Confident Eaters

Unlocking Joy in Fitness: A How-To Guide to Transform Your Exercise Mindset
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Georgie: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Confident Eaters Podcast, where you get proven methods to end overeating, emotional eating, and stressing about food. We are heading for harmony between your body, food and feelings, hosted by me, Georgie Fear, and my team at Confident Eaters. Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Confident Eaters podcast. Today, we're talking about unlocking joy in fitness, how to transform your exercise mindset. Now, the reason that it's so helpful to find joy in fitness and have a mindset that doesn't equate fitness with suffering and burning and lactic acid and grimaced faces is because when we think of fitness being suffering, we're probably not going to look forward to it, we're probably not going to see it as stress relief, and it just feels like one more chore that we need to do. [00:01:00] I'm joined today by coach Shannon and when we were talking before we started recording, we agreed we both used to see exercise in the kind of negative light. Am I right, Shannon?

Shannon: So true. So true. We were talking about how, we have these feelings of exercise throughout our lives and, for the longest time, I felt like when it came to exercise or fitness, that no matter how much or what I did, it just didn't wasn't enough. Like a 10 minute, 10 minute walk around the block real quick. It wasn't enough.

If I can still like stand or move or like sit down without being in pain, like I did not do enough.

Georgie: I need to cripple myself.

Shannon: Exactly. Like I need to be in physical pain. Which is really interesting.

Georgie: Like it had to be enough to be impressive or enough to lose weight or enough to improve your health? Like what was the definition of enough if there was one?

Shannon: I don't think there actually was a definition of enough besides I just had to be hurting the next day of [00:02:00] enough, or this had to be so rigorous that it was, it was painful, but what about, what about you, Georgie? What types of things did you think about with exercise in the past?

Georgie: What makes you think I had exercise hangUps? I've had all of them. I actually always really liked exercise, of course, you don't think of it as exercise when you're a kid, it's just playing outside, it's riding your bike. I loved gym class in school, that was my favorite class.

Shannon: That's so true. Did you have the scooters, where you would like scoot across the gym class?

Georgie: I think so. I think so, or like furniture dollies, like the little scooters.

Shannon: Yes, exactly.

Georgie: I loved, loved that stuff.

Shannon: They were amazing.

Georgie: Loved gym class. Right up through high school when the other kids were like rolling their eyes like, Oh God, I was like, this is the best. I love it. So I always liked that but then there was this definite period of disillusionment when things were like skill based, like who could run around the track the fastest or at summer camp like playing various sports, you know, soccer, softball, [00:03:00] lacrosse, you name it.

Like, I wasn't Super good. And so I fell into that sort of pit of judgment and despair where you're like, I'm not good at this. And that makes it a lot less fun.

Shannon: Yeah, can relate,

Georgie: not born super coordinated or a fast runner for a long time. I was just sort of like embarrassed. And then I think I Reunited with exercise in a, like, compulsive calorie torching endeavor.

And then it was just like, the more the better. Like, more laps, more hours, more miles. And, yeah, it really sucked the joy out of it to just try and, you know, equate it to calorie burning. But luckily things have changed and now I'm back to exercising for fun and to get outdoors and lots of positive reasons.

But I don't think there's a person alive who has not at some point in their life equated exercise or working out with like, Oh God. No.

Like so many things can sour it. So many things can [00:04:00] sour it. If you feel like women aren't supposed to get sweaty or big muscles will make me unattractive, then somebody's not going to want to engage in a lot of physical challenge. Or if you're, you know, a young girl and people are like, oh, sports are for boys.

Well, then you might feel like,

Shannon: Oh my gosh. Yeah.

Georgie: I liked them, but you know, I don't want to be wrong. So and of course the weight loss industry has done so much for cultivating positive relationships with exercise.

Shannon: Oh, so much.

Georgie: So much. And you know, the realistic expectations Instagram, like the one legged squat with holding a bar over your head also don't help. Also don't help. So today we're going to talk about how can we, maybe if you have a checkered history with exercise, not always loved it, maybe you have a start and stop sort of pattern on again, off again with the gym, how we can. Help you grow into somebody that really looks forward to getting your movement in and that whatever that looks like for [00:05:00] you, it's rewarding.

