Are Diet & Exercise Effective Ways to Avoid Body Image Issues? Part 2 [Podcast Transcript]

Title: Are Diet & Exercise Effective Ways to Avoid Body Image Issues? Part 2

Podcast Date: September 6, 2024

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Description 

Heather Creekmore delves into the complex relationship between body image, dieting, and exercise. The discussion highlights the emotional and psychological effects of relying on physical changes to fix inner turmoil and encourages listeners to confront the root causes of body image discomfort. With insights into how embracing anxious feelings and fears can lead to spiritual and emotional well-being, this episode challenges the notion of using quick fixes. Heather talks about how we can approach our fears and be curious about them. She also emphasizes the importance of understanding one's identity in Christ. The episode sheds light on the ineffectiveness of believing diet and exercise are effective solutions to body image issues and offers a perspective as to how to find body image healing through deeper faith in Christ.

Go check out our brand new Etsy show to get cute podcast merch: https://www.improvebodyimage.com/shop

New to the show? Learn more about Heather Creekmore, Heather's books, and the ministry of Compared to Who? at: www.improvebodyimage.com

Ready for real body image change? The 40-Day Journey begins soon. Learn more here: https://www.improvebodyimage.com/40-day-challenge

Outline

03:21 The Importance Of Practicing “The Basics”

07:24 Running To Man Made Things For Salvation

11:18 Our Heart’s Desire For Value And Worth

16:33 Anxious Avoidance & Trying To “Fix” Everything

20:37 Curiosity In Our Discomfort

25:16 Facing Our Fears With Jesus

40 Day Journey Review [00:00:04]:

This book has blessed me in so many ways. Being able to have a way to understand what I'm dealing with with my body issues, and addressing that first before food has really been helpful to me. It's also a wonderful way to get into the word of God and to remind myself that I'm not alone and that God loves me, and that he doesn't care about what size I am or what shape I am. The only thing that matters to him is my heart. I felt like some of the chapters were a little bit more difficult for me, especially the guilt, the shame, the fear, control. Although, they were also a blessing because I recognized things in me that I didn't know was there before, things that I never thought mattered. I never even heard of the word diet culture until this book. Definitely opened my eyes up to see some amazing things.

[00:01:19]:

Hey, friends. Heather Creekmore here. I'm so thankful for another testimony about the 40 day body image workbook and the 40 day journey that my friend who you just heard, her story, was part of. If you wanna be part of the 40 day journey, we just started this week. Oh, what an awesome group we have. You can join us on Tuesdays in the afternoon or in the evening. You've only missed one meeting so far. You can watch the replay of it.

[00:01:44]:

Just join us. 40 day journey on my website improve body image.com. Grab a copy of the book and start reading. If you are behind, it's okay. You can still do the journey. Just don't put it off. Start your journey to body image freedom today. Hey.

[00:01:59]:

Today, we're continuing a conversation we started last time as to whether or not diet and exercise are effective ways to avoid body image issues. A little bit back to basics here for those of you that have been around a while. But if you're brand new here and you're like, what? I need to know more. Go to improve body image.com. You can find some of our most popular podcast episodes there. You can learn more about body image idolatry and some of the other concepts we'll talk about today. So if you wanna dig in, go to improve body image.com. Now let's get to today's show.

[00:02:35]:

Welcome to Compare To Him, the podcast to help you make peace with your body so you can savor God's rest and feel his love. If you're tired of fighting body image the world's way, Compare to Who is the show for you. You've likely heard lots of talk about loving your body, but my goal is different. Striving to fall in love with stretch marks and cellulite is a little silly to me. Instead, I want to encourage you and remind you with the truth of scripture that you are seen, you are known, and you are loved no matter what your size or shape. Here, the pressure is off. If you're looking for real talk, biblical encouragement, and regular reminders that God loves you and you're not alone, you've come to the right place. I hope you enjoy today's show, and, hey, tell a friend about it.

The Importance Of Practicing “The Basics”

[00:03:21]:

Well, hey there. Happy September. I'm guessing if you have kids in school, they are back there by now. Of course, here in Texas, we start in August, you know, just to get a jump on things. Well, it's a 110 degrees outside. But I wanna start today with a bit of an illustration from Texas where all things football are all things applauded. My oldest is a senior this year. So pray for me as the tears will be many.

