82 - Find Intuitive Fitness

You've heard about intuitive eating before, now let's chat about intuitive fitness.

I am joined by Deanna Beaton, personal trainer and coach to bring us more discussion intuitive fitness/exercise/movement.

Deanna shares how emotional eating was a life saver when she didn’t know she needed it.

We also talk about what intuitive movement is: this idea that your body wants to move and knows when and how much. 

Deanna shares her idea of the “swingset” that can happen as we heal our relationship with movement, which may include periods where you make peace with movement and make peace with rest. I also share some of my experience with this after I ran a half marathon in Oct 2019 and then did almost no formal exercise for 18 months while I healed my relationship with movement/exercise.

I then pick Deanna’s brain about how we know our body WANTS to move. Spoiler: any time you notice the words SHOULD, HAVE TO, or MUST that’s a good indicator that you are not engaging in intuitive movement.

We close the episode with Deanna sharing what person training is, why a person would want a trainer, and the differences between training and coaching. I love Deanna’s approach to training and coaching because there is no shame if you don’t do a workout as planned. 

You can find Deanna on Instagram and her website. 

Are you stuck on the swing set? A free quiz

Transcript

Sabrina Rogers  0:00  
Welcome back to the emotional eating therapist show. I am so glad you are here today. And in this episode I am joined by my friend and colleague Deanna Beaton, personal trainer and coach. Along with sharing part of her emotional eating journey, Deanna is going to help us find intuitive fitness intuitive movement. We talk about what that is what that looks like in the day to day. And I'm also going to pick her brain about the differences between personal training and coaching, and how do we know if we want or need a personal trainer, so stay tuned. 

Welcome to the emotional eating therapists Show. I'm your host Sabrina Rogers, licensed mental health counselor, intuitive eating and body image expert and recovering perfectionist. After healing my own disordered eating and body image issues. I'm helping women let go the guilt and shame around eating, feel at peace around food and befriend the image they see in the mirror. In this podcast, we chat about all things food, body and mental health so that you can stop dieting, let go of perfectionism. And finally, feel confident in all areas of your life. If you want to connect with me on social media, I'm on Instagram, Facebook and tick tock at Sabrina Rogers lmhc. And if you enjoy listening to this podcast, please leave a review on iTunes or wherever you're listening. This helps other women find and learn about the podcast. So they too can change their relationship with food and body. Let's get ready to stay off the diet roller coaster and live healthy ever after.

 I've been wanting to bring Deanna on to the show for quite a while because she has such a great perspective on fitness and movement. And I just love her personality. So before we get to the interview with Deanna, let me tell you a little bit about her. Deanna is the owner of Deanna Beaton, intuitive fitness where she does non diet, personal training, intuitive eating coaching, and body image coaching. She has fat, queer, anti oppression, Health at Every Size aligned and worked with women and non binary folks to empower them to define health on their own terms. Find fitness that fits them and have fun doing it. So without further ado, let's get to my conversation with Deanna. And I thank you so much for coming on the show today. I know I asked you to come on a while ago. And it took us a little while to get this scheduled. But I really think that the listeners are going to really enjoy what you have to say you want to say hello. 

Deanna  2:37  
Hello, thank you so much for having me. I hope they enjoy it. I very much just want to convey that. Everybody's doing great. That's the overarching message from what I'm about to share. When it comes to fitness especially, you're doing great. 

Sabrina Rogers  2:54  
Even if you don't feel like it. 

Deanna  2:56  
Even if you don't feel like it. Oh my gosh, exclamation point. That is the secret part that nobody says out loud. Yeah, yeah.

Sabrina Rogers  3:04  
 So I brought a couple other fitness people on.Because I think that the food and the fitness overlap so much. And even when we can get to a place of feeling comfortable with our eating and being more intuitive with that letting go of diet culture, we still have this idea that we need to be exercising air quotes a certain way. So I'm really excited when I can bring on fitness professionals who are not in that toxic fitness space. I'm setting this up for later. So I usually start the show with guests talking about their experience with emotional eating. And just because I know you for a while I really appreciate how you've looked at emotional eating as being a lifesaver. So I thought my gosh, maybe let's talk about that.

