I’ve been thinking recently about how much my attitude towards health and fitness has changed. I used to have set of rigid rules, a list of things I should and shouldn’t eat, classes I should go to, and workouts I should do. Somewhere along the line I decided to let go of all the rules and regulations and just let myself be.
1. No Tracking
I know that a lot of people swear by tracking their macros, their calories, their weight – the list goes on, but I’ve found that measurements just don’t have a place in health for me. As someone who has struggled with binge eating in the past, tracking feels too restrictive. It makes me overly conscious of what I’m putting into my body and I begin to feel anxious about my food choices. My number one goal is to make health and fitness a seamless part of my everyday life, not my whole life. I want to be able to feel fit and healthy without the obsession. This became so much easier once I stopped tracking everything I was doing and just trusted my body.
2. Listen to My Body
This brings me to my second non-rule rule – to listen to my body. Our bodies are actually a lot smarter than we give them credit for. They make adjustments that a calorie counting app can’t – like how much we’ve moved that day, how tired we are, whether it’s our time of the month. All these little things will alter how much we need to be eating that day. It feels hard at first but getting used to trusting my body and eating intuitively was such a great thing for my physical and mental wellbeing. It feels so good not to be obsessing over food and living normally. At first, you might be scared that all you’ll want to eat is crisps and chocolate. But after a while, you’ll find that your body doesn’t actually want that all the time. For me anyway, it was the not being allowed certain foods that made me crave them so much.
3. Make Training Fun
I don’t do exercise that I hate, and when I really don’t feel like it, I don’t do it at all. Whilst lots of women I know love doing squats, I hate them. As a result, I rarely do them. What I do love is functional, plyometric style training. I focus on moves that make me feel strong and empowered, rather than sticking to things that I think I should do because everyone else is doing them. I can honestly say that I look forward to training now, and that’s because I do it in a way that feels fun and exciting for me.
4. Mental Health is Health
Over the past few months, I’ve made a commitment to take my mental health just as seriously as my physical health. I’m learning to be kind to myself, to ask for help when needed, and to prioritise stress relief in my daily routine. Sometimes that might mean skipping the gym to watch TV and eat a takeaway with my family, or reading a book instead of going to a spin class. Other times it might mean taking time to meditate and do some yoga. Stress and poor mental health can also have a massive impact on our physical health, so the two really do go hand in hand.
5. Function over Form
I try to focus as much as possible on the functionality of my body, rather than it’s appearance. I make it an aim to feel grateful for all the things that it does for me on a daily basis – allowing me to hear, see and smell the world around me, walk, dance, sing, explore, run, talk, laugh. I view health and fitness as a way to take care of my body and say thank you for everything it does, rather than punish it because I don’t think it’s thin/curvy/beautiful enough. Once I started to see my body for the incredible functioning thing that it is, rather than just something in the mirror, my relationship with it completely changed.
6. Performance-based Goals
To keep my mind on the functionality of my body, I make performance-based goals rather than aesthetic ones. Rather than giving myself a goal-weight, goal-body, or goal-dress size, I try to do something I can’t. This might be something like running 5K, doing the splits, doing a push-up or pull-up, running a marathon, getting your handstand, or lifting a certain amount of weight. I actually find these goals so much more rewarding. It really helps me to find a focus in my training as I’m working towards something quite specific. It’s also the best feeling in the world to be able to do something that you’ve never before been capable of.