[00:03:50]:

But he is playing football for a little Christian school. We are not, by nature, football people. We have not been a football family, but he decided he wanted to try football last year. And so we are all in. But you know what he does at football practice? He does blocking and tackling. When they have practice, they practice running and throwing and catching and blocking and tackling. And, you know, if he would, this isn't gonna happen. But if he would say, you know, play in college, guess what he would do? Blocking and throwing and catching and tackling.

[00:04:26]:

And if you're gonna play in the NFL, guess what he would do every practice? He would do blocking and throwing and catching and tackling. My point for you, friend, is that sometimes it's the basics that we have to go over again and again and again. And even if we think we have the basics down, like someone who played in high school football in high school probably would feel like they had the basics down by the time they got to the NFL. No. You still practice the basics. And so that's what this episode and the episode before this is really about. Like, I wanna take us back to the basics and just defeat this lie that is just gonna creep up on you over and again. Even if you work with me, even if we go on a long journey and we help your body image issues and you feel free, and you're like, wow.

[00:05:15]:

I just don't think the way I used to, and I feel so much more freedom and joy and peace around this. And my thought life is really, like, calm down. I don't think about this stuff all the time. You are still going to be presented with this lie from the enemy. And this lie is gonna say, you know what? You're doing pretty good now. I bet you feel pretty good. Like, that's good. You feel good.

[00:05:38]:

But if you would just do this plan, this diet, this exercise program, then you'd be even freer. That you could just change your body just a little bit. You would be even freer. You would be so much better. And we are so tempted even after we've been free for a while to believe the lie that changing our body through diet or exercise or Ozempic. Okay. Maybe I needed to add that. That changing our body will bring us more freedom.

[00:06:13]:

And so last time we talked about this reality that people of all sizes have body image issues. Right? Go back and listen to that episode if you haven't listened to it yet. But we also talked about this reality that if you decide you're gonna fix your body image issues with diet and exercise, there's a solid chance you're gonna have to immerse yourself in your diet or exercise or in the culture surrounding whatever plan you're on. And that that is gonna be, I would say, a threat to your identity in Christ, that you're gonna have all of these other truths coming at you from this other economy that you're gonna kinda have to move into. Right? You kinda have to if you're doing weight watchers, you go all in with weight watchers and you, like, start living and breathing the economy of weight watchers. Right? Like, this is what's good. This is what's bad. This is what's good to eat.

[00:07:04]:

This is what's bad to eat. This is what's good about weight loss. This is what's bad about weight gain. Like, you become that. And that's a threat to your identity. And any threat to your identity is ultimately not gonna help your body image issues. So that's what we talked about last time. Today, we're gonna go to two more places.

Running To Man Made Things For Salvation

[00:07:24]:

Place one is gonna maybe feel like back to basics for some of you that have been around the show for a while. But again, blocking, catching, tackling, consider it like that. When we run to diet and exercise to save us from body image issues, we are running to these things, these man made things to save us from this bondage, this slavery that Jesus died to give us freedom from. Just let me fill that out a little bit. Right? It's for freedom that Christ set us free. Right? Jesus does not want us to be enslaved to anything.

[00:08:11]:

Right? Paul says he's a slave of Christ. Anything that encumbers us, we should not be enslaved to. In fact, I was just reading in Corinthians the other day, and it kinda shocked me in a whole new way. You know, because Paul is really, like, not a big fan of marriage. Like, marriage is a good thing. Right? We believe that. But Paul actually says it's probably better not to get married because when you get married, you have to worry about pleasing your husband or your wife. And he thinks that's a distraction from pleasing the Lord.

[00:08:42]:

Now he doesn't say don't marry. He says it's fine to marry. But he just recognizes that it's hard to be 100%, I'm gonna please the Lord when you've gotta be 50%, I'm gonna please my husband. And it got me thinking, like, about our diet plans. Right? When we're dieting and exercising and, like, you know, signed up for the program and spending, you know, X amount of dollars a month for the program. Right? Like, that's a pretty big distraction. So if the apostle Paul thinks marriage is too big of a distraction, too much of a threat to our ability to serve the Lord 100%, I wonder what he would think of all these plans. I wonder what he would say about them.

