Ep 74. Debunking Movement Myths with PT Dr. Lisa Folden

In this episode of the Body Grievers Club, Bri is joined by Dr. Lisa Folden, a licensed physical therapist based in Charlotte, North Carolina, who specializes in trauma and eating disorder-informed care. Their discussion dives into the concept of 'grieving movement,' how people can find joy in movement, and break free from toxic diet culture. Dr. Folden also shares her insight on embracing weight neutral practices, intuitive movement, and the importance of addressing both the physical and emotional aspects of body healing.

TIME STAMPS:
02:11 Personal Experiences with Body Grief
06:35 Debunking Myths About Movement
09:51 Intuitive Movement and Flexibility
17:24 Movement Snacks and Practical Tips
22:40 Finding Joy in Movement
24:08 The Importance of Consistency
27:04 Grieving Movement and Abilities
31:48 Acceptance and Compassion

PODCAST RESOURCES:
Dr. Lisa Folden on Instagram: @healthyphit
Dr. Lisa Folden website: https://www.healthyphit.com/
Podcast with PT Danny Shapiro
Body Scapegoating Podcast

Want more of Bri?
Instagram: @bodyimagewithbri
Website: https://bodyimagewithbri.com/

TRANSCRIPT:

Do you remember when we were kids and we'd play tag and you'd run outside and you'd play in the mud? When did it change? When did movement stop being something that brought you joy and became something that you had to to be good at or that was going to change your body?

Welcome to the Body Grievers Club. Hi friend. I am your host, Bri Campos from Body Image with Bri. I want to showcase how you can stop hating your body and learn how to move through unavoidable body grief and start living a joyful life in the body you have right now. This is how we transform body grief into radical body acceptance. No matter how overwhelming or hopeless your body image feels, you belong here. Welcome to the Body Grievers Club.

Hi Body Grievers, and welcome back to another episode of the podcast. I have an amazing guest with me that I want to talk with you and we're going to talk about grieving movement and I'm going to let her introduce herself. So, Doctor Lisa, introduce yourself to the podcast.

I will thank you for having me pre. So my name is doctor Lisa Folden. I am a licensed physical therapist and I practice from a trauma and eating disorder informed lens. I have a weight neutral perspective and I'm also an anti diet health movement and body image coach. So I do all the things around helping people make peace in their bodies, helping people find movement that feels good and joyful to them, helping people break up with toxic diet culture and then helping people heal from injuries. A lot of people don't know, especially if they're, if you have a history of eating disorder, there's a lot of injuries that are specific to to that lifestyle. And so I help people heal so in a safe space, you know, where they can be comfortable and not worry about all of the ickiness that comes in like a traditional physical therapy or fitness settings. So that's what I do. I'm in Charlotte NC, I have 3 kids and yeah, living the life, living the dream as they say.

Live in the dream. As somebody who has personally worked with you and I've referred clients to you, I know that you the work you do is incredible. I'll just share for listeners. So I had woken up one day and I couldn't turn my neck to the left. It was something with my bed and I was actually in PT at the time for a different entry and I asked them to help me and they were like, sorry, your insurance is only covering your ankle like we or your foot. We can't help you with the show. I was like, oh, OK, you can't help me with my shoulder, but I can't, I can't look to the left and I was having these spasms. And so I booked a call with you, Doctor Lisa, and it was such an incredible experience. One, I already knew that I was going to be in a safe place with somebody who was not going to blame my body, who was not going to judge me. But you also, I walked away with like some really quick tangible things and was able to walk away from that session with decreased pain.

Well, thank you. I appreciate you for trusting me and I'm sorry you even had that experience. I take insurance for some clients and I do cash base and I've never been in a scenario where a client can't tell me they have a new issue that we address and just kind of add it to the treatment plan. So that was really weird and I'm sorry that it happened. And if I could have been like your physical therapist, I would have loved to. But I'm found by state licensing. So, you know, we only have that consultation. But I'm glad it was helpful to you, and I again thank you for trusting me with your care. As somebody personally who recovered from an eating disorder who is in a super fat large body, you know, sometimes those critical self thoughts still come up for me. I remember I was laying on the ground and you had asked me to lift my arms above my head and I couldn't do it. And I felt that judgement come up. I was like, why can't you do this? And, and your response was so beautiful. You were like, wow, you are a lot tighter than I anticipated you were going to be. Not oh, you can't do that. It was just, it was like an observation of wow, your muscles are really tight.

