67: Christina's Real Story "I don't want my daughter to ever think about Weight Watchers"

Lyndi: 0:37

Oh, hello everyone and welcome to today's episode of No Wellness Wankery. Today is another real chat and I'm joined by Christina. Christina, welcome to today's No Wellness Wankery podcast. Thanks for having me. It's very exciting, my pleasure. I'm excited to have you because I feel like there might be other people who are parenting, who are going through what you're going through, and I want us all to learn together. So can you tell me a little bit about your diet history?

Christina: 1:02

I actually don't remember a time that I haven't been on a diet pretty much my entire life. I remember I was thinking about this the other day and I remember going to like Weight Watchers with my mum back in the early 90s, late 80s. Just been there for my entire life. It's funny, my mum is 76 and she still is dieting, So it's just been a constant forever. And so you know I've done I reckon I've probably done every diet that they possibly could have been.

Christina: 1:31

I did, do you know, on and off and on and off. I did Weight Watchers probably in my 20s and lost a ton of weight and have just pretty much put it on, Like I was never really able to keep it off and just kept putting it on. You know I'm now 40, so I've been through my life of dieting and I read your book and I was like this actually feels like this makes sense to me and kind of gives me a bit of a different vibe, because I'm just sick of dieting basically. But where I'm at right now is I've got a two year old, or nearly two year old, so I've had a baby on my own. I made that decision to. You know I wasn't finding a man. The child bit was really important. So let's get on with the child bit before I'm too old and then I can worry about dating later.

Christina: 2:14

I'm really conscious of perpetuating the whole food, diet, mental kind of thing around it for her, and so, whilst I'm trying to not be that myself and trying to just go, you know I'm like I love food and I love eating food and foods are really important part of my life and to restrict food or to be constantly thinking about food is just not serving me.

Christina: 2:40

It's not good energy to use. But what I don't want to have happen is my daughter grow up with the same kind of angst around it and you know it makes like nothing makes me happier than when I see her eating lots of different food because that's just. You know she's a toddler and she's trying stuff, which is amazing. But I also am really mindful of the language that I use around good food, bad food, or, and I'm trying to not do all of that. So that was why I reached out was like, how do you, whilst I'm grappling with it myself, how do I not give this life frame of food trauma to a little person and how do we, you know, break that cycle?

Lyndi: 3:20

Well, firstly, your daughter's very lucky that you're doing this work on her behalf. So, because you know I've talked about this a lot before, but we really just have been passing down this ordered eating from generation to generation into generational dining And it sounds like you were given the fantastic heirloom of diet culture Like a crappy tea set that no one actually wants. So how do we smash it So we don't end up passing it down to our kids? Your relationship with your mom as well It can. I know for myself, for my relationship with my mom, so much of what we connected over was always dieting, so you know, we always had calories or we had weight loss and we had these kind of goals of back in my diet days.

Lyndi: 4:03

This is how we bondage And I kind of feel like now that we don't have that diet culture stuff, it's kind of like a lot fewer things to talk about. Does that resonate with you?

Christina: 4:12

Well, yes and no. So, like we're a big Greek family and like our kind of, it's so weird, we're such a family of contradiction because our like love language really is through feeding other people. So, you know, as much as it's always been about a diet, it's also always been about eating. And so you're like, well, how do you like, how do you reconcile that? And so like, even with my daughter now, and we live with my mom and it's amazing for lots of different reasons, but she's, you know, she wants to feed my daughter, like everyone wants to feed my daughter, which is great, but it's like you know.

Christina: 4:46

And then I kind of hear some of the don't eat that it's really high in sugar, or don't eat that like it's all fruit or it's like just you know what, like if she's going to have three mandarins today, then she's going to have three mandarins today and that's totally fine. Like, of course, you know I'm not going to go and say here, eat the entire block of chocolate, because that's not what we do. And you know, and if I let her she would. But actually probably if I let her she'd be more inclined to eat a bowl of olives. But it's just kind of letting her explore her kind of natural, what she wants to do. And I just I kind of, whenever mom says anything, i just kind of go stop, like we're not talking about good food, bad food, hash sugar, low sugar, like full fat, no, like that's not a thing.