Deanna  4:03  
Yeah, for sure. Like the overview is it was a tool just like a lifesaver when you're stuck out in the ocean. It was a tool that I had access to that I used and it worked.

Sabrina Rogers  4:20  
What do you mean by it was a lifesaver because I think most people who have been listening to the show for a while know my take on emotional eating. But we still have this kind of idea that it's this bad thing that we shouldn't be doing it so how in the world can a bad thing be a lifesaver 

Deanna  4:36  
using emotional eating, if we're going to call it that which obviously do that's the name of your podcast. You are the emotional eating therapist. Emotional Eating was a lifesaver because whenever you don't have other ways to deal with your emotions, if you don't even know about emotions, oh my gosh. If you have like four words to describe your entire emotional state. You don't even have enough illiteracy, to know, other ways to deal with what you're feeling, maybe because you're not even letting yourself feel things, or you're not allowed to feel things, or you're not allowed to show that you feel things. And so when you don't have access to so much of the information and knowledge that's both outside of you, and inside of you, if you're not allowed, for whatever reason to get in touch with that, one very easy way that almost all of us have access to, from birth is food, to provide good feelings, to provide safety, to provide energy to provide excitement. And that's what I had. So I used it, absolutely. It just as a way to sort of cope with and deal with the stuff that was going on in your life that you didn't necessarily have the words to put into perspective. . And it's really interesting now, because now that I've been an intuitive eater for almost two years, I will find myself in hard spots. And sometimes I will be like, I want to eat this comfort food, that used to be the thing that would like light my brain up and be like, this just solved all my problems. And I will use other tools first sometimes, and they don't work. And then I'm like, last resort. Let's try this. And then sometimes it does work. Usually it doesn't work. But I'm like, wow, I have so many more things to try now. And it's still one of that, like, I still love me a cosmic brownie baby. And sometimes it works. And sometimes it doesn't. 

Sabrina Rogers  7:00  
Thank you so much for sharing that. Because, yes, food can always be a tool. It deserves a place in the toolbox. And it doesn't have to be our first go to unless you're hungry and needing to cope at the same time. And then please yet.

Deanna  7:21  
Yeah, and sometimes, you know, it was just the holidays recently. And it's like all of my other normal things that I would try first, like I just didn't have access to I didn't have time for I didn't like their weather. Like there were so many reasons why some things just don't work in any given moment. And so sometimes the first thing it was like, I would like a piece of that chocolate cake, please. And there's nothing wrong with that. Yeah, absolutely. There's no shame in having the cake. And there's no shame, if maybe the cake didn't do exactly what you were looking for it to do. And it is a lot easier whenever I know that that's what I'm using the cake for to not literally put all of my eggs in that one basket like, this is a thing that I'm trying right now. Because this is what I have access to. I know it's not going to solve all my problems later, when I have more resources at my disposal, I will do the rest of the things that I need to do to take care of myself. 

Sabrina Rogers  8:17  
That is so good. Because I think what happens is we used to get in this pattern of using, let's say the cake to cope. And it not working with the first piece for whatever reason. And because we don't have a range of other tools, we don't know how to like, set it in that moment and then come back to it. We ended up eating the entire cake looking for the cake to solve it all and it it doesn't, but we keep eating it trying to get it to work. 

Deanna  8:48  
Yeah, it's a little bit like chasing the dragon because it's like, well, the first bite did feel like it was working. But then each subsequent bite became less effective. But it's like but it maybe if I just maybe it's this next bite. Yeah. As opposed to maybe it's done all it can and maybe now I need to try something else. Also, not instead of not that this was a bad choice, but it's done the amount of heavy lifting that it can and it's time to bring in somebody else or something else.

