Robyn Spurr

Personal Health and Weight Loss Coaching For Women

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The Unfillable Hole

In the minutes before yoga class a few weeks ago, I saw my friend Shana walk into the studio. Happy to see her, I jumped up and immediately heard a POP in my leg.

Not good.

But because I can be stubborn and willful, I decided to stay.

It’s not that bad.

You can make it through.

Come on Robyn, you’re tough. You got this.

As soon as I half attempted Warrior 2 pose, it became VERY clear I needed to go.

Tail tucked between my legs, I grabbed my mat and hobbled out of class.

Tim, my Godsend of a physical therapist, diagnosed the injury the next day (a strained gastrocnemius muscle) and set me up with a few weeks’ worth of PT appointments.

It wasn’t as bad as I feared, but it would take some time to heal.

With extra time on my hands, I did what I always do – analyze and overthink and ultimately, look for the lesson.

The lesson was a familiar one. I’d been pushing myself too hard. My body sent warning signals in the days before the POP, but I ignored them.

Why?

Because like so many women out there, I struggle with feeling like I’m enough.

You should be stronger.

You should be thinner.

You should be working harder. Volunteering. Socializing more.

A few days ago, I read this post by Seth Godin.

How big is your unfillable hole?

It doesn’t really matter, does it?

All of your bad habits (and some of your good ones) exist to fill that hole, or to protect it from being seen.

And as long as our mission is to fill the hole, and as long as the hole remains unfillable (and after all this time, if it’s not filled yet, good luck with that) it doesn’t really matter how small or trivial or unmentionable the hole is.

It still drives us.

The first step to living with it is to acknowledge it.

You can’t make it go away.

But you can learn to dance with it.

No amount of meters rowed on a rower or FitBit steps taken or pounds lost or success will lead to this elusive destination known as enough (or perfect). Being “enough” is my unfillable hole. For you it might be feeling lovable or safe or whole or seen. The unfillable hole might be a trauma you experienced or the loss of a loved one. Or – you may not have an unfillable hole at all.

What I love most about Seth Godin’s post is the line, “you can’t make it go away.” It’s the trying to make it go away that usually gets us in trouble, yeah? All the chocolate and wine and Prozac and marathons and Netflix binges in the world can’t fill the void.

We can’t make it go away, but we can acknowledge and accept it. We can increase our ability to practice self-compassion. We can build up our self-esteem. We can learn from missteps, forgive ourselves for being human and move forward with a bit more wisdom than before.

I like to say I’m a perfectionist in recovery. “Enough” will always be unattainable. I will suffer relapses (sometimes daily). And that’s okay.

The unfillable hole won’t go away, but my dance with it can become more graceful.

💙 Robyn

To learn more about Personal Health Coaching click HERE. 

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What Should I Eat?

Changing opinions, clickbait-y headlines and the latest get thin quick schemes keep us in a state of perpetual confusion about what to eat.

  • Should I cut sugar completely out of my diet?
  • Can I eat carbs and still lose weight?
  • Should I fast?
  • Keto?

My favorite advice on nutrition comes from Michael Pollan…

Eat real food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

I recommend my clients choose real food (either straight from nature or minimally processed like rolled oats) 90-95% of the time and what I call “joy” food (whatever you LOVE) the other 5-10% of the time.

Eating a mostly whole foods diet helps us naturally increase our fiber intake, which leads to feeling more satisfied overall.

The New York Times surveyed Americans and a panel of nutrition experts a few years ago about the foods they considered healthy.

For the most part, the public and the experts agreed.

Only four of the foods surveyed were considered healthy by the Americans public but not by the experts…

  • Granola
  • Granola bars
  • Coconut oil
  • Frozen yogurt

Opinions differed when it came to Orange Juice and Slim Fast shakes as well, but not by as wide a margin. And a few foods were ranked healthier by the experts than the average consumer (hummus, quinoa, tofu, sushi, shrimp, wine).

Another recent article looked at data from MyFitnessPal’s 4.6 million users to determine what people who lost the most weight were eating.

