What a “Go-To Move” is and Why You Need One to Battle Disordered Eating

Trying to fight off the urge to restrict or body check in an emotionally intense or vulnerable state without having a plan ahead-of-time is like telling yourself to get to the other side of the pool faster than Micheal Phelps 🏊‍♀️.

Defeat is pretty much all but guaranteed.

BUT, when you intentionally prepare for the roadblocks on your body image and food freedom journey before you’re face-to-face with them, it’s a whole new game! Using the Micheal Phelps example, what if you realized that no one said you had to swim? (Jet ski, anyone?) Today, I’m going to walk you through a simple strategy that will help you know exactly what you’re going to do the next time you’re faced with a Micheal Phelps-sized battle on your food freedom journey. 

This strategy helped my client reduce her binge eating frequency by 90% in 1 month!

One of my sweet clients came to me with a 20-year struggle with bingeing. She used this behavior as a source of comfort. Whenever she began a binge, her emotions were so intense that she couldn’t think rationally or switch her focus towards recovery. When she tried to find other ways to cope with her emotions in the moment, nothing ever seemed as effective as bingeing. Afterwards, she would feel defeated and weak because she “wasn’t strong enough” to control herself. 

Though not all of us struggle with bingeing, we experience other disordered behaviors in the same way. These can include:

•  Restricting
•  Body checking (scale or mirror)
•  Over exercising

After a month of working together and learning the strategy that I’m about to share with you, my client reduced her binge frequency by 90%! She went from 8-9 binges a month to 1 or less a month! That's incredible! I want to share this strategy with you today because you can start implementing it right now in order to start having victory over disordered behaviors. 

The "Go-to Move" 🏀

What do you think is preventing you from fighting off disordered urges? For most people, it's the desire to put off discomfort. Discomfort pops up in:

•  Not knowing what to expect if you stop participating in the behavior
•  Not knowing what it will feel like to try something different
•  Letting go of something familiar 

Friend, familiar doesn’t equal better. Or safe. Or change. Change equals change.

So let’s focus on one simple strategy that can help you make change so you can make strides towards freedom. This strategy is called a “go-to move”. A go-to move is your first line of defense against disordered thoughts and behaviors that you can default to when negative thoughts pop up. This doesn’t mean it has to be the only tool in your toolbox, but it should be kept on hand as the default. 

Dirk Nowitsky is a former NBA player who played his entire career with the Dallas Mavericks. He was (and still is) a phenomenal basketball player, partly because he practiced, not just to make shots, but to overcome defenders. Why? He knew that he was going to be blocked! So, he didn’t only practice layups, dunks, and 3-pointers; he practiced making those shots when someone was in his way. He knew that he needed space to make a shot, so he perfected one of the hardest shots in basketball that put space between him and his defender: the one-legged fadeaway.

This move involved jumping backwards on one leg while shooting. Because he practiced this move to intentionally overcome the inevitable defenders, it was highly effective (he made 31,560 points, a large percentage of which were made from fadeaways) and helped to reach the end goal: winning games. 

The defenders in this illustration are just like the enemy of God: he doesn’t want you to reach your end goal, he doesn’t want you to recover, and he certainly doesn’t want you to be close to God. It’s his job to keep you discouraged and hopeless. You know he’s there and ready to block you. That’s why you need a go-to move in your ammunition closet. 

How to Create Your Own Go-To Move

As we go through the process of creating your own go-to move, make sure to download your FREE Go-To Move Worksheet and fill it out as we go along. After you’re done, place it somewhere you'll see it so that you can put it into action! 

Step 1: Write out your most frequent disordered thoughts. 

What thoughts plague you the most on a daily basis? Examples include: 

• I’ll never be at peace with my body.
• My body needs to look like [x] in order for me to be loved or accepted.
• Everyone thinks I’m below par. 

Step 2: Analyze those thoughts and discern underlying themes

As you re-read what you wrote, ask yourself, “What themes are behind this thought?” Themes can look like:

• Fear
• Loneliness 
• Hopelessness
• Worthlessness

Step 3: List Scriptures, words, or phrases that you’re confident are true and directly combat the lies you’re believing. 

Let’s use the example thought, “I’ll never be at peace with my body”. We have to combat that fear. So, we can go to Scripture and see how Jesus is our peace: 

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” (John 14:27 ESV)

Don’t write affirmations here. Write things that you know for sure are true and trustworthy. Only true things hold up in the midst of trials. 

Step 4: Write 1 or 2 of those truths and put them somewhere quickly accessible. 

Whether it’s in your jacket pocket, purse, or bathroom mirror, make sure your go-to move is somewhere you can reach when a disordered thought pops up. Writing it down can help you intentionally remember it. 

Are You Ready to Practice Those Fadeaways? ⛹️‍♀️

What are you willing to commit to in order to create real change in your journey to make peace with your body? Wherever you are right now, pause and say out loud, “I am committing right now to creating and implementing a go-to move!” Then, give yourself a date and time that you’re committing to completing it. Why? Because, friend, I want you to see how this small strategy can make a lasting impact on your day-to-day. 

Once you complete your own go-to move, be sure to share it with me on Instagram @brittanybraswellrd! 

Loving the podcast? Sign up for our VIP list for exclusive insider info every week!