20 Different Foot Stools You Might Be Stubbing Your Toe On
Small environmental factors that add up to big obstacles in reaching your goals
For my first job as a personal trainer, I worked at my small town gym under a woman that gave me my foundation in it all, Marta… I was actually so nervous that I asked her if I could work for free. Shadow her, the exercise physiologist and/or the other trainers. After the first month, she added me as a personal trainer, and within a couple of months, I became employee of the month for having the top sales.
Not because I was pushing anything on anyone… but because when someone nervous walked through the door, I walked the gym floor with them. Taught them the machines. I got on the treadmill next to them. I made them feel like they belonged there. I became a safe person for them to feel like they could come into the gym and have somebody to ask the questions that they felt were silly and they didn’t want to feel embarrassed asking someone else.
Marta and the others taught me a lot in those first few months of being a trainer, but one story has stuck with me longer than almost anything else.
She used to talk about a foot stool. I know… follow me for a moment.
Picture your favorite spot in your house… the chair you love, the corner where you actually relax. Now picture a foot stool sitting somewhere between you and that spot. Every single time you walk toward your favorite chair, you stub your toe on it.
Now, you put this footstool there because you wanted it there.
But now this footstool is causing you pain as you make your way to something else you want.
The foot stool isn’t evil AND it might even serve another purpose. But it’s sitting exactly where you need to walk, and it hurts you every time you pass it.
That is the epitome of environmental factors when it comes to our health and wellness. They are the footstools.
We can either pick them up and move them elsewhere so we can stop stubbing our toe. Or we can continue to stub our toe every time we try to get to where we want to be.
Why this matters for weight loss
Bear with me in translation… there are so many different things that this footstool could essentially be. There are so many things that this metaphor could apply to. But when we think of health and wellness… the foot stools are many. But we need to pick our favorite chair that we’re trying to get to…our goal to narrow down the footstools.
For the sake of this, I am going to narrow this down to the specific nutrition goal of weight loss.
For weight loss…we need calorie in versus calorie out. It’s simple (not really but that’s a tangent for another day because our life changes from day-to-day so calorie and versus calorie out changes day-to-day), and it’s not going anywhere.
But for what we are doing here we can look at that as the simple truth of weight loss ANNNND… that truth doesn’t live in a vacuum, and neither do you.
You have a job, a family, a nervous system, a history, and a house full of foot stools you’ve probably stopped noticing because you’ve stubbed your toe on them so many times you’ve started to think the pain is normal.
The 20 things below aren’t excuses. They’re foot stools. Some of them you’ll need to decide if it is time to move them. Some you’ll need to decide to leave exactly where they are for now and that’s for another good reason.
But you can’t make either choice with a foot stool you refuse to see… and that’s what we’re working to do here. Let’s acknowledge the fact that these footstools really do exist.
20 foot stools to look for…
And I’m going hold your hand as we go through these.
Food sitting out in the open on your counter that you don’t actually want to keep eating, but you walk past it constantly and end up relying on willpower to resist it
Turning to food for stress relief instead of a walk, a call, or another outlet… for me, doing diamond art while listening to a fun sci-fi book.
Never having asked for the support you actually need
Saying yes to obligations that quietly pull you away from what you say you want
Letting your current season decide your goal instead of choosing the small actions that still move you toward it
Never having had the boundary conversation that’s actually needed with someone close to you
Working overtime or long shifts that quietly drain the bandwidth you need for planning
Lost sleep from caregiving, whether that’s kids, aging parents, or anyone depending on you
A schedule so full that meal prep and planning feel out of reach
Limited access to grocery stores or affordable healthy food where you live
A job that has you eating on the go or at unpredictable times
Financial stress that makes health feel like something you can’t justify right now
A living situation where you don’t fully control what food is around you
Not having a safe or accessible place to move your body
A commute long enough to eat into the time you’d otherwise spend cooking or exercising
A season or circumstance change that’s shifted your mood or your movement
A social circle where certain eating patterns are just the norm
Social situations that revolve around food with no options that work for you
A partner or household member with different eating habits or goals than yours
People in your life who don’t support your health goals, or who make fun of them
The real question
None of these factors make the math untrue. Calorie in versus calorie out still holds.
What these 20 things affect is your capacity to get from knowing that truth to actually living it… the self-awareness, the planning, the execution.
That’s where life happens, and life has never existed in a vacuum.
So look at your list. Which of these are foot stools you’ve been quietly stubbing your toe on for months, maybe years? And for each one, ask Marta’s question.
Do you move it? Or are you willing to keep stubbing your toe every time you try to reach the spot where you actually want to sit?
Additional resources on food environments
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