Sabrina Rogers  9:23  
Awesome. Let's switch gears and focus on why you're really here. And that's to share this message dispelling this toxic fitness culture. Mm hmm. How did you get into the fitness world?

Deanna  9:42  
Hmm. I got into the fitness world. Well, I grew up playing sports my whole life. So I've sort of just always been in the fitness world. And then in college, I became a lifeguard. And so then I got into the lifeguarding and aquatics world. And then that transition to working at gyms. And so I've sort of just always had one foot in the fitness world. And I feel like that has really helped me see both what is going on in the fitness world, and completely understand people's perspectives who aren't in it. And I feel like I am a bridge because as someone who's been in a fat body my whole life, and had one foot in the fitness world my whole life, I can see a lot of perspectives there. And that's not always the case, when it comes to new people trying to enter the fitness world, they don't have someone who has different perspectives.

Sabrina Rogers  10:49  
Yeah. So you've always been sort of in this space? How did you decide to make a career out of it?

Deanna  10:57  
At the beginning of the lockdown, I was trying to put together a workout for myself because, um, you know, I live in Chicago. And so when we went into lockdown, not only was I locked down, but I was afraid to walk out my apartment door, because I would be surrounded by 1000s of people instantly, right? Like, I don't live in a suburb, like, I don't have a yard. And so I really locked myself down hardcore for weeks. And I would like not leave my apartment for days and like a week at a time. And so obviously, my fitness changed in that time. And so I was like, I want to move again. What, what do I need to do to meet me where I am right now and start building the backup in this weird time or like I have to work out on my bedroom floor. And I just really had a hard time finding information that fit where I was, everything was either way too intense, even though it said it was like for beginners. Or it was like, just really, really simple and condescending. And I was like, there is a big huge space between these two things that I'm finding. And underneath all of it was this assumption that you should be burning fat. Like everything was also fat burning. And it's like, this is not what I'm looking for. And because I knew enough about fitness, and I've been in the fitness space for all of my life and working in the fitness space for like, what was it? I don't know, maybe a decade ish. I was like, I can do this. On my own. I don't need these people. And so purely out of spite, I was like, I'm gonna get my personal training certification so that I can do this myself, which is just like the DIY perfectionist in me to a tee Right? Like, I don't need anybody, I don't need anything. And then once I started down that path, I was like, I think a lot of people want what I'm trying to find, and I have enough experience that I think I could help them. Find it with me like, I think I could share this with people. So that's how I got started officially being a personal trainer. 

Sabrina Rogers  13:33  
I love how you couldn't find what you were looking for. So you just created it. I just did it. You know? That's so well, women have been doing it for millennia. Yes. But nobody looks at it that way.

Let's talk a little about how diet culture shows up within the fitness space. And how maybe the similarities between toxic fitness culture and diet culture.

Deanna  14:06  
Yeah, part of the reason that I know you is because we have the same mentor. And I knew once I wanted to become a personal trainer for other people besides just myself, that the food and the fitness were so intertwined for me that there was really no way for me to do it without separating them out. Because not only are they similar, but, you know, society tells us they're all tied up in each other. So, so many of us think about exercising as a way to burn calories as a way to burn fat as a way to punish ourselves for what we've eaten and things like that. And so that is a huge thing. Eat that a lot of I'm sure your listeners are probably familiar with those just very obvious ways. And personal trainers. A lot of times at gyms part of their job is to sell supplements. And they're not nutritionists, but they really toe the line with telling people what they should and shouldn't be eating. And so it's all very blurry at a lot of gyms anyway. So that's a lot of people's experience with diet culture and fitness culture, just being sort of one in the same.

Sabrina Rogers  15:39  
I was that hurting us?

