How to Reclaim Exercise as Self-Care — Without Toxic Fitness Culture, Guilt, or Burnout
Why working with a coach who gets it can change your entire relationship with your body — for good.
Let’s cut through the noise, shall we? 🤨
Exercise is self care.
Not a punishment. Not a moral obligation.
Not a checkbox to earn rest or food or worth.
And definitely not something reserved for “when life slows down” — because when is that happening?
Movement is a basic human need.
A life-giving, mood-shifting, self-reconnecting force — especially when the world feels like it’s on fire 🔥. It regulates more than your heart rate. It regulates your sense of power, your ability to stay grounded, and your connection to your body’s cues in an overwhelming, unjust, overstimulating world.
And if the past few years (or let’s be real, the past few hours) have taught us anything, it’s this:
We need movement that gives back to us.
Not movement that depletes us further.
We need exercise for self care, not for control. We need routines that build us up, not wear us down — especially when everything else is trying to tear us apart.
Table of Contents
- How to Reclaim Exercise as Self-Care — Without Toxic Fitness Culture, Guilt, or Burnout
- But Here’s the Problem with Most “Fitness Plans”
- What If Exercise Could Feel Different?
- Why Is Exercise Important For Self Care, Especially Right Now
- A Note on Depression and the Double Bind
- Your Body Is an Instrument — Not an Ornament
- What 1-on-1 Intuitive Fitness Coaching Looks Like
- Because Your Body Deserves Care — Not Control
- Let’s Move Differently — Together
But Here’s the Problem with Most “Fitness Plans”
What most people think of as “exercise” isn’t actually care.
It’s control. Coercion. Compensation. It’s rigid and extractive, not responsive or nurturing. It prioritizes aesthetics over aliveness. And for those of us socialized in femme bodies? It’s usually laced with body shame and moralism, too.
We’ve been taught to:
- Push through pain
- Ignore our instincts
- Obsess over calories, steps, and scale numbers
- View movement as a means to an aesthetic end
Is working out self care when it’s rooted in shame?
When it fuels anxiety instead of reducing it?
When it disconnects you from your body instead of bringing you home to it?
No wonder so many people feel burned out on working out. It’s not laziness — it’s self-protection. Burnout happens when movement becomes just another demand instead of a place of refuge.
📚 Objectification theory shows how self-surveillance and appearance-based goals reduce joy and motivation around movement.
Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997
What If Exercise Could Feel Different?
Here’s the pivot point. 💡
What if movement wasn’t a battleground — but a return to yourself?
That’s the power of Intuitive Fitness Coaching.
It’s not about doing more.
It’s about doing what works for you. What fits your life, your mood, your nervous system, your real-ass schedule. It meets you exactly where you are — no shame required.
This isn’t another rigid program.
It’s a physical self care example of what it looks like to move with love, presence, and power. It’s a practice of being in relationship with your body, not performing punishment or proving discipline.
Intuitive movement means:
- Learning to listen to your body — not override it
- Recognizing the difference between pushing through and tuning in
- Building a sustainable movement practice that supports your energy, mood, and nervous system
And also? Reclaiming the joy of moving just because you can. Rediscovering what makes you feel alive. Dismantling the idea that workouts only “count” if they hurt, suck, or leave you sore for three days.
🔍 Women who engage in movement for enjoyment and function report better body image and mental health outcomes.
Tylka & Homan (2015)
Why Is Exercise Important For Self Care, Especially Right Now
Let’s be honest — everything is a lot right now. The world is heavy, unjust, fast, and loud.
Stress, anxiety, burnout — they’re at all-time highs.
You don’t need another pressure point.
You need movement that supports your energy, not siphons it. Movement that meets your nervous system with compassion. That helps you feel your feelings without getting stuck in them. That reminds you that your body is still yours.
This is exercise as self care, and it looks like:
- Regulating your nervous system
- Releasing built-up tension and rage
- Reconnecting to your breath, body, and needs
- Restoring your sense of aliveness and agency
- Remembering that you’re not here to just survive
You’re allowed to feel good in your body.
