Being Vulnerable. Your Next Superpower.
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Being Vulnerable. Your Next Superpower.

Oct 17 2024

Being Vulnerable. Your Next Superpower.

Yes, being vulnerable is part of your nutrition. Some people think nutritionist toolkits include:

  • willpower (shhh it’s overrated)
  • chicken
  • broccoli
  • consistency (this is great but how do we get there?)
  • MyFitnessPal (this database is incorrect and tracking calories is, in many cases, unhelpful)

But it’s so much more than that…

 

Emotional Intelligence

It’s easy to know exactly how we feel when we hit our thumb with a hammer. It’s not so easy to be vulnerable when we are overwhelmed, tired, and constantly having to suppress emotions at work when Handsome Peter is getting ahead even though he’s wrong half the time.

 

Meanwhile, most eating decisions are emotional. Like hammering a thumb, some things are obvious. Eating a second piece of cake b/c it’s just so good and we had a bad day.

 

But to unlock results, we have to also understand the subtle emotions. We have to look deeper.

 

If we are eating off-plan:

  • What pain are we trying to sooth?
  • What does eating chips say about our core values?
  • How and when did we arrive in this emotional state?
  • Is this a pattern? (it usually is).

 

When we deeply understand our emotions, we can course-correct earlier, and we will be less impacted by our emotions (less need to cope). We end up taking better care of ourselves.

 

To improve this skillset,
notice and name your emotions.

Holding Both High Standards and Self Compassion Concurrently

I talk about this a lot so I’ll be brief. Standards hold us accountable. Self compassion is an emotionally-neutral acceptance of a negative situation that we caused. A lack of self compassion causes ongoing self blame. We stop learning. It’s stressful – which leads to more mistakes and stress coping.

 

Personal Boundaries and Social Eating

If we want to eat well, we have to stop making eating decisions to make others happy. Or what we ASSUME will make them happy. For example:

  • Eating birthday cake – even though you don’t want to, however you really don’t want to stand out, look weird, be rude, or put a damper on the party.
  • Drinking alcohol – when you don’t even feel like drinking but you don’t want to bring the mood down.
  • Ordering a burger and fries – when a salad sounds delicious but you don’t want to make others feel bad about eating burgers and fries
  • Eating extra helpings at your in-laws – when you’re full and grandma keeps pressuring you
  • Eating a tiny salad on a date – because you don’t want to look like a big eater
  • Skipping a workout on a group trip – so others don’t feel guilty about not working out

 

Strong personal boundaries mean we chose self-preservation over the herd mentality or protecting someone from feeling slightly bad. This is a common challenge in the clients I work with, and it takes practice to change this. Be patient with yourself.

 

Being Vulnerable. Your next Superpower.

We are here for growth.

 

There can be no growth without vulnerability, b/c first we must say, “I don’t know what I’m doing.” That takes immense courage. The kind of courage I need to see in a client for them to be successful. The more vulnerable we allow ourselves to be, the more mentors will appear, the faster we will learn, and the stronger we will become.

 

I’m awesome at being vulnerable. It’s always scary though. I have a lot of coaches. And I’m doing well at life. I run a new online nutrition community. It’s growing every week.

 

I’ve had to be incredibly vulnerable setting it up b/c I have historically struggled with software, I don’t know much about online communities, and I have a track record of failed innovation. The entire thing has made me feel incredibly inept. My self compassion has been pushed past it’s limits and at times I have felt like a total failure.

 

And yet, the community grows.

 

AND inside the community, I see members being vulnerable. Simple things like saying, “Ya I’m struggling too.” Or they join a cooking class outside beyond their skillset. Or they post about an upcoming road trip, asking for advice. And the community reassures them. Growth occurs. Goals are met.

 

Emotional support aside, the community is loaded with my nutrition tools, resources, and training programs. If that sounds like a place you want to check out – do so here.

 

Whether in a group, at work, in your relationships, if you want something more, try being vulnerable. You will level up.

 

In summery:

We can have the most-current nutrition science at our disposal, but if we can’t recover from setbacks, navigate social situations, or understand our emotions, we aren’t going to get very far in a health transformation. My entire practice, my entire career is trying to get people through this.

 

Until next time,

Kb

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Kyle

Kb Nutritionist and fun guy

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