fast and slow.
Speaker 1:Um, I don't know, there's an economic theory in it and there's all sorts of stuff, but I just loved the concept of we, to a degree, strut around thinking we have free will and I am who I am and I'll be fine yeah, yet that meal we just ate has made us think we're really happy, or the fact that we haven't eaten makes us a bit more edgy and grumpy, and that breeze or that stifling heat determines our mood, and all these things factoring in.
Speaker 1:And, coincidentally, yeah, you can go, oh, mark Zuckerberg, or sit, and I'm a big one to sort of even big farmer, and all the stuff that comes out. I don't look at it as there's one evil person sitting at this throne that's going ha ha ha. I've worked this out and you know, I think it's a series of unintended circumstances through organisations or whatever else it might be. Yeah, they make money out of it or not. I think it's, when we look back, over the shoulder of social media, going. Well, that's probably not what we intended. We just wanted to connect the world a little bit better, yep.
Speaker 1:But then we found everyone loved these little dopamine reward systems or endorphin releasing like again poke add, friend, more followers. Oh well, let's write the algorithm, because that makes more people use it and then our company's more successful.
Speaker 2:Oh, now we're 15 years and there is no coming back because we have coincidentally done this.
Speaker 2:Unintended causal factors. Now that we're dealing with you also sparked in my mind. You know the fact that as a Western culture and society, we have also dominated the globe and that has made significant difference on particularly different cultures in terms of what beauty looks like, what bodies look like, of what beauty looks like what bodies look like, and that envious or comparison has kind of been a product of that as well. So yeah, like it's not a one kind of demon or blaming approach, there are so many factors that have kind of led us to where we are right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. It does bring to mind another book called the Ape that Understood the Universe and its social evolution. Yep, and it's just sort of basic theory for someone that has never really looked that much into psychology. And same sort of principle on, just socially, what becomes a norm, and when you talk about the Western world dominating and then putting in these businesses and systems that coincidentally influence the way we behave, yeah. Suddenly we're all a subject to it, so it's very interesting.
Speaker 2:Sorry. One other thing that I just want to say One of my really good friends has just done some research looking at rural and remote regions in Australia and the number of fast food restaurants, and this is, I think, so problematic. It is much cheaper to go and buy a meal at these places than it is to go and buy fresh fruit and vegetables because of the trucking in costs and all the rest of it. So per capita there are more of these restaurants in low socioeconomic, you know, rural regional areas and then we're kind of having all of these health ramifications as a result of that in those rural towns, yeah and you know she's advocating.
Speaker 2:No, we really need to be opening ourselves up to, you know, getting at, I guess, equity that we can all have access to appropriate food. That's not to say you can't go to a takeaway store who cares, that's fine, but that it's the only option and and that's the only solution you have, and it's every you know it's so in front of your face. So we as human beings have an information bias. We look at something yeah.
Speaker 2:It again comes into our brain and then we are attuned to it and we follow it. So the more we see it, the more we want it, and if see it, the more we want it and if it's, on every single street corner it's really hard not to go.
Speaker 1:I want all the kids, you know, I mean mommy, I want, yeah, I want big pretty bright lights pretty pretty colors. Yeah, you know it's really interesting because my brother's in his last year of med school and he's been in waga for two years. Um, you know, remote, somewhat remote, it's pretty well established city, but um he said it's flabbergasting how systemic their problems are in relation to um the medical system that's available for them. You know, and people say injure themselves, they work on the farm, they work in the farm their whole life.
Speaker 1:They do their knee. They need a new acl. There's an 18 month wait list. Their knee really hurts, so they're not up on the tools and working as much. They're then more sedentary. They then, you know, have this issue with regard to fast food and what's available, so they choose those. After 18 months they've put on 25 kilos. Now they're pretty diabetic. Well, we don't really care about the knee, we're worried about this diabetes. They become diabetic. Now it's a diabetic issue, and so it goes. And he sort of said you know if there's better exercise programs, if there's better, you know, orthopedic access or whatever it might be Absolutely Holistic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Well, systemic breaking, you know, from an industry sense, but holistic from a health approach, Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And we have the luxury I almost would say this. We have the luxury I almost would say this, we have the luxury in Australia to be able to look at these problems like that and go okay, well, let's get after them. Versus probably the rest of the world, the vast majority of the people in the world, it's like where am I going to get that food? But it is changing. You know, africa, samoa it's one of the biggest issues and Polynesian countries is the same thing.
