Your Journey is YOUR journey

inner picture of our outer self. Healthy behaviors have a much bigger role at all health than the actual number on the scales. Internal dialogue can be so powerful and often it's super negative and critical in a way that we wouldn't talk to other people that we care about. When you start to share your story, that gives other people the courage to share theirs. I know you would be proud now of how far you have come in your relationship to food, exercise, and to yourself. I felt freedom,

I've gained relationships. I've found my true sense of self worth. There's one thing I need you to take away. You're going to be okay, okay, I'm smiling ear to ear as we start this because Lisa and I are here, I'm Amy. In case you're new, well this is this is a brand new podcast, but sort of not. And then Lisa is Lisa Engage you're new, but we are beyond excited to say that Outweigh is now its own podcast.

So Outweighed started as a four part series and my other podcasts that I do called Four Things with Amy Brown and Lisa has been a guest on their multiple times. Then we co hosted out Way together and we wouldn't you know, now we've got our own podcast. So there's going to be a new episode every Saturday that you have to look forward to. We were originally planning on doing season two, and then the feedback we received and just a couple of other amazing things that all came

together and happened allowed us to produce this podcast. And now we're going to be giving you content on Saturdays which will include either just Lisa and I talking about something that hopefully will be encouraging and inspiring and help you not feel alone with whatever you're going through when it comes to food or exercise or whatever it is. And then we'll also have guests on and sometimes I might be just interviewing the guest, sometimes Lisa maybe the

only with the guest, or sometimes will be together. We're really a team. This is a passion project of ours and we're just gonna do whatever we have to do to make it happen. Yeah, I mean, I'm also ear

to ear right now. And it has been so cool to learn and meet the Outweigh fam on Instagram, because there's no person that listened to one episode of Outweigh like you were either have no idea what Outweigh is or you were in it to win it with our four jam packed with information episodes, so that is what propelled us back here for what we thought would be season two, but what we planned to be an ongoing weekly resource for you to continue to learn that a

life without needing disorder or disordered eating outweighs everything else. So welcome back you guys. That's the tagline, A life without disordered eating outweighs everything, and we truly believe that.

But just know that we're two girls on the journey with you, and I think even for this first episode, we kind of wanted to get into that and even some of my story and where I was when we recorded this in March of depending on when you're listening to this now, that's when we recorded Outweigh for the Four Things podcast, and then it aired in April, and I was fresh off of my Fitness Pal, like literally probably right before we recorded, and I almost used the

recording as a Okay, I'm about to start co hosting a special series on disordered eating. And I didn't realize that using my Fitness Pal was a disordered behavior. I thought it was helping me because I no longer was binging and I no longer was purging, So why is it that big of a deal that I was having the tool that was helped giving me structure to my day? But what I didn't realize is how into it I was and how dependent I was on it, and how I would spend twenty minutes trying to enter in the

waffle that I made from scratch. There was four servings and I only ate one. So really, was that an eighth of an egg or a whole egg or how many? You know? Because my fitness Pal is very detailed, and my friend and I were on a walk the other day talking about it, and she said, oh, yeah, I used to enter in the sprinkle of salt that I would have because she was tracking her sodium. And I get it if you have certain things going on with your body where you may need to actually track your sodium.

That's not what we're saying. We're speaking to people like myself who were doing it just to control every single little thing that went in my body so that I did not exceed X amount of protein and X amount of calories for the day. But what it was doing is it was such a mind suck like it was sucking and an energy suck like. It was taking up so much space in my mind. It was taking up so much time in my day, and Outweigh helped me get rid of it. But it didn't just happen like that.