Lyndi: 5:33

I so hear that I were Jewish and I think being Greek and Jewish. You know it's all about feeding, but at the same time I don't eat too much. You know there are so many contradicting food rules that we can't give the guilt. The guilt Tell me about. Does your mom ever comment on what she's eating, or, you know, does she go? oh, i really ate all flu today. I really shouldn't eat that much tonight, or yeah?

Christina: 5:57

yeah, yeah, yeah. So she says all of that and and I kind of find myself, which is a weird, not weird, but I find myself going I'm full but I'm gonna eat anyway, just to prove the point that I can.

Lyndi: 6:07

I feel like you still have your rebellious teenager inside of your brain. I do, i definitely do, and then does does your mom ever comment on what you're eating, or?

Christina: 6:20

No, she knows better now than to do that. We probably had that. enough of those conversations to just kind of zip it.

Lyndi: 6:27

She doesn't say, but I know she's thinking So which also just knowing, knowing that they're thinking it can also, even though they're not saying the world, you can still get that sense of I'm being judged around what I'm eating. Yeah, I find I personally I find that kind of thing can be really triggering. It's really tricky to be in that environment and you got to keep coming back to the things that you know to be true, but it makes it a lot harder. Okay, Does anyone listening.

Lyndi: 6:52

Right now, christina sounds like she's a little bit further along the track, where you might be at the stage where you have a parent or someone in your family or a friend who's commenting on what you're eating and they think they're being helpful, but they're not being helpful And you might not be at the point yet where you've had the conversation.

Lyndi: 7:10

And, sadly, you have to reach a point where you're willing to have a really hard conversation, like Christina's had sounds like multiple conversations because we can first go in and say, hey, listen, i know you think you're helping me when you comment on what I'm eating, but it's actually making it a whole lot harder for me to eat healthily And I need you to stop And you're going to need to have that conversation And then they're going to forget I don't know how they forget And then you've got to come in and you've got to remind them next time there's a comment. Hey, you know how we chatted about this. I really need you to stop because it does not help me. If it helped me, wouldn't I be at my goal? Wait, by now you're making things a lot worse. So, christina, it sounds like you are already. You've done those hard work there.

Christina: 7:49

Yeah, yeah, i mean I just I just said to her now I'm like no, not having that conversation with you, this is what I'm cooking. Do you want to eat it or not? So I mean, it helps that I do a lot of cooking anyway, so I can kind of control what we're making And that's an interesting word, right, control But I just kind of go no, this is what's we're doing. So if you want to eat this, this is it. Otherwise you sort yourself out.

Lyndi: 8:10

I love this. I mean really what you were talking about with word controllers. We're establishing an environment that supports us to eat healthily, Like. Ultimately, we are humans and monkey see, monkey do and our environment very much dictates how we think and what we do, So finding a way to make it as supportive as possible is a really good thing. So if you have stuff in the fridge that's mostly filled with lots of healthy stuff and you, or if you have stuff that's like you don't have any food in the fridge so you probably are going to get take away, So there is a degree of that where we are supporting ourselves to just eat the food that are going to make us feel good. Now it still sounds like there is points where your mom's making little side comments about, like, what she's eating for that day. Do you think she realizes that commenting on her body or her eating is just another version of diet culture and that's also being passed down to her granddaughter?

Christina: 9:02

It's interesting. So whenever I hear her saying that, i kind of go, i just ignore it. but if it's, there's a bit of it in like quite a she, i'll say something to her kind of like okay enough, like it's done. now we're not going back and changing the day And I try and kind of reframe around. we had a really nice day, or was it wasn't. it was a really nice lunch, and I kind of leave it at that. So it's usually kind of commenting around if we've had people over or if we've been over to somebody's house or it's not kind of generally like a normal, like a normal day to day. it might be if something's kind of happening or we've gone out or something like that. So that's when I am usually like she's getting a lot better. So I left your book lying around. I was like you should read this. Okay, i'm gonna walk away now.