Speaker 1:Access to fast food and diabetes is leading cause of death and heart conditions and everything else. So yeah, there's this sort of tandem that from what are we fighting here? And it's very easy to be defeatist and sit back and go oh, what can we do. But I think for all the practitioners out there listening to this and I look at it in this way if I can inspire an intern or a staff member that steps out and goes and opens their own thing, like we've done a really good job, I want to benefit the industry holistically, and yeah look at me, I'm so virtuous, not not at all.
Speaker 1:I would love to you know, have control and open it in that way, but I'm not for everybody in the way I operate as a practitioner is not for everybody and it's probably the same in the psychological world, absolutely. This might not be the solution for you, but it doesn't mean don't go and try and find one.
Speaker 2:It doesn't mean there isn't one yeah.
Speaker 1:And I think that's a really important message for people out there that are feeling a little more helpless is yes, if you've gone and seeked help and it didn't quite land for you, it doesn't mean stop.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the way that I frame it is when you meet someone, you don't automatically like them. It's the same in any kind of health relationship or therapeutic relationship. You've got to find the person that you connect with, because you're going to have to be vulnerable and be open, and if you've already got that barrier, it's not going to be helpful. You also have a choice. Go find someone else, there are options.
Speaker 1:Exactly yeah, and again the fortunate state of Australia, I guess. Unfortunate state of australia, I guess. Um, if we go into signs and sort of, to a degree, symptoms of healthy, unhealthy relationships with food and with exercise, more from a family and friend perspective, what can they? One, stop and do and observe, and then two, you know, if it is having conversations, not having conversations, what do you recommend? What have you seen in your experience?
Speaker 2:Yeah, look, I think if parents and carers and friends are worried, I take that 100% seriously. It means there is a problem that you know parents have the best yeah exactly.
Speaker 2:They've got the best intuition. They know something's not right. I think what happens is parents feel really anxious and worried about how to approach and what to say, because they actually don't want to cause damage. They actually want to help. So there's never a right or wrong way to tell someone that you care about them or that you are worried about them. But start with that. Start with I am worried about you. These are the things that I've observed. Are you okay? Can we work together to help you and I figure out what to do in this scenario?
Speaker 2:If that doesn't land well, which if we're talking about someone with a full-blown eating disorder? At this point it's really difficult because the person does not right now see your concern. They only see the benefit of their behaviours and what they're doing, and there's a part of them that doesn't want to change because they're afraid of what they're going to let go of or what's going to happen. So that fear of uncertainty. So you know, don't be disheartened if it doesn't land well the first time. Continue to be compassionate and just reassuring. There are some really great websites that you can go on to NEDC, so the National Eating Disorder Collaboration has like guides and handouts and things like that for parents that are worried. They've got first responder information so you know people like yourself in this field what to do if you notice how to approach. So there's a whole range of now standards and resources that you can access.
Speaker 1:Okay, let's just stand that first responder in terms of defining it, because I think it's a really nice consideration. As an exercise scientist or a personal trainer or anyone in my industry, I remind our interns and a lot of our staff we probably have the most intimate relationship a clinician or practitioner can have with a client, because we see them so often sometimes five days a week, sometimes twice in a day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a doctor, a psychologist, a physiotherapist doesn't get that luxury. So you know what? It's not necessarily what to look for, but I think, in terms of considering your role within people's health yeah, you know what does it sort of stand out in terms of understanding the significance of that.
Speaker 2:I think it's really important that if you're concerned, you raise it like in your own way, whatever way you can, but essentially, if you use your I statements. I've noticed this. I'm worried about this. Have I got it right? You know, check with a person and go, you know, is it possible that you're struggling? You know, I don't mean to infer or judge, but I'm just, you know, kind of concerned about you. Have you thought about maybe reaching out and talking to someone? Have you got someone that you can talk?