Yeah, and that's, I know it's hard because in our society, whenever we can't do something, it's always seen as a negative as opposed to like just a difference, right? It's like sometimes we're tight here or loose there. Sometimes a muscle group is strong or muscle group is weak. But it I just look at it as opportunities to make changes, possibly some things we can restore, some things we can't. And you know, I guess is we're going to discuss there's a grief with that, right? Some things are just what they are, but it's no, no judgement to your body. We're so mean to our bodies and the world is so mean to our bodies and we just neglect them so much and just, you know, we put all this pressure on them to be a certain way and do a certain thing. And it's like none of it is really effective and, and making us healthy or happy or anything. So I don't ever see what someone can or can't do. It's like a reason to judge or, you know, pass it like project those icky feelings like why that doesn't help anybody.

It's not. Actually going to get you to the place that you actually have a podcast episode on this called Body Scapegoating. And in that episode, I'll make sure we include that in the show notes. I had gone on a retreat or I hosted a retreat with some providers and my plantar fasciitis started to act up. And the first thought I had was it's because you're in a larger body. And it was it. And I was the provider of the body was with Brie when this thought happened, right? Wasn't until the other provider there, Bonnie Roni, said, Oh, my plantar fasciitis is starting to act up that I caught the dissonance of, oh, I picked my body when I wasn't looking at it objectively.

No and. Effectively, they were asking us to walk around the house barefoot and I don't do that. That part, Yep. And that is always bad for plantar fasciitis. Yeah, it's hard. My clients are like, but I love being barefoot. I'm like, it's not going to help you right now. So absolutely, that objectivity. That's a great, a great point, a great way of putting it. This could have happened in any size body. Anybody can get plantar fasciitis. That's just the reality. Anybody. Anybody. Literally.

And I would love to talk a little bit about this. So as a, you know, a movement expert is what I'll I'll call you. What are some of the myths that you hear about movement and body size that you would like to debunk right now?

Oh gosh, there's so many. I mean, I think there's this general thought around movement that, you know, and I'll start on the sort of opposite end of the spectrum. I had a friend bring this up years ago and she's in a very, very thin body. And she used to say whenever she go to the gym, people be like, why are you here? It's like you're already thin. What are you doing? So the myth is that, you know, movement or specifically, you know, working outgoing to the gym is about decreasing your body's size all the time. It's about trying to fit into a narrative around what a body should look like or what your body should look like and whatever the trend is that day. So, you know, movement is not about changing your body in any way to get smaller, to necessarily get bigger. That's a myth that really needs to be busted.

The other one I would say is that movement is about punishment. It's about, you know, beating you up for something you did, something you didn't do, something you should be doing and sort of forcing your body through things that don't even feel good just for the sake of like saying I did it, checking a box. That kind of leads into like the no pain, no gain thing. Oh, I wish people would just I'm sure they didn't. But you know, this idea that movement and workouts are only effective if they hurt, if they're hard, if you feel like you're going to comet after, if you're drenched in sweat, you know, and honestly, that type of movement is very hard to maintain consistency with because really your body hates it and you're just forcing yourself through it. So I say those are three of my bigger ones about, you know, movement is to change your body in some way, the way it looks. Movement is supposed to be about pain and punishment, you know, and it's not supposed to be something that that is, I won't even use the term easy, but something that is feasible. We think it the harder it is, the better it is. And I got to be sweaty after. And it has to be a long duration, like 5 minutes does not count. 10 minutes does not count it. It needs to be long for it to even matter.

Wow, those are the big ones.

Before my ankle injury, you know, I was healing my relationship with movement and found that I really enjoy yin yoga. That's one of my favorites too. And there's like a, a really big parallel between yin and grief. And one of the things that they said at one of the top of the classes was you should go till you feel a sensation and not pain.

I love that. That is a great way of describing it. Yeah, right. Like you can feel the stretch, you can feel the sensation, but if you're feeling pain, that is your body's indication that you've gone too far.

Absolutely. We use pain as like, I don't know, it's like a goal post for some people. Like it's what I want to like get to. I want to be hurting. But yeah, you're right. Pain is just a very great communicator of like, oh, we're we're going too far. Something is wrong. I need attention. Hold on. It's really our little red flag to be like, hey, but a lot of people with fitness, we treat it as like the goal. Like if I get to pain, I'm good.

Yeah, like it, like one of the myths that I hear for from clients is like they'll say things like my movement practice needs to be regimented. Like I it doesn't count, right. I'll hear, well, that doesn't count. And what do you have to say about that?

