Are Diet & Exercise Effective Ways to Avoid Body Image Issues? Part 1 [Podcast Transcript]

Title: Are Diet & Exercise Effective Ways to Avoid Body Image Issues? Part 1

Podcast Date: September 3, 2024

Listen Here: 

Description 

In this episode of "Compared To Who?" Heather Creekmore challenges the common belief that changing our bodies is the solution to body image issues. She discusses the harmful impact of diets and exercise on individuals' well-being and tackles the cultural misconception that achieving a certain body size will lead to freedom from body image struggles. Heather emphasizes that people of all sizes experience body image issues and that placing hope in diet and exercise often leads to disappointment, psychological, emotional, spiritual, and physical detriment. She warns against diet culture's subtle influence, warping Scripture to manipulate individuals into believing that their worth is determined by their body size and equating weight loss with spiritual success.

Listen to the first episode on Gwen Shamblin and Diet Culture in the church here: https://omny.fm/shows/compared-to-who/starving-for-salvation-diet-culture-gwen-shamblin

Go check out our brand new Etsy show to get cute podcast merch: https://www.improvebodyimage.com/shop

New to the show? Learn more about Heather Creekmore, Heather's books, and the ministry of Compared to Who? at: www.improvebodyimage.com

Ready for real body image change? The 40-Day Journey begins soon. Learn more here: https://www.improvebodyimage.com/40-day-challenge

Outline

03:50 How Diets Set Us Up For Disappointment

09:34 Believing We Are The Exception To The Rule

13:06 The All Consuming Nature of The Next New Plan

18:58 The Fake Crowns of “Before” And “After”

24:12 The Religion of Pursuing a Better Body

40 Day Journey Review [00:00:02]:

I very much enjoyed this book and this class. I could have read the book on my own and filled in the blanks and gone through the journey myself. It would have been very beneficial. But to join the class and be with other women who are experiencing the same types of things that I am and to hear their backgrounds and their own struggles as well kinda helped me realize that I'm not alone in this journey, and it was super beneficial. The breakout sessions at the end where we were put in small groups was really cool because, again, you can connect with other women who are going through some of the same things. So I'd like to thank Heather for first writing the book and putting it out there into women's hands and also, having the experience of walking through the 40 day journey with her and other women.

[00:00:57]:

Hey. Heather Creekmore here, you’re listening to the Compared to Who podcast. I love hearing another satisfied customer report on her experience reading the 40 day body image workbook and joining us, a group of Christian women on Zoom every week for 6 weeks doing the 40 day journey. Hey. It starts this week, and you're actually not too late because you can watch the replay of the first session if you missed it. But join us. What are you waiting for? This is a great way to kick start your journey to body image freedom. Join us in the 40 day journey.

[00:01:31]:

We start, September 1st was the reading day start that you can catch up, and we go through mid October. So learn more at improve body image.com. Hey. Today, we're kinda going back to basics. I mean, it might not be basics for you if you're new to the show, especially. But I think one of the biggest lies we wrestle, no matter how long we've been struggling with body image issues, one of the biggest lies that we wrestle is that if we could just change our bodies, then we wouldn't have body image issues anymore. And so today, I wanna tackle the topic, are diet and exercise effective ways to avoid body image issues? Because, really, that's what culture tells us. Right? Like, you know, every weight loss ad out there is if you just do our plan, if you just do our program, then you will look like this.

[00:02:17]:

You'll be an “after” and you won't have body image issues anymore. But is that actually true? That's where we're going today. Glad you're here. Welcome to Compare To Who, the podcast to help you make peace with your body so you can savor God's rest and feel his love. If you're tired of fighting body image the world's way, Compare To Who is the show for you. You've likely heard lots of talk about loving your body, but my goal is different. Striving to fall in love with stretch marks and cellulite is a little silly to me. Instead, I want to encourage you and remind you with the truth of scripture that you are seen, you are known, and you are loved no matter what your size or shape.