[00:09:26]:

Because there's no way they're not a distraction. There's no way they're not I mean, I'll be honest with you here, friend. Like, maybe it wasn't this way for you. But my marriage took a whole lot less time than my diet and exercise plans. Like, my marriage was not as close to the top of the list as fixing my body was. Now maybe I had some altruistic thinking behind that. Like, maybe I believed that my marriage would be better if I would focus on my diet and body size and fixing my body. Right? Like, I might have twisted it like that.

[00:09:59]:

But there is no way that my marriage was a bigger distraction to me serving the Lord than my diet was. Nope. Diet would win every single time. But Paul's concept, Paul's beckoning to us is to not be a slave to anything. Right? So don't be a slave to changing your body. Don't be a slave to food. Don't be a slave to exercise. Right? And we're really quick to be like, I don't wanna be a slave to food.

[00:10:28]:

I don't wanna be gluttonous. I don't wanna be yeah. Okay. Don't. But, really, you could be a slave to your food rules that enslave you to food in a way that's so much more detrimental than if you were a freer with food and gained a couple of pounds and maybe ate more calories than you wanted to, like, that might be a freer situation for you that would allow you to have the time to keep God on the throne and worship him first versus having to pay attention to a strict restrictive plan. But it's not so much about the what. It's about the why. Why do we believe these plans will save us? And I'm being intentional about my language here.

Our Heart’s Desire For Value And Worth 

[00:11:18]:

Why do we believe these plans will save us from our body image issues? Let me kinda break down what our body image issues are. Our body image issues are insecurity, fear, maybe it's fear of rejection, maybe it's fear of not being approved of. Right? Our body image issues are feelings of inadequacy, feelings of ruthlessness, questions about our identity and our value, questions about well, this one's gonna be hard, if God made us good or not, and if we can trust God. And if we were actually fearfully and wonderfully made, like, can we accept the way that God made us? Or are we kinda mad at God because we don't like the way he made us? And maybe we feel, oh, this is another hard one, a little cheated by the reality that some people were made differently than we were and are shaped differently than we are and have different metabolisms than we have? And are we angry at God, or do we accept that he is God and we are not? Are we the vessels that are trying to say to the potter, hey, how dare you make me a dish? This is from Romans. Right? Or are we saying, okay.

[00:12:43]:

God, you're the potter. I'm the clay. If you wanna make me a bowl for servants to wash their hands in or if you wanna make me, like, a platter for the king's feast, like, it's up to you, but I'm your humble servant. Like, all of this bag of questions and thoughts and feelings about ourselves are really the things that we're talking about when we talk about body image issues. And so when we think about how to cure them, how to answer them, let me just, kind of, like, take that whole ball. I just, I don't know, laid out for you. And let me capture it with one phrase. And that one phrase I'm gonna use is to know I'm valuable enough.

[00:13:30]:

So instead of saying, I have body image issues, I'm gonna just substitute in here, how do I know if I'm valuable enough as I am? How do I know? How do I know I'm okay? How do I know I'm safe, right? How do I know I won't be rejected? Like, all the things we just went through, how do I know I'm valuable enough? And if we try to answer that question with, I know I'm valuable enough because I lost 30 lbs in OPTAVIA. I know I'm valuable enough because I completed the workout of the day in the fastest time at CrossFit. I know I'm valuable enough because I'm on the leader board of Peloton. I know I'm valuable enough because I reached lifetime member maintenance status with Weight Watchers. My friends, these don't answer the heart question. They answer maybe a surface question like, can I lose weight? Can I shrink my body? But they don't actually answer the question of our heart. The question of our heart can only be answered through understanding the gospel, through understanding that the only way I know I'm valuable enough is to understand what Jesus paid for me. There is no other way to find value and worth.

[00:14:47]:

None. You can try all the things. You can get rich, you can get skinny, you can get richer and skinnier, you can be successful, you can have the most followers, you can write the best selling books. Like, none of these things will ever answer that question, am I valuable enough? Only the gospel does, only the gospel. And the more we try to answer that question with these other things, like maybe if I had a better house, or a better husband, or a better family, or maybe if I had a family, maybe if I had a husband, maybe if I had children, maybe I had a better job or more money or a better body. Like, it's all the same, friend. These are all just idols that are calling out to us saying, if you had me, then you would have all these questions of your heart answered.