Deanna  15:42  
Well, listening to people who don't have any expertise in something, right, like, big, big, big red flag, I'm listening to people who have a vested interest in selling you something big, big, big red flag. And so yeah, if a lot of personal trainers income comes from not only working out with you, that's only a very small part of their income, if a large part of their income comes from selling you supplements, you know, those are things you should question. And because we're taught that we don't have the knowledge ourselves, we give so much of our power to people like personal trainers should tell us what we should or shouldn't be eating, what supplements we should or shouldn't be taking, what kind of exercises we should or shouldn't be doing, how often we should be doing them. And so it really makes you question whether or not you even know your own body. And that's not something that I'm a fan of, I am very much a proponent of you absolutely know, what you need, and how to give it to yourself. Maybe you've been conditioned to not even hear yourself, just like with our boldness and hunger cues, we've been conditioned to not hear those. But depending on how severe you know, that is, you may or may not need help getting back in touch with those, but you probably can.

Sabrina Rogers  17:22  
I know for me, personally, I healed my relationship with food first. And I hear a lot of clients that I work with. And just people in general having that same experience and then looking at this fitness thing of going like on even know how to tame that beast. Because all of the messaging that we hear is exactly that toxic fitness stuff of, we're only working out to burn calories to burn fat to get skinny. Like those are the only reasons to work out. In the food space, when we're healing that relationship, we tend to go on that pendulum. Whether it's restriction or binge restrict cycle, whatever. But part of finding that food freedom in the middle is kind of doing more of that rebellious eating and swinging to the other side of the pendulum. And I'm pretty sure you have this philosophy of this pendulum swing with fitness too. Is that correct? I sure do. Tell us about that.

Deanna  18:31  
Yeah, well, in intuitive eating, like you were saying the pendulum, there's the restriction side, where we try to force ourselves to stay on this diet, either eat things we don't like, or don't eat as much food as we want or don't eat at certain times, stuff like that, right? Restricting action, making sure we stick to whatever external wisdom or external knowledge is told to us from other people. And whenever we can't sustain that anymore, because it is almost always unsustainable, right? That's why we have to force ourselves to do it. We let go of the pendulum and the pendulum swings to the other side. And when it comes to eating, it looks a lot like feeling like you're out of control, and maybe binge eating or eating at night. And just feeling like you literally cannot control your body and the food you put into your mouth. But whenever it comes to movement, there's the same pattern, right? we force ourselves to do these workouts, whether or not we want to, we force ourselves to get up early and go to the gym. And then whenever that becomes unsustainable, we swing to the other side. And that looks a lot like avoiding fitness at all costs, and beating ourselves up over are feeling out of control, but not because we're doing too much like with eating, quote unquote too much, but feeling out of control, like, why can't I make myself move more. And so we will just go back and forth between those two ends of the spectrum. Because we think we should be in one or the other. And in reality, if you let yourself move, when you want to move, and let yourself rest and not move, and not beat yourself up for being in a less active part of your life, or avoiding, or just being too busy to do stuff, being too tired to do stuff, and not feeling shame about that, then you won't feel the need to pull yourself back to the forcing side. And so it will eventually come to a gentle you know, spot in the middle, where it's intuitive, just like with eat it.

Sabrina Rogers  21:03  
What is that intuitive movement that like gentle spot in the middle? What does that look like on a day to day, week to week, because I think a lot of people have in their idea of like, Okay, I gotta go to the gym, or I gotta get up. And I got to do XYZ exercises, X number of times per week. And it sounds like, that's more of that toxic fitness, kind of the pendulum, telling yourself you have to or you should is a pretty good sign that you're like in toxic anything territory. But when it comes to fitness, right, if you should do some certain number or amount of exercise, or days a week or whatever.