And I think Lisa and you can speak to this too. We would encourage you, if you haven't listened to that first four part series to go back and do it, or if you have listened to it and things didn't just boom change right away for you. Everyone is on their own journey and it is going to take time, and it's going to take work. And if you slide into different patterns that you later realize are healthy for you, that's Okay, I was all over the place, but it was part of my journey to get me to where

I am today. Yeah, And if you're listening and you're like, why is my fitness pell bad or why is it considered disordered or calorie counting? Essentially why it's classified under that category of disordered is because you are not allowing your body to lead. You are living with external rules about what, how much, and maybe even when to eat. So whenever we are silencing the body's desires and holding onto these external crutches in terms of quantity and so forth,

that is where things can get a little bit messy. Now, perhaps not everybody who uses my fitness Pal falls in the disordered eating category, but given Amy's history and you know, I certainly by the let me actually say this, this might be kind of interesting for you guys. When I was in grad school, we were taught to use my fitness Pal to help people make informed choices. So, like, take a moment to kind of let that seep in

as to how normalized this behavior is. I didn't go to grad school to learn how to enable people to be disordered with food. I went to grad school to learn about nutrition and how to empower people. But so many of the behaviors that we've been partaking in have been normalized for a long time, so much so that my education continued to drill it in me that humans can't be trusted around food. Therefore they need to be meticulous with their counting and tracking if they want to

blah blah blah. And so I think that it's only when you realize that the body is magnificent in helping guide us into what, how much, etcetera, does that really shift and you realize how kind of silly the things we do are, not because they're silly themselves, but because, like Amy, like you said, like your life was just eaten up by figuring out how to get one eighth of an egg into my fitness Pal. And what that does is it keeps you small, It occupies your brain.

It takes away from you know, being the best mom to Stevenston ins to share. Maybe I'm just using that as an example. I know for me, it took away from being a present girlfriend at the time or a friend to anybody else, because I was kind of just obsessed with whatever was going on in my world and nothing else mattered other than figuring out how much I ate that day, because that was my perceived sense of

control and all. Second, what you said, Lisad not doesn't mean if you're listening to this right now and if you're getting defensive of your use of whatever tool it is that you use, I would take a second to do some reflection on what role does it play in your life? Maybe you have an okay relationship with that. I did not so, and that was something I thought I did, and I thought because I wasn't partaking in other disordered habits or eating disordered behaviors that I had

done in the past, it was fine. And so for me, it took a while for it to show up as a problem for me, and then letting go of it was extremely difficult. And that's when I knew how much power it had on me. Was the weeks after I had let it go, how I would still lay in bed at night or wake up in the morning freaking out about how was I going to know what I

was supposed to eat? And I would text Lisa, are you sure I can't just enter something in today because it would really help me know because I'm only supposed to have this much protein or I need to have. I need to have this much protein, more protein than I've ever consumed in my life. But I wanted to make sure I was lifting weights and that I was

going to look a certain way. But it helps you let go of all of that, and I had to let go with Yeah, I'm not going to be as tight as I was because of this, but that's okay. I would rather have softness and more brain space and more time for things in life that matter than have whatever I was after. You know, we're all about tools and helping you use tools. And I just heard three words you said that I think we can all flag

as checking with our self. Words like not necessarily there no no three you're catching them yourself, but for the listener and even for myself, like it's we're we need to all always be checking in with ourselves, never getting too comfortable, and always saying, oh, what's that about? What's

that about? What's really underlying that? So the three words that you said our need like I need to be doing that or a certain way, I need to look a certain way, or I'm supposed to be doing like these are just words that we made up and they don't exist. So whenever we say oh, I need to do this, or to look a certain way, or I'm supposed to be eating this. Like let's all outweigh fam Like, let's flag those words and use them not to say, you know, hit your wrist and say shame on you.

That's that's not the approach that I ever take with any sort of self work, but rather let that light bulb go off as to something inside is really desperate for a sense of control, and peel that back and say, why why do I feel like I need this pretend fake control? Because that's that's what it is. It's not actual control. Because you know, Amy, when you were on my fitness Pal and you're again trying to calculate that egg,

like that sounds like captivity, not control. Right, I would say I wasn't as shackled as I was with my other habits, but I had moved maybe too just for a visual like shackles on both my hands and both my legs for so long. Um, maybe I just had moved to maybe the shackles are off my feet, but I still had one hand shack that's really powerful actually, and the behaviors themselves are not as dangerous or harmful, right, you know, We know that Amy had a history of