[00:03:00]:

Here, the pressure is off. If you're looking for real talk, biblical encouragement, and regular reminders that God loves you and you're not alone, you've come to the right place. I hope you enjoy today's show, and hey, tell a friend about it. So are diet and exercise effective ways to avoid body image issues? Okay. Well, before we engage in any sort of, I hate to say argument because that sounds negative, but before I present to you the four reasons why I don't think diet and exercise are effective ways to avoid body image issues, I wanna kinda start by just kinda setting some, like, definitions or ground rules or, like, things I believe. Okay? Just so you understand where I'm coming from. I do not think diets are evil.

How Diets Set Us Up For Disappointment

[00:03:50]:

Okay? And I do not think exercise is bad. Right? What I do believe is that many diets out there can be harmful because they require you to do things that you can't sustain or that your body will not allow you to sustain. And I think what happens to many of us is that we put our hope in diets, and we're gonna talk about that later in these next four points here. But we put our hope in diets, and we get disappointed. And then we put our hope in the next diet, and we get disappointed. Or maybe we switch to an exercise plan, and we get disappointed. And I think we get stuck in a pattern that is really detrimental, not only to us psychologically, emotionally, spiritually, mentally, but also physically. Because every time you restrict food, whether it's a certain food group or a certain number of calories or whatever, when you restrict food, your body has to do something to compensate for that.

[00:04:51]:

So there will be an impact. And we all hope that the only impact will be that we get skinny and look great, but usually there's some bad that comes with the good. Right? Maybe your metabolism slows down. Maybe your thyroid gives out because it likes more calories than you've given it. Maybe you have other systems in your body that don't process like they should, like gastroparesis, which is the slowing of the digestive system. It's a pretty common thing that happens for people with eating disorders when they don't eat a lot of food. You can also get, like, gut health imbalance issues because you're only eating certain foods. You can get allergies.

[00:05:31]:

Like, there's a whole downside to diets that we don't hear a lot about when we are just, like, looking at the before and after picture thinking, wow. I want that to be me. And the same with exercise. One of the things that's been part of my journey this summer, and I'll let you know how it works out because I'm not, like, all the way there yet. But I had my nose fixed. I did not get a rhinoplasty. I got my deviated septum fixed because I noticed when I had a sleep study well, the doctor noticed that I had something called hypoventilation. I was not getting enough oxygen overnight.

[00:06:09]:

And when I googled, like, what is hypoventilation? I've never heard of that. Like, is that a big deal? When I googled it, it was like, hypoventilation can lead to and it was like diabetes, you know, stroke, heart disease, like, all of these different things. And I was like, isn't that interesting? Like, if I was diagnosed with any of those things, I probably would have thought, oh, I wasn't eating right. Oh, I wasn't exercising enough. But here, this inability I have to get enough oxygen overnight could be affecting my health in this dramatic way. So I got that taken care of. And then kind of as part of my journey with exploring my nose and oxygen and getting enough oxygen, I found another doctor. And like I said, I'll tell you how this goes.

[00:06:54]:

But I found actually, he's not a doctor. He's an engineer who has been piling or combing through, I guess, is the right word, scientific studies and such on thyroid and thyroid issues and exercise. And he has this whole different way to exercise for people with thyroid issues like I have. And so I thought, well, this is different than this approach I've used before, so I'm gonna try that approach. And so, anyway, I'm trying some new things around my exercise. Namely, I'm trying to exercise without raising my heart rate. I'm trying to do a lot less. I'm exercising for shorter amounts of time.

[00:07:37]:

I am being much gentler and easier on my body and my exercise, and it is a complete anathema to me because I was the aerobics girl. And unless I was working super hard and sweating a ton and getting my heart rate up, it was not a successful workout session. So this is just a really weird thing for me, but the science makes a lot of sense to me. So I'll let you know how that works out. But I'm saying this because I think most of the information we hear is if you can just exercise hard like this, just, you know, be the CrossFit girl or, you know, the Orange Theory poster child or, you know, if you can just do the diet plan and exercise, these two things are gonna come together, and you are gonna be free from body image issues because you are going to look good. But I gotta tell you, friends, it's not been my experience, and it's also not been what I have observed in my culture. And it's not been what I've observed with the more than 100 women that I've worked with and walked with on this journey. So point 1 on this is, are diet and exercise effective ways to avoid body image issues? I don't think so.

