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Showing Up Anyway is a podcast about unlearning diet culture, redefining health, and making peace with food, movement, and your body -- without needing to have it all together. Hosted by Coach Adam Wright, an anti diet-culture personal trainer and body-trust educator, each episode dives into the imperfect side of wellness and how to navigate motivation burnout, body image struggles, emotional eating and the pressure to be "healthy". This is your reminder that progress doesn't need to be perfect, and you'll still see progress as long as you show up anyway.
Welcome to Showing Up Anyway,
the podcast for people
who are not perfect.
On this show, we talk
about intuitive eating,
fitness without obsession
and healing your relationship
with food and your body.
Hello, everybody!
Welcome back to another episode of
Showing Up Anyway,
my name's Coach Adam
and look who showed up - you did.
And I hope so, I think you're
probably a little invested
in this after - what? -
this is episode number 12.
Exciting! You know,
after last week's episode on
the perfectionist mind-set,
I was getting a lot of comments
and messages talking about
what I guess I'd
call the close cousin,
which is the make-up mentality.
a need to sort of even the odds,
balance the scales.
You know what I'm talking about?
If I did this,
then I have to do that.
If I had a slice of
birthday cake, well,
now my brain's doing
a bunch of math,
and I think I have to do an
extra hour of cardio tomorrow.
Or maybe I'll have to, you know,
have a salad for lunch and dinner.
Maybe you skip breakfast
to prove you're back in control.
I used to make these same
kinds of deals to myself.
Now, I get why you want to do it.
There's a voice in your head
saying that you need to
and it kind of sounds
helpful. You know,
it says something like, burn it off
or earn it or make up for it.
And you hear that because
you care about your health
and you want to do the right thing.
Okay, there's nothing wrong with
caring about your health.
But the problem is that, over
time, it starts to keep score.
Food turns into debt
that you have to pay back
and so, meal after meal
you incur more and more debt,
and you start
to micromanage every bite
because you're afraid of what
it's going to cost you tomorrow.
And to make matters worse,
if you're doing
what a lot of people do
and using exercise
to clear that debt,
then you start to dread movement
because it's turned
into a punishment.
This episode is not about
making you feel wrong or bad
for hearing that voice.
It's just about understanding
where it comes from
and why it keeps you stuck.
We'll talk about what the harm is,
we'll talk about the messages
that have trained it,
we'll talk about
what it does to your body,
your mood, your motivation,
all that.
And then we'll work on
a better response
that doesn't involve skipping meals
or doubling up your workouts,
because you don't need to run
five miles to make up for dessert,
and you don't need to skip
meals to pay back fake debts.
Nobody wakes up one morning
and decides that it's
a great idea to feel terrible,
because they went out to dinner
and drinks with friends last night.
We were taught to feel
that way by diet culture.
We were taught
that certain behaviors
and foods are good
and others are bad.
And, to nobody's surprise by now,
a lot of what you were taught
about this goes back
to your childhood,
when we learned
that if you're not good,
you're being bad, and being bad
needs correction.
And I feel like this is especially
true if you grew up religious,
which I did.
I'm not religious anymore,
but I did grow up Mormon.
Not a lot of people know that.
Fun fact.
Because we carry the beliefs we
learned as children through school,
through church, into adulthood.
So, now you feel like if you eat
a cookie, you're a bad person,
and in order to become good again,
we have to atone for our sins.
And in this case, you know, we do
that with a skipped breakfast
or maybe a early 6am
spin class, right?
Here's what I want you to remember
as I talk about this, okay?
Food is not a sin and
exercise is not a sentence.
Both of these things exist
to help your body feel
and perform better.
Health is not shaped by the
occasional treat or rest day,
it's shaped by what you do
the majority of the time,
and your body does not
have daily report cards,
so there's no need for extra credit.
So, let's walk through a normal week
and see where this might sneak in,
okay? Let's say you have
a big dinner on Sunday.
