"So what can I do for you?" I asked.
This was a few years ago in my clinical practice days. My client was about 30 years old, male, lean and wirey. He answered quickly.
"I need to run," he said.
Now, I'm a word guy. My wife thinks I'm a bit concrete when it comes to words, and well, she's right, sometimes I am. You know how that goes. "You ALWAYS...." and insert whatever you want afterward. And I say, "Always? Really?" Of course she's just trying to make a point and I'm trying to be clear. It works itself out.
So, when I heard the word "need", my "word light" came on. And I dive right into it. Head first.
"Need? Need to run? And why is that?" I asked.
Pause. Looks down. Looks right then left. Looks up. The says, "Well, I like to."
Not good enough for me.
"And why do you like to run?" I asked.
Another pause, shifting in the chair. Scrunching of the mouth. Wiggle. "Uhhh...'cuz I like the way it feels?" he says only this time in a voice that trials off in upward tone almost as if he's asking a question.
You know where I'm going next, right?
This is healing using the Socratic Method.
"And why do you like the way it feels?" I asked.
This time the answer comes out more forcefully with little hesitation.
"Because I can eat whatever I want as long as I can run as much as I want!" he exclaimed.
Ahhhh....the magical fragrance of the truth dancing through the air.
Now we're getting someplace.
"Great. I get it. You run to eat. And now, since your knee hurts, you're having to deal with the eating issue and you would rather not. You would rather run," I said.
"I don't have an eating issue. I have knee pain," he replies.
"Uh-huh. I know. How much weight have you gained since you've not been able to run?" I asked.
"How did you know I gained weight? I just met you? Man...well, about 20 lbs over the last six months or so," he said.
"And I'm guessing you don't feel very good about that on top of how you feel about not running? Am I correct?" I asked.
This time a sigh. Big. Deep. Long.
"Yeah, this sucks. I love to eat to be honest and running has always allowed me that privilege and now...I guess...now..uhhh"
"Your body has failed you," I interjected.
"Yeah, that's right. That's how it feels," he replied.
Why Exercising to Eat Whatever You Want is a Mistake
You're not being honest with yourself. Some people. like my client, use exercise to offset their nutritional choices. They believe that by exercising and "burning calories" that they can then replace those calories with the food or beverage of their choice, maintain their ideal body weight, and all is good. And to an extent, this works.
Until it doesn't. Like when you get hurt.
See, what's really going on here is that you're not eating whatever you want. Not really. You're eating things that you think you shouldn't and the exercise is how you pay the debt of guilt. So when you can no longer pay the debt, what happens? You eat more to make your self feel better, which of course it doesn't, you gain weight, you feel worse, you eat more, and on and on. It's similar to what happens to people who use shopping to make themselves feel better. They spend money then realize they spent too much and feel bad so they go shopping to feel better.
The purpose of exercise is to not to shape your body as much as it is to get your body in shape. Form follows function. And along with that is your food and beverage choice. What you eat or drink is fuel for the mind and body. Sure, we all have things we like to eat or drink that aren't ideal. That's ok. But it's a question of moderation. How often, how much, etc. In my client's case, he had to run to manage his guilt over what he was eating because he was eating a lot everyday, and in his mind, foods that he shouldn't be eating or at least not as much as he was. He wasn't running to get into or stay in shape. He was running to stay in control.
You can easily over train. When you exercise in order to eat what you want, you can easily exercise too much, too often, too hard and end up in the hurt locker. That's basically what happened with my client. He started enjoying a few beers along with his pizza, noticed his weight was creeping up, so he increased his mileage and then played with speed and hill repeats. And then knee pain came to call.
I'm going to stop for now. I've given you a ton of stuff to, uhhh, digest. But what we're talking about first is awareness and then change. Becoming aware of how you view food and exercise and then changing that view and relationship. And frankly, both awareness and change are hard for most people and therefore, they end up right where they always have been. If you want to see a change in your life, you have to make a change.
My core health philosophy is simple: life is movement. When you can't move freely or in a way you need or want to, suddenly your life seems a lot smaller. So, I promote movement through the fundamentals first: know your abilities and weaknesses, work on the weakness, build your stability, balance and endurance, then your strength, then power, then stamina.
If you've tried just about everything under the sun to get healthy & fit or are fed up with programs that leave you feeling worn out, frustrated with lousy results or worse, injured, then I'm your guy - Fusion can help you.
Why? I make complex, sometimes even contradictory, health & fitness concepts dead simple to understand and use.
Doug Kelsey PT, PhD
Fusion Performance Training
http://fusionperformancetraining.com/
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MLA Style Citation:Kelsey, Doug".".25 Jan. 2012EzineArticles.com.27 Jan. 2012
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