Speaker 1:to. Okay, if you don't then okay maybe Let me take that on, let's look, let's have a look together, or you know. You're not alone.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So the first responders are the ones that really. You're right, frequent interactions, but people like school teachers, you know, if we're talking about young kids, it's the ones that you've seen the person enough consistently to notice there's a shift, so a shift in mood, physical kind of appearance, their social interaction, their social connectedness. They're just a bit off. You know, yeah, and you know it may not be an eating disorder, it may not be that, but be a human being, have some compassion and notice.
Speaker 1:And then courage and I think it's something we've talked about at work often is can you pull the big ticket card? Because it's and I've seen this, it's so much easier to go. Hey, how are you? Are you here to train again? Yeah, like third time today, yeah, and just leave it, and it's like you know the person in you and there are, like it almost makes me emotional the amount of people I've let walk past me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly when I didn't have the courage to go. Hey, let's step outside. Listen, I am almost speaking to a different part of you.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And I want to say I've noticed this and I care and, if I can help, Because I also think you don't know like their motivation to come might be that they are so isolated and lonely.
Speaker 2:You're the only point of connection in their life and so not only you know does the endorphins make them feel good, but they get to connect with a person and they are doing something, so that could be a motivator, but there's so many things that we as human beings aren't privy to because it's inside someone's head until we are curious and ask.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, how do you speak to families, et cetera? I mean, you're obviously speaking to people once, probably more often once they're at a pointy end.
Speaker 2:Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1:That really fragile, not sure if it's okay or not okay. How do you motivate someone to have the bravery to ask the big question?
Speaker 2:I think the first thing that we've got to tap into is particularly with parents and carers. They come with shame and guilt that they missed it or they didn't see it or they're somehow responsible. So we have to help them alleviate that, make sense of that before the difficult conversations can happen. Because if you're walking in with enormous amounts of you know, blame, shame, guilt, how am I even going to be able to connect with you and see you and be honest? So then it's about there's this amazing psychotherapist called Eva Musby. She's so cool, so she has this concept connect before you direct. And I think this is a principle that every single person in our life needs to be able to incorporate into their understanding of human behaviour.
Speaker 2:Connect with a person before you tell them what to do.
Speaker 1:The irony. I mean the irony from a care perspective through to a high performance. Get more out of a team. The best coaches I've seen. You can epitomize that.
Speaker 2:Exactly. We are biologically driven to connect. If we miss that, the defense mechanisms go up, we push away, we withdraw. We're not listening, we're shut down. Wow, it's very interesting so I would always go with the connect um and yeah, observing your own kind of thoughts and feelings about what you've noticed and the care like the. We've got this invisible string that connects us. Use that that's. That's such a powerful thing yeah, and it's unquantified.
Speaker 1:We're not there yet, we haven't worked out mathematically, feel, but we all know, and no matter who we are. You speak to doctors and you know the most scientifically logical people. It's like they still go yeah, there's, there's something sitting underneath that. Yeah, all right, let's jump back to the social media thing, because, as you said, it is um, you'd probably say it's at the catastrophic stages as significant, as that can sound.
Speaker 2:Is there hope? Yes, so particularly at the moment in the eating disorder space, we're really working on looking at reducing the level of access, the age of access, algorithm change. There's a whole heap of ways that we're trying. You know, banning media content. That's inappropriate. I remember, even five years ago, 10 years ago, there were changes around BMIs for models and it, you know, used to be terribly, terribly low. Now you know it's not ideal, but it's better. So you know we are slowly trying to make these changes. I think, just personally, in our own lives we've got to regulate our own use. You know, filter our content. Instead of looking at a screen all day, look outside, at the sky don't go from one screen to another yeah it is something I've mentioned to the staff the other day.
Speaker 1:Netflix isn't in competition with amazon, prime and everything else. They're in competition with instagram it's stuff and it's who we're competing with is. Do you stay up late on instagram and miss your session in the morning and then look at this and go? I'm getting no value from my training, my membership it's like. Well, is that on us or on you?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know what you mean, look up.
Speaker 2:I think it's such a complex kind of problem because it's almost like using an old saying the horse is already bolted, so we've allowed this.
