ARCHIVED EPISODE FROM SEASON 1 (2023)
Big Girl Brain
#10 Learning To Love Me
I think pretty much my entire life I have not only struggled myself, but heard of other people struggling with body image issues and issues with the way that they view themselves. And I think it's pretty crazy how common it is these days. So today I really wanted to talk about the unnecessary weight that those things can add to our lives from a very young age. I think it's safe to say that the day you become aware of your body is the date your childhood pretty much ends. I remember being in about fifth grade the first time I realized I didn't look like the other girls and the first time the boys mentioned that I didn't look like the other girls and that was the first time I even realized that that mattered and that that was something people cared about. My mom always taught me and my sister about you know people being insecure people being not taught correctly at home to be nice. She just warned us you know made it clear that kids are going to be bullies and that we don't need to ever listen to it or take it seriously or take it in and it's not true and that we don't need to be affected by you know what people say to us. And for the most part I did a pretty good job with that. I you know I would get my feelings hurt but I never really internalized it too much. I think the area that really got me and that really gets a lot of us was the use of social media in my life. I wouldn't say it was the only cause but it definitely helped because social media was the only place where I saw very unrealistic body types. You know that's where I saw the super models that's where I saw the perfect skin you know that's just where you see the perfection because in real life no one's fucking perfect. So I don't know I just I struggled a lot with that but once again I was very young I didn't realize like people can sit and edit their photos all the time or even not edit their photos but I'm not gonna look like a 23-year-old woman with full on titties when I'm 15 you know and that was something I didn't get either like I would compare myself to people that were not my age were not my build like it's just it was so much at such a young age and I think a lot could have been avoided if I didn't have social media at that young age which I will say my mom did not want me to have and I fought her for it so she warned me she warned me I think probably like the summer before my junior year was when I became the most aware that was when things started to go downhill and honestly when I got back to school that year it was rough like volleyball season was rough rugby that year was rough dance was very rough I wholly crapped the little number one thing I do not recommend for people struggling with body image issues is to be in a dance class where you have to stare in the mirror for hours I remember being this memories like burn into my head there was a girl in one of my dance classes I was 16 I was a junior and her legs were just so toned and like perfect and skinny and I just loved them and I wanted mine to look like that and I would think about it every single week when I saw her and I remember thinking this girl has no idea that I think this every week and this girl probably has no care in the world about her legs and probably doesn't give them a second thought but I sit here every single week and just wish that I had her legs and I remember even realizing how much of a waste of time that was even at 16 it hit me like dude what are you doing but it was a constant struggle and for some reason that was just something that I really had a hard time with that and I would say the societal norms you know comparing myself to the 23 year old that I would see on social media I would do that because I wasn't built the same as you know every other girl my age and some girls my age you know were a lot more developed than I was and at the time the thing that we cared about was boys and the things that boys cared about was girls because you're in high school and your children and you're feeling a lot of hormones and things are going on so you want to look good right you want to look attractive and I didn't feel like I looked attractive I didn't feel like I fit the role of a woman which I wish I understood was fine because I was a baby like I literally wasn't even done growing oh my gosh but still I just that was in my head I had this set vision of what I was supposed to be and what was attractive and what boys would like and that is what I cared about in high school for a while I didn't do anything about it I just you know I had these insecurities but I didn't feel like I could change them I felt in my head I was like well I'm healthy I'm active this is just my body which that was fine that was fine like I should have just sure to just frickin stayed that way but no one day 2020 rolled around and we were all stuck inside doing nothing stuck with our thoughts stuck on our phones on social media comparing and little by little I I started scheming I started coming up with a plan I just absolutely hated the way I looked when I started my senior year and I was like there's no way there's no way I'm going out like this like I am not finishing high school looking like this as if that's a big deal who the hell cares but I don't know in my head it was a big deal so I was like okay I need to you know eat clean I need to take care of my skin blue block well I had had you know volleyball and dance right off the bat in the fall when school started and at the end of volleyball season it was like December or November time and I had noticed that I had shaved off a couple of pounds since summertime since being in volleyball and that oh my gosh that was the start I'm gonna be straight up that was the start of a very long and unhealthy relationship with food I don't want to be too detailed you know on what I did and how I lost so much weight but basically I wasn't eating properly and not making the smartest decisions and I was also drinking a lot of alcohol at the time my senior year of high school I was a little bit of an alcoholic I to be honest I just went through a little rebel phase I didn't