[00:15:38]:

But they lie. Idols lie. Idols can never ever satisfy us. Well, actually, let me take that back. They can satisfy us for a hot minute. You can be satisfied by an idol for a minute. You know? And by a minute, I mean, figuratively. Like, you know, again, a month, maybe 3 months.

[00:15:59]:

Right? But then you're gonna need more. You're gonna find a new idol. You're gonna find an idol under the idol, and it's gonna require more of you. Idols never let you rest. Rest is only found in Jesus. And so, friend, yeah, this might seem like it's back to basics for some of you that have been around here a while, but you gotta continuously identify your idols. And if you are being beckoned to diet and exercise as a cure for your body image issues again, hear me. I'm not saying watching what you eat.

Anxious Avoidance & Trying To “Fix” Everything

[00:16:33]:

I'm not saying exercise is bad. I'm saying if you're looking for that as a cure to your body image issues, you are looking to man-made systems to fix a heart problem. And that heart problem is an idol problem, and that brokenness comes from not knowing who you are in Christ. And, really, it's not fully believing that the gospel applies to you, and that your worth and value is found in Jesus alone. So that's why I don't think diet and exercise fix body image issues, because diet and exercise can never answer that question for you. My final point for today is something I've been studying more about, and that's facing our fears and anxious avoidance behavior. And, really, I think one of the reasons why we run to diets and to exercise programs, why we are the first in line for the new program, why we jump from Orange Theory to, you know, Peloton to CrossFit to, like, whatever the new exercise trend is. Like, why we jump from trend to trend, why we jump from diet plan to diet plan, why you, maybe, if you're listening to the show, have been keto.

[00:17:47]:

You've done intermittent fasting. Maybe you were paleo. Maybe you were carb free. Maybe you were fat free. Like, you've tried all the things. Right? We jump from thing to thing to thing because of the point I just made, because we do think, at some level, diet and exercise will answer that question, will set us free, will help us get rid of the idol, and it won't and never will. But another reason we do it is, I would say, anxious avoidance. And so whenever we think about our bodies, if we have body image issues, which I think most women do, let's be honest, We think about our bodies, we kinda get this, like, feeling inside.

[00:18:25]:

Right? Like, it's like, oh, I don't like it. Oh, I don't want it to be this way. Oh, I wish it was different. Oh, it's not comfortable. Oh, I wish it was like this. You know? And we get this feeling inside. It's almost a feeling that takes us back to middle school, maybe elementary school for some of you. Maybe some of you were later bloomers or you didn't have body image issues till high school or even college.

[00:18:47]:

Right? But, like, you get this knot in your stomach that kinda takes you right back to, like for me, it's, like, right back to, like, middle school, where I'm standing there, and this might sound ridiculously silly, but it's still a thing for me. I'm wearing jeans and sneakers, and I think nothing makes my legs look bigger than wearing jeans that go down to the ankle and a pair of sneakers. Now I know that's what all the girls are wearing these days, so I guess they got over that. But for me, that made me feel like my legs were huge, and I still, to this day, cannot wear jeans that go down to my ankle with a pair of sneakers without, like, having this thought of, oh, I don't like the way this looks. This is making my legs look big. But that feeling that you have when you're a middle school kid or high school kid or whatever, standing there just thinking about your body, like, oh, I'm uncomfortable. I don't like the way I look. I don't, it's that feeling that comes back over and over again.

[00:19:44]:

And what we've kinda, I would say, like, our culture is not good with suffering. Our culture kinda tells us that if you have pain, like, take a Tylenol. Right? Like, if something is bothering you in your life, you fix it. If you are upset about something, you fix it. If you're distressed about something, you fix it. Like, we are the fix it culture, the fix it nation. So sitting in discomfort is a very unfamiliar concept. And really, it's like, if you're sitting in discomfort, like, come on, what's your problem? Why don't you fix it? But the discomfort we feel around our bodies, instead of making that like something that we have to fix, what would happen if instead it just made us curious? And we talked about this a little bit a couple weeks ago.