Speaker 1:Flip your lid. Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 2:We've allowed this you know emerging generation to have access to unlimited information and knowledge and access with such an inability to kind of regulate and filter and protect. So it's like, okay, now that it's already happened, how do we bring it back and do it in a safe, really kind of.
Speaker 1:Because we're not throwing iPhones in the river and that's it. We're back to letters and pigeons, Exactly.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, what comes with progress is learning and evolution, and retrospectively, we also have to learn. And yeah, you know, we have created this monster. Let's try and either tame it or make it less vicious.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, I like that and I'm really big on that. I'm a perpetual optimist with everything. It will work out. Life is short, don't get too stressed about it. What are your intentions? Go with that, um, and it's the same with social media. You know I do. I use it responsibly. Hell, no, I'm like often catch myself going. You have checked three times yeah write the freaking email, and it's a mechanism that I turn to when stuff gets hard Like I'm writing this email. The sentence isn't coming to me, bang.
Speaker 2:Yeah, distraction.
Speaker 1:I'm like, looking at an article, going, oh cool that I'm following an account, and I'm like, well, I'm adding to my brain. It's like, no, you're not doing what you set out and you intended to do, no matter what narrative you try and tell yourself. But you know, I think everyone has that same sort of perspective.
Speaker 2:I mean on that. I think it's good to notice when are we being drawn towards it? What are we avoiding, or are we? You know bored mindlessly doing it just to occupy time. I think most times it's this avoidance or boredom, and you know there's lots of things we can do for those two things.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yeah, and the occupation of time for me is probably one of the most fascinating. And again, I'm quite introspective when I sit and I think how much can you get done in a day? You know me, beyonce has 24 hours in her day too, and we do and encouraging people to observe where did you spend your time?
Speaker 1:because eight hours of sleep. Let's lock that out. Now we're going from 24 to 16. Where did you spend your time?
Speaker 1:And I went through and I don't do it anymore, probably should when I was about 20, 19, 20, I wanted to be really good at my job and I would go and work, you know, at 5 30 in the gym, and I actually would go home and I would write out each hour of the day and it was more, because I was obsessively trying to learn all the names of everybody in the gym, so I could do a good job, but I would write out the name and who I interacted with, and then it turned into an activity of I'm not going to sit. In general, I don't really operate like that, but what do I do with that hour and what do I rate it like? Am I happy with it or am I not happy? Could I have been more productive? And then, all of a sudden, you get a really good perspective of gee, where did I spend my time? And this was, you know, instagram and social media wasn't that big.
Speaker 1:2011, 12, yep. Um, if I were to go and do it now, I think I'd be probably too hard on myself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:Quite introspective in the sense of gee, you did, you poured a couple of hours and it's. I mean, I remember having arguments with my sister about asking a young person hey, check your screen time and check where that time is spent. It's a horrible thing to do and a lot of them get quite defensive and upset by it and I'm like, okay, we've got to be gentle about how we approach that question, but it exists.
Speaker 2:Well, I think FOMO is a massive deal. We're so afraid of what we're going to miss out on. Like you know, it's that comparison. I love the. It rubs to joy, which is really cool. I like when you said that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I don't know.
Speaker 1:And, as you said, you're often comparing to yourself to someone that in the moment was not present and not happy, exactly, but they've painted this picture.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I like to sometimes say to people okay, if you've got a ritual of you wake up in the morning and you check your screen or you do, just try one morning not doing it, that's all Just one morning and see what happens. Check in the next day, that's fine, let's just change the kind of lane or change the direction just for one day and see if it makes a difference.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. This is often a bit of a tangent For me. A big part of, I guess, my psychological well-being is I grew up in a big family. I've got three or two older brothers and a younger sister. I've got three siblings. We were one of the fortunate families that sit down around the table that didn't have dinner.
Speaker 1:And if you're not present, like the TV is not on, where is your T-shirt? You're not wearing a singlet, like just little things you know old school, which are valuable sometimes and sometimes a bit extreme. But we sat and we talked, yep, and for people that you don't need to create the perfect dinner scenario and then force this thing, but for parents and for friends and for anyone out there, how can they change their questions? Yep, not to solve a problem, but just to be psychologically more supportive, topic or not, from a body image perspective, like you, obviously sit down and get to talk to people quite honestly with all the shells and shackles and the barriers stripped away. You're obviously asking questions that promote that. How can we do that as people?