You're out with friends,
you're having drinks,
you're laughing, maybe
you have some dessert
and you go to bed really content,
feeling so happy, so fulfilled.
That's not a Thunderbolts reference.
"So full. So filled."
(ADAM LAUGHS)
And then Monday morning comes
and you weigh yourself,
as most people do who
are trying to lose weight,
and then the mental ledger
kind of opens up in your head
and you realize, "Oh, God, I've
gained weight or I'm bloated.
"I guess I'll have to skip breakfast
because I was so bad this weekend."
So, you skip breakfast and just
have coffee and call it good.
Then, cos you were out late
and you didn't sleep very much,
so you're irritable from that
and then you're also hangry,
but work is busy so you
don't have time for lunch.
And then by the afternoon,
your body is doing exactly
what a smart body does
when it's underfed, it starts
shouting for quick energy.
So when you do get home, you raid
the pantry and then, of course,
you feel guilty and ashamed
for overeating
and then you promise
to be stricter tomorrow.
Does that sound
a little like your day?
How about this? You grab a
donut from the break room,
well, shouldn't have done that.
Now you have to do
extra cardio after work
or a second workout tomorrow.
You sign up for the hardest
class you can find
because you believe
you have to burn it off.
And this can happen
in reverse, too.
Maybe you know there's
going to be a celebration.
Maybe it's somebody's birthday
and you know there's
going to be cake,
so you do extra exercise the day
before or the morning of
in order to earn that dessert that
you know you're going to have.
So, now you are no longer using
exercise to feel better,
you're using it as punishment.
You're worsening your
relationship with food
and with exercise
at the same time.
You know what's coming
in a few short months?
Holidays. Ooh, boy, can we get
some good examples from this.
Halloween candy,
you know, for two weeks,
Thanksgiving lasts probably
at least a week, you know,
with all the leftovers.
Four Christmases
or eight crazy nights.
Finally, it's January 1st, you know,
but you've been binging
for two or three months,
so it's time for a reset,
right? Juice cleanse,
intermittent fasting,
keto diet - again.
A set of rules so
tight that they squeak.
The pendulum swings
from feast to famine.
But we all know how those New Year's
resolutions go, don't we?
Now, on the surface, this
probably seems responsible, right?
But, deep down, I think the
need to make up for our mistakes
usually comes from a
place of guilt and fear.
Fear of weight gain.
Fear of losing control.
Fear that one meal or one rest day
is going to erase months of effort.
That fear makes
the voice sound reasonable
when it tells you to skip meals
or punish yourself with
extra volume,
or do a cleanse
or pre-earn your food.
If you notice any of
those voices this week,
I want you to take that as a sign
that you are in
the make up for it trap,
and the exit is not
stricter rules, okay?
You have enough of those.
Stop.
The exit is a steadier plan.
Eat your normal,
regular-sized meals
after indulging
instead of restricting.
If you miss a workout,
keep your normal schedule
instead of adding penalties.
Choose movement that supports your
energy instead of draining it.
When you stop that pendulum from
swinging between extremes,
your body calms down,
your mind calms down,
and the life that you are
trying to build
is going to finally
become liveable.
Now, people don't usually tell me
that they're going to try
and burn off calories,
or they're going to skip a meal
to make up for what they ate,
but I do hear them say it.
I think they know better
so they don't say it to me,
but they do say it.
And when I hear that,
I think that they're trying
to do the responsible thing.
They want to show commitment.
They want to prove
that they're serious.
But let me tell you why making up
for it usually backfires,
because it often creates
or worsens the problems
that people are trying to avoid.
If you respond to a heavy
dinner by cutting breakfast
and then having a minimal lunch,
your body does not
applaud your discipline, okay?
It just gets hungrier. You lose
energy. You lose focus.
Long gaps without eating make
your mood and your energy swing.
You feel shaky. You feel irritable.
You crave something sweet
or something salty
because those are usually the foods
that have the most calories,
the most energy.
