Happy 2021! My Heartfelt Message To Athletes.....

Dear athlete, 

On the first day of the New Yearm you are likely reflecting on the past twelve months. The New Year brings with it excitement for new beginnings and hope for a better future. As you look ahead to the upcoming year, you may be planning your New Year goals, resolutions or intentions as a way to officially begin anew. 

Although goal-setting is an important component in the journey of self-improvement, I ask that you carefully think through your New Year, New You thoughts, actions and behaviors. 

The New Year symbolizes a time when most people resolve to make changes in health. I'm assuming that one of your New Year goals involves your diet, training, body composition or health. Even if you have great intentions with your New Year goals, I am concerned. Because the month of January is so deeply rooted in making changes in body size, shape or weight - supported by the toxic diet culture - I am extremely worried about how your current thoughts about your body size or health will influence your new nutrition strategies and training regime. 

I see and hear about it year after year.........

A seemingly simple resolve to become a faster, stronger, healthier or better athlete takes a downward spiral due to extreme measures. Although being driven, disciplined and highly motivated are great qualities to help you achieve athletic excellence, these same qualities can put you at higher risk for mental and physical health issues, an exercise addiction or an eating disorder. Because of the normalization of disordered eating and obsessive exercising among the athletic population, it can be incredibly difficult for you to recognize the difference between your self-care and self-sabotaging behaviors. 

As a Board Certified Sport Dietitian, many athletes come to me for help with daily and sport nutrition. Not surprisingly, far too many athletes try to optimize performance at the cost of mental and physical health. Sometimes this is unintentional, but many times it is from an intentional desire to achieve the idealized body in the name of sport. 

Because of an ongoing obsession with weight and performance, alongside the cultural norms of disordered eating and exercise behaviors falsely labeled as a "lifestyle change," I had to do something.

I will no longer sit by as a concerned outsider, watching you damage your physical health, destroy your mental well-being and sabotage your athletic capabilities. 

This is why I create The Whole Athlete.

There's nothing wrong with being motivated and dedicated. But when your extreme drive and perfectionistic qualities show up in your eating habits and exercise regime, your intentions can do more harm than good. Add in the pressure of wanting to be lean due to sport expectations and a societal obsession with health, I hope you can now understand how your good intentions can lead to unhealthy outcomes.

Taking health risks for a perceived competitive edge will make you lose in the long run. No matter your athletic goals or fitness level, you should not have to prioritize your athletic development over your well-being.

If this speaks to you, I create a program to help you get more out of your training without compromising your mental and physical health. Through The Whole Athlete 6-lesson course, you will learn how diet culture, a societal obsession with health and the chase for an ideal race weight could be negatively impacting your training, mental well-being and physical health. Once you understand why you think how you think about food, health and your body, you can fix the distorted views that you've developed. You can try out an intro course for free. The 6-lesson course will officially open on January 3rd. 

I care about your health. I also want you to succeed in sport. To help you truly optimize your health and performance, I want to remind you that overall wellness involves taking care of your mind, not just your physical self. 

As you look ahead to the upcoming year, please think about how you want to live your life and not what you want to look like. Remember, your thoughts drive your actions. 

Don't forget to thank your body. Give it credit for all it has allowed you to do and be grateful for what it continues to let you do in life. 

-Marni

Change your thoughts to change behaviors

What behavior (or habit) has the strongest negative impact on reaching an athletic goal?

What behavior has lead you into a vicious cycle of self-sabotage?

What habits have you struggled with the most?

What behavior, if changed, would give you the most leverage toward improving the odds of achieving your athletic goals?

Changing a behavior to reach a goal sounds simple but it actually requires a process of changing the way that you think. The idea that if you change your thoughts, you can change your behaviors sounds straightforward but many athletes go straight to behavior change and neglect working on the thoughts that influence actions. 

This is why I created The Whole Athlete. 

As you enter the New Year, the motivation may be high to change behaviors in order to move closer to your athletic goals. While you may have good intentions behind your behavior changes, it's not uncommon for good intentions to lead to bad outcomes. 

I want to remind you that your thoughts are controlled by your beliefs, which are usually ingrained in your subconscious mind. Interestingly, many beliefs are inherited from the beliefs of others - before you are able to form your own beliefs. This is why behavior change can be so hard. 

Many thoughts and beliefs are so deep-rooted that it can be extremely difficult to reprogram your mind. For example, being repeatedly told that carbohydrates are bad for you or that carbs make you gain weight can make it incredibly hard for you to meet your daily carbohydrate needs as an athlete. You may feel extreme guilt, shame or anxiety when consuming bread, rice or raisins - all because of the deep-rooted belief that carbs are bad. Perhaps it's something as small as not eating before a workout or not running with a hydration belt because you feel you don't need to - that you are just fine without. Sometimes you have to change your opinion to experience better results. 

These are only two examples (of many) to show how powerful thoughts can be as it relates to behavior changes. 

Hopefully you can now see how just one small shift in a belief can have an enormous impact on your life. 

Due to the cultural norms of "clean eating" and over-exercising, this sends a message to athletes that it's ok to eat and exercise in a certain way in order to look, feel and perform at your best. Unhealthy behaviors like restrictive eating, excessive exercise and intentional underfueling have become so normalized that behaviors that would qualify as disordered are often considered perfectly appropriate - reinforced by a culture that is obsessively fixated on food, eating and weight. A few of this normalized behaviors include: 

• Denial of hunger and use of tricks to avoid eating (such as drinking large amounts of water, detox drinks or coffee). 
• Refusal to eat certain foods (ex. bread), progressing to restrictions against whole categories of foods (ex. carbohydrates). 
• Anxiety about gaining weight or being "fat."
• Development of food rituals (ex. I can only eat this if I have exercised x-amount of duration or intensity). 
• Rigid exercise routines to burn off calories or to compensate for eating. 
• Withdrawal from friends and activities in favor of new social groups that share similar food and exercise rituals and rules. 
• Regular use of compensatory behaviors such as fasting to burn off calories. 
• Extreme concern with body weight and shape. 

If you have been victim to these beliefs, it's because you have become conditioned to perceive them as normal by professional athletes, the media, fitness influencers and diets. Because extreme eating and exercising strategies are normalized and reinforce behaviors and thought processes that aren't healthy, they can have very serious consequences on your mental and physical health.

You can't change your behaviors without changing your thoughts. Once you accept that your inaccurate beliefs are driving your actions, you can start the work of unlearning and changing self-sabotaging behaviors with more productive behaviors to enhance your performance, optimize your health and protect your well-being. 

Are you ready to change your thoughts to change your behaviors? 

Check out the FREE introduction of the The Whole Athlete course. 
If you found the content helpful and you want to learn more, you can pre-enroll now or register for the 6-lesson course when it opens on January 3rd, 20201.