- Hey, everyone, it is Thursday
and so that means that I'm on Twitter
and for any of you who are new to my channel,
whenever you want a question answered in
one of my weekly Q&A videos,
use the hashtag - #KatieFAQ.
We, for the beginning we were like
we'll do Katie Q&A but the ampersand sign
makes it all crazy and that
can't find it and it's all messed up, so #KatieFAQ.
So, my questions, today, on Twitter.
I have three of them that I will answer
and stay tuned to the end
because I had a little epiphany the other day
and I wanted to share it with you all
and I thought it might be helpful
in some kind of a journal task.
So the first question that I have is
and this is something I hear all the time
and most of these questions are things
that I hear a lot so that's why I chose them.
This is how do I get over the fear of asking for help?
And to be truthful
and to be completely honest,
'cause that's what everything my channel's about, right,
is that it won't go away
until we just do it.
Sometimes we have to set ourselves up into
a position where we can't cancel the appointment
'cause we'll be on the hook for the cost or
someone's going with us
and they're holding us accountable
and they know that we're scared of asking for help
or anything like that where we just can't get out of it.
Like someone's taking us to the appointment
and we've told them to not let us say no.
Setting yourself up in a way where you're kind of forced
to face your fear.
I know it's terrible, I know it's terrifying
but it's just the build up that
gets us all riled up.
When, in actuality, it's never as scary
as we thought in the beginning.
And for those of you who have reached out for help,
can you leave your comments
and let people know that it's honestly not as scary
as we think it's gonna be
and the first appointment or the first person
we reach out to for help tends to
actually be pretty nice and they're
pretty warm and welcoming.
Another thing we could do is
building up to reaching out for help in a,
if it's, if you're speaking in a big way
like reaching out to a therapist, like myself.
Sometimes it can actually be helpful to
tell our closet friend first
and she how she responds
and then maybe we'll have her sit with us
while we tell a parent
or school counselor or something like that
and we kinda build up to it.
So that can be helpful as well.
And remember to breathe, remember to
pace yourself, remember to journal about it,
and get those emotions out, okay?
Now the second question
and this is something that I've been hearing more recently
and I don't know if any of you've been wondering
but a lot of times
if any of you watch my videos
or have been watching them for a long time,
I'll say, something to the effect of,
I don't like BMI
and so this is, this question was
what are my thoughts about BMI?
And why is it that I don't like it?
And I think it's because of my history
working in the hospitals
and in inpatient/residential treatment centers.
BMI only takes into account two things:
our height and our weight.
And that means nothing, right?
That means that a lot of us who are athletic
or who are just broader-shouldered,
bigger people in general, like our family
is bigger people, that then
we fall into this like heavy BMI category,
when actually, we're living a pretty healthy lifestyle.
And, for all intents and purposes
as far as our doctor's concerned,
we're at a healthy weight.
And it's for reasons like that,
that I don't believe BMI is useful.
I honestly wish it was never created.
It makes people feel like,
I think it feeds eating disorders
and it also can make people feel really
bad about themselves and it
can feed that negative voice and
when I had my sit-downs with Kate,
a while ago, and if you guys want Kate to come
and do more videos, give me a thumb's up
and let me know 'cause
I've thought about asking her back.
She's down in San Diego
so we have to kinda plan
but I can definitely come to her this time but
if you think that they're other topics,
please let me know the other topics
that I could talk to her about.
But when I sat down with Kate,
my friend is the dietician,
we talked about BMI and
because of bone density, muscle makeup, like how
our body is made to be muscular or not muscular,
as well as all of the genetic components,
she believes that BMI isn't very accurate
and it's not the way to actually
create a food plan
or meal plan of any sort
or treat a client.
She bases it on a bunch of other things so
that's, those are my thoughts I guess.
And the third and final question:
what do we do if one of our parents is toxic?
And I hear this all the time and I would even
expand this into: what do we do
if someone in our life, who's really close to us,
a family member, a really close friend
is the toxic person?