[00:08:50]:

Why? Because people of all sizes have body image issues. And the lie we believe is that that woman who's smaller than us, and that can be wherever you are starting, right? I mean, if you wear a size 20, you could be looking at the woman in the size 16 thinking she's got it better than I do. And if you wear a size 16, you're looking at the woman in a size 12 thinking she's got it better than I do. And if you wear a size 10, you're looking at the woman in a size 6. And if you're a size 6, you're looking at the woman in size 2. Like, there's no ending to it, my friend. And so if you believe that the smaller woman is free simply because she's smaller, you're believing a myth.

Believing We Are The Exception To The Rule

[00:09:34]:

Now what's funny is what our brains do. Our brains are like, yeah. Yeah. Like, I know that supermodels struggle with their body image. Like, I know that Taylor Swift thought she was too fat for a number of years and, like, had an eating disorder and got really skinny and, you know, now isn't there anymore. Like, I know all these things. But if it happened to me, it would be different. Like, we are so awesome just as human beings at making ourselves the exception to the rule.

[00:10:05]:

Like, if this happened to me, I would know how to handle it. Like, I would be happy. I would be content, like, you know, because I would remember how bad I felt when I was larger. I would remember, like, all these, you know, negative things, and so I would just feel so happy and content and grateful to be smaller that this would work for me. And there may be some truth to that for some people for some time, but I'm gonna tell you it's short lived. Like, I don't know. I give you a month. I mean, maybe if it's a dramatic loss, maybe, like, 2 or 3 months before, you know, that shine wears out and it gets dull again.

[00:10:52]:

Because there's studies out there that show, and this is fascinating research, but there's studies out there that show that women who lose a dramatic amount of weight actually think about their bodies more after they lose that dramatic amount of weight than they did before. Why? I think part of it is before, you're not really noticed for your body as much. You don't have people complimenting you on your body or commenting about your body, hopefully, as much. You know, I'm hoping you're not getting negative comments about your body. But for the most part, like, your body is just kind of, like, not the biggest thing in the way you relate to people. And then you lose a bunch of weight and you get skinny and people start saying stuff. They start telling you how good you look, and maybe you get more attention from men. Or, you know, maybe you do better at work because people notice you more and, you know, it turns into this whole thing.

[00:11:49]:

But I'm telling you, friend, even 2-3 months later, you're not free then. Yeah. Okay. You did the diet, the exercise. You did the thing. You got the smaller body. Maybe you did the Ozempic, but you're not free from the body image issues according to the data. Because you're still thinking, what do I need to do to keep the compliments coming? What do I need to do to keep this attention? What do I need to do to keep my body in a way that, like, people will continue to approve of me and like me?

[00:12:20]:

And then it becomes kinda dangerous to, you know, your sense of self and security and identity because you start to believe that people actually do like you more because you have a smaller body. And you believe that your worth to people is greater because of your body size. And you start to objectify yourself more and think about your body more. And then that means you have to like, your behaviors have to follow what your heart is thinking about and worshiping. And so you have to spend even more time on your body. Friends, it's not the path to freedom. 

The All Consuming Nature of The Next New Plan

[00:13:06]:

The other challenge I have with dieting and exercising and and really the process of submerging ourselves into diet and exercise, believing we can fix our body image issues that way, is that dieting and exercise, although, like I said at the beginning, like, there's nothing inherently bad about either of them.

[00:13:24]:

But when we go all in with diet and exercise, like we tend to do in the fall. Right? Because they call September, like, the 2nd new year. Right? Like, it's, oh, back to school time. September, you know, summer's over. Like, it's time for me to get serious is the language you're using. Right? Like, get serious. I'm gonna get back on plan. I'm gonna, like, get back to it.