And the sort of thing that you feel really good about doing that is positive and that you want to stick with for the rest of your life. We want a happy long term partnership between you and exercise. So I think one of the most powerful things that we talk about with food or with movement or other health behaviors is the power of a good reframe and the language that we use in our head.

So Shannon, your example of this is not enough. This is not enough. This is not enough. If we can reframe that into something that feels more successful. Then certainly it's more likely that we'll keep doing it. What sort of changes happened in your mental dialogue?

Shannon: Yeah, absolutely. those reframes are so nice because it does, it feels successful.

And it also validates what we're doing. Instead of saying, those intentional 15 minutes that I went for a walk or did something. Those 15 minutes matter. They're validated. We don't want to minimize them. They're part of our experience and they were intentional choices. So part of the reframe that I went through was finding [00:06:00] something that felt nice in my body when I was moving, instead of doing one of those like exercise HIIT videos where you do want to barf at the end of being like, Oh, I get next day. It's like, Oh, let me try some different types of workouts to find something that feels good. And for me, yoga was really that bridge for me because it also brought in mindfulness and it was like, Oh, the goal is to feel good.

Don't get me wrong. Yoga, very challenging. Like it can be. And honestly, sometimes. The hardest pose in yoga is just like sitting still.

Georgie: Oh yeah. Defnitely.

Shannon: So that's a whole different spiel for another time, but finding movement that I enjoyed really helped that reframe for me. Instead of, okay, I'm beating myself up to do this because I'm quote supposed to, or I quote should do this was, Oh, I actually found something that I enjoyed.

It might not be yoga for everyone. It was for me because it brought in mindfulness. But like for my husband. [00:07:00] Something that I saw with him because He did lots of sports, always a gym goer, and we had moved, and he started going to a local gym, and he came back, and he was so happy. I was like, dude, like, no one is this happy coming from, from the gym.

Like, what is going on here? I don't actually believe this. No one comes home, like, smiling and sweaty from the gym.

Georgie: Wow.

Shannon: And so, I know, right, so I was like, okay, I'm going to go check out this space, and. I'd never done strength training before. I had never lifted weights before. Very intimidated by all of it.

Georgie: Very suspicious after your husband's paradoxical, happy response to exercise. Right. And

Shannon: then I was so blown away. I walked in to the gym and met with them and never forget the, the coach there. She actually handed me a medicine ball and was like, see, you can lift this. And I was like, okay, yes, yes, I can lift this.

I can do this. And it turned this, just the reframe for me that happened here was honestly a belief [00:08:00] change. Like you were talking about, oh, we don't want to get like too big of muscles or something quote, because, oh no, turning into my joy came because I was like, oh wow. I can, I can be strong. Like I got to see so many other women lifting weights and who are strong and that brought me so much joy and unlocked a different belief in me too.

And it just set me on this really cool path about like feeling good in movements and then I want to bring this love to others, so I got certified as a yoga teacher and love bringing that to other people too. And , that's been sort of my like reframe and journey there. Georgie, what about you? What , was your switch flip? On here.

Georgie: Well, I think what sprung me from the latest chapter that I mentioned was the sort of like exercise for calorie burn was probably getting into a healthier relationship with food and discovering that, I do actually like exercise for a lot of the emotional benefits like your husband, you know, I am.

Absolutely. Undeniably [00:09:00] better mood after I get a workout in. I also really love the outdoors. And I think for me, the more time that I spend in nature and not in a gym or a store or a shopping mall or a house, just absolutely outdoors in the elements where there's trees and rocks and sky, and there's not a mirror or a reflection or an advertisement in sight just has always left me feeling better in a very profound way. So for me just spending more and more time in the outdoors led me to a lot of sports like hiking and climbing and cross country skiing. And you know, now I crave doing those things that if I'm kept indoors for a workout by You know, weather or circumstance, I'm so bummed because I want to go outside.