Conclusion…

The most successful users ate diets rich in fiber (grains, veggies, fruits, nuts).

Knowing what to eat is only part of the equation. How much we eat is the other component.

I’m not a big fan of counting calories, grams or points. At least not long-term. It can come in handy if you’re out of touch with how much you’re consuming versus what your body needs to function well. But I think a simpler approach, such as aiming for four whole foods based meals per day can be just as effective.

For most women, I recommend the following guidelines:

  • 1-2 palm sized servings of protein dense food at each meal;
  • 1-3 fists of vegetables at each meal;
  • 1 cupped handful of carb dense food (e.g. beans, oatmeal, quinoa, brown rice) or fruit at most meals; and
  • 1 thumb of fat dense foods at most meals (e.g. oil based salad dressing, butter, guacamole, nut butter).

The recommendations above are not set in stone. I always collaborate with individuals to determine the right formula for their unique preferences + body type + goals. We gather data as we go and make changes when necessary, implementing one new change at a time.

Keeping a simple food journal (time of day + what you ate) is the best way I’ve found to raise awareness of what you’re consuming and manage portions. I’m a big fan + user of You Ate – a free photo food journaling app.

I think we can distill the overwhelming amount of nutritional information available into four simple suggestions…

  • Eat real food most of the time.
  • Include lots of high fiber foods (which will happen naturally with a whole foods diet).
  • Eat meals/snack less
  • Pay attention to how much you’re eating.

Still confused? Check out this brilliant article + infographic courtesy of Precision Nutrition.

💙 Robyn

To learn more about Personal Health Coaching click HERE. 

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Punk Rock Eating

Why is the obesity epidemic continuing to spiral out of control?

We know that being obese makes us more likely to have heart disease + high blood pressure + diabetes + sleep apnea. It raises our risk of stroke and some cancers. It puts constraints on our lives and what we’re able to do physically. 

Yet nothing has changed.

Despite all we know and all the money we’ve spent, we are getting fatter and sicker as a society.

I was listening to a podcast while hiking yesterday and something clicked.

We don’t need more awareness or more programs or more funding. We need a new normal.

The way of eating that contributes to the ever-evolving health crisis we’ve found ourselves in is NORMAL.

As human beings, we want to conform. We want to fit in. We want to be accepted and liked by the tribe. So we do what’s expected. We do what is considered normal.

  • Go to school.
  • Get a job.
  • Get married.
  • Have kids.
  • Buy a house.
  • Order pizza.
  • Eat dessert.

Living an unhealthy lifestyle has become the standard.

Look around. Walk through the grocery store. Study restaurant menus. Watch commercials. Pay attention to what other people are doing and saying.

There’s no denying that what has become normal is not what’s best for us.

Consider this. It’s entirely acceptable to ask…

  • Why aren’t you drinking?
  • Is that all you’re eating?
  • Aren’t you having dessert?
  • Do you want a cupcake?
  • Are you sure you don’t want some bread?
  • Won’t you be hungry?
  • Want to supersize that?

It’s entirely unacceptable to ask…

  • Why are you eating three slices of pizza?
  • Why are you having another glass of wine?
  • Why are you snacking?
  • Why are you going back to the buffet again?
  • Are you sure you don’t want some baby carrots?
  • Why aren’t you ordering a salad?
  • Won’t you be full?
  • Are you sure you don’t want a small?

What if the tables were turned and a healthy lifestyle was normal?

My challenge to you?

Do what is best for your body + your life + your goals.

Be a rebel. A nonconformist.

A punk rock eater.

“Punk is: the personal expression of uniqueness that comes from the experiences of growing up in touch with our human ability to reason and ask questions; a movement that serves to refute social attitudes that have been perpetuated through willful ignorance of human nature; a process of questioning and commitment to understanding that results in self-progress, and through repetition, flowers into social evolution; a belief that this world is what we make of it, truth comes from our understanding of the way things are, not from the blind adherence to prescriptions about the way things should be; the constant struggle against fear of social repercussions.”


