How often do you work with and listen to your feelings? Is it possible to reclaim “health” and “fitness” as a source of joyful movement and body love? Are you intentionally curating your community online and in person? In this podcast episode, Dr. Cristina Castagnini speaks about reclaiming your health from the fitness industry with WeShape’s Katie Bramlett.

MEET KATIE BRAMLETT

Katie Bramlett started WeShape with the intention of advocating for people to stop focusing on the number on the scale and instead put their energy and efforts towards a more meaningful intention. WeShape's entire product is rooted in intention, movement, community, and beliefs. Katie has a passion for bringing awareness to the toxic expectations placed on people in the fitness industry and believes that if we all unsubscribe to those messages we can pave a new path that's rooted in self-acceptance, care, and kindness.

Visit WeShape and connect on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok.

IN THIS PODCAST

  • Reclaiming the “health” industry
  • Look at the data
  • Work with the feeling
  • Creating a “healthy” health industry

Reclaiming the “health” industry

Collectively, we have to come together and evaluate the fitness industry as a whole and understand why the fitness industry exists, and understand the values that are being placed on that industry. Then I decided, “We’ve got to go a different way.” (Katie Bramlett)
Katie and her team decided to reshape their entire approach. When they first launched WeShape, they were following the norms of the business world around wellness and fitness. After some realizations and soul-searching, they knew that a change was necessary. They decided to completely reframe how they view fitness and health and how they teach it to their clients: focus on how you feel, not what you look like.
We’[ve] moved away from weight loss and diets and all these things that cause a lot of emotional and psychological harm [for] people, and we’re going to focus on delivering a product that’s rooted in self-care, and movement. (Katie Bramlett)
Of course, Katie and her fellow leaders were nervous about making this shift because it meant dropping a business model that gets a lot of success. After all, the fitness industry is commercially rigged to fail its clients to keep them coming back.
I remember thinking, “This feels very scary, to go against the norm and to [take] such financial risk and move away from a [business] model that I knew was successful, but I have never felt better about [making] that decision. (Katie Bramlett)

Look at the data

It’s simple: if diets worked, there wouldn’t be so many. The industry is worth billions of dollars because people are buying products that are not sustainable and do not work over an extended period. This leads to customers having to keep coming back and buying more products or following different diets to keep getting some type of “result”.
On the outside, because our culture supports this narrative, they’re going to get a thumbs up but when we actually look at the individual experiences, they’re wrapped in self-hatred … self-criticism … obsessive thinking, and behaviors. This is harmful. (Katie Bramlett)
But nothing is more long-lasting and truly good for you than simply taking the time and energy to create a healthy, wholesome, and free relationship with food and fitness that you define.
It wasn’t until I said, “Pause, actually think about [the] individual experiences”, [so] actually evaluate your own experience and look historically: did all of those diets make you feel better about yourself? Did all of that pushing with the exercise ad judgment … did that actually serve you? And the answer is “no”. (Katie Bramlett)
It can be difficult to break away from these behaviors because they have been normalized. But just because people say that they are good does not mean that they truly are. At the end of the day, only you (and maybe some trusted doctors) should decide what you do for your body. Don’t underestimate the supreme power of practicing organic and loving self-awareness and intentionally shifting your mindset. Crack the door open to the possibilities that will serve you better in the long run.

Work with the feeling

The forceful mental battle is not sustainable. Forcing yourself and your body to train and restrict and suffer is not an “ideal” way to live your life, especially if you are doing it to gain acceptance, love, or encouragement from your community. The right community will love the person that you are first before your physical body. If you have been stuck in a mental state, running on a thousand thoughts a day, obsessing, forcing, and thinking non-stop, then something different is necessary. Feelings can be scary when you are not used to working with them, but they hold the key to connecting you to peace and your happiest, most whole self.
Value the feelings that you have inside and let [them] be your north star and recognize that sometimes that feeling inside and that north star is going to be counter to what everyone else is telling you, and that’s okay!  (Katie Bramlett)
Be intentional with the people that you surround yourself with in your social group, circle of loved ones, and social media platforms.

Creating a “healthy” health industry

Many societal ideas need to be let go and redone. It is possible to create large-scale change in perception, but it needs to start somewhere, so let it start with you. True value, self-worth, and personal belief do not come directly from body image or a number on the scale.
If we could just call it all out and say, “We can expose this”, I hope that people will shift their value systems … and then we can start making products and providing services to people from that space … we can have a fitness industry but it needs to look different and it needs to stem from a different value system. (Katie Bramlett)
Some of the best positive changes that you can make to the world are to examine and improve your beliefs and ideas about the way that things “should” be in the world. So, be intentional with the content that you interact with and the choices that you make. You can spark a change in your friends, family, business, and the youth that look up to you all by nurturing the flame of a positive change inside of yourself.

USEFUL LINKS

MEET DR. CRISTINA CASTAGNINI

  I am a licensed Psychologist and Certified Eating Disorder Specialist. While I may have over 20 years of clinical experience, what I also have is the experience of having been a patient who had an eating disorder as well. One thing that I never had during all of my treatment was someone who could look me in the eye and honestly say to me "hey, I've been there. I understand". Going through treatment for an eating disorder is one of the hardest and scariest things to do. I remember being asked to do things that scared me. Things I now know ultimately helped me to get better. But, at the time, I had serious doubts and fears about it. If even one of my providers had been able to tell me "I know it's scary, but I had to go through that part too. Here's what will probably happen...." then perhaps I would not have gone in and out of treatment so many times. My own experience ultimately led me to specialize in treating eating disorders. I wanted to be the therapist I never had; the one who "got it". I will be giving you my perspective and information as an expert and clinician who has been treating patients for over 2 decades. But don't just take my word for it...keep listening to hear the truly informative insights and knowledge guest experts have to share. I am so happy you are here!

THANKS FOR LISTENING

Did you enjoy this podcast? Feel free to comment below and share this podcast on social media! You can also leave a review of Behind The Bite on Apple Podcasts (previously) iTunes and subscribe!