Speaker 2:Before I answer that, I want to say to you that the family meal is super protective in the outcome of a person either having an eating disorder or not. So if family meals occur and you know they're consistent and again the interaction's good and the communication's good, it's super protective, interesting so that connection and maintaining that connection. So if we notice our teenagers aren't wanting to come to the meal or not being involved, that's a red flag.
Speaker 1:Yeah right, Interesting.
Speaker 2:I just wanted to throw that one in, going off on a tangent as well. So like how to approach the questions, how to talk, is that kind of what you want to do?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know if people feel, oh jeez. The last three years we've been distanced. My teenage son has been more isolating in his room because you turn 13, 14. It's like who are these parents? They're so lame and I speak to dads down here who go. I need to spend time with my seven-year-old because I am the apple in his eye, he wants to play cricket with me, and then it just goes bang, and suddenly they don't want to live with you anymore.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, what can we do? Obviously, there's stuff you can do through their upbringing, and they'll then want to probably maintain it, but it's just more a how can we have the conversation? What questions, what are we asking people and start that process.
Speaker 2:I think the worst thing that we can do is say to someone how was your day?
Speaker 1:Because how was your day? You're poking a bear. How was your day?
Speaker 2:How was your day, you're poking a bear.
Speaker 1:How was your day Good? How are you?
Speaker 2:Yeah good, I'm not going to say, oh my God, I'm just well it depends I might. I might be completely uncontained, but most of the time we are habitually kind of Patterned Patterned to respond good.
Speaker 1:So I'm one of those weirdos where I'm weird and you know, I walk down to the gym or go home and my sibling's, like Kieran's, here again. How was your day? And I go well and I'll pause.
Speaker 2:Yep good.
Speaker 1:And I'll say that was quite insightful. Today it was a tougher day, but I learned a lot, you know, and it's shut up, just say good, I'm like why I just love taking the piss out of it. But you know, to an extent they're like hey, are you present?
Speaker 2:They seriously ask, sometimes because, firstly, they're being polite. Sometimes because, well, you know, they don't want to be rude.
Speaker 1:There's all of these things, but actually do they?
Speaker 2:want to know the answer and that's, I guess, what parents need to hold in their mind. What answer do you want, mind? What answer do you want? Then craft the question right. So, if you want to know about their friendships, so okay. Um, young kids, maybe up to the age of 9, 10, you know they're very egocentric. It's all about me. I will tell you everything you want to know about me. You can ask me questions, blah, blah, blah, blah. They'll answer and you're right, they love their parents. The parents are the ants' pants.
Speaker 2:As we move into adolescence, our parents become less important to us and our connections to our peers are more important. So we're spending a lot more time connecting with our peers, eg screen time, and you know, dming and whatever else the terminology is, so that communication sometimes is taken up appropriately by their peers. That doesn't mean that you still don't have a role as a parent. So with teenagers, I'll say it again, craft the question to the answer that you are hoping to receive. If you want to know about their friendships, ask them about their friendships, you know. Ask them if you know to know about their friendships, ask them about their friendships, you know. Ask them if you know one of their might say oh hey, I haven't seen you hang out with that mate for a while, how's things going? What's up?
Speaker 2:Try and be thoughtful around what you wanna know, what your child's doing and the, I guess the rule of thumb too. I'm not a parent, so you know disclaimer there. I can tell you how to be a parent. No first-hand experience. I think the thing for me is it's all about quality rather than quantity of time, so you can have an awesome two-minute conversation and find out more about your kid than probably spending five hours with them, you know, doing something meaningless or menial. So again, yeah, be really kind of focused. I think if you think about teenagers, their world, their peers and being accepted is number one. So kind of get on their page. That's what they're about. That's what they're interested. They don't want to be at home a lot of the time. They want to be out with their mates. Understand socially, emotionally, that for that age is appropriate. They're looking at you now as flawed human beings.