– Greg Graffin (Bad Religion)

💙 Robyn

To learn more about Personal Health Coaching click HERE. 

By

Eating With Structure + Freedom

Meals. What on earth are we doing if we’re not eating meals?

I will tell you: We’re doing things like…

  • bingeing 
  • grazing
  • fasting
  • picking
  • snacking
  • dieting
  • starving
  • and eating all day long

Fifteen thousand years ago (or thereabouts) our ancestors stopped grazing all day as they roamed. They settled down, sowed crops, and developed a pleasant schedule of getting together regularly to eat. We went from eating all day long, berry after berry, to sitting down to lunch.

Regular, repeated mealtimes is a human design pattern that stayed in place until kids had to get up at 4am for swim practice, and bagels or Pop Tarts were consumed while driving.

Until we were forced to take jobs that don’t even allow us bathroom breaks, let alone meals (never mind that’s illegal).

Until parents had to work late and kids had rehearsal and families found it hard to get together at the end of the day.

That’s how eating meals disappeared.

You can still see people observing this human eating pattern in places like Mexico, Japan, Spain and France.

I love eating regular meals at regular-ish mealtimes because it makes it easier to answer the following question…

Should I eat this?

If it’s mealtime: Eat.
If it’s NOT mealtime: Don’t eat until mealtime.

Important note: When I say “meal” I mean “an interval of eating”. This doesn’t have to mean “square” meals, or a certain number of courses, or any prescriptions that you don’t want to follow. It could look like a “square” meal, or it could look like a snack, or it could look like a latte. You could be sitting down or standing up.

By “meal” I just mean a time when you consume nutrition.

I highly suggest finding a meal “structure” that generally works for you most days of the week.

This might be breakfast, lunch, snack and dinner. It might be tiny snack, medium snack and giant dinner. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you…

  1. establish a pattern (which helps calm and restore hunger hormones)
  2. that works for your life and your schedule
  3. and provides you enough food to get to the next meal

Note: Meals have a beginning, a middle and an end. There’s a gap before you eat again, and it is important to build in a gap.

And if you have a giant craving or feel a binge coming on, tell yourself you’ll satisfy that craving at the very next meal. The main thing here is to create a structure of your own design and stick to that structure.

This is how we dismantle grazing. This is how we eliminate diet mentality (i.e. I was “good” so I can have this treat, I was “bad” so no breakfast tomorrow).

This is how we end the constant…

Should I have a cookie? Maybe just one. But I know I’ll want more if I have one. How about I have a few today and then tomorrow I’ll go for a long run. Or skip lunch.

This balance of structure and freedom has been used successfully to treat binge eating disorder. But it also works beautifully to eliminate grazing + create a healthy relationship with food after years (or decades) of on-and-off dieting.

Will you get it right immediately? Hells no. This is an experiment, and of course you’ll want to adjust as you go. And by “as you go” I mean take note of what’s working and what’s not working and try to improve timing and amounts and types of food at your very next opportunity, which is the NEXT MEAL. 

Don’t spontaneously decide to extend the meal by going back for more helpings. Have an idea of what the meal consists of from the beginning. If you don’t, your hey-let’s-eat-more habit will kick in with some reasonable-sounding arguments about just this once. Don’t force yourself to eat at the previously scheduled time if you really don’t want to. Eat later! No big deal. Adjust the day’s schedule as needed, and maybe try a different schedule tomorrow.

Don’t force yourself to eat more than you want at a meal. You can have more soon, because the next meal is coming within a few hours. You’ll make it even if you don’t finish this meal.

Don’t force yourself to wait for the scheduled mealtime if you’re gonna perish of hunger. But get back to some kind of schedule as soon as you can, and maybe be more generous with portions.

A rule of thumb that you might use is to schedule meals no more than about four hours apart.* You might have breakfast at 8, lunch at 12:30, a snack at 4, dinner at 7:30 (just for example). That will both keep you from getting too hungry and make it likely you’ll be ready for something.