And the best thing to do,
to be honest, is to avoid them as much as you can.
I know if it's a parent and you live at home,
it's really, really hard to avoid them
but when you, when you find yourself
having to hang out with them,
I would make sure you give yourself ample time
to go into your room and to journal and to vent,
to scream into a pillow,
to throw stuffed animals against the wall
or whatever to help you
process it and kind of expel that negative energy.
And then I would want you to switch over
and focus on the positive things,
not about this person.
We're just forgetting that this person is even around.
I know that sounds bad but
we're gonna focus on positive things.
What went well today?
Did I have a friend that was really sweet to me?
Is there a nice quote I can look up?
I really like this kind of music.
I'm gonna start finding more
of music that's like this.
Do things to turn that negative energy
that they've put around us
and turn it into positive
and kind of switch our brains over.
I know it's really hard
and hopefully there'll come a point in your life
where you can minimize the time spent with these people,
other than, obviously, holidays
or family get-togethers where
you don't have an option.
As much as you can, protect yourself.
Bring a supportive person with you
if you have to be around them.
Things like that, 'cause it is hard
and I know that toxic people, oftentimes,
we know they're toxic 'cause they've
been around us enough, right?
So, also talk to your therapist about it; vent.
The best thing for me when I've
stumble upon toxic people and I'm like (grimaces) is
that I vent to my therapist and I
vent to Sean and I talk to my girlfriends about it
and I just get it out so that it's not stuck inside me,
ruminating, and turning into more negativity, right?
We have to stop that negative ball from like taking over.
Okay, I hope that helps
and share your tips people, too, if you've been
working on that and you have someone
in your life who's toxic
and you're like, oh, I've really done this
and this has been really helpful; let us know.
And on to my epiphany,
oh, before I forget, I will get on my epiphany
but on Saturday, at 11:00 a.m. Pacific Standard Time,
'cause I'm in California,
I am doing a live broadcast with Andrea,
one of my followers, and we're gonna
talk a lot about different types of treatment,
what that looks like,
and, the most important, drumroll please,
going back to school with an eating disorder
or self-harm; how do we do it?
And I've been hearing that a lot.
So we'll talk about it on Saturday,
so don't miss it.
And if you're not available to watch live,
it will be posted onto my YouTube channel
and I will tweet it out and put it all over
my website and Tumblr and Facebook
and stuff like that, so I hope that that is helpful.
I know I've been hearing you.
I hear what you're wanting
and that's why we're doing it; so, thanks Andrea.
Now, my epiphany; so this week,
I've been going though all of my closets
and trying to weed out stuff
and then I sell it on Ebay
because I feel like it's just
I gave away a lot of stuff to Goodwill
because I feel like it's nice for people
to have nice things if they can't afford nice things.
But then some of my nice things I sell on Ebay
and I was going through all of my closets and drawers
and all this crap
and I stumbled upon a shirt I haven't worn
since before I met Sean so like five and a half years,
right, and, and I wrote this down because I had
a little (light bulb goes off).
My epiphany was: why do we hold onto things for so long
even if they aren't serving us?
Is it because we forget about it
or avoiding to deal with it?
What is it because we all hold onto things.
Not, and I'm not just talking material items,
like clothing or any household items.
I'm talking about emotionally and
I had that interview with Brian Cuban
and if any of you watched or if you haven't watched,
check it out but he talks about
these old, painful events
in his life and how much they affected him
and how he held onto that for a long time.
And I guess my journal thought and challenge
is to think about what it is
that has us holding on to certain events
and what are we so afraid of if we let them go.
What would that mean?
Does it mean that it didn't happen?
Is that what our negative voice tells us
'cause we know it happened.
Does it mean that we don't have a right to be upset about it
from time to time?
'Cause I'm telling you that that's not true.
We can be upset any time we need to be upset.
But what is it?
So journal about it.
Hopefully that helps bring you one step closer
to a healthy mind and a healthy body.
I'll see you all tomorrow and I'll
be on Facebook, okay?
I love you all, bye.