Curiosity In Our Discomfort

[00:20:37]:

But what if when I feel that discomfort, instead of immediately saying, I need to fix it so I don't feel this discomfort anymore, which we know doesn't work. What if I said, oh, I feel discomfort. I wonder what that's about? Oh, I think it's because I'm nervous in this new group of people, and I'm afraid that they won't like me. And instead of thinking that they won't like me as of, like, whole self, I'm just worried that they're gonna reject me for the way I look. And I don't wanna be rejected for the way I look because no one likes rejection. And so, I feel anxious right now that I'm gonna get rejected. And friend, most of the time if you can name it and go that far with it, just even saying out loud what is bothering you helps, like, turn it down.

[00:21:30]:

I don't know. Twenty points. Turn the volume down 100 points. I mean, for me, when I start to feel that anxious feeling, if I can just be like, oh, I feel that because I just saw her picture on Instagram. When I saw her picture on Instagram, it made me feel like she is doing better than I am. And not just that, it made me wonder if I'm good enough. It made me feel like maybe I'm not as valuable because she's doing better than I am, and maybe I am lazy or not successful or just unworthy, doing a bad job, and just even naming it. Before I even speak any truth to myself, just naming it helps that anxious feeling just calm right down.

[00:22:21]:

And so what many of us are doing is we get this anxious feeling, and then we run to diet and exercise. And what happens physiologically and, again, I'm not a dietitian. I'm not a doctor, but I've researched this a ton, friends. And what happens, let's talk about exercise first. Did you know exercise is a stressor on your body and can produce a stress response? And many of us love exercise and become addicted to exercise because exercise can give us a shot of cortisol. Cortisol, think about adrenaline. When you have a shot of adrenaline, you feel good. Oh, yeah.

[00:22:55]:

It makes me feel good. And so we feel this anxious feeling, and we're like, I've gotta do something about this anxious feeling. I'm gonna exercise. And we go do our exercise, and the cortisol kicks in, and it covers the feeling with cortisol and adrenaline. I feel good, but we haven't actually fixed the problem. Right? We just covered our body's anxious feelings with cortisol and adrenaline. Right? We didn't really help ourselves psychologically, spiritually, mentally, or otherwise. We just covered, we masked the symptoms.

[00:23:32]:

We took a Tylenol for our headache. And if we do that over and over and over again for decades, which was my story, friend, decades of, anxious about my body - I'm gonna go work out. Anxious about my body - I'm gonna go work out. You do that for decades. And not only do you run out of cortisol eventually. I mean, I don't know if you actually run out.

[00:23:55]:

But things get a little messed up in your body when you overdo it with cortisol. Right? Again, I'm not a doctor. You can look that up. But you also kind of reinforce this false false false truth. Sounds contradictory, but you reinforce this lie that you can't actually handle the anxious feelings. If you feel anxious about your body, you are actually not equipped to handle it. So you have to do something to cover it. You are not strong enough to handle the rejection.

[00:24:25]:

What would be better would be to feel the anxious feeling, process through all the way to, I feel bad because this new group of people might reject me. And just face it. Like, what's the worst thing that would happen if this new group rejected me? Well, I’d feel pretty sad. I'd feel pretty crummy. Like, I might feel lonely. You know, I'm, you know, I'm gonna not like it. It's gonna hurt me. But will I survive? Yeah.

[00:24:53]:

I'll be fine. Physically, I'll be fine. You know, emotionally, I might be sad, but, you know, God will show me other friends or lead me to another group if this isn't the right one. You know? And I know at the end of the day, like, I always have him. He accepts me. He loves me. He wants me. He wants all of me.

Facing Our Fears With Jesus

[00:25:16]:

I’m wanted and loved and accepted in him. So I can fall back on that even if these people reject me. And then instead of avoiding that anxiety, avoiding that fear, we actually come to a place where I would say we are spiritually, emotionally, and mentally healthier because we've faced it. It's the same with diets, friend. Like, a lot of us just, like, carry this tremendous fear of what will happen to me if I gain X amount of weight. And then we gain some weight and, like, oh, no. Oh, oh, I was never supposed to see this number. What will happen if I gain X amount of weight? Oh, no.

[00:25:58]:

And, like, when we just keep you know, the number just keeps increasing, and our fear keeps growing. And so we run to the next diet plan. Like, I've gotta make sure to - I gotta get this fear to go away. I gotta get this anxiety to go away. Oh, no. I won't be able to make it to the next number. I'll be miserable. I'll be hopeless.