[00:13:45]:

I'm gonna start, like, doing my regular workouts again. I'm just gonna get back into routine. I'm gonna get my life together. Maybe that's just me. That's a September thing or it was for me for a long time. But when we go all in with, this is how I'm gonna get my life together, and we're studying our diet, and we're studying our food plan, and we're, like, 100% dedicated to our exercise, and we're, you know, studying what the best exercises for us, We get so immersed in diet culture that we tend to lose what is true about ourselves and about God's economy and our real worth and our real value in him. Like, I don't wanna put this on you. This is the way it was for me.

[00:14:30]:

So you can check for yourself whether or not this is true. But when I'm on a plan, like, it has to take, like, first priority. Like, I have to think about that first. Like, I have to wake up in the morning thinking about my plan. I go to sleep at night thinking about my plan. Like, during the day, especially if it's a plan that restricts food, during the day, I'm, like, thinking about when can I eat again and what can I eat? Right? It really consumes my thought life. And because it consumes so much of my thought life, I think my worship gets skewed. Right? Because I'm really, like I'm dividing my attention from

[00:15:08]:

God, what do you want from me today? Like, how can I serve you today? Who can I love today? How can I obey you today? Like, what do you want from me today? What do you have for me today? I divert my attention away from that to, what can I eat at what time today? What time can I exercise today? And how many calories do I need to burn off in order if I eat that? It consumes so much mental space that you actually aren't free. You actually aren’t free to go serve God and love others. You are more consumed with, how do I fix my body? What do I think about my body? Am I doing good with my body? Am I doing bad? Like, it just takes over everything. Now it doesn't have to be that way for everyone. So I understand. And most again, most of us think we're the exception to the rule. But I'm just being honest with you. That's how it was for me.

[00:16:02]:

Do I think that there's a way to exercise and eat healthy that doesn't take over your life? I absolutely do. But if you believe that the fix to all of your problems is a new diet, a new exercise program, then friend, I don't think you can rightly enter into that in a way that is going to have it in the proper order. Because you are putting so much hope and faith into that diet and exercise program fixing you, like, it's gonna have to have a top seat. It's gonna have to wear a crown and be on a throne because you're putting a lot of stock into it. The other challenge is when we are all in with our diet and exercise because of what we expect to get from it. We are immersed in a culture, in an economy that tells us things that don't necessarily align with God's word in terms of who we are and where our value and worth comes from. Like, I don't know how many diet programs you've been a part of, but let me just go back to weight watchers if that's ever been part of your story. When you went to weight watchers and you went down to the church basement and you got on that scale, what happened to you if you lost weight that week? Well, people cheered.

[00:17:30]:

They praised you. They applauded you. They might have called you up by name in the meeting later and said what a great job you did. What happened if you gained weight? What happened to your value? How did they respond? Were people I mean, I hope you had nice people at your weight watchers meeting. But were people warm and accepting, congratulatory, or were they maybe subtly shaming? Like, it's okay. Maybe you'll do better next week. I hope they said something like that, just as opposed to the alternative of, I can't believe it. Well, you're gonna have to cut back on sweets.

[00:18:10]:

What did you do wrong? You know, you're going the wrong direction. This is not what we want from you. And, yeah, honestly, even if they were nice about it, it probably didn't matter because those things you were saying to yourself in that situation were probably not kind. Right? You probably started recounting, like, every potato chip you ate or that one day you went over points or the one day you didn't exercise, where you started shaming and condemning yourself. And you start to believe when you're in that situation week after week, month after month, you start to believe that this is your true value. This is your true identity. Your true value is only as good as your ability to shrink yourself. Your identity is someone who is really good at losing weight or maintaining a certain body size.