And then you judge yourself
for wanting the very foods
that you promised to avoid,
which usually leads
to overeating at night
because the day
was spent underfeeding.
The plan that was meant to balance
the day ends up tipping it further.
A steady and moderate plan
would've moved you
a lot farther forward,
with a lot less drama
and frustration.
And while physically you
kind of feel like shit...
Wow, that was like the first time
I've sworn in 12 episodes.
I'm actually... I'm actually
surprised - that's a record.
While physically you feel like shit,
I think the mental toll might
be the heaviest part.
Living with a set of scales
in your head
that constantly need
to be balanced means
that you can really never
enjoy food or movement,
and certainly not both
at the same time.
You feel anxious about social
events, guilty on rest days,
you spend more time negotiating with
yourself than enjoying your life.
You're also more stressed,
and with that comes
the urge to numb those
feelings or rebel entirely
and that is where the
what the hell effect
that we've talked about shows up.
And because we're less than perfect,
we just throw it all away.
Can you see how this
all is connected?
Nothing about any of
that is motivational.
It's exhausting.
Compensation does not
create control.
The body that you live in responds
best to regular meals
that energize and sustain you,
frequent movement that supports
your body and a calm mind.
When you stop trying to atone
for less than perfect decisions,
your hunger's going to even out,
your energy's going to come back,
your workouts are going
to feel doable again,
and you can start
to string together days
because you're no longer bouncing
between extremes.
That is how progress
is actually made.
Not through penance,
not through confession,
through steadiness and consistency.
Not perfection. Consistency.
Think of your health as a season,
not a single day.
One stormy Tuesday
does not cancel out spring.
Just like one rich meal
or one couch day does not
decide your whole future.
Change happens because
of the small
and ordinary choices
that you repeat over time.
I'm going to say that again.
Change happens because of
the small, ordinary choices
you repeat over time.
And since people love hard numbers,
I'm going to give you some.
I even have a visual aid
if you're watching the video, okay?
If you wanted to
gain a pound of fat,
you would need
to eat 3,500 calories.
But there's more -
3,500 calories over
your maintenance calories, okay?
So, for some people,
we're talking about 5,000
or 6,000 calories to gain
a pound of fat in a day.
That is not a slice of cake.
That is not a
second helping of dinner.
Most of the time, the math
that people are scared of
is not happening.
The bigger risk is
in how you respond
to the meal in the weeks ahead,
not the meal itself.
Eating is more than just
numbers, folks.
Yeah, it's fuel for your body,
but at times it's also comfort,
it's culture,
it's celebration and
socializing,
it's at every holiday and
birthday and vacation
and memory with a loved one.
You are allowed to include
foods in your life,
even if they're indulgent.
Cupcakes are not evil.
Salads are not virtuous.
They're just foods with different
nutrients and different roles.
When you stop grading yourself
for what you eat,
there is no debt to repay.
Fries at lunch do not
require confession at dinner.
You ate something that tasted good
and that's the end of the sentence.
Whenever I have a consultation
with someone about training,
I remind them of this - exercise
is a really poor fat loss tool.
That's the cold, hard truth.
You can eat 300 calories
in 30 seconds,
but it might take you an hour
and a half to exercise
to burn that much.
So, don't try and burn off
what you eat,
and don't try and burn it off before
you eat something either, okay?
You don't have to
earn your calories.
You are not a dog who
needs to earn a treat.
Your body needs food every day,
even on days you don't exercise.
Do not make movement
the bill collector here.
Exercise is great
for a lot of things -
it protects your heart,
it clears your head,
it improves your confidence,
your stress levels,
your mental health,
it makes daily tasks easier,
but it's not great for fat loss.
And when you move from enjoyment
instead of guilt,
the entire experience changes.
The same workout that might
have felt punishing before
becomes a way to feel alive.
So, when you're in your car
in the parking lot
and you're trying to motivate
yourself to go inside,
I want you to tell yourself this -
I am doing something hard today
to make life easier tomorrow.