you know, purging and some other things. And I think that I see this a lot. By the way, people who have had eating disorders like anorexia or bulimia find I'm gonna put in quotes here freedom and please if you're in this stage, like know that that is a beautiful place to be as long as we continue to grow. They find quote unquote freedom when they find a diet plan that gives that one shackle, you know, because then

they're eating. Right, you were eating with with the macro tracking, but you were mental consumed by it, but you were eating and you weren't purging, and so in the absence of purging, right, like, are you fine? And that's the question to really ask, am I find now that I'm not doing this obvious you know, dangerous for my health, mental well being, behavior? And it's okay to take off one shackle at a time as long as you continue to acknowledge that there is one shackle and each day

you put work into unlock that a little bit. Does that make a little sense, It totally does. I think our goal with since this is are intro to this new podcast, is when you listen to this, hopefully you will find the encouragement to remove the shackle. Now, not every episode will relate to you, not every guest may relate to you, but I encourage you to listen to

as much as possible, or find other similar things. You can listen to, books, you can read, Instagram accounts you can follow that are going to be a constant re all of this conversation. Because when you're following other accounts, or reading other books, or maybe even following a diet plan that are feeding you opposing information, You're going to feel stuck. And I'm not saying Lisa and I are

the end. I'll be all you need to listen to every episode of this podcast, not at all, but I'm saying we hope to be a safe space where you won't feel triggered. We're trying to be very mindful of that. And also, just with that said, some episodes or all of them maybe a trigger warning. I mean, Lisa, you can probably speak to that a little bit more, and

I want you to. I think what's a little bit different than us versus a you know, eating disorder Recovery podcast is that we want people to tell their stories so that somebody who thinks that they're alone in this situation can find some hope. So we're a going to put trigger warnings on, but we're not gonna, you know, filter people from telling their stories. That being said, you know, the show notes will be a place where we tell you what the episode is about as well as put

important content warnings on. But I know that from you all, we have had amazing feedback as to what you want, and the guests that we have lined up so far feed into that, from how to feed your child so and and developed children and kids that have healthy relationships to food, to going through pregnancy and changing bodies too. I actually don't look like you Lisa and Amy and I have an eating disorder or disordered eating. Can you have people on that tell that side that eating disorders

don't just live in you know, traditionally thin bodies. From everything that you've told us, we are taking back and turning it into a guest or an expert, and we hope to continue to hear from you as to what

you want to hear. So I do want to let you know we have a new email address and it's hello at Outweighed podcast dot com, and that can be the place where you let us know what's going on, who you want to hear from, what type of guests, And we're doing this for the Outweigh family, and so it's dependent on your needs completely, And I would say to sending those types of emails are wonderful, But if you want to send in your story or you feel

like you're ready to share your story with the Outweigh family, we have an opportunity to give you that. Now, that doesn't mean every single email we get is going to be featured on the podcast, just to make that clear. But you know, maybe you're ready to share your story and maybe it ends up being here, or maybe it ends up being in your circle of friends or you have in your nook of the world. How can you

make a difference with your story? And we want to hear from you because I think there's power in everyday people having a voice and sharing what they've been through and then people hearing everyday people and be like, oh yeah, likely she said. We don't want you to feel alone. And so there's all kinds of people going through this. We plan on having diverse guests at least to just speak to privilege quickly to of where you and I are coming from that. It's not lost on us, and

we just want to make sure everybody feels included here. Yeah, but I mean, I think you're referring to just like our thin bodies and our thin privilege. Despite what we've gone through with eating disorders and disordered eating, we still live and occupy bodies that are very socially accepted. And we don't just want to have guests on that look

like us. We want to have guests on that look like everybody who lives in I'll just say our country or this world, this planet, because the more we hear about the human experience, the less alone we feel, the more we can help each other, and the more we can stop to no longer normalize so many behaviors that have been normalized in the pursuit of looking one way. There's no one way to look, there's no one way to be healthy, and it's so important that everybody finds

their own empowerment and strength from within. And I'll say society has told us that there is one way to look, and I have fallen captive to that, and especially depending on maybe what you do for a living, or who you surround yourselves with or pressures you have on you. They can come from all different places the pressure, but society as a whole says, and it's said for for years and years and years, this is what you should try to look like. And that's what we want to

