Category: Daily

Your fitness journey is not a battle of wills but an ongoing process of skill acquisition and life management.

It’s about learning the skills to make your health and fitness knowledge work for your body, personality and lifestyle.

As for life management, you’re already a pro at this.

You juggle work and family with the brain dexterity of a Rubik’s cube. The same principles apply to managing your health and fitness.

It’s about finding ways to incorporate healthy habits into your daily routine, about prioritising and managing your time effectively.

That doesn’t mean you can suddenly fit in three 60-minute workouts each week. Instead, you do your best with the resources you’ve got.

Sheer determination will help, but it’s not enough to reclaim and sustain your energy and strength.

-J

Every day is an adventure of juggling your business, household chores and kids’ school stuff. The hurdles may seem endless at times.

And that’s only touching on two roles you have.

There’s also the carousel that comes with being a partner and a friend and a few other roles that I shall not name because we’re both starting to feel overwhelmed by this long, exhausting sentence.

Know this: your struggles are valid.

Whether it’s the guilt of missing your kid’s cricket game, skipping a client lunch meeting or just being too damn tired for candlelit sexy time, your feelings and experiences are real.

Never let anyone dismiss your struggles or make you feel that what you’re dealing with is insignificant.

Acknowledging these struggles is a step towards finding solutions, creating balance, and practising self-care.

-J

Your eating habits have been all over the place for years. It’s likely that your hunger cues aren’t in tune.

You haven’t done a strength workout since Obama ruled The White House. Your body and mind don’t know what it means to stop the training set a few repetitions short of failure.

You sleep like a dolphin. One eye open and half the brain alert. And mostly in water. You’re probably not hungry because you’re exhausted, not because you’re not hungry. This is super common in the morning.

You feel as calm and stress-free as a ballistic nuclear missile. See above. You might also feel like you need to train hard for stress release. When often, you could benefit from a more chilled approach.

You’ve just enjoyed a lot of weed. Because, well, you know.

So, how do you reset these signals to trust what your body is telling you?

How I wish this would be more exciting. Here goes:

Get your sleep in order. Aim for that 7-8 hours everyone goes on about. Yawn.

Find ways to manage, reduce and deal with your stress.

Prioritise breakfast, lunch and dinner. Probably by focusing on improving one of them first and then going from there.

Maybe even track calories for a week or two to make sure you’re eating enough. I know, right? Who am I?

As for training and finding your limits, practice, practice, practice. And although I am very much against training to failure, it might also be helpful to do so occasionally so you know your limits.

-J

Having abs is about as good a measure of your health as a vegemite toast is of your intelligence.

But it doesn’t stop us from parading abs as the epitome of health and fitness.

Sure, abs are muscles, and working on them is part of a well-rounded fitness regimen. But having a visible six-pack doesn’t correlate with one’s fitness level.

And it definitely doesn’t correlate with health. I used to have a six-pack in my 20s, and it was the unhealthiest I’ve ever been, even if I did look fit.

Having abs simply means you have a body fat percentage low enough to make them visible. And most of the time, it’s tied to the genetic lottery.

Fixating on abs could be driving you towards unhealthy practices. Over-exercising, restrictive diets, unnecessary stress — just to get a hint of those coveted abs lines.

What gets lost in this absolution is the fact that health and fitness are so much more than our ability to resemble a fucking Marvel character.

True fitness is about strength, endurance, flexibility, balance, and mental wellbeing.

And what’s the secret ingredient to all of these?

Consistent, varied, and enjoyable physical activity. Let’s redefine fitness as something holistic*, something that enhances your life rather than dominates it.

-J

*I loathe the term “holistic”. It sounds like I want to move to a farm and start a cult. Which I do not. Any suggestions to replace it? Hit me up.

There are many ways to reclaim your energy and strength. None of these is a requirement for being successful:

• Exercising everyday
• Doing workouts that leave you feeling like you’re about to cough up a kidney
• Rigid workout length (some of my clients do 45 minutes, some do 20 minutes, and I do 5 minutes)
• Owning a bunch of different equipment (a couple of kettlebells with get you far)
• Keeping detailed notes about each workout. Do this instead
• Completely cutting out wine and ice cream
• Eating vegetables with each meal
• Always being in bed by 11pm
• Never skipping breakfast
• …list anything and everything some guru says you should do

The best way for you is the one that fits your personality and is doable with the time, energy and resources you have. 

Not the one that’s supposed to be the most “optimal”.

-J

The wellness industry is constantly telling you that you’re not enough.

Because it gets you to buy. And whoever said you’re not enough has the exact thing you need to finally feel enough.

A complicated, challenging and expertly marketed solution to get you where you want to be.

It is a never-ending cycle. It doesn’t stop when you reach your goals.

The only way out of this cycle is to acknowledge that you’re already enough.

-J

The wellness industry is known for selling exercise, diet and fitness as the cure.

Feeling tired? Exercise and eat a nutritious diet.
Feeling anxious and depressed? Exercise and eat a nutritious diet.
Manage the symptoms of PMS and menopause? Exercise and eat a nutritious diet.
Newly divorced, fighting covid, and recovering from polio? You know what to do.

And when nothing else sells, there’s always the reliable want-to-look-super-hot-in-the-Barbados – card to fall back on.

Of course, this doesn’t just exist in the wellness industry. It exists in every industry looking to capitalise on people’s fears, insecurities, weaknesses and status. Finance, beauty, cars, you name it.

The thing is that exercise and diet can help your energy, mood, symptoms of PMS/menopause and doing Barbados. It might even improve your confidence after a divorce.

Yet, unlike what the wellness industry wants you to believe, exercise and diet aren’t the fixes. Oh, how I hope they would be. But they’re just one part of a big fucking puzzle called life.

You’re smart, and you already know this. And I’d like to think I am smart and already know this.

But sometimes, in our weakest moments, it’s easy to grab onto a hand, however veiny, that claims to solve all our problems.

-J

ps. Here’s Friday’s email. I changed newsletter companies (whatever the term is), and yeah, well, Friday’s email didn’t send. Bye-bye, Mailchimp. I hope these emails are a bit easier on the eyes now.

What comes before making any concrete plans or implementing any changes?

Discuss it at home.

Have an open conversation about your goals.

Be clear on what you need from the other family members.

And if you can, get them involved.

Change can be difficult. Having your family on your team makes it easier.

-J

Start by doing a full lifestyle screen listing what happens day to day.

List the things you could take away or add to move you closer to your health and fitness goals.

Now, the typical advice is to start with the one thing that would make the biggest impact. But we’re not going to do that.

Instead, start with the thing that feels the most achievable. And then the next. And the next. And the…

It’ll probably take longer. But you’re less likely to overcommit and feel overwhelmed.

In the end, you’ll end up in the same place.

-J

A recent study suggests that low daytime light exposure is a major environmental risk factor for shittier mood. Among other things that are not great for our health.

“UK Biobank participants reported spending a median of 2.5 daylight hours outdoors per day. Each additional hour spent outdoors during the day was associated with lower odds of lifetime major depressive disorder, antidepressant usage, less frequent anhedonia[1] and low mood, greater happiness and lower neuroticism, independent of demographic, lifestyle, and employment covariates.”

“In addition, each hour of daytime light was associated with greater ease of getting up, less frequent tiredness, fewer insomnia symptoms, and earlier chronotype[2]”.

[1] inability to feel pleasure. Yep, I had to Google that one.
[2] a person’s natural inclination with regard to the times of day when they prefer to sleep or when they are most alert or energetic. Yep, I sure did Google that one too.

-J