And intuitive movement helps you do just that. When you approach exercise as nourishment instead of discipline, your body starts to exhale.
🧠 Physical activity can reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety by up to 30%.
World Health Organization
A Note on Depression and the Double Bind
Let’s be crystal clear: movement is powerful, but it’s not a magic cure. Exercise can absolutely support your mental health — and it’s not a replacement for meds, therapy, or community care.
And here’s the brutal irony: depression makes the very things that could help feel impossibly out of reach. You’re told that movement might help… but depression steals your spark. Your momentum. Your capacity to even begin.
That’s the double-bind. I see it. And I know it all too well.
So if you’re in that space — the low, slow, foggy place — this isn’t me yelling at you to “just move your body.” This is a whisper: maybe a breath is enough today. Maybe a stretch. Maybe getting out of bed is the victory.
This is why intuitive support matters. You don’t need a bootcamp drill sergeant. You need someone who knows that healing isn’t linear and that “rest” can be the most radical form of movement sometimes.
📊 According to the National Institute of Mental Health, an estimated 21 million adults in the U.S. had at least one major depressive episode in 2021, and over 60% reported that their symptoms made even routine activities “very difficult.”
NIMH
Your Body Is an Instrument — Not an Ornament
We weren’t born to be decoration. And yet so many of us have spent our lives treating our bodies like a never-ending project — something to shrink, sculpt, or fix before we’re allowed to feel proud.
But what if movement could be a way into your body — not a way to punish it into submission?
That’s the shift from objectification to embodiment. From surveillance to sovereignty.
-Drs. Lindsay and Lexie Kite
This reframing has been shown to:
- Boost confidence and body image
- Reduce disordered eating
- Increase self-esteem and long-term motivation
Girls and women especially thrive when they’re supported in this shift — through sports, values-aligned coaching, and non-aesthetic fitness programs.
Your body is not a billboard. It’s a damn miracle. And it deserves to be treated like one.
🏃♀️ Appreciating body functionality is linked to positive body image and greater well-being.
Psychology of Women Quarterly, Tylka & Wood-Barcalow (2015)
What 1-on-1 Intuitive Fitness Coaching Looks Like
Here’s what you won’t get with me:
❌ A cookie-cutter workout plan
❌ A list of rules and restrictions
❌ A “grind harder, no excuses” vibe
And here’s what you will get:
✨ Support that meets you where you are (yes, even on your lowest energy days)
✨ Structure without rigidity
✨ A deeper connection to your body — the real one you live in now
✨ Permission to move your way and still get powerful results
From your very first session, you’ll feel the shift.
Not because you’re suddenly a morning workout person. But because your body will start recognizing: oh… we’re doing this with care now. Not against ourselves.
This isn’t about waiting to feel better —
This is the first step to feeling better now. 💥
You don’t need intensity — you need consistency that loves you back.
🧬 Regular physical activity improves sleep, reduces pain, boosts mood, and increases energy.
CDC
Because Your Body Deserves Care — Not Control
Whether you’re movement-curious, gym-avoidant, or healing from fitness trauma — hear this:
- You don’t need to “earn” the right to feel good
- You don’t have to wait until you hit a goal weight
- You don’t have to fix your body to respect it
- You’re allowed to rest and move — without guilt
This is a radically different definition of self-care.
This is exercise for self care that actually supports your whole self.
❤️🔥 Women who appreciate what their bodies can do — rather than how they look — are more likely to exercise for joy, not punishment, and experience greater psychological well-being.
Body Image, Alleva et al., 2020
Let’s Move Differently — Together
If you’re ready to:
- Unlearn the noise
- Reclaim movement on your own terms
- Receive support that’s actually supportive
👉 [Apply for 1-on-1 Coaching]
Spots are limited — because this work is deep, personal, and intentionally spacious.
You don’t need to wait for motivation. You don’t need to wait to “be ready.”
This is your permission slip. To move. To rest. To feel. To reclaim your body as a source of power.
Let’s do it differently — together. 💪✨