really get to do a lot growing up my mom was pretty strict when I was in junior high in high school so I kind of became a rebel my senior year so on top of me not eating properly and being unhealthy in that sense I also was consuming alcohol a lot so I was also throwing up from alcohol a lot so I just oh my gosh I was a just an idiot just dumb dumb June rolled around and you know I just wanted to make myself even smaller so I decided I was gonna go to the gym every day on top of not eating food so from June 2021 all the way through June 2022 literally that entire year was pure hardcore anorexia I was convinced that I was fat and I was literally keeling over about to die I can't explain anything that went on in my head because I I barely remember the entire age of 18 to be honest I feel like I black most of it out but it was not good it's just it was very rough I told myself I wouldn't get emotional during this episode but there's no way to talk about this from oh sorry I gotta pull it together I gotta pull it together it's okay I might have to speed talk it's just hard for me to talk about being fuck bro I just don't remember a single day at all being 18 and not waking up and wondering how the hell I was still alive and also not having a single day where I woke up happy to be alive and it sucked and I am so grateful that I have you know been able to pull myself out of that and turn around my life and my mindset but man is it rough to look back on sometimes half me's like bro you're actually gonna kill yourself when you listen back to this but the other half me's like this is so cute and vulnerable and such bonding and I love it anyway so what saved my life let's get back to that y'all I just it was so funny sometimes like I'm so chaotic um so what saved my life was literally turning 19 the month of July my 19th birthday 2022 that whole month I remember I don't know so if he was really really into the gym like getting into it that was like her prime now she's bodybuilding so she's even more prime but this was like the first of her primes you know her first prime so she was getting really into it and I just she was so muscular and so strong and so healthy and I was like I need to I need to be that I am done being weak like I am done being this sad little small little shrinking myself making myself weaker every day and draining my life away piece of shit I'm done I'm done I was like I what have I been doing what have I been doing it really hit me that I needed to make a change when I realized that it's not it's not like I could do this forever like I was either gonna die or have to come up with something else you know like I you can't sit and not eat forever you won't last so I don't know I just I guess I became realistic I just think that I've realized a lot and I felt a lot of peace from the things that I've learned and realized and accepted as I've gone through this you know year of recovery and trying to get to a place that is maintainable mentally and physically and I just want to share some of those things so as crazy as it is the gym originally made my problem worse but also ended up making my situation go away completely it wasn't until I realized you know that I wanted to be strong in the gym that I was able to turn around my relationship with food and look at it as fuel rather than my enemy basically the way I thought about it is kind of silly but effective because I would think about like cavemen okay like dinosaur era when they would have to go out and hunt for their food and I've always imagined cavemen to be like shredded because I'm like they're throwing heavy stones and fighting dinosaurs and hunting all day and then they probably just live off like dead animals so it's just a lot of protein I don't know I just in my brain they would be huge they would be shredded so in my head I'm like why why don't I act like a caveman like why that is the alpha the cavemen like what tops a caveman do you know what I'm saying cavemen like food is just fuel for them it is it's just getting them where they need to go it's giving them the energy they need to get the stuff done that's what it's supposed to be for us too like when did that change you know like one day food became like an emotional thing food became like an event food became a hobby and some people you know that's great I'm not saying that's terrible for everyone food is a fun part of life but for me for someone who has had non-healthy relationship with it it's just better for me to look at it as fuel strictly fuel so you know to each their own you do what works best for you but for me I just have to be a caveman that's it the reason this was so helpful with anorexia is because anorexia is like obviously you know you have this emotional connection with food you have this fear of over consumption so you'd rather just cut yourself off completely because of this fear of becoming fat one day or whatever so you just you kind of avoid it at all costs and it becomes this thing that controls your life rather than something that's just a casual thing that happens you know like brushing your teeth every day like you have to eat food every day you know it just became so much deeper but when I looked at it from this caveman perspective it brought it back to that surface level thing it wasn't as deep this helped me to not have it at the forefront of my mind and that was something that that was honestly the first step you know is getting it off of the forefront of my mind because when I'm constantly thinking about something and overthinking it that's that's why I get so irrational that's why I make these crazy decisions and start spiraling it's because I start thinking too deeply I get attached to this thought and it just you know starts going down down down down down so if I'm able to you know recognize this thought this irrational thought about food and I'm able to remind myself you know hey it's just fuel it's something that has to happen and it's really not that deep it allows me to push it away and not overthink it and not you know spiral like I would have in the past I heard this on a different podcast a couple weeks ago somebody was talking about they had