So I feel like I kind of came full circle back to being the kid that just really wants to be outside for a lot of the day. And I was thinking as you were speaking that, what your husband got from exercise and then what you found in yoga and then what you found in strength [00:10:00] training, they're all slightly different and it's kind of neat that we all can find different positive things that we like in exercise. Like some women really want that feeling of being strong. And this podcast, not just for women, like men too. A lot of men are like, yes, I want to feel strong. I want to feel capable. And then many people also find that they want to feel athletic.

Maybe they want to be able to shoot baskets or shoot a soccer ball into the net with a great degree of accuracy. And so they have slightly different pursuits in terms of what that means for their physical activity habits. I am very much into the experience and the socialization. I love getting together with my friends and heading out for a day in the mountains.

So there's no right or wrong motivation to exercise. if it's something that makes you happy, I think that's the goal. That's what we're after some sort of positive thing in there. And for some people it is wanting to be thinner or have a smaller body, but I actually find it's fewer people then [00:11:00] you'd think, you know, a lot of people start out saying like, Oh, I exercise or go to the gym because I want to be slimmer. I want to be smaller. I want to lose weight but then when you get down to it, I think a lot of people actually discover, like, there's no high that comes from being smaller.

There's actually. More people find that they are excited by making progress at something, being able to run a mile faster or lift more weight than they could a year ago or do more push ups, you know, progress is a really good feeling for a lot of people. And then I think the sense of body confidence.

Like, yeah, this body picked up that big ass kettlebell over there, like no pushover. So I see a lot of people find so many different good things when they go into the gym. I don't see too many people come out of the gym in a worse mood than when they go in. And we see in our clients, lots of examples of how people's journey with physical activity can be really varied.

Some people that work with us. Have really extensive histories of [00:12:00] being competitive athletes, or they've been recreational runners for their whole lives. Other people come to us and they declare, I hate sweating and I don't want to move, but I will if that's what I have to do. So we sort of see a bit of everybody.

And I know you were telling me about one of your clients who was sort of like in that recreational runner group, but didn't actually like it. Was just sort of like pushing herself to it. Could you tell us a bit more about her?

Shannon: Yeah, yeah, so true. We've clients across the board, their relation to exercise. So this one that we were talking about when I first started working with her. So whenever we give new clients, we ask them a whole bunch of questions to get to know them. And one of the questions I was talking to her about was her movement and. I just realized that she was running multiple miles a day, and I was like, Oh, wow, you must really love running.

She was like, actually, I really hate it. But it's the only thing I can do for weight management. I think we could, we could look at that [00:13:00] because if a client tells me that they're doing something and they absolutely hate it. I really don't want them to continue doing it or continue hating it.

Georgie: Red flag, right?

Shannon: Or whatever it is, right? Yes, definitely. And so, we sort of played around with it as we were working okay, what would it look like to stop running since you hate it so much? And especially as we saw her weight loss progressing the way that she wanted it to she stopped running cuz she hated it. She ended up taking walks with her children instead.

She enjoyed slower movement as well as some yoga classes. She would still run every once in a while, but not to the level she was. And it was really interesting as I was wrapping up working with that client. She talked about how she thought she would always have to keep running. And then she was able to stop.

Georgie: Like sprung from the prison.

Shannon: She didn't like it. Yes. Yes. But then, on the opposite, I have a couple clients who love running so much and that's just what they do. Particularly, they're like processing [00:14:00] space for their days, their emotions. They just love it and they don't feel like their day is complete without it. And so if they love it, I'm like, cool, let's do everything we can to support you with that. So it's just like you said earlier, Georgie, it's finding what you love about movement and what part of the movement you love. And if it's running, awesome. If it's not running, awesome. Let's keep finding things that you love.

Georgie: Definitely. Yeah. You can learn to love exercise and you can learn to love a specific form of movement. And you can also learn to hate it. Like examples of people who put too much pressure on themselves or have too much pressure placed on them by a coach or parents. And they were like, I now hate this thing that I'm still calling a hobby.