Speaker 2:Parents because, it's where we form our identity. So we see our parents and we go. I am a template of you, half of each Mum. I really admire those attributes in you. I don't admire these ones, so I'm going to integrate the ones that I respect and admire. Dad, same same integrate or reject. So they're seeing you now as a flawed human being. Up until that point they thought you were amazing. You are an absolute vessel, then, for teaching humanity, being able to own your mistakes and be responsible. So your interactions with your kids can be. Hey look, I've totally stuffed up this. You know, past week I've just completely, you know, ignored you, or I've been, you know, really up in my own head. I've got a big project at work. I'm really sorry. I hope you understand. I still hold you in my heart.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm not perfect.
Speaker 2:I'm not perfect, Because they're figuring out that themselves and if you can tell them that, it's like, yes, I'm going to integrate that. My mum's cool. You know she makes mistakes, but she owns her shit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's a lesson you can grab onto yourself. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So you can also share your experience as a parent or, you know, as a friend. You can kind of go oh, you know, I really struggled through my teenage years fitting in, or, you know, I'm wondering how rough is it out there for you guys at the moment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what's this like with this world that is all online? Yeah, help me understand. Yeah, and it's actually something that I see with the young kids that we have in here, because we have a few. I just want to learn their language, like, I just find it so fascinating. The latest one, I mean. We work with Brisbane State High's first 15 rugby team and they're so incredibly talented and they're islanders most of them, yeah, yeah, and the terminology, like the latest one, is mums.
Speaker 1:And I was like what's mums? And they're like mums and I'm like what's that? And they say, do you swear on your mother's soul that this exercise will make me faster? And I'm like, yeah, and they say it all the time and I love it yeah right, but you know, celebrating and I guess, if you can be curious, as a friend, practitioner, parent, it probably goes a long way and they love that. I'm willing to listen and hear and integrate it to help yeah.
Speaker 2:Don't shy away from the tough questions.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the other big one, right yeah.
Speaker 2:If you're worried, you've got every reason to be worried. Face it, and if you get it wrong, own it.
Speaker 1:Hey look, I didn't handle that really well.
Speaker 2:I noticed that you kind of maybe I upset you. That wasn't my intention. I really wanted you to kind of know that I'm just really worried about you, or I'm caring about you, or just I'm noticing something's not quite right.
Speaker 1:I've thought about it. Take that time yeah, take a breath, breathe out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, take a moment, whenever there is a rupture, the best thing we can do is move towards that and repair it. Yeah, and it's a learning opportunity, because we are humans, we're going to make mistakes. We're going to say dumb ass, shit.
Speaker 1:In the height of emotion, flip the lid.
Speaker 2:We've flipped our lid. We're like all this stuff comes out. That's just not even making sense. Yeah, and sometimes it can be hurtful and we have to actually respond to that.
Speaker 1:Yeah and yeah, yeah, yeah. It's funny. I don't think I've screamed and shouted at anyone ever. I've never really been in a fight, besides pushing a guy over on the rugby field once, and then I'd shout at myself. I was like, oh God, he's bigger than me. I shouldn't have done that, except with my siblings. Yes, how do they bring it out of us? Like I'm talking, like screaming and slamming doors and completely flip lid. Yes, a lizard, like a full visceral. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it could be something so not even important that can totally send you from zero to 1,000. Yeah, just irrational and just not even. I think it's because we can be ourselves firstly, and you know we're kind of unbridled.
Speaker 1:You can't select your family right. They will be there tomorrow, no matter what you say or do. Okay.
Speaker 2:And they also know us so intimately, so they know the things that will kind of tick us off. I don't think people sit there and go oh, how can I really, you know, annoy this person? But it happens because we kind of sometimes like a bit of teasing or a little bit of like I don't know that kind of stuff, yeah.
Speaker 2:So yeah, our family certainly can trigger us and kind of we can become attuned to behaving. I still go home and you know my parents, I love them dearly. I regress sometimes into a child and I'm like I am a grown woman, I have a husband. What are you doing? You're behaving like an infant.