Christina: 9:55

But I've said to her a few times when she's she said stuff or we've been watching TV or something's been on, i've kind of gone. this is not what I want for Eliza. So I do not want her growing up thinking about and constantly worried about dieting And I do not want her growing up, you know, aware of everything. I want her to grow up feeling strong and to feel positive about her body, whatever shape it is. I don't want her to be growing up thinking, oh you know, i look like crap in this, or this makes me feel fat, or like these are not things that I want her to do. And so it's been interesting to see mom kind of reframe her language around Eliza now, just around, you know. she's not even two right. So she's got like a little cute little belly and mom's like well, she's chunky. I'm like no, she's not chunky, she's perfectly sized. You know, i try and I change those words a little bit so that we don't say that.

Christina: 10:54

And so I just kind of keep thinking by just constant reinforcement. we're hoping, i'm hoping that we break some of that, because I just don't want her to have that life Like I just don't want her to grow up kind of going when's my next Weight Watchers meeting? Or I'm going to have to stand up in front of a room of people and get weighed Like what is that, you know? and so I kind of go right, what do I do now to roll model? Like we get up in the morning and we go for a walk on the weekends and that's that thing to do. Yes, i grab a coffee like halfway through that walk, but that's the. you know, that's the behavior that I want her to have is that we get outside and we get in the psalm and that makes me feel better and helps me dust off the cobwebs after a big week, and just they're the kind of things that I want her to say and to roll model for her.

Lyndi: 11:43

I think you're already doing such a good job with roll modeling to her how you'd like her to live And I think that is exceptional.

Lyndi: 11:50

I'm going to get into that in a little bit, but firstly, can we talk about this idea of empathizing with the older generation, the ones who took us to Weight Watchers, our mothers.

Lyndi: 12:00

Typically it's a mother-daughter thing very often And for me I think the most important thing that's changed my relationship with that is having empathy and kind of going and realizing that my mom got sent put on a diet very early, that you know she received comments from her mother like pulling your stomach and you don't need seconds, and you know it's good to be, you know, really hungry and all these kinds of things that she was told, and so when I see her having, you know, making diet comments and still kind of struggling with, you know, feeling like she feels guilty for eating more than she plans on the weekend, i feel like I can see how hard it is for her, i see how much that consumes her And the empathy comes out and I think I'm sorry that you still have to feel like this is constantly on your brain.

Lyndi: 12:48

So it takes away the anger and the feel for me And it makes me kind of go. You know what I feel like you need help, not for me to try and get angry with you, which is how I used to very angry.

Lyndi: 12:59

It sounds like because you've already had that conversation, so that, firstly, if anyone's listening, firstly, we need to have those conversations to kind of set the boundaries and say, no, we're not going to have these conversations, i'm not a recipient of these conversations, which you've already done. The next step is to kind of empathize and be like okay, cool, i understand what you're at And you sound like you're already creating a healthier relationship with food in your body. Yes, you're still in practice. You're not perfect at it yet. However, i've kind of feel like the next step might be for you to start to become her teacher in this. So she passed down a certain way of thinking around dieting to you And now it's time for you to kind of help her. But perhaps the next step from instead of enough, we're not having this conversation, which was the first step, the next step after this is to kind of go.

Lyndi: 13:42

When you make comments like that, you know this is what happens And this is why we say it like this. I don't know if you know, but this is and it's kind of like that next level of instruction giving her the language of how to talk about it differently. You could say hey, instead of saying this has too much sugar, yeah, and of course chocolate has lots of sugar in it. We know this. What you could say to Eliza is you know, if you eat a lot of this, it doesn't make your tummy feel good. Or you could say something like you know, we're always listening to our body, so we want to pick things that make our body feel good, giving her the language so that she can kind of become an ally in this, and you're kind of recruiting her. You might even stop and have a conversation with her at some point, be like hey, i know Eliza's getting older. I really don't want to pass down all these kind of diet things. I know we've had conversations like this in the past.

Lyndi: 14:30

I wonder if you might be able to help me in helping her get this healthy body image that I think is so important for her. Here are some of the things that I'm thinking I would like to do with her, and in that way you kind of feel like she's on your side And it gives you permission to have like a bit more of an interrelationship, you know, a back and forward relationship with it. You could point it to the direction of the chapter in my book which talks about raising kids you have a healthy body image, who like themselves a very important thing so that you guys are kind of compadres in it And it gives you permission to help tutor her rather than just like putting up the brick wall, because that might just be the next step And I think it's a hard thing to do and I don't think she's going to nail it. Yeah.