So, If you do have something you love, like, cherish that. Don't load the pressure on, keep it fun. I often say exercise is. Like a hammer. And what I mean by that is like, you can use it for productive, beneficial things to make yourself feel [00:15:00] better. You can build productive things with a hammer, or you could just bash your face with that hammer and use it to do nothing productive and just use it as an agent of destruction and punishment and pain yeah, like, nobody wins if we use exercise as punishment And just like your client, a lot of people find they may feel like intense exercise, like running or high intensity sport is the only kind of valid or legitimate exercise. And it's simply not true. There's loads of benefits to be had by gentle exercise. One of the things I love about getting older is that walking no longer feels like, Oh, it's just walking.

Because when I was in my twenties, I was like, everybody else is running. Can't I just walk? But yeah, sometimes like gentle motion just feels better to our systems, especially at times of your life, maybe where you're more stressed or, you know, pulled tightly in lots of different directions. A little flow, a little [00:16:00] ease can be just what we need.

So there's lots of options. We've talked about running. We've talked about lifting, skiing, hiking, and we're just scratching the surface. Like fashion, you can think about your exercise style as being something that's unique to you. It might also differ with the season. You might find that you like a particular style of activity during the colder months and something else during the warmer months.

You might find that you prefer group activities like classes or team sports, or you might want to stay indoors. You might want to go outdoors. You might want to do something where you cannot see or hear another person for miles around. Or something you can just do in the privacy of your own home. All of these are things worth considering, and can help you build the experience that feels best for you.

Now, there's a likelihood that if you are open minded, you try new activities, some of them are going to bomb. So we probably have some good stories between the two of us of trying exercises and discovering this was not a match made in heaven. We might get injured, we might just hate [00:17:00] it, or we might have an instructor or teacher who just didn't give us a great intro to the sport. My best example of this. Is when I took a mountain biking lesson, when I first moved to the mountains, I was like, yeah, I'm going to try cross country skiing and I'm going to try mountain biking.

And I'm going to let you guess which one of those went well.

Shannon: No idea.

Georgie: Didn't even make it to the end of the mountain biking lesson. Now the instructor was fantastic. This is 0 percent attributable to the person who was teaching me. But the thing is like. I'm somewhat less coordinated than the average person.

I'm very prone to tripping and knocking things over. And if you're like riding a bike down a slope and there are rocks and roots that are like planned to be in the way here.

Shannon: Terrifying!

Georgie: I managed to hit every single one of them. I couldn't quite manage to steer around them. And I landed on my feet every time I came off of the bike, but I couldn't stay on the thing for more than like two seconds.

And then it was a [00:18:00] group lesson. And everyone, you know, then like went back to the top of the hill and I tried to get on my bike and pedal it up the hill and I couldn't because I didn't know how to like put it in a low gear and get it started up the hill. And I was like, I just don't think this is working out.

I was not having a good time. So I thanked the instructor and I just went home and I was like, I like riding my bike on flat surfaces. I think I'm going to stick to paved trails, this whole downhill thing just, it terrifies me. I'm, you know, you described liking the experience of being in your body doing yoga.

And when I was attempting downhill mountain bike riding, I felt like a prisoner in a terrified body. Yeah.

Shannon: The somatic say, no,

Georgie: the somatic said super Nope.

Shannon: Oh man. We live really close to some mountain biking trails in Knoxville and I always see people coming and going. My brother is a mountain biker and he's like, Shannon, you want to go?

And I'm like, no, definitely not. He enjoys it. He finds joy in it. Awesome. I would be with you, Georgie. [00:19:00] Terrified.

Georgie: And yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's something. I'm too likely to crash and break something.

Shannon: Yeah along with mountain biking is not going to be for me. I also have a couple of other sports that are just not for me. Part of it definitely has to do with hand eye coordination. We're just going to go ahead and throw that out there, at least for some of the sports that involve throwing and catching things.

