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Summary

In this episode, we’re discussing how stress impacts my health and weight. Today is a #rawandreal podcast day. I’m sharing struggles with self-care and the pressure I feel to meet societal expectations. And in honor of the new era I’m stepping into, I’m sharing my old health stories and the negative beliefs I’ve held about my health and my body. However, I’m also sharing the ways that I’m determined to shift to a new health story and prioritize my well-being. Enjoy!

Takeaways

• Stress can manifest in various ways, including weight gain and physical health issues.

• Self-care and health are not synonymous, and it's important to prioritize both.

• Old health stories and negative beliefs can hinder progress, but it's possible to shift to a new, empowering narrative.

• Creating a safe and joyful health journey involves integrating healthy habits into daily life and finding enjoyment in the process.

Chapters

• 00:00 Introduction and Setting the Stage

• 02:17 Stepping into a Healthy Era

• 05:18 Struggling with Self-Care and Weight Gain

• 07:10 Seeking Support and Accountability

• 09:15 Reflecting on Old Health Stories

• 13:36 Shifting to a New Health Story

• 16:21 Creating a Safe and Joyful Health Journey

• 19:10 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Resources

• Episode #84—Stress for Life? Habits of Stressed Out Kids. The episode where I talk about nail biting, teeth grinding, and all the ways these are early signs of stressed-out kids.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Ellyn Schinke (00:00.218)

Hello, my friends and welcome back to another episode of the Burnout Proof Podcast. We're on episode number, oh my gosh, I think 106 today. It's still so crazy to me that we broke 100 episodes. But today I want to talk about something that I was actually completely unplanned. I had no intention of having this conversation today, but it's kind of on my heart. It's something that's very much where I'm at today. And I'm literally recording this like right before.

it's going out like the night before it's going out, which is I've been batching a lot of content lately. So this is the raw, this is the real, this is the real talk of how stress impacts my health, how it is showing up in my world. And I just wanted to have this very transparent conversation with you today because I feel like maybe this is something that is not talked about enough. And I'll be fully transparent too in saying that the Enneagram three in me doesn't like being this real.

The high achiever in me doesn't like being this raw. The burnout coach in me has fears and concerns that if I talk about this, am I damaging my own credibility? Because I talk about self -care all the time. But I think I had an aha a couple of weeks ago, and an aha listening to a podcast by a fellow, a podcaster earlier today, I was listening to the Happy Leader podcast by Lindsay May.

And it made me and it really inspired me to realize that we need to have more of these authentic raw conversations about the way that stress shows up for us. You know, I will be completely transparent and I hope that you feel like I have been in saying that even though this podcast is called Burnout Proof, I don't really feel like I'm there yet. I don't really feel like I'm Burnout Proof yet. I feel like I'm working toward it and I'm aspiring toward it. I'm infinitely better than I used to be. I feel like my mindsets have shifted.

my systems have shifted. The way in which I approach burnout and stress has shifted 100%. But I think the self care is something in my world and in my life that I've struggled with and I've continued to struggle with. And this is the very real conversation about how that stress has impacted my health. That's where I wanted to talk about today. That's where I'm going today. And I think part of what inspired this is I posted a reel earlier today about how I'm stepping into my...

Ellyn Schinke (02:17.434)

physical, mental, and emotionally healthy AF era. I don't know if I said it on the podcast, but I've definitely been talking about it on social media and in my memberships and whatnot about the fact that I really have a goal this year to go into 35. I turned 35 in May. I want to go into 35 thriving. I want to go into 35 firing on all cylinders. And in so many parts of my life, I feel like I am. Like February was good to me.

February was a great month. January was good to me too, but I definitely worked a little bit harder than I played in January and I tried to find that balance again in February. I feel like I am every day, every week, every month, stepping more and more toward the person that I want to be and the way I want to show up in life. But the place that has been faltering and the place that I've been struggling and the place that it's been hard to find that has been in my health.