I get to move my body
and I am here for me.
And when, not if, but WHEN you
have an extra big meal
or a day where you ate too much
and you moved too little,
I want you to take a breath.
(ADAM EXHALES)
Eat your next meal just
like normal. Drink water.
Do the workout you planned
if that day was a training day.
Go for a walk if you feel
a little bloated and full.
Get plenty of sleep.
That calm sequence is going to
restore balance a lot better
than if you were skipping meals
or adding punishment volume.
One day cannot crown you,
and it cannot end you.
Each day is a new slate.
Yesterday's pizza,
yesterday's missed lift,
yesterday's long nap on the couch -
none of that creates a bill
that you owe today.
I want you to treat every meal and
every session as its own moment.
You had a heavier dinner,
so you eat your normal breakfast.
You missed a workout,
so you do the next planned one.
I have had clients
on multiple occasions
miss their Monday,
Wednesday and Friday workout
and then try and do
all three on Saturday.
No go.
They only ever do it one time
because I tell them never again.
And also they're just
so incredibly sore
that they would have never done
it again on their own anyway.
(ADAM LAUGHS)
But returning to routine
is the skill
that's going to keep you steady.
Now, I know this reframe is going to
feel strange at first, okay?
Years of rules have taught you
that punishment is safety.
But look at your results - the
punishments have not worked.
It's kept you in place and unhappy.
What works is a kinder structure
that you can repeat regularly.
Food is not a religion.
You are not a sinner for eating
certain things.
There is nothing to atone for.
Feed yourself. Move your
body in supportive ways.
Talk to yourself like
someone worth caring for.
That is the mind-set
that makes change stick.
I want to tell you about a
client I have named Melissa,
and this is shared with
her permission, of course.
She came to me after working
with another trainer for years,
and she was tired.
Not sleepy tired,
but like nervous system tired.
She'd been tracking everything
obsessively for years.
She'd been working out
literally daily,
sometimes twice a day.
Uh, white knuckling it
during the week,
just trying her best.
She's retired,
and so she travels frequently
and any time she'd go somewhere,
she would just let loose,
that was her escape.
But when she came home,
she would feel awful in her body,
or the decisions that she'd
made while she was gone
and she would spend weeks trying
to erase whatever weight
she felt she gained on the trip.
She'd try to burn off foods,
and if she ever missed a workout,
she would stack another one
on top of it the next day.
It was just a cycle of
self-destructive behavior.
Her trainer was the kind of person
who did not accept excuses,
and apparently did
not accept empathy either.
And until Jennifer came
across my content,
she thought that was normal.
She thought it was discipline,
but she was miserable.
She used to like lifting,
but she started to resent it
after literally taking
no days off for months.
Friends would ask her to grab dinner
and the first thought in her
head was not joy, it was math.
You know, how do I make up
for these calories I'm gonna eat?
Her body had all but
stopped responding to change
no matter how much exercise she
did or how few calories she ate.
So, when we started
working together,
I asked for one brave change -
no more paying for food.
I don't mean stealing it. I mean...
(ADAM LAUGHS)
..if Sunday was indulgent,
Monday still meant breakfast,
lunch, dinner and a
small snack if she felt good.
No cleanses, no skipping meals,
no resets,
normal meals on a normal schedule.
And we trimmed her training plan
to, like, three or four days a week
so she could actually take
some rest days,
movement that she actually liked
and walks on her off days.
I knew this was not a person that I
could just expect to sit around,
so I had to give her some sort of
movement, but we actually rested.
Active rest is fine.
Over time, we built
on those changes.
We implemented a bedtime that
she respected, more or less.
We built other anchors, like protein
for breakfast, a water target,
more vegetables.
We didn't do this all at once,
but we added a ton more flexibility
that was centered around
those certain behaviors.
The first week felt
really strange to her.
She told me that she felt like she
was getting away with something
or doing something wrong,
and I expected that, okay?