Speaker 1:Seriously, I'm just laughing. I just remember we went on holiday in January. Now my family's scattered all over Australia really Perth, melbourne, wagga, whatever Came together at Christmas. It took two days. I had the shits. I was back to the third child oh, karen's the worst at cleaning up. Shut up my apartment's so clean, like just because I don't have you, like that's it. I've gone back to being 13, 14-year-old, me just viscerally teeing off and fighting because I've just got slotted back into this hierarchy. I'm like I'm leaving, I'm going, I'm going back to the life that I've crafted. That doesn't give me this shit feedback that you guys have. It's so funny and I'm driving away. I'm like, oh shit, I should have been more present. I should have just shrugged that off. It's just so funny how they can do it.
Speaker 2:But it's automated.
Speaker 1:And you slot back into these things. Yeah, well, you know, and then let's stay on that from a culture within and amongst friends, your place in the gym, your place in the team, your place in high school you have a role.
Speaker 2:And how can someone stop and identify that for themselves? That's a really good question, particularly in relation to a healthy relationship with their body, their body image and exercise and food. Yeah, you have to give that some thought. So, if we need to understand our purpose and role and motivation, I guess it's actually, like you say, being present and having that insight. Okay, what is, what is the purpose of this? What am I getting out of it? Why am I doing it?
Speaker 1:And that's in relation to the relationship situation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, in relation to exercise, in relation to, you know, coming in to any environment, you do want to establish a sense of understanding of what's expected of you and what your role is, and it is, it's so automated. So when you asked me, I was like, oh, actually, that would take a moment in time for you to step out of. This is what I do. I just do this.
Speaker 1:What role am I playing in this class?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just do it. I just turn up and I'm here, and, yeah, I might be the person that doesn't speak to anyone and then walk out. You know what's that about? Well, actually, I just want time to switch up, okay, well, that's my motivation. It's not that I'm being, you know, socially avoidant, or whatever.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I think we are in such a fast-paced existence that we don't take time to just take a bit. Yeah, in the first, you know firing off those questions to me where you said about meditation or exercise, you know, for me I have to constantly say to myself okay, slow down, stop, because I'm always 100 steps ahead of you know where I am at this moment in time, and it is. It takes discipline and kind of having that kind of connection to go. Okay, what's happening here? Where are we? What are we doing? What are we thinking about? What's the purpose?
Speaker 1:What's the?
Speaker 2:benefit. So how do we instill that in other people? I don't know Again. Maybe it's that reflection, that in other people. I don't know Again. Maybe it's that reflection, maybe the pre-question hey, what are you bringing to this session today? Attitude, mood, thoughts, I don't know whatever. Or retrospectively hey, where did that land with you? Where did that hit?
Speaker 1:Where did I get out of it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, emotionally, socially, psychologically, physically.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like it. And again, it's an inverted U, it's a pendulum, it's a spectrum, because, as opposed to you, I'm constantly in pursuit of saying the most appropriate thing and picking the appropriate situation. My dad's like it as well. It stops us from getting on with it. It becomes a procrastination to a certain extent. The frustration.
Speaker 2:I have. Well, you can see, it is that you're being quietly, cautiously observing for the right moment. That's called a reframe, by the way. Okay, thank you.
Speaker 1:Sorry, I'm also hard on myself. I know that. Um, yeah, and it's actually very interesting that you did that. I think, hopefully, hopefully, people are still with us and they understand and see what you just did because I like it. But, um, it's a big frustration I have professionally. You know, the people I want on my team get cracking, get on with it, because I don't. You know, it's just funny how I sort of have that narrative about myself and I see it and it's my business partner gets it done, yeah, does it. But he often will sit back to me and say I wish maybe we slowed down. I thought about that a bit more and I'm like man, I'm thinking about freaking three weeks yeah, but that's the yin and the yang, and it and that's it matches for, matches for us, and we can go through thick and thin.
Speaker 2:There's a reason why we are who we are, yeah, so it's interesting for us to observe.
Speaker 1:But I think for individuals, you know, there is that spectrum because, as you said, it's like what you want I have and what you have I want, and it's sort of the spectrum for everybody and it goes. You know, as we said, everything is pros and cons on either end. Our biggest strength is our greatest weakness and you know all that sort of stuff. Jeez, I mean, we could probably keep going, turn this into a few glasses of wine and just solve all the problems. To bring it home one, two significant messages that I think you've observed objectively over the last 20 years as a practitioner, working in what is a really challenging space.
Speaker 1:One part of me to prompt this sees it as a practitioner. I don't talk about it, let that person walk past you and, as I said, like I get emotional because I hate that I did that, be braver. But also this fear of ostracizing someone, to make them feel as ostracized something that you know it's constant battle. Yeah, one or two key messages that I guess you wish the world had more in them, you know, understood more so they could help each other more, that are in this space where they have an unhealthy mental health or relationship with their body, exercise, food or you know in in this area that is really quite vulnerable and quite a concern I probably think it's you're not alone, stemming from that idea of self-compassion.
Speaker 2:You're not alone. There are people that are also suffering around you or you know your experience is worth addressing. Let's do it. So I have kind of like this philosophy or framework that I kind of think about in all my interactions with my patients, and the first one is the connection. So if we understand and know that we're biologically driven to connect, that's a powerful tool. We want to connect. So don't ever think that by connecting with someone you're doing irreparable damage or it's going to be terrible, it's going to feel good. Think about when you I'm going to go back to social media when you get a text message from someone that you haven't heard from in a while, it's just like oh wow, and you get like this buzz it's someone's holding you in their mind and the same I'm sending that message because I'm holding you in my mind. Connect Connection is super important that the connection has to be within ourselves as well. So when we're disconnected and that is basically the fuel for an eating disorder we disconnect from ourself okay, that's.
Speaker 1:I think that's really powerful and, as I said, you know I mentioned the story before we started this. In the times where I've had the courage to address it or say something, it's I see you as you.
Speaker 2:This is just a small part of yep, I love it, an area we want to address.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I want to help you because I think you're fantastic and I want to realize that more.
Speaker 2:And this is bringing that person down so let's connect with ourselves, understand ourselves, understand the world and connect with each other. And then the second thing is validation. So validation is really saying I, I don't have to agree with your experience, I don't have to know your experience, I don't have to feel what you feel, but you have the right to feel that I can validate that you feel what you feel, you are experiencing what you're experiencing, you're doing you, I accept that. I don't have to agree with it, I don't have to feel it, so that validation again flows both ways. You'll see a theme here. So it's with others and then within ourselves. The same we have the right to be sad, mad, scared. They're the primary emotions. We are driven to communicate our emotions to ourselves. If we disregard them, we're in a world of pain.
Speaker 2:So connect and validate. It's okay that I feel sad about this experience. It's because I care. It's okay that I feel scared in this scenario. It's because I'm afraid of what's behind the door or the threat that's in front of me. It's okay that I feel angry in this scenario because I or someone else has crossed my values and boundaries. That's okay, I can be okay with that. And then the last one is safety. We've always got to make sure that we're safe within ourself and the world, and sometimes the world is not, you know, a safe place. You know sometimes can be really scary. But what can we do to make it safer for ourselves? How do we make safety within ourselves? So safety within ourselves includes psychological, physiological, psych. I'm physical, our total health and well-being. We need to be safe within all of those parameters so that we're okay and then the world around us can be a safe place as well. Connection, validation, safety they're my three.
Speaker 1:Beautiful, so simple, so simple. But you know, never there and once there, always there. A constant battle, kim, amazing, so much fun.
Speaker 2:It's been awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, been really, really good. Um, I mean the work you're doing. Obviously it's uh I can't even fathom how challenging it is, um, but it's really special and, uh, as you said, you know you saw people have a wonderful influence on people's lives and that inspired you to get into it. I have no doubt, just in this conversation, there's a lot of people are going to get a lot out of this, um, and there's a lot of people who are going to get a lot out of this, but you've been doing this for 20 years, so there's a lot of people out there that have been helped significantly by you. So just don't stop, thanks. Thank you very much for coming on.
Speaker 2:It's been an honour.
Speaker 1:Cheers. Thanks for listening to today's episode. For more regular insights into SOF, be sure to check us out on Instagram or Facebook, or visit our website at scienceoffitnesscomau. Once again, we thank you for tuning in to the Science of Fitness podcast.