Tools That ACTUALLY Work

Est 4 min read

I was thinking about this concept because I'm living alone for the first time in my life and trying to renovate a 1910 craftsman house and am solely responsible for the house and the yard. I was getting conflicting advice about what kind of lawn mower to get and I finally came across a blog discussing electric mowers, which is something I'm interested in for environmental impact and ease of use in terms of being able to plug it in and not having to get gas all the time. The blog was talking about how lightweight they are, easy to start, and they're actually much better for most women because of the lightweightness. 

For me, I've had back injuries and don't like the idea of having to struggle to get a mower started, so I was really intrigued by this idea. I started thinking about tools in general. Power tools and such are not typically designed to work for women or folks who have a smaller stature or less strength, they're designed for typical bodied men- or people who have a stronger stature, bigger hands, and who maybe want something that is more powerful rather than something that's more functional, lightweight, and easy to use. When I was looking at ladders, for example, a lot of the ladders are super heavy and for me, that's not going to be easy to carry around which would be a big barrier to using it.  

I started thinking about this in terms of other applications. We know that:

• Many of the tools out there are really for neurotypical people and not for neurodivergent/diverse people.
  
• Research studies are typically done on young white men. That way they have a very controlled sample. But they don't actually extrapolate this to the rest of us, right?
  
• We don't get studies done on women, nonbinary, people who are in different size bodies, and different ethnicities. 
  
• Often the efficacy of something is unknown because it isn't being tested on anyone other than white men. 

This is really problematic. ​

Another example is the functionality of talk to text, unfortunately, it wasn't tested on women, primarily just white dudes and that's why it often can't read what I'm saying. It's not even worth doing it because I have to correct so much of what I've said. Interested in learning more? Here is an article by Harvard Business that confirms, it performs worse for women and non-white folks.

I started thinking about this in terms of diet culture. Diet culture, the idea is, there's this external “should eat this, not eat this”, “fast between these hours, don't eat after this time”,  all of these “shoulds” around food, check all these boxes, and then you'll be perfect. It just doesn't work like that; we are all unique individuals and we need tools that actually fit. We need to have a relationship with food in our body that actually fits us as individuals.

So what does work? Instead, rejecting all of that noise, those shoulds, recognize that it doesn't work…NOT because there's something wrong with you; you don't need to try to control or manage yourself to fit into the box of diet culture. 

Reject diet culture. It's BS, the research shows that it's not effective, essentially EVER, and in fact, it's harmful. It causes weight cycling, preoccupation with food and your body, and a lot of shame. It's not effective. There's nothing wrong with you that it doesn't work for you. Shift your focus on developing your relationship with food and your body that's built on a connection with your body; body attunement. Trust in yourself. Get rid of all of that shame, forgive yourself, get curious, have compassion for yourself, figure out what it really feels like when you’re hungry, trust that there's a reason that you're hungry and eating food, and learn how to actually have joy in food and feel a deep satisfaction, while also really nurturing  and nourishing yourself. 

Intuitive Eating is a tool that is designed to support you as an individual. Skills that you actually build, and is something you have with yourself all the time. I remember a story that a client was telling about a friend who used to literally have this giant purse where she keep a scale with her at all times. She would pull out the scale anytime they would go out to eat and she would weigh her food at the restaurant. 

I can't even imagine having to carry a scale with me every time I go anywhere to eat. Seriously.  Instead, I have a tool that's built in that I've developed like a muscle to really figure out what I will enjoy that makes me feel well, nourished, and nurtured.

Reject those tools that don't work. Find the tool that works for you.
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