Oh, no, I get that. I lived that for years because I'm a very regimented person by nature. So it's very easy to be like, oh, I have to do it in this time block in this way for this amount of like very specific. And the the rebuttal to that is no, you don't. Like you absolutely don't. I think the real joy and movement, which is it's not something that I was taught, like joy and movement did not go together ever. That happened like 5-6 years ago. So really to me, the real joy and movement is when it can be sporadic, when it can be unintentional, when it can be unplanned 

Because when we have the space for that, what we really have the space for is communication with our bodies. Maybe I'm just relaxing watching television and I have a desire to get up and do something. Now it is me communicating with my body, creating safety and creating a space where I can, in the middle of the afternoon, run around the block or walk in place or get on a machine or do a workout — whatever it may be. But it’s intuitive. That’s my goal with people: to get to a place of intuitive movement.

There’s nothing wrong with planning your workouts. Let me say that — if you want to plan and you’re the type of person who has a schedule, the issue is you have to be flexible. When you don’t meet the goal for that day, it can’t be a “beat myself up” situation. It’s counterproductive to our mental health. I like to have an outline of when I’m going to move, but I’m very in tune with asking my body in the morning: “Do you need this today? Can you handle this today? Did you sleep well last night? Are you sore from the other day’s workout? Did you overdo it?” Then I give myself the freedom to say, “Not today,” or “You know what, I’ll do 5 minutes and see how I feel.”

Being too strict and regimented served a purpose in my life early on — I grew up in chaos and needed rules and guidelines to power me through. But we have to release habits that are no longer serving us. For a lot of us, when it comes to fitness, that super regimented attitude will eventually become more of a prison than a space to be free, open, flexible, and intuitive.

I have so many reflections and I don’t want to lose them, so I wrote some stuff down. If you’re listening and thinking, “I want to move my body, but I don’t want to move my body,” I recommend doing some journaling. Something I do with my clients is ask them to journal out their movement story. What was movement like when you were a kid? When did it stop being joyful and start being about performance or changing your body? Let’s explore where movement felt intuitive.

The other thing I want to say is: Who says movement needs to be regulated? Says who? We take so many “rules” without consent, without asking ourselves, “Does that sound good?”

For myself, I identify as neurodivergent — I have ADHD — and I put spaces in my calendar where movement could happen. But I give myself permission to not define the kind, duration, or even if it will happen at all. The difference is I don’t feel like a bad person if I skip it. That’s the key. Just like with intuitive eating, you have to give yourself permission to rest. If we’re looking at your relationship to movement, we also have to look at your relationship to rest.

I also really struggle with the word “routine.” It triggers me. I’ve reframed it as “ritual.” My ideal morning ritual would be having coffee on the couch, stretching, and lighting a candle. That won’t happen every morning, so I have a “long ritual” and a “short ritual.” When I’m on vacation or have time off, I naturally do the longer one — which tells me my body craves movement when I’m not stressed or rushed.

Absolutely. That’s the depth of intuition with movement: your body knows what it needs, when it needs it. If we slow down and listen, we’d have a lot less stress around movement. I like to start my mornings slow — which with three kids means I get up 10 minutes before them. But that also means I have to take my butt to bed at night. If I don’t, I accept that I won’t get that ritual the next morning.

You’re not bad if you skip it. I can’t criticize myself like that and still give myself the space to be compassionate. For me, stretching is above all else. Stretching and a short prayer or meditation are things I do almost every day. My body gets sore if I don’t stretch, so I prioritize it. Sometimes my stretch is supposed to be 5 minutes but feels so good I do 15–20, and that means the workout won’t happen — and that’s OK. That movement was more important for me that day.

Something you told me during our call — I had to block out time to see you to address my body pain — was to start figuring out “movement snacks.” These are small spaces and times where I can add movement. Can you talk to us about movement snacks?

Yeah, I love little snacks. A movement snack is a short burst of movement you can sprinkle throughout your day. It doesn’t have to be structured or long — just enough to get you moving and break up periods of stillness. It could be stretching at your desk, walking to the mailbox, dancing to one song in your kitchen, doing a few squats while your coffee brews. The beauty is, these little movements add up, support mobility, and help you reconnect with your body without the pressure of a “full workout.”

It takes away the all-or-nothing mindset. Instead of thinking, “I don’t have an hour, so I won’t move at all,” you realize five minutes is still valuable. This makes movement feel more doable and less like a chore, which can be a game-changer in building a sustainable, joyful relationship with it.