And that's where we get to this conversation, this real conversation about how stress is impacting my health. And the way in which stress has is I have put on weight. I'm not somebody who has ever experienced substantial amounts of, you know, chronic illnesses from stress and from burnout. That's not the way in which it has manifested for me, but it's manifested in all sorts of these really, really small ways. I actually recorded a podcast,

I'll put it in the show notes. I don't remember what the podcast was off the top of my head.

Ellyn Schinke (03:53.466)

But I recorded a podcast about all of these little ways that stress can manifest in our lives and how I've experienced, like, I think it was something about lifelong habits or something like that that show up as stress because I have been a nail biter my entire life. Sad but true, I wish I wasn't, but I've been a nail biter my entire life. I have ground my teeth my entire life. And only in the past six months to a year have I realized that some of the like,

skin issues and whatnot that I've had are actually basically like an eczema. Those are three conditions that are associated with stress. Stress manifests for me in these really small ways, teeth grinding. They're kind of like these anxiety -related habits. But I think the biggest way stress manifests for me is my body, perhaps because it's trying to protect itself, hoards weight. I...

as of this morning, and I'm sharing this because I started a new coaching program this morning where I'm getting coaching support to help me with this, but I weighed in this morning for the first time in a while, and I'm at the heaviest I've ever been in my life. And that is because I am coming off of a season of intense hustle and a lot of growth and a lot of just pouring myself into my business. And it's been fulfilling and validating and...

absolutely wonderful and absolutely fantastic. Like so much of it has been absolutely amazing. And I'm proud of it and I'm fulfilled by it. But it's come at the cost of, you know, me taking care of myself, but also me putting on weight. I'm realizing more and more that how I separate and how I think about self care is so different than...

health and fitness. I used to use them synonymously. They mean the same things to me. And I do think self care absolutely involves and contains, you know, physical wellness and health and wellness. But I think when it comes to self care, self care are the things that we do to pour back into our cup. But sometimes, you know, it doesn't ever seem like we can pour enough back into our cup. And sometimes we're pouring into ourselves, perhaps we're pouring into ourselves into ways that in ways that are

Ellyn Schinke (06:14.586)

comforting and not necessarily the ways that are creating the best health and fitness. I said it recently, I'm very proud of how I've taken care of myself the last six months. I feel like the reason why I'm not stressed and I'm not super burned out, and I've definitely had my moments of physical burnout. I think September, October, I was illness after illness after illness. I've talked before about the ways in which that showed up.

For me, that's how my body tends to respond is I just get sick. But I think since then, I've been really proud of how I've been taking care of myself and pouring into myself care, but that hasn't necessarily meant weight loss. That has meant sleeping a lot and doing very, very low key exercise and eating out of convenience more than eating out of what is actually going to be the best thing to nourish my body.

I think I hit a point where I didn't feel like I had the capacity to do the learning and the experimenting that I wanted to do and that I knew I needed to do to get my health back on track, not my self care, but my health back on track and get my physicality back to where I wanted it to be. And so I finally decided, and I think, you know,

any coach that isn't still being coached and isn't still learning, take that with a grain of salt. I feel like it's really important that coaches continue to get coached and coaches continue to invest in themselves. I feel like I'm a ninja at systems. I'm super proud of where my mindset's at and the ways in which my mindset has shifted over even just the last year. But the place I'm struggling and the place I'm realizing I need support because I'm realizing all the things that I don't know, but I also feel like I'm realizing...

all of the ways in which I just, I need some damn accountability. And that's this new era that I'm stepping into. My business coach who I'd been working with, I had her,

Ellyn Schinke (08:19.77)

My business coach that I've been working with also does personal training and nutrition. It's part of the reason why I was so attracted to working with her. Not only is she just like a human that I want to be like, but like, and that I aspire to, but like, she felt like somebody who could help me take back my health and create that next level of health that I know I need, that I know I want, and that I know is going to be so important to get me to this entering 35 thriving state.