Her brain had been trained
to believe that
safety was on the
far side of punishment.
But we kept going
and by the second week,
evenings were calmer because
she was not ending her day
completely wrecked
and on an empty tank.
Cravings weren't as bad.
She noticed that her mood was better
and she was less fatigued.
By the end of the first month,
she was finishing her workouts
with energy to spare
because her body
was adequately fueled.
She was lifting more,
she had more energy and
further down the road,
I think it's probably
been about two years now,
she's at the leanest she's
ever been in her adult life.
She is still going on vacations
and the other day she sent me
a picture of this delicious,
decadent-looking
French toast she had,
bragging about how she didn't feel
guilty at all about eating it.
We did not chase
a number on a scale.
We tracked signs of a body
that felt supported.
Better sleep, fewer headaches,
a clearer head in the afternoon,
less guilt,
strength that kept inching up.
She's now deadlifting almost one
and a half times her body weight.
Her clothes fit more comfortably.
She's able to wear
tank tops and shorts
where she never would
have done that before.
Steady, predictable, manageable -
that's how we did it.
Her words and her happiness
shine so strongly now,
and they matter a lot
more than any metric.
She actually texted me something
that I wanted to read to you,
of course with her permission,
where she said, "Dude! Went out
in a form fitting tank
"and running shorts that are shorter
than what I usually wear in public.
"No fidgeting and no tugging,
"no faking it till I made it.
Just confident as fuck..."
Sorry - I know that's the second
time I've sworn on my podcast now!
"..and completely owned it.
This is all because of you.
"I'm no longer depriving
myself of my favorite foods
"and then going on
a weekend binge fest.
"I'm eating what I want,
when I want, and without guilt.
"I'm not spending four hours a day,
six days a week at the gym
"and feeling wrecked all the time.
"I take rest days and they don't
consist of me rationing food
"and beating myself
up when I do eat
"because I'm not working out.
Such a huge difference,
"I can't express how much
I appreciate you as a coach.
"I'm so glad I found
the courage to message you
"because working with you
has changed my life."
Thanks, Melissa.
Nothing magical happened, folks.
The pendulum stopped,
regular meals replaced fasting,
workouts were used
as support and not punishment.
When a day went sideways,
she returned to her routine
at the next opportunity.
Melissa's story is one of many,
and when you step out
of that guilt cycle,
your body and your mind
can finally settle.
If she can unlearn decades of
atonement thinking, you can too.
Here is your challenge
for the week -
when you start to hear
that familiar voice telling you
that you have to make up
for what you've done,
I want you to remind yourself
that you do not owe a debt.
You had food you enjoyed,
or you took a rest day,
that belongs in a full life.
Breathe.
And then roll back into
your normal rhythm.
Eat your next meal. Move the
way that you'd planned.
Drink water. Sleep.
Simple things done on repeat
create the change that you want.
Your progress comes from patterns,
not perfection.
Remember, change
won't come overnight,
but it will come.
And, of course,
if you want help building
this steadier way of living,
apply for coaching -
I've got two programs, okay?
I've got the Flex program,
which kind of gives you structure
and guidance you
can follow on your own.
And then I have my Elite program,
which gives you more one-on-one
support with me and my team.
The link is in my show notes
and on my website.
Folks, you don't have
to earn your meals.
You do not need to
burn off your joy.
Feed yourself, move with care,
speak to yourself with respect
and, of course, when it gets
tough, keep showing up anyway.
Thank you for tuning in to this
episode of Showing Up Anyway,
you can find it for free on Spotify
or wherever you get your podcasts.
And wherever you're listening.
if you like the show,
I'd love it if you gave me
a five-star review,
because that does help
other people find the show,
and, hopefully, it'll
help change their life,
just like you're looking
to change yours.
If you're listening on Spotify,
though,
you can follow me and
tap the bell icon
so you get notifications
when new episodes come out.
I'm Coach Adam. Remember -
when things get challenging,
keep showing up anyway.