undo here as well. We want to be part of that conversation of no, actually you don't have to look like that, and whoever's telling you you you should, let's start silencing that. And it's hard because again, when it's society telling you that, I go back to I think I even mentioned this that way, but I always hear Demi Lovado in my head talking about her pressure from her her She's in a world and I'm not even the biggest Demi Lavado fan that this is such a

go to for me. It just hit me when one day she said, I mean, why am I killing myself at the gym three times a day? She's going to the gym three times a day and doing other unhealthy habits all to be in a leotard on stage, to look a certain way, because that is what society, id or her world was saying. You need to look like this pop star. This is how pop pop stars look like, and you should be in this tiny lids heart and

it's like, no, who says that? And then if she wants to be in a lidschard and she doesn't look like x y Z pop stars, who cares? That's her body? All of our bodies are built so differently, and that's what we need to I love this. Normalize has been a new word for me in and we need to

normalize that. It's okay we all look different. That bodies change, right, Like so many people are kind of stuck on going back to their high school weight, or their college wade, or their early twenties or even their early thirties depending you know. I know, we get all all types of

listeners here. And the best way to continue to be healthy, to support our bodies and give them what they need is to recognize that body shapes and sizes change over time over the life cycle, especially as women whose bodies you know, go through different things in order to carry life, and again, in order to continue to nourish them and show up for them and give them what we need, we need to understand that they do fluctuate and they're

not static. And Amy, you said something that I thought was really beautiful just about like your body being softer a few moments ago. Yes, so I struggle with mental health. It's always an ongoing fight. It's been a good couple of years, for sure, and I'm really grateful for that. But for whatever reason, mornings are really tough for me. I just wake up and I even if it's the best day, like we're about to record and I have so many amazing things planned, I just struggle. I struggle

to get out of bed. And what I've been doing these last few days, and this was actually a follower recommended that I do. This is she said. She puts her hand on her chest, on her heart and says, I love you, I love you, I love you, and

she says it softens her. And so I've been putting my right hand on my heart and my left hand on my belly and noticing that my belly feels softer, and that the first thing that I don't do when I wake up in the morning is run to the mirror to check if my exercise regiment is working hard enough and my abs are there, and you know, pulling out whatever is there, as I did in my early twenties. It's been a really nice way to wake up, really

softly and send a little message to myself. So I encourage everybody to lean into the places of their body that they think are so quote unquote awful or unlovable, whether it's your legs, your arms, your neck, your belly, and place your hands there and send some of your own love inward, even even big, big, big, even here if it feels forced right now and it feels uncomfortable. So I just wanted to share that little tip of anybody else struggles or is just looking for a nice

way to get out of bed in the morning. Awesome. I think that's a great place to leave people with our first episode and just kind of what you can expect from this podcast. And thank you Lisa for sharing that. I feel like, yeah, it may seem forced at first, but it could evolve into something that your body really appreciates in your mind and will just become second nature.

We all need to be loving all the parts all the time, and I think that we know that our mind is so powerful, and when that becomes your mantra of I love you arms, I love you legs. Thank you for giving me the ability to walk and move when I need to, and thank you stomach for carrying my two children. Thank you arms for allowing me to hug people when there's not coronavirus. Okay, well, thank you stomach for helping me digest food, and arms for helping me grab a pencil. And you know, even the most

basic of things. Our bodies do for us. And I think when we love ourselves, so we don't that's not the end goal. The end goal is we we love others, were able to open our hearts to others when we're more able to open our hearts to ourselves, and that enriches life. I'm not going to say it's the ticket to happiness, because you know, happiness, what is happiness, But our lives can be enriched by small interactions with ourselves and others, and those little bits of life improvements are

what make living worth it awesome. Well, thank you listeners for joining us. If you're here for episode one, you're probably already part of the Otway fam. If you are brand new, welcome, and Lisa shared with you our email. We would love to hear from you hello at Outweigh podcast dot com. So we look forward to this journey, this podcast and seeing wherever it takes us. See you guys, soon