Deanna  21:44  
So when it comes to finding intuitive movement for yourself, it really starts in your mind, what do you tell yourself about who you are, what it means about you? If you're good enough, if you're lazy? Are you saying things to yourself about your movement. And just like with intuitive eating, or like with body image, it's like, people at all sizes, treat themselves like this. And people of all sizes can get out of it, right? Because if it were true, that if you work out five times a week, then you won't beat yourself up anymore, then people who work out five times a week wouldn't beat themselves up. And we know that they do. Right? So the answer is not the action, the answer is in how you treat yourself and how you talk to yourself about what you are or aren't doing. So on a day to day basis, when it comes to actually moving and doing fitness and exercising. Sometimes that means you feel motivated and inspired and you do a workout. And you know, that doesn't mean anything about you. And other days, it means you don't do any movement or exercise or workout. And you know, that means nothing about you. And you trust yourself that you are listening to what you need. And there will come another day when you will move again, you don't have to force yourself, you don't have to go all out. You know, some days, it looks like having a plan and doing a quarter of that plan. Or sometimes it means having a plan and going harder because you have more energy than you thought it means all kinds of different things based on what you need each day.

Sabrina Rogers  23:44  
I'm going to put you on the spot because we hadn't talked about this before recording, what are some signs that your body wants to move? And I realized this might be very independent person to person, but generally speaking, 

Deanna  23:59  
that is an interesting question. So like, I'm not a doctor, not a scientist, I don't play one on the internet, etc, etc. Um, so I don't know, all of the like the biological things the way that like with intuitive eating books, they did do that kind of research. So I love them for that. But just like when we were little kids, and babies like we moved, right, there was no internal dialogue about whether I should or should not get on the swingset. And I do think there is a part of that still in us. And for so many reasons. It gets sort of stamped down. And a lot of it I think has to do with telling ourselves and society and toxic fitness culture and diet culture telling us that's not enough. What you want to do is not enough and so then you don't do anything. And so I think one sign that you You want to move is if you have a perfectionist all or nothing voice telling you that what you're thinking about isn't even good enough, right? Because it is there. And whether or not you act on it, it was there. So I think that is one sort of sneaky way that even if you end up not moving like, oh, but you did think you wanted to do something, but then said it wasn't good enough, so then you didn't do it.

Sabrina Rogers  25:28  
 So good. That's so good. Because I experienced that a lot. And I know the clients that I work with have mentioned a lot of times like, well, I know I should do this. I know I should get out and go for a walk. But you know, it's just really cold. And I don't want to but I mean, I want to go for a walk. It's just really cold. And I don't want to go through all the things totally. 

Deanna  25:48  
And that's the other part sort of, just like when we're doing intuitive eating, it's hard to tune into our hunger cues. Because we've been taught that hunger is bad, essentially, right? And so we don't even want to acknowledge that it's there. It's sort of the opposite with movement, right? We're told that movement is good. And so not wanting to move is bad. So we don't want to hear when our body and our mind is telling us I don't want to move right now. So just like you have to make peace with hunger. One of my intuitive movement principles is that you have to make peace with rest. Because I don't think you'll really be able to hear your body wanting to move until you've convinced yourself that it's okay that it also doesn't want to move. 

Sabrina Rogers  26:41  
Yeah. That was really hard for me personally. 

Deanna  26:46  
And the hunger part. 

Sabrina Rogers  26:47  
No, the the like the wrestling part of rest of I had it in my head that if I rested, that I was never going to get back to working out again. 

Deanna  26:58  
Oh, totally. Yeah. Yeah. Our brains love to do all or nothing. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. That is so so so common. That is the most common thing that I hear is people saying that if they don't work out, or if they stop working out, then they're never ever ever going to do it again. Just like, if you're allowed to eat pizza, you will never stop eating pizza. And I tried it. Let me tell you, I tested that theory. I have stopped eating pizza.

Sabrina Rogers  27:31  
Yeah, I used to joke my parents used to joke all the time that like this kid could eat pizza for the rest of her life and be okay. And I'm like, Yeah, I thought so too. Because you can like put so many different toppings on it. And you can have it for Brexit nicely. And then yeah, again, you eat enough of it. And it's like, okay, I'm, I'm done. I still like pizza. But I'm, I'm done.