The Fake Crowns of “Before” And “After”

[00:18:58]:

Friend, this is not your identity in Christ. And I think for some of us who've been part of diet programs for decades, right? It gets confusing. Right? Like, we kinda wanna have them both. Like, we're gonna say, oh, yeah. No. No. No. I know who I am in Christ, and then I'm doing this plan.

[00:19:18]:

But goodness gracious, like, you get a whole lot more instant gratification when you post the before and after picture on Instagram. Everyone's, like, you look so great. Tell me how you did it. You look so great. And, like, that really becomes something you believe about yourself. What's been really difficult for me to watch is friends who have done a certain plan that's really popular right now, and it's a very restrictive diet plan. I think it's very dangerous. But what's been really hard for me to watch is this plan requires, or they ask that people post pictures of themselves on social media a lot because it helps them generate, you know, more customers.

[00:19:56]:

Right? Like, people wanna know how you lost the weight. But what I've watched over the 5 or so years that it's been really popular is friends who lost the weight and posted all the pictures and got all the praise and maybe even signed other people up for the plan. And then a few years later, started to gain the weight back because that is what the body does when it's on a restrictive plan. Or I've seen some people though, honestly, I've seen some people who haven't gained the weight back and they just keep getting smaller and smaller, and I think they need to go see an eating disorder specialist. But they think they're the pinnacle of health. And I'm like, no, that's an eating disorder, but that's an aside. But I've seen people go from posting their pictures and being all about, like, I've had so much success in this program, to fading away and not posting anything at all on social media, like pictures.

[00:20:48]:

They used to post vacation pictures or family event pictures or whatever. They post nothing because of the shame they feel because they couldn't maintain that “after” picture. And so now they have to just kinda disappear. And I wonder, like, you know, a lot of these people are people I don't see regularly in my life, but I wonder to what extent they've dropped out of other parts of life. Are they still going to church, or are they still in community, or did they feel like they had to drop out of that too because they didn't want people to see that their body had gained weight again? Because their identity for that time when they were succeeding in the program was, I am someone who is disciplined and successful, and I can lose weight, and I'm great. And then that identity was lost as soon as the weight started coming back again. So the danger in believing that a certain diet will fix your body image issues is this danger of really, like, putting your whole identity on the line, entangling your identity in Christ with your identity as someone who can lose weight or shrink her body. It's a false identity.

[00:21:56]:

And, really, these are fake crowns. You know? I don't know if your daughter ever played, like, princess dress up or whatever. I think I actually even had a tiara that I wore at my wedding. It was a little tiny tiara, but it was fake. It was a fake crown. Okay? Not a real crown. Right? Didn't have jewels in it, like, you know, the one the queen wore. Right? There were no real stones in it at all.

[00:22:21]:

But succeeding in weight loss or succeeding in exercise, those are fake crowns. Like, when we get to heaven, Jesus isn't gonna be like, well done, my good and faithful daughter. You lost 25 pounds. Here's your crown. He's gonna be like, what did you do for me, my daughter? How did you love people well? How did you tell people about me? How did you love me well? Did you do what I asked you to do? Did you obey my commandments? And what happens is some of these diet programs are so insidious and so subtly evil that they take scripture and they twist it to make you feel like you are being a good Christian by following their diet plan. And, friend, this is super dangerous. Like, I've heard lines, like, you know, the first sin was about food. So, you know, don't do what Eve did and eat.

[00:23:16]:

You know, like, that's so, so evil. The first sin was not obeying God. The first sin was not believing that God was good enough for you that God had given you everything you needed in the Garden of Eden so you don't have to eat from that tree he told you not to touch. That's the first sin. The first sin isn't taking a bite of fruit because it has carbohydrates in it. And if you are part of any kind of diet program, I did a couple episodes last spring or maybe last fall on Gwen Shamblyn and how she twisted God's word and twisted God's truth into making God's truth about the amount you ate and how you're closer to God if you were thinner. Like, she really did a bang up job on this friend. But there's all sorts of versions of this out there now where people are taking scripture verses and making it about weight loss.