Christina: 15:11

No, i mean, it's time right. And she looked like we were looking at some old photos and there was a photo of her when she would have been I don't know, like late teens, early 20s, and she looked great And she was like God. I remember just feeling so fat when I'm looking at those photos and thinking how fat I was And now I think, god, i wish I was like that And I was like, yeah, see, this is so. when she says stuff like that, that's when I go see, this is what I don't want Eliza to do And I don't want her to look back and go God, i thought I was fat or I was this or I was that. They're not things that I want her to think. I want her to feel really positive and happy in herself, wherever she is, at any point in her life.

Christina: 15:49

So it's the same kind of thing. It's just so many. you don't realize, until you become a parent, all of those little niggly things that were niggly that you just ignored as a kid growing up or you know. obviously it's deep, it's deep in there and you don't ignore it. But the older you get and the more kind of acceptance you get, you kind of go. well, that's fine, that's you like, i'm not going there. But it's really funny when you then the shoe is on the other foot and you're parenting and it's like, wow, that's just kind of out of my mouth, right, and that's where did that come from? I know that came from it, like, oh, i don't want to.

Lyndi: 16:26

Oh yeah, it holds up such a mirror, doesn't it? Yes, So it sounds like you're doing this already so beautifully. is the role modeling of going? okay, this is how I would like your relationship with food to be. Can we just talk about that idea for a moment, this idea of having a relationship with food? Now, why do we use that term? Well, let's talk about a relationship that we have with a partner or a friend.

Lyndi: 16:48

What do we need in a relationship for it to be healthy? What we need firstly, i believe, is stability. So we need it to be just reliable and go to. So when people have an unhealthy relationship with food, they're either loving their bodies and in a good phase, or they're falling off the bandwagon they're a bad phase. So we get a lot of turbulence in those kinds of relationships.

Lyndi: 17:10

In a healthy relationship with food, we also need respect. So you need to look at your friend or your partner and you go I like you, i believe in you. Even if you mess up and you're imperfect, i still back you and I respect you enough With your body and with food. You need to have a respectful food. You need to have respect for your body. So, irrespective of whether or not we have a day where we even now you might have days where you go oh, i hate my body, but you still respect it enough to be like no, you're still worthy.

Lyndi: 17:38

There's an innate worthiness because I believe my body is worthy And I think this is kind of phrase that I see thrown around a lot. It says tell our little kids that all bodies are unique and beautiful, and I think unique and different is awesome, but I don't think we need to reinforce this idea that beauty is attached to worth, because there are going to be days where they live in the society that we live in where they're going to think I'm not beautiful And we don't need that to be a condition for them to think they are worthy of respect. So we're not saying all bodies are beautiful. What we are saying are all bodies are worthy of respect And you know they're all different and that is what's really important.

Lyndi: 18:20

And the other thing that we need for a healthy, trusting relationship with our friends, with our family, is trust.

Lyndi: 18:25

So you need to be able to say you're going to have my back, i believe in you, that I'm able to listen to you, because I trust you've got my best interest at heart. And when we have a healthy relationship with our bodies, we are trusting our bodies to guide us on how to eat, on how to move our body and what feels good. So, as those three kinds of things that we're doing when I want, ideally you're replicating that and you're showing those things to her, even if you're doing it perfectly, and I think you sound like you're already doing such a smashing job of it. I think this is the most powerful thing that sadly you are part of the sandwich generation now, where you are influencing both your daughter and your mother simultaneously, and I want you to think of them as both of your students, not just that it's top down, but that it goes both ways, and I'm sorry that adds to your already huge, crushing mental load as a mother and a woman in the world.

Christina: 19:16

I'm so sorry.

Lyndi: 19:18

It is part of this burden that we carry to be this generation that stops the passing down of diet culture.