Deanna  27:51  
Yeah, but you had to be okay. With eating all the pizza in the whole world? Yes. Yeah. Before you could truly feel in your body, that it was okay to want something other than pizza. Yeah. 

Sabrina Rogers  28:05  
And I had to do almost that exact same thing with movement, particularly running. So I ran half marathon, the end of 2019. And it was, it was not a fun experience. It was an interesting experience. I will not say fun. And while I was trained for that, I was like this sucks. Because that, like it's so regimented. And you have to get so many miles and log so many hours in order to be prepared for the race, that after the race, not only was I physically hurting so much, but also headspace was like, I don't want to keep doing this to myself, but I also am really afraid of not doing anything. And so I kinda I kind of did this a little backwards of white knuckling of I said, Okay, I am not going to run again, until I know that I'm only running because I really enjoy running. Not because I'm trying to lose weight, not because I know it's a great way to burn calories. But because I love running. And I didn't run for a year, year and a half.

Deanna  29:20  
Yeah, totally. And I can hear that. And that is neutral. A circumstance of not running is totally neutral. But I'm sure that in your head, you have so many feelings and thoughts about if it was good or bad, right? It how does that fit the rules of how you're supposed to exercise and move your body and be healthy and all of those things? Oh, yeah. Yeah. So it's not as easy as just doing something. Yeah. Right. It's dealing with the thoughts and feelings about yourself. Yeah, and part of that process during that like year and a half hiatus. This was working on thoughts of, why am I running? Why is it because I really enjoy it and my body enjoys it. Because there were times that yeah, that was very much the case. There was a lot of other times in my history where I was only doing it because I thought it was what I should be doing to modify my body. And now, now that I'm like way on the other side hanging out in that fun little middle spot, not on either end of the pendulum, it's like, okay, well, I am, I am a runner. But today, I don't feel like running because it's cold outside, and I don't want to run on the treadmill. So I'm not going to run. When, when I'm done with my day to day, we'll see how I feel. Because I would really like to run today. But I've got another two hours of sessions after this. We'll see what what I feel like when I'm done. And like you said, that's very neutral. There's no shame, there's no, that's good. That's bad. Exactly. It's just, yeah, I feel like I'm gonna go for a run today. Can I tell you like the opposite of that. So growing up playing sports, my whole life, I ran a lot for the sports, I didn't do track or anything like that. But just, you know, warming up and conditioning, we ran a lot and I hated running, it hurts. I didn't have good form. Like, I didn't know what I was doing. But it just, like, hurt every part of me. And I just hated it. So after high school, whenever I stopped playing all of those sports, I was like, I am free. I never have to run another second in my life. Hallelujah. And I didn't I I basically didn't. Um, and then, about a year ago, I was out walking by the lake front, and the wind was blowing it Chicago, it's always windy. So the wind is blowing. And it's like, Oh, this feels so good. And out of nowhere, I was just like, I wonder what it would feel like to run into the wind right now. And I was like, I don't run, what are you doing? What are you talking about? What do you think of data? You don't run running is the worst that hurts. This is terrible. You don't like it? And then I was like, No, but I think I do want to know what it feels like. So then I tried to run and let me tell you, my calves were not ready for that. But I sort of started to run and I was like, This is what it feels like, Ah, okay, that's not as bad as I remember. This isn't hurt. That's fine. Okay, interesting. And I stopped, I just ran for like 12 seconds. And so from then, I was like, I wonder if I can run. So I for the past year have been doing a very, very slow, often on progression of like learning how to run. And it's only because for let's see how old am I? I'm 35. I stopped running when I was eight teen. So right for like 15 years, I let myself not run. And that means nothing about me. And then just all of a sudden, I felt like running again. So now I'm a runner. Not good. Not bad, just but it is I have discovered a new way of movement that I like for right now. In the past, I didn't like it, it wouldn't have worked for me. It didn't work for me. In the future. It might not work for me. But for right now. It's a form of movement that I enjoy doing. So I'm going with it.