Not really my thing. I got hit in the face in a batting cage when I was young and it just, it traumatized me for life, honestly. I know, but, yeah, I tried golf. I tried so hard to like golf. I did not find the joy in it. I know people in my life that love it. Awesome. Swimming, for me, unless swimming is involved floating around with like an ice cold drink in my hand in the sunshine, or with a book.

Swimming for me

Georgie: Inflatable flamingo, somewhere.

Shannon: Exactly. Yes. Otherwise, swimming for me is just, it's not it. I actually have A recurring nightmare [00:20:00] about being forced to swim laps and not being able to breathe. I don't know why. swimming does not bring me joy. Some people love it.

That's amazing. That one does not bring me, that one does not bring me joy.

Georgie: Yeah. I feel you with the ball sports. I just, I can't throw or catch or shoot.

Shannon: Me either. If I just like toss something across the room, even our dog loves to play with a ball. Like that is the highlight of her life. It's playing with the ball and I'll just toss it to her in the living room and my husband like every time I go to throw it

Georgie: Because he's worried you're going to knock something over.

Shannon: Yes.

Georgie: Not the dog.

Shannon: It has happened. Not the dog. We're not worried about the dog. So when we're thinking about movement a red flag for us is that we're not enjoying the movement. We're not enjoying this time. We're not going to keep doing a lot to find joy in it, but there are lots of other red flags to look for.

Georgie, what are some of the red flags that you look for? Or that you've heard of when it comes [00:21:00] to movement or fitness, exercising, red flags. What are they?

Georgie: Well, it sounds like fear of death being involved. Is that like outweighing the joy? That might not be the activity for you.

I have found if you do an exercise or you start any particular activity and it leaves you just cripplingly sore, it doesn't mean you can't do that activity at all, but it may be a sign that if you worked with a personal trainer and they sort of crippled you with soreness, that maybe that person pushed you a little too hard.

Or it might be that you need to adapt to this new exercise program, you know, as we gain experience in these bodies. We may have limited range of motion. I have a friend who broke her wrist. And so if she's going to do pushups, she can't put her hands like flat on the floor, her wrist just won't allow her that range of motion.

And so if hypothetically she went to some personal trainer or exercise class and they were like, you have to do [00:22:00] pushups, you have to do them on your feet, on the floor, like this way, like it wouldn't be a good fit for her. So

Shannon: yeah,

Georgie: a good professional would be. Ready for that and have a workaround for it.

So, yeah, I think maybe one of the red flags is other than fear of death crazy soreness, or a trainer saying, oh, this is just how it has to be.

Shannon: Hmm. I've heard that before, too, and I've actually had clients tell me that they've heard that from trainers, they've been so sore and the trainer just wouldn't do anything about it.

Georgie: Yeah.

Shannon: Like, oof, adapt it.

Georgie: Yeah.

Shannon: I think one of my red flags going in would be if I noticed that I'm really dreading something, that's a red flag to be like, Oh, maybe if we're trying to unlock joy. This is not, this is not going to unlock joy. So dreading it would definitely be one of mine.

Georgie: True. Yeah, I agree with you there.

I think sometimes the culture of various exercise options can be more or less harmful. You know, I remember for a brief moment in time, I took part in [00:23:00] rowing at my college. And I think the culture of the rowing team, and this is says nothing about the sport itself, but the team itself was very competitive with each other.

And there was also a lot of food issues. And so I think some exercise Modalities or some brands of fitness sometimes come along with some unhealthy body image themes, I'll say.

Shannon: Yeah.

Georgie: One of the most common would be If there's a bodybuilding culture in a fitness center or personal training studio, sometimes people will talk about bulking and cutting as nutrition strategies, bulking as, you know a period of time where you eat a lot, lift a lot and try and put on lots of mass.

And then cutting would be like a fat loss phase. And I find that whenever those two words are used, it tends to denote. Just not really sustainable, not really scientifically based, practices, you know, more bodybuilding based on tradition and what we call bro science than actual [00:24:00] science. So I sort of steer people or encourage them to use other methods.

Or if they do enjoy that gym and they love the workouts and their workout partners, there maybe just like march to your own drummer in the sense of nutrition practices.