The Religion of Pursuing a Better Body

[00:24:12]:

The Bible is not a weight loss manual. The Bible is God's holy word, his holy gospel, a story of redemption, a story of sinful man desperate needing a savior, and the story of how God came in and said, you are not worthy of me, but because I love you so much, I'm gonna sacrifice my sin to make a way for you to be worthy so that we can be together forever. That is the story of the gospel. Do not pick out Bible verses and say they're about weight loss or exercise or getting fit. They're not. That's not what the Bible's about. And, yeah, scripture tells us exercise is of some good. Scripture tells us that we should steward our bodies well.

[00:24:56]:

It doesn't, there's not a verse for that, but it does indirectly tell us that for sure. But, friend, if you have made the goal of your life getting a better body, if you have made a primary part of your life let me even say it like that. It doesn't have to be the goal of your life. If a primary part of your body and how do we describe primary part? Like, something that takes up a lot of your time and money. And you have to be honest about that. Like, I don't know. But intellectually, be honest with yourself. How much of my money am I spending? How much of my time am I spending on trying to change my body? If that's become a primary focus of yours, friend, you've got a problem.

[00:25:33]:

You've made it an idol. And you're chasing it hard, probably believing that it will satisfy you, bring you contentment, joy, peace, love, freedom, rest, and these are things that only Jesus offers. And so when we believe diet and exercise will fix our body image issues, we are in great danger of believing the rhetoric around us and getting caught up in, “diet culture” is the term we use. I don't know if you noticed in that word culture, the root word of the word culture is cults. Yeah. That's kind of yucky to think about. But, honestly, like, our food rules, our exercise plans, they become a little cult-like. Like, we will defend them to the end.

[00:26:15]:

We're like, yes. If this person says eat like this, I must eat like this. This is the rule I will follow. I will do whatever my leader says. Whatever that Instagram person that got thin says, I'm gonna do what she does. Whatever this doctor says, I'm gonna do what he does. And I'm not saying that there aren't people in this world that have great wisdom on these subjects. They do.

[00:26:34]:

But no one has more wisdom than God does. And your body might not be the same as their bodies. So what worked for them might not work for you. But, friend, overall, don't get caught up in it. Don't make it your religion. Don't fall into the cult. Next time, we're gonna look at the last two reasons why I don't believe that diet and exercise are effective for curing body image issues. And, really, we're gonna get into something maybe you're not familiar with, maybe you are, but we're gonna talk about avoidance behaviors.

[00:27:03]:

So we're gonna dig a little bit more into something we talked about a couple weeks ago in terms of, like, feeling anxiety and fear and what we do about that. We're gonna talk about how maybe diet and exercise can become these avoidance behaviors because we believe they will help us not feel fear or anxiety around our bodies. But does that really work? I'm gonna argue no. There. I gave away the punch line, but I want you to tune in so you can hear why. Hey. I hope something today has maybe informed you, encouraged you, or helped you know God loves you.

[00:27:32]:

And if you've been doing it all wrong, just know you're in good company because I was too. I had totally made weight loss my religion. I was totally following the god of the scale, and whatever he said went. Like, if you name it, I have done it in this arena. I've done it all wrong. I was the biggest idolater of all, I'm sure. But there's hope. I'm not there now.

[00:27:56]:

And if you feel stuck and you want some hope, hey, I hope you'll join us on the 40 day journey or reach out. I do coaching. Grab some of my books, listen to the show more. We wanna set you on a path to freedom too. It's possible. The enemy is gonna tell you it's not. The enemy is gonna tell you you've done everything. It's just not even an option for you.

[00:28:13]:

It's an option for other people, but it's not for you. Hey. I know that line. I've heard that line. He's telling it to everyone, and he is a liar. So tell him to shove it. I hope something today has helped you stop comparing and start living.

[00:28:24]:

Bye bye. The Compare To Who Show is proud to be part of the Life Audio Podcast Network. For more great Christian podcasts, go to life audio.com.