"Hi, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Tina's Arena. It is pre Menstruation Week. I'm tired. I'm emotional. I am overwhelmed. And I am late uploading this podcast episode. So my apologies. I haven't been able to sleep as much as I need to be. Not sure why that is, but we're doing it. We're trying. So in my Facebook group, Tina's Arena Facebook Group, we have started the January Habit Challenge and my habit that I chose for myself is 10,000 steps a day, which is kind of a lot because I get around 3000 to 5000 steps on a regular basis because I have a sedentary job. And it I don't really get steps in unless I try to."

"And I have to try really hard. So originally, my step goal was 12,000 steps and I realized I had to go on a two hour walk in order to get to 12,000 steps and that that wasn't happening. So I decreased it down to 10,000 for the rest of January. And it's day number six and I'm six at a six so far. And it feels good to be six out of six. But also I'm tired and my legs hurt because I don't walk often and it just kind of goes to show that living in a car, city driving city really sucks. And I really wish that I lived in a walkable city because it's just so much fun when you can walk everywhere. You don't walk really anywhere where I live."

"So I have to, you know, plan to go for a walk every evening. And actually lately, because I'm so sedentary at work, I've split it into a morning walk and an evening walk. So now I'm doing to walk straight to get my 10,000 steps. And it makes it a little bit more manageable because I'm not going for an hour long walk at night, especially in the winter when it's incredibly dark outside. It's dark after 5 p.m.. So yeah, that's what's been going on with me lately. And I have been chugging away at my nutrition coaching business. I've got a couple more clients which is really, really exciting and we're starting a new group coaching program in next week and I'm incredibly excited about that."

"I can't wait to kind of inspire and share everything that I've learned in my journey, you know, in my journey, in my several years of eating disorders and disordered eating. I am ready to share and I'm ready to pass on information. And I guess on that note, I wanted to say that I'm really proud of myself over the holidays because I actually had a pretty good holiday. I indulged and I ate, but I never really felt guilty and I never really felt ashamed of myself. So for me, when I get to full, I start to feel shame and guilt. Like, why did I let myself eat so much when I get to full?"

"And I was able to avoid all of those feelings. This year, I don't think I was. I was definitely full, but I was never super, super, super full. So much so that I didn't like myself anymore. And it makes me think if, you know, if I actually ate less than I did previously in my disordered eating days, or if it's just how I'm approaching life now, There are certain behaviors eating behaviors which can be considered disordered eating, but whether or not it manifests or is an eating disorder is basically, number one, how often it happens."

"And number two, your perception of it. So there are many people that skip a meal a day. True story. I went to my work luncheon and these ladies next to me are thin, And they're eating a lot. A lot. Like they got chicken thighs, maybe like two chicken thighs. A salad, like servings of potatoes, ate all of that, and then went back for seconds and being how thin that they were. And like my history, an eating disorder history, I noticed. And it wasn't even me that mentioned it, but someone else at the table was like, wow, you guys are hungry, aren't you? And one of the women replied, Yeah, I skipped breakfast for this and saved myself for this meal today. And it just kind of..."

"like, that is a very common thing that people do, you know, save calories for meals later and it can be healthy, It can be fine. If that works for you, then that's great. But for me, in my eating disorder days, if I did that and I ate a huge meal, It would have made me second guess myself because I would be eating two plates and then I'd

be like, Do I really need the second plate? You know, I don't know if this is making sense. So like, she skipped a meal and a huge lunch and it was great for her. It was fine. She's great."

"But again, like coming from the extreme perception that I had in my, you know, sick mental mind, I saw someone do something that I thought made me an awful person. And I didn’t think that they were a bad person. So it just kind of lifted the fog up a little bit for me. And maybe I just have a fucked up group of friends, I don't know, but it normalized it for me and it helped me. I guess just someone sharing their experience. It helped me a lot, which is why I kind of like to share my experiences because maybe I can help you a little bit, you know? And another example like that was another person I knew when they drank too much, they would force themselves to throw up because it would make them feel better."

"Again, not condoning this behavior in any way. But again, that was something that I thought was, you know, like an act of evil for myself and seeing someone that I knew and like and trusted talk about it like it was normal. It just made it feel less evil and less bad for me. It just not that it is normal behavior or that it should be normal behavior, but it normalized it for me it made me understand that the biggest problem in my disordered eating behaviors was not the fact that I did these behaviors. But the problem was that I believed that these behaviors made me a bad person."

"this was a critical step in my healing because it made me feel like I was not a bad person and it allowed me to accept who I was today or at that time, and it allowed me to love myself for what I was. And that was a mandatory step in healing if I could not accept myself because I believe that I was a bad person and there was no healing, I was only working from a place of shame and guilt. by seeing other people do the same thing that I was doing, it helped me feel less of an alien, less of an awful person."

"so I guess the point of that story and this podcast is that, you know, there are behaviors that everyone exhibits that could be considered disordered eating, and it doesn't always become an eating disorder or it's not always bad. the main two things about the behavior that make it a problem are, number one, the frequency that it happens. And number two, the stories that you're telling yourself and the beliefs that you believe around that situation. it is possible to change your behavior and it is also possible to change your beliefs. So if you have certain behaviors that you don't want to do anymore,"

"But I still have this habit that whenever I feel uncomfortable, I turn to food. So I have this habit that I don't want. And secondly, I also believe that it's bad for me now, and that becomes a problem when it compounds and you can't control the habit anymore. So you have to fix your behavior and change your behavior. I think that that's good enough. Today, I try to keep these episodes short and digestible so I don't really want to rant on for half an hour. So that's all for today's episode. If you enjoyed it, please subscribe. You can find me on Instagram at Tina's underscore Arena underscore or Tina's arena dot com and please, if you have any comments or questions, reach out."