And so I'm doing her program right now called Master Your Metabolism. And we just started today. Today was day one. I did my first weigh -in. It's part of the reason I know that I'm the heaviest I've ever been, because I do not weigh myself usually. And she had us write about our vision and our vision for all of the things that are holding us back, all the like health related stories we tell ourselves that are holding us back and our vision for where we want to go.

kind of like a before and after mindset. And as I was kind of thinking about my old health stories, well, I actually did not think I was gonna do this, but I think I'm gonna share them. When I was thinking about all my old health stories.

I think that I kind of have always viewed myself a certain way. I've always kind of never thought myself to be particularly attractive. This is not meant to be self -deprecating. This is meant to, it's a layer of our stress stories, the pressure we put on ourselves, the ways in which we burn us out can sometimes be the very pressure we put on ourselves to meet a societal expectation. And I think a lot of Enneagram threes feel this. We, we,

want to have that image. We want people to see us in a particular way. And this has been something that has always kind of been a roadblock for me is I have never felt like the image that I want to portray to people. It's so hard to wrap words around this. I've never felt like the image I want to portray to people that that is matched by my outward appearance, for lack of a better way to say it. And

Ellyn Schinke (10:24.314)

there's been a part of me that it's wondered like if I'll ever be as successful as I want to be because I don't see myself as being conventionally attractive. I've literally said it to a friend at freaking, this was terrible. I said this to a friend at an empower the empower her conference this past fall where I was basically shitting on my potential success because I didn't see myself as being attractive. And I think where that comes from is it comes from decades of

shitty comments from people in my life, from family members, which I hate to say. But I also feel like it created this old health story in me that I just didn't think it was possible for me to maintain health. Like I'll lose weight and I'll get praise, but I don't feel like it's possible for me to get where I want to be and stay there. I haven't felt that way. Like I...

have realized that I don't know that I feel that it's possible for me to have success and take care of myself. And I think simultaneously, it kind of makes me feel like a fraud sometimes in that because of the work that I do. Like I should have this vastly more figured out than I do. You know, one of the other very, very highly regarded burnout coaches out there who has a massive following, there's two that I follow and perhaps shouldn't because...

Comparison is real, but actually I think I've gotten to a place of really healthy place where I'm not comparing myself anymore. I'm realizing they just have different strengths than I do. But like one of them, she's like a fricking personal trainer. Like she's in great shape. And so part of me feels like a fraud at times because I feel like I should have more of my shit together than I do. But it's, it's funny because, and perhaps not even funny, it made me realize this morning in doing this reflection and this looking at,

my old health stories, to realize that my definition of taking care of myself is completely and totally defined by my weight. It's defined by how I look, it's defined by how people view how I look. I think it always has been, that's the culture we grow up in, that's the societal inputs that I got from family. There's literally a part of me where it's like if I'm not getting hit on or if people aren't saying things to me about how I look, I don't feel good about myself.

Ellyn Schinke (12:41.466)

I'm very externally validated. And I think this is one of the worst places in my life where it shows up is in my physicality and in how I look and in my body. Like my weight and my physical appearance, like so many of the other things in my life are driven by how people see me. I feel good if people tell me I look good. So if I don't have anybody telling me that I can get really in my head about it. Like I have this image in my head of what...

physicality and what physically healthy is. Totally influenced by culture and by society and I know that and it's very, very influenced. Like I have strong legs, I have a booty, but I feel like I need to have a flat defined stomach and strong arms and a strong back and a lean face and just be lean. And I've never felt like that's possible for me. So that was my old health story. That's the health story that I'm trying to move away from.

particularly the parts about this shitty voice in the back of my head that is telling me, you can't have both. I'm realizing more and more about myself, I'm very data -driven. If I don't have proof of being able to do something, if I don't have data and evidence and past experience that shows me I can, I have a hard time believing it. And that's always been the case for me when it came to success and health. To have success, I lost health. And to have health,

I fell off the bandwagon or that I fell off with my success. But my new health story that I'm committing to and that is going to be in this new era of health for me and perhaps I'm sharing all of this and the real I posted earlier this week or in this podcast, perhaps I'm sharing all of this because I want some accountability, but I also am sharing all of this because I want you to know that I'm not perfect and I want you to know that this is...

absolutely still something I struggle with. And this aspect of my self -image is probably something I'm going to battle for the rest of my life. And that this aspect of becoming burnout proof has been the hardest aspect for me. But my new health story and the health story that I'm stepping into and that I want this era to become is for me to just step into my healthy badass era, to prioritize myself, to prioritize my health, to...