Sabrina Rogers  33:33  
So lovely. And I love how you put that for right now. Like we're allowed to change our minds.

Deanna  33:40  
Totally.

Sabrina Rogers  33:42  
Everything changes. That's the only constant in life, right? And just like that first bite of a cosmic brownie works, and the second bite doesn't work. running right now works running next week might not work. Right. Whatever motivated you at the first week of the New Year worked, then that thing that motivated you may or may not motivate you the fourth week of January, right? Things change. And that's fine. I yeah, like we said throughout this whole episode, that means nothing about you, except that you're normal and things change.

Deanna  34:22  
Yeah, if you are prepared, if you're mentally expecting for things to ebb and flow, then it's a lot easier to go with the flow unless as compared to clinging on to this idea that things are supposed to be a certain way. And they will always stay that certain way. Yeah. The only thing that's inevitable is change. And indeed we can we can always count on that. Yeah.

Sabrina Rogers  34:51  
So I'm curious to know your thoughts on what a personal trainer is what they do, andthen how do we know if we need one? 

Deanna  35:03  
Before I answer that question, let me also say, this whole time, I have been using words like Exercise and Movement interchangeably. Some people have a history with the word exercise, right? It's very loaded for them, it causes a lot of emotions, that's totally fine. That's great. I like to incorporate the use of the word movement. Because of the loaded history people have, but also to just reframe the idea of what your body can do and what it wants. And so whenever it comes to personal trainers, what do personal trainers do? Well, they have expertise in how certain movements affect the muscles in your body is a very, very broad overview, right? They know, certain exercises and movements that will make certain muscles grow larger and stronger, right? They know, ways to help you increase your cardiovascular endurance, right things like that. What personal trainers do not know is how your body works for you specifically, they know generally how bodies work, right? But you are the expert in you. So when you work with a personal trainer, they give you suggestions for exercises and movements to do. And you may or may not do them, you may or may not have pain, doing certain movements, you may or may not have accessibility or flexibility to do certain movements. And so they should have expertise to help you find adjustments for things like that. But you also have all of the history of you. And things like resistance to certain exercises, like I have resistance to running, you had resistance to not running, right. Those are all important parts of the actions, you're going to take how you feel about the movements that these personal trainers are giving you. It matters as to whether or not you feel good doing them, if you want to do them, if they make you excited to do them, if there's something you're going to do, like going forward. And so that's just a little bit of how I think the personal trainer and client relationship should work, you should be able to bring all of these things to your personal trainer, and they should have enough knowledge and experience to help you navigate all of those things.

Sabrina Rogers  37:51  
So knowing that, do you need a personal trainer? Now? That is a very good question.

Deanna  38:01  
I don't know, do you need a personal trainer? Do you need someone to give you specific exercises to train towards a certain thing? That is something a personal trainer can do? Or do you just want to move your body more? Do you have ways that are accessible to you right now that are enjoyable, that you can do sustainably to move your body more right now. You don't necessarily need a personal trainer for that. But if you just want a friend, if you want a support system while you do this new thing that you haven't done in a while, or maybe you've never done ever, maybe you do need a personal trainer. And it's literally just like I just really want to walk around the track for like, half an hour. Maybe you want a personal trainer for that. Are they going to you know, blow your mind with like new crazy moves? No, of course not, you're walking. But if you want support in that, that is another great reason to have a personal trainer.

Sabrina Rogers  39:04  
So we don't have to have this desire to bulk up tone up to have a personal trainer. 

Deanna  39:12  
Yeah, if you want those things, definitely a personal trainer can do it. But that is not the only reason to have a personal trainer. And if you want to move, you don't have to have a personal trainer.

Sabrina Rogers  39:25  
So what's the difference between personal training and coaching? 