Christina: 19:26

It's really interesting the whole like thinking of that as a sandwich of A in the middle of that, because it is a really good way to think about it.

Christina: 19:33

It's true And it is.

Christina: 19:37

You know, just for me, the relationship that she has with her body will set her up for the relationships that she has in her life, i think.

Christina: 19:46

And so you know, to be in a relationship that's respectful and where she's respected and where she shows that respect to somebody else starts with yourself, and if you don't do it to yourself, then you accept lots of different things from different people that you've been otherwise.

Christina: 20:04

So it's a really interesting way to frame it and to think about it around the listening to and listening to yourself as much as you listen to other people, to kind of go what does what makes me feel good now, or what doesn't make me feel good now, and it's, you know, don't push yourself at crossfit, because that's what everyone's doing, it's because it makes me feel better. If that's, you know, it makes me feel good not breaking like every tendon in my body to do a kind of thing. So it's just, you know, finding that thing, that is the thing that gives you the energy to keep going, whether it is crossfit or walking or swimming or whatever, but a really interesting way to kind of work out how you help the help little people in your life grow up with those kind of those learned behaviors, as opposed to those ones that they think they should have because that's what everyone else around them does.

Lyndi: 21:01

Especially when you're still a work in progress, when you're still in the process of healing from all the shit that you got handed down. It's hard. It's hard work. I wonder, because it sounds like you're already kind of further down the track. I wonder if you could try to do a little bit more narration. So let's say, you have this internal dialogue that's going. You know you're trying to make a food decision.

Lyndi: 21:23

I wonder whether or not you could say it a little bit more aloud so that either your daughter or your mom might be able to hear. You might be like oh, i think I can't tell if I'm hungry or not. I'm just trying to work out. You know what I'm feeling right now, and then you might go oh, actually I think I am hungry. What would make me feel really satisfied right now? A little bit more of that out loudness, so that your daughter is hearing the exact internal dialogue that we want her to have before she's making a food decision. And, of course, your mom is also going to be going. All right, this is the tangible aspect of how this actually looks in the brain, because she doesn't have the internal dialogue for herself And so you'll be tutoring her in doing that. What is that's undurable.

Christina: 22:07

Yeah, i think it is and I think probably because of my, when I go will screw it, i'm gonna eat what I want, just because I can. So I'm gonna prove a point that this is not working. Probably also helps me to kind of talk it out, because then I am. You know what. You say it out loud, it becomes a lot more real than When it's inside your head. Yeah, you're being ridiculous. The world is not gonna end because you're gonna have those chips, like stop it.

Lyndi: 22:31

Yeah, i like that. I think that's gonna be useful for you as well. I want to throw out two pieces of research that we know. Firstly, research shows that little girls become aware that then is the ideal by the age of five, which is incredibly young. So you're right in saying that. You know, even though Eliza is too, she's definitely receiving those messages that the world is telling us and we're going to be able to buffer that to some extent, but she's still going to be a young little girl Realizing that there is a preference in this world. So we're gonna try and have as much of an input influence on that as we possibly can. But also, i think was very important to notice that research shows that teenagers This is when they get older whose parents comment on their weight are 66% more likely to be overweight or obese as adults.

Lyndi: 23:12

And I think why I'm raising that and this, this research does point to parents, not grandparents or whatever. I Think there is a belief from parents, grandparents, that if I make these comments, i am going to save my child, my grandchild, from struggling with their weight like I did. I don't want them to have to, and that feels more important than Prevent, then giving them a healthy body image, and I think that is the barrier that we need to try and overcome with your mom, and perhaps even sometimes when you date yourself yourself So you can kind of go. Why kind of want it to have the best opportunities in life And, as we know, is that when people are, you know, fit into the ideal, we do know that they get more opportunities and good things flow to them. But I think coming back to this research and saying these words, telling them this has too much sugar in it, we think we're going to help them way less and fit in closer to that thin ideal.

Lyndi: 24:43

But knowing that that is counterintuitive, the exact opposite things more likely to happen is a very important thing. So while you can kind of give the practical and this is why we're doing this and try to explain it, i think you do need to address the elephant in the room, which is Your mom thinks these comments are going to prevent her from gaining weight as an adult, and I and I think that is part, that's perhaps the next part of this conversation to be had- I remember mom saying that to me I say these things to you because I don't want you to grow up and you're like well, you know, i remember that as a kid and that's I've grown up overweight, so thanks, like it has a really different all through my pregnancy.