Ellyn Schinke (14:57.794)

prioritize an active lifestyle, to move my body constantly. I want it to just be part of my life and how I show up. I want to be somebody who eats well, but also who has fun with food and doesn't become restrictive or domineering about it. I want to nourish my body. I want to feed myself. And I want to allow myself to have fun and overindulge at times. I want to get to the point where...

I've been at this point in the past, but like I said, it kind of ebbs and flows with the different seasons of my life. It ebbs and flows with the different level of, frankly, of success I'm having in my business and in my career. But I want to get to the point where my health and my routines are not chains in my life. They're tools. I want to have the kind of health and lifestyle where it's integrated. Regardless of the external validation and how people see me, for the first time in my life, I want to see myself. I want to validate myself physically.

I want to know that I'm taking damn good care of myself. I may be proud of how I've been taking care of myself over the course of the last six months, but I want to like next level that. I want to level that up. I want my body to respond because for the first time in decades, I want my body to feel safe. That's something that actually Katie said to me when we were doing business coaching earlier this fall. And I think this is kind of what has started to be the mindset shift I needed is she said,

You could be doing all the right things, but if your body doesn't feel safe, it's not going to respond. And I think that's what I'm realizing is I need to put myself in a situation where my body feels safe. And because I've been so go, go, go, and because it's been such a season of hustle in my business and because, you know, in some ways I've been doing the bare minimum, but I also give myself a lot of grace because I understand that's all I've had capacity for. I don't think my body has felt safe. And

I want it to feel that way for the first time perhaps in decades. I want it to respond to all the care that I'm pouring into it and the taking care of me that I'm going to be doing. I want to step into that healthy badass era. I want to move. I want to stretch. I want to lift. I want to enjoy the process. And again, any year I'm three, the process is hard for me. I get very, very stuck on the results.

Ellyn Schinke (17:15.642)

I don't want health and fitness to feel like a chore. I want it to feel like a lifestyle. I want it to feel like something I enjoy doing. And the way in which stress has showed up for me until this point and where for this chapter of my life has been that it hasn't. It hasn't felt like a joy. It hasn't felt good. I love my morning walks, but like the other stuff, the eating healthy hasn't felt good. And I think it's that hustle culture simultaneously.

butting heads with the part of me that wants to prioritize my self -care. And I'm still navigating that and I'm still working through that. So how does stress impact my health? It impacts my health in minor ways, but it impacts my health because I think my body doesn't feel safe and when it doesn't feel safe, it impacts on weight. And I'm slowly but surely working my way out of that. And this is one of the big steps I'm taking, one of the new areas that I'm stepping into to really help myself.

become more burnout proof. So if this resonates with you, this wasn't an actionable conversation today. This wasn't a, you know, this is what I did. This is what you can do to kind of conversation. This is the raw and the real. This is where I'm at. This is what I'm going through. This is kind of some of the battles that I've been battling behind the scenes of I'm not perfect. And I do have things that I'm still working through and things that I'm still working on. And whether that's mindsets or routines or habits, this has been a struggle the last year. And I'm

wanted to be transparent about that because if that's something you needed to hear to know that you're not alone, that when you get in seasons of hustle and suck, that you also fall off, that you also pack on weight, that your body doesn't feel safe and kind of goes into this self -protective cocoon, you're not alone because I'm right there with you. And this is one of the biggest hurdles I know I need to overcome to get to that place where I feel like I'm burnout proof.

but also I'm realizing that I needed support along the way. So that's what I wanted to share today. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. I know it's a little bit different, but with that, thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for listening. I'll talk to you next time, my friend.