Deanna  39:30  
This was especially weird for me whenever I came into the code kind of coaching that you and I do. Because growing up in sports, I was like a coach, like I've had a coach my whole life and like some of them were more helpful than others Right? Um, but it's not like that, right? It's not like a team sport coach. The kind of coaching that I do is just like what we've been talking about, about how you talk to yourself, about what Things mean about you how hard or compassionate you're being on yourself. A coach helps you sort of get into your own mind and see how your thoughts are affecting how you show up in the world, what actions you take. Now, whether that means working out or not working out, those are all byproducts of the thoughts that we're having. Not entirely. I'm not saying that coaching solves all of the world's problems, but Right. So we're not here to make you think a certain thing. And we're not here to tell you the answers. We're here to help you get a new perspective on yourself. So that you can find your own answers so that you can realize what you're doing. So you can make informed choices about yourself as opposed to just knee jerk reactions to things that you didn't even realize you were doing.

Sabrina Rogers  41:05  
So as a personal trainer, you can do both, you can give us the workout plans, the exercise exercises, the movements to do, and you can help with that mindset. So that we feel Yes. And one thing that I say I like at the bottom of all of my workout programs that I send to my clients is do whatever you want to do this week, if it means this workout, great if it means another workout, great if it means parts of this, and skipping others, if it means none of it. Great. When we see each other again, we'll talk about why that was the perfect choice for you.

Deanna  41:45  
So not doing a workout outside of the time with my clients. That's perfect. That's great information to have. I can help them see why that was great for them. And if they want to change it in the future, what we can do about it, right? It's, it's totally up to the client to do whatever they want. And I will help them see that they did the right thing.

Sabrina Rogers  42:22  
Wait a minute. Let's say you and I are working together, you give me this workout plan. And for whatever reason, I don't do it. And I come back to our next meeting. And I say Deanna, I just I didn't do any of the exercises. You're not gonna yell at me in you're not going to tell me what a horrible person I am. Because I didn't do the plan that you gave me. You're going to help me explore why that was the right thing for me to do. 

Deanna  42:53  
Yes. And because here's my experience in toxic fitness space. They're not going to say you're a terrible person. They may or may not call you lazy, right? It's not straight up bullying like that. But there is always a tinge of disappointment. There is always this idea of well, you should have. And that is not true. That's their thought they have the thought that I should have. I don't subscribe to that thought. Right? So, yes. When my clients come to me and they say do you and I did absolutely. Not only did I not do your workout. I didn't even stretch my little toe. Since I saw you last. I go great. What's going on? What happened? Did you rest? Did you do what you needed to do? Was your life busy? Yes. All of those things make sense as to why you wouldn't fit in a workout in the actual life that you're living. Yeah, totally.

Sabrina Rogers  43:55  
So different from all of the stuff that we see out there. Yeah, totally. And I think so refreshing. 

Deanna  44:05  
I try. Oh, man. Do I try? Yeah. It's it just doesn't seem like all that controversial.

Sabrina Rogers  44:14  
But it is the opposite of everything else that I've ever seen about fitness. You know, that's why we go to a personal trainer, right is for that accountability? And then you're like, that's cool. Accountability. has like an invisible should, right? Ah, yeah, I don't I don't know if you should work out. I don't know. You know, I don't know. So I'm not going to try to make you do a thing that I don't even know if you're supposed to do mind blown.

Yeah, well, if people want to find you, they want to know more about you working with you following you. How can they do that?

Deanna  44:53  
They can find me on Instagram. I'm at the NFP I also have a website Deanna beaton.com Um, and you can come check me out in those two places. 

Sabrina Rogers  45:03  
Awesome. And Deanna has also given us a fun little fitness swing set that I'm going to put in the show notes for you too. So definitely go check that out and find her on Instagram. 

Deanna  45:16  
Yeah, come get this freebie. It's a cute little quiz about if you're stuck on the fitness swing set. So you can see that it is totally common. And it's a pattern meaning if you know what's coming, you can also learn how to sort of sidestep parts of it if you don't want to be stuck on that swing set anymore. 

Sabrina Rogers  45:37  
That's awesome. And what a great visual representation