[00:26:15]:

I'll be desperate. Like, oh, no. I cannot be this. This cannot be my weight. And so we cover it with a diet instead of just facing it. Like, just face anxiety. What is gonna happen? Like, people already know what you look like. No matter what the number is on the scale, people see you.

[00:26:34]:

Right? And so the number on the scale doesn't really matter. Like, people aren't seeing the number on the scale. Only you are seeing that number, and so they already know what you look like. So if they were gonna reject you because that number was different than it was 2 weeks ago, they would have already rejected you. Right? But we let that number make us run to the diet to save us. The fear and anxiety make us run to the plan, run some of y'all, with my eating disorder friends, you run to restriction. Oh, you run to maybe binging and purging. Right? But, friend, what would happen if you just faced the fear? Okay.

[00:27:17]:

I am afraid that if I gain more weight, people will reject me. And we did 2 episodes on this a couple weeks ago. But, you know, that wouldn't be the end of the world. It's, you know, not like they're gonna actually physically kill me. And even if they did that, I still know I would end up in heaven with Jesus, and that would be better anyway. What do you really have to be afraid of? An expert on the stuff that I was listening to said it like this, the feeling that we have, the feeling that you're trying to get rid of so bad, that feeling isn't actually a threat to you. Like, that feeling can't actually hurt you. The feeling is the brain telling us that we might be in danger.

[00:28:03]:

And, you know, the brain can tell us when there is a problem. The brain can also get it wrong and tell us there might be a problem when there might not be a problem. Right? How many of us know that our brains have done that? But the feeling itself isn't actually a problem. It's just a feeling. We need to stop being afraid of these feelings. We need to stop being afraid of our anxiety, afraid of our fear. I mean, that sounds silly to be afraid of your fear, but that's it. We're afraid of being afraid.

[00:28:35]:

When God tells us to fear not, I don't think that he's talking about that initial feeling. He's talking about what we do after that feeling. Are you gonna entertain that fear? Are you gonna let that fear take you down a spiral to where, like, you're oh my goodness. Well, this is the worst thing that ever happened to me. Or are you gonna feel that fear and then be like, but you know what? Praise god. I have him. He's on my side. He knows what I'm going through.

[00:29:00]:

He sees me right now. He's been tempted every way that I've been tempted. He knows what rejection feels like. He knows what it feels like to be despised. He knows what it feels like to be hated. He knows what it feels like to not be approved of by other men. Like, goodness gracious. He's walked through it all, and he's my friend now.

[00:29:20]:

Like, I can count on Him. So we don't have to run to the plan. We don't have to run to the exercise. We can run to Jesus with those feelings. And so as we kinda wrap up here today, like, my last point is just recognize that these avoidance behaviors we have pretend that they're helping us fix the problem. They pretend that they're protecting us from the problem. Diet and exercise can pretend like it's gonna fix it all for you and help you feel better. But, friend, Jesus is the only one who can really do that.

[00:29:57]:

And if you're not reading your Bible, if you're not praying, if you're not listening to music that encourages you to worship God instead of worshiping sex or your body, if you're not listening to podcasts, or watching YouTube videos, or watching media that teaches you that God is the only one worthy of worship, if you're getting other messages about what's important in this life, what it means to be successful, what it means to be valuable. Right? You're confusing yourself. Let's go back to basics. Let's go back to football basics, blocking, tackling, catching, running, throwing. Are you praying? Are you spending time with God? Are you seeking him first like Matthew instructs, or are you looking for another way out? Are you believing the enemy's lie that 30 pounds and a gym membership will fix it? That's my question for you today. I'll let you answer it for yourself. And, hey, if you feel stuck, join us on the 40 day journey. I know it will make a difference for you.

[00:31:04]:

Friend, I'm glad you're here today. I hope you are too. Share it with a friend. Talk to a friend about this. Like, engaging in this content is what will help you get free. I cannot say that enough. Don't just listen to it. Engage it.

[00:31:17]:

Send this to a friend. Say, hey. Can we talk about this? What do you think about this? And then let me know your thoughts. And if you haven't left a review of the show, oh goodness. I totally appreciate those. They help other women like you find the show. So one of the nicest things you can do for me or for really any woman out there in the world with body image issues is to leave your review of the podcast wherever you listen. So thanks for thinking about doing that, and thanks for being here today.

[00:31:41]:

Hope something has helped you stop comparing and start living. Bye bye.