just gone to their therapist and they had mentioned an irrational thought that they had been kind of dwelling on and the therapist said you know people with mental illnesses everybody in this world we have these this stream of thoughts and it flows through our mind every day all of these thoughts and people who don't have a mental illness they won't pick out any of these thoughts and get really attached to them and spiral on them but people with a mental illness you know like depression anxiety if they have an anxious thought or a depressed thought they might grab on to that and start spiraling and think way too deeply about that thought and that's what kind of drags them into a bad mental state and it's something that you just have to constantly be aware of if you struggle with a mental illness because it's it happens so fast and so easily and sometimes so subconsciously that we don't even realize it until it's just about too late so that's really helped me you know when I have these thoughts being able to remind myself like hey just let it flow just let it pass don't get too wrapped up in it and it's really not that big of a deal anyway back to food being fuel basically this is it's helpful because it's almost easier to eat healthy this way because when you think of food as fuel you don't want crappy fuel and you want your fuel to work so you know for example if I'm eating a bunch of crap and then I'm going to the gym I'm not going to perform good but if I'm eating you know high-volume foods good carbs good protein I'm gonna feel good when I'm lifting at the gym and ultimately I care a lot more about what I feel like because I'm not gonna be able to achieve my physical you know appearance goals if I don't feel good enough to work out so you see what I'm saying like it's kind of just it goes full circle when you don't focus on the physical looks of it all they almost come more naturally I know a lot of people would you know probably be like well why do you still you know think about what you look like or focus on physical goals in the gym if you struggled with your relationship with food and I just honestly get frustrated when people say that because it's like are you never gonna care about your appearance again after recovering from like an eating disorder no like you're still gonna care what you look like you're just going to take care of yourself in a healthy way so that's what I really just want to like drill in people's minds is like yes I had a very unhealthy relationship with food but I've recovered from it and I can talk about these things now without giving you unhealthy advice just because I was unhealthy in the past you know like food being fuel is a good thing and training for a certain physique isn't a bad thing it's just about doing it in a healthy way and that's why I like talking about this now anyway I have just noticed I make a lot smarter decisions about what goes into my body now that I think of food as fuel and something else I've noticed about myself is if I'm not having things that are bad I won't crave them I won't want them and if I'm having things that are good that's what I'll crave and that's what I'll want and I know some people some people are different you know I've heard the like 80/20 rule for a lot of people which I feel like I I mostly do that too maybe a little bit less but basically it's the idea that you have to have balance and if you kind of cut yourself off from all sweets or crap or whatever you'll never be able to maintain that and I definitely agree to an extent with that like that is you can't just never have anything bad for you obviously you're just you're not gonna last but for me it's got to be like a really small amount like it has to be a small amount because I have a sweet tooth I do and if I like have something sweet I will want it the next day too so I just gotta I can't do that but I still have balance it's just my balance isn't having a little treat because if I do I want more I will want more but it doesn't make me feel good like in my tummy like it might taste good and be enjoyable for like five minutes but in my tummy afterward it never feels good so that's why I'm like because I know people are gonna listen to this and be like bro like chill out like you can have sugar sometimes like it's not that bad if you have something two days no that's not what I'm saying so you chill out that's not what I'm saying I'm saying it actually doesn't make me feel good if I eat bad things but if I eat them I will want them if that makes sense anyway just it makes sense it makes sense aside from you know obviously bringing my physical body back to life healing my relationship with food it helped my mentality and my confidence so much and it was crazy it was like really the first time in my life that I ever felt like I really don't need anybody to like me but myself was this year being 19 literally and it's so sad to say that but I'm just glad that I got here at some point because taking care of yourself feeding your body as stupid as that might sound was such a big deal for me and it made such an impact and fueling myself and knowing that I'm strong and that I just even do the bare minimum to take care of myself made a big difference another thing that you know in the beginning social media I didn't know how to use it properly I didn't know how to use it to my advantage or in a healthy way or in a way that makes me feel inspired but now as I've been following bodybuilders and following people that aligned with my lifestyle rather than are so far from my life and far from relating to me that it just doesn't even make sense why I'm you know watching what these people are doing every day once I've altered my once I altered my social media to fit me and my life it feels so much better I feel so much more in control you don't feel like you're missing out and that your life is boring or purposeless because you're constantly seeing people who are on the same track as you you know I follow this bodybuilder girly she she's not really a bodybuilder but she just really she's very into fitness and she she recovered from an eating disorder and she's a mother and she is now shredded