Christina: 25:27

I never felt as strong as I felt in my life as what I felt when I was pregnant, and so you know it's exhausting, but I was far more active pregnant. I mean, you know, before children you've got lots of time, you do lots of good things or yourself. But I was far more active during my pregnancy. I was going to Pilates, i was walking, i was doing all that stuff, you know, more regularly, and now I'm not doing anywhere near as much of it as I would like to be doing. And so now I'm trying to.

Christina: 25:57

I'm exhausted, so I'm working five days a week and by the time I put a lot and I was for a period putting her to bed and then going to Pilates. I was just, i was so tired and by the time I'd get home, like it was, you know, nine o'clock and I was going to bed and not being able to sleep because I'd exercise at the end of the day and that usually winds me up And then going in this visual cycle of not getting enough sleep and not doing you know doom scrolling all night. So now it's kind of like, right, i have to find a way to make it fit in so that I get, because I know that if I don't sleep I'm, i'm watching the next day and so I'm no use to anyone if I'm tired. So it's, it's probably shifting the narrative around some of the things that make me feel more energized and give me more energy.

Christina: 26:50

It's not necessarily about I'm not sure it is about going to Pilates, for sure, but it's also about getting more sleep, and getting good quality sleep. And you know, i know that if I'm, if I'm, tired, i make poor choices with food. That makes me feel even worse and that kind of sends me on that visual cycle. As opposed to going do you know what? I've probably got 20 minutes of energy left and I'm probably better to use that 20 minutes to make lunch for tomorrow so that I've set myself up in a good way, rather than going to the food court during the day at work and going and getting something hot and heavy and you know something that I know will make me feel yuck in the afternoon as opposed to fueling me so that I have the energy to do stuff.

Lyndi: 27:31

Energy. Energy is the key word here. This is, this is fundamental. This is what it all comes down to. If you have the energy to do the things you like, if certain foods give you good energy, they leave you feeling good. These are the food decisions we make. So, when it comes to insure defeating, there are two questions we really want to be asking is am I hungry and what do I feel like? So what's going to satisfy me, basically? And then the second part of the question is and what's going to make me feel good afterwards? And the food decisions we need to make are in alignment with these two questions. It's not just what do I feel like and am I hungry, it's how will I feel afterwards? And if we can kind of mesh up these two questions a little bit more often, we get to a really beautiful place where actually, naturally, you're fine. You're choosing options because you just know I'm going to feel great after I eat this.

Lyndi: 28:18

And the other thing is in my book. Your Weight is Not the Problem. I talk about the hierarchy of healthy habits, and the most important thing at the very bottom is sleep, and so I think you should forfeit things like exercise if it means that your sleep is going to be jeopardized because, as you said, it is the cornerstone of health. It is the fundamental base layer that you need to be ensuring and getting maximum your optimum amounts of sleep, which I think is really important for you to be doing So, also with this idea of.

Lyndi: 28:46

I mean, i freaking love Pilates, but I have a newborn and a two and a half year old. There is no way that I can get to Pilates right now. With work on top of it all. It's just not doable. I don't know how I'm going to fit in an hour. And so, for me, i have this thing where I just have 20 minutes of Pilates that I just do like a mat session in my little daughter's room, and it's imperfect. The rooms are freaking mess. It's not aesthetic at all. I'm literally I'm just wearing a sports bra, sometimes in some underwear, like I barely need to brush my head. I don't need to brush my head to turn up to the sessions. I had to really challenge this idea of what exercise looked like. It didn't need to be going to a session. It could be 10 minutes, it could be five minutes. How do we lower the barrier to entry so that it's just turning up And even if you just stretch it, you're turned up and you did it.

Christina: 29:36

Yeah Yeah, i was listening to your podcast actually, and you were talking about it in one of the episodes that I listened to a little while ago and I was like it's so true to just five minutes is better than no minutes. And so even during the day, like I'm in the office and I'm saying to people, do you want to go for a walk around the block, rather than sitting in the room for five minutes, like, let's go for a walk around the block. So even though things like before I would have gone, i need to put on my shoes and I need to change my clothes and I need to do this, i need to do that, whereas now I'm like let's just walk around a block, it's fine. And if I get a bit hot and sweaty, i get a bit hot and sweaty. And so the year like I just it doesn't bother me so much anymore.

Christina: 30:13

But I think that is also really important to just just I might take a meal while and I mean she allows all be to enjoy. so it's taken me a while to kind of go, take me to use, to go right, like do a little bit is better than the whole big perl ever of getting up and going to a party class and doing the whole thing. so even even in the afternoons on the weekend, like you know, we'll go for a walk in the morning and in the afternoon. whenever I'm kind of climbing the walls after a nap and whatever I might, let's just go for a five-minute walk and sometimes you know often that five minutes turns into 35 minutes just because we're out now and we'll just keep going and no one's screaming and so let's just keep walking. and you know it's probably a pretty slow walk. I've got a dog that does not look very fast, so we just, you know it's a slow little amble down the street, but that's better than nothing.

Lyndi: 31:04

You're so spot on this, just just get finding yourself to propel yourself out the door. You're probably gonna have fun when you're there. And those mental health walks, they are such an essential it's not, it's not an optional, it's not a thing a nice to have. I think they are grounding, an essential task. I also have started trying this thing. I don't know if it's useful. I've I also had a rule that my children had to be accounted for when I exercised and that I just and yes, that's ideal. Ideal is it's me time and like no one's gonna interrupt me. But I have done sessions before where I put down my mat.

Lyndi: 31:39

I don't mind a little bit of screen time if it means I get some exercise. I feel like I just flick on a bit of screen time. I get my laptop, i'm doing my 20 minutes. Sometimes my son will come over and he's downward dogging with me and he's, you know, flapping about. It's a bit of a shit show, i'm not gonna lie, but we're getting something done. It's happening and the role modeling of mum respects her body enough to move it in a way that feels enjoyable. That's incredibly useful. So I know there's the screen time element of that, but there is that role modeling that I think is so essential. He's thinking I got, we got it, we got to do what's doable.

Christina: 32:13

Here I am, i hurt my back a little while ago and I was. I was on her play mat because it's like so good to stretch on. It was anyway. I was on the mat stretching, i had Eliza jumping on my back. I had the dog licking my face. It turned. It was an epic shit show. It turned into us like all laughing and rolling around the floor. But actually the joy in that moment is so much more than the thing that I was doing and you know I've forgotten that my back was sore and I'd forgotten that that had happened and I was like, oh god, i've got to get up. That's like roll over and get you off me. It's a core memory was unlocked in that moment.

Lyndi: 32:51

And this is basically what is health? because you and I, we were raised to think that health was about being thin, it was about eating less, it was about being a little bit hungry and hopping on the scale each day. That was that what we were told, and what we're teaching our children is that health is having energy, it's having fun, it's cooking food that makes us feel good inside, and these I get chills thinking about it, but I just think this is the difference and this is that. That is the blueprint we want to be passing on. We want to be role-modeling it. And, christian, it sounds like you are already doing so many of these things. You've already come so incredibly far. There's a little bit more to go. You can start adding in a few more levels now, yeah, but I feel like you're giving her the best chance simply by turning up and asking these questions yeah, it's um, it's a lot, it is a lot, but it is, it's just different.

Christina: 33:42

It's just to be different on stuff, right, and it's not to say to mom, you did it wrong. It's to say we know a whole lot more now, right, and so they're different things that we want to, we want her to do and I just different things I want her to know, and that's it's not, it's not wrong and it's not right. And I'm sure that when Eliza is having children should be going. That was all crap. But you know that's how this is going to go right and we can't wait for that, to that moment where they look at us and go. But you know, we do the best that we can with what we have in front of us. And that's where I try to to kind of go and where I think about mom. She did the best that she could with what she had in front of her and so now I'm trying to do the best that I can we're all learning together I think you're doing an amazing job.