Shannon: Yes, definitely. and to use nutrition practices here sort of as a bridge to the next red flag that I'm thinking of.

I think this happens a lot in nutrition practices, but definitely can happen in fitness spaces too. Of before and after pictures. In your underwear,

Georgie: oh yeah.

Shannon: As a coach, like please do not send me pictures of you in your underwear. Like that's a red flag to me. I think it can be helpful for some people if they want to look back and see those, but if it's a mandated, required Thing or mandate required weigh ins, I think can also be a red flag because sometimes that's not helpful for everyone. that's not everyone's journey.

Georgie: Yeah. If you sign up for something and they're like, okay, we want the before and after photo and you're starting weight and your body fat calipers, they're already [00:25:00] assuming or telling you what your goals are for fitness. And there's nothing worse than, the situation when somebody just wants to get stronger or lessen their back pain and they go to a gym and then some trainers like, well, we're going to get you slimmer and the person's like, who said I had to lose weight? Like the most unfortunate sort of misunderstanding. So yeah, I think before and after photos are, yeah, they made me a little uncomfortable too. I'm all for progress, but

Shannon: yes. That's a great way to put that. Like, yes. Yes, progress. We love that.

Georgie: But you can't really see if you're happier or more confident or have less pain from a splashy photo.

Shannon: So true. So true.

Georgie: Let's see. General themes that would be a bit of a red flag for me would be If you're, thinking about exploring an exercise option and some professional says, well, you absolutely should not do high intensity activity, or you should not do low intensity activity, or you should do all cardio and no strength.

Or you should do all strength and [00:26:00] no cardio, you know, these, really sort of reek of the same problems as good food and bad food lists, or a professional that like points to the blackboard and it has like the foods you can't eat, like no white flour, no potatoes, no this, no that. If anybody tells you that a particular type of exercise is bad, it's just such an oversimplification and

you know, potentially robs people from some of the movement variety that could improve their lives, their enjoyment or their results. So, yeah, I'd not listen too closely if somebody tells you that a particular type of movement is bad, if it's not causing, you know, specific physical pain or something like, I don't think there's too much reason to avoid particular activities just because somebody says they're not as healthy or not as good for you or not as good for fat loss.

Those are usually myths anyway.

Shannon: So true. So, with lots of red flags, let's say we go somewhere and we're like, I don't see any red flags. You're like, yes, [00:27:00] I found a place. No red flags. And then, let's say it is a gym, and you just get ready to walk in the gym, and you're so intimidated and scared.

Georgie: Right, there's that dread.

Shannon: What do we do?

Georgie: That we talked about.

Shannon: Yes, I have had gym intimidation. Oh my gosh. And even now, I have to say this too, even though I exercise regularly, I have taught in gyms, if I go to a gym, sometimes I still get really intimidated by it. Like, they can be so intimidating. And so that can be sort of the next, hurdle to get through.

Georgie: Right. if we're.

Shannon: I find

Georgie: super self conscious. We're not getting joy.

Shannon: Yes. Yeah, absolutely. And being self conscious, it could be also about like appearance and other things like that. But Georgie, do you have gym intimidation? Because you are an awesome athlete. I know you exercise a lot.

Georgie: Yes. So I, I think I have a different sort of intimidation that can happen to me in gyms.

So one, when there's mirrors everywhere, [00:28:00] like a lot of people, you tend to look at your reflection when there's mirrors everywhere and it's, I can find it can be really distracting from the work that I came there to do. All of a sudden I'm like, God, why didn't I put makeup on? Or like, Oh, these bags under my eyes.

You can totally see my age. Like, are my calves really that shape? Like whatever it is, like you just pick yourself

Shannon: apart.

Right? I'm that sweaty? I have armpit stains.

Georgie: Oh, this color is really unflattering. It's just so like, that's not at all productive, nor what I came to do. It wasn't like, I'll be back in an hour. I'm going to go to the gym and pick myself apart in the mirror for a bit.

Shannon: My favorite gyms and yoga studios do not have mirrors. My favorite ones.

Georgie