and every day you know she shares some workouts she shares what she eats she shares her tips her stories her experiences and following her has made me feel so confident and so at peace I don't sit and compare myself to her I don't sit and think like oh my gosh I wish I looked like this girl I take her advice I'm like oh my gosh this girl looks incredible I want to live like this I want to feel like this and look the way she does I want to achieve these goals let me follow her advice let me see what she's doing let me come up with a plan so I can do you know it's it's more about inspiration let social media inspire you don't let it be a place where you sit and compare yourself to people that are nothing like you why would I go sit and follow a bunch of Kendall Jenner looking Victoria's Secret models when that is not what I look like at all and not the lifestyle I live or the lifestyle I'm trying to live you know like I get it if you're like a fan but I of people like whatever I don't know some people you just follow because you like them I get that me personally I just I strictly need to follow people that align with me what I look like what I act like how I live things like that or you know my goals my life goals how I want my life to look how I want you know that's what I need to follow because I need social media to be a place that inspires me and motivates me and doesn't make me feel like I'm comparing myself to everybody like my life is boring like I'm missing out like I chose the wrong path that's not what I need when I open Instagram okay I just need to see something that motivates me something that makes me feel good and something that makes me want to share what I'm doing with everybody else you know outside of you know the actual relationship I had with food and how I handled social media the last main issue that I had that I this one is this one still gets me and it's the one I saved for last for this reason because I really don't know the secret quite yet I kind of know the secret but not really as I've grown up I haven't always been super kind to myself internally and on the outside you know I think sometimes we I don't think it's terrible to make jokes sometimes about ourselves but it's important to understand that those things actually do have a role and play apart in our self-esteem and it also plays a role in how other people view us whether we think it does or not and I've been a lot more careful about how I talk to myself not only to myself but also around other people I think the key to having a positive self image both about your body about your personality about everything is having respect for yourself and also demanding respect from other people because I think is truly impossible to have respect for yourself if you do not require respect from other people I've talked about this before but for some reason majority of my life I was convinced that I just had to be this pushover and this easygoing anything can happen to me and I don't care person and I'll I don't know why like I really don't understand where that came from or where it stemmed from and maybe one day I'll go to therapy and find out but until then I've just known that I want to change it I'm tired of it I was like listen how can I expect people to ever respect me when I always just do what they say you know but it really hit me one day the reason they don't respect you is because they can tell that you don't respect yourself and why would anyone have respect for you when they can see that you don't even have respect for you you know so it was up to me it was up to me to create a sense of respect for myself in my own head and to figure out a way to like myself because it no one else was gonna like me until I could like me and that that was the hard truth it actually came in a moment of fear because I had this realization what if every single person died and I was actually just stuck by myself and I hated myself that would suck like that would really suck so I might as well get along with my brain because what if everyone dies one day I just knew I just knew like I had been bringing loser energy and if I'm bringing loser energy people are gonna treat me like loser so I have to bring winner energy and the opposite will happen the main thing I want you guys to take away from this episode is that there are healthy and constructive ways to become the person you want to be both physically and mentally your life really isn't your own if you're just constantly living for either the approval of other people or to fit in this box of worldly expectations of some sort decide what you want decide what path you want to take for your life and how you're gonna get there and get started positive self image is not just about how you see yourself and your body it's about how you take care of the individual whom those things belong to how do you take care of your body how do you take care of your mind you cannot be healthy in one area without being healthy in the other as well a lot of people don't realize this but if you have a negative image about your body if you don't like the way you look physically it actually lowers your self-esteem in other areas of your life and you know can make you feel less confident to make friends or to try new things or things like that and same applies vice versa if you have negative self-esteem in general it can cause you to feel demotivated around taking care of your body and it can prevent you then from achieving a physical goal so yeah that's been my experience so fun love being a girl I'm kidding I actually do love being a girl and I am very grateful for everything that I've learned and been through thus far in my life I would not be who I am without any of these experiences so I hope you guys enjoyed listening I hope you learned something new today I couldn't tell you a single thing I said because I've been recording for three hours and I don't know why it's taken me this long today but is just not been going well so hopefully this is a good episode and hopefully I make sense okay follow me on Instagram @biggirlbrain and share this episode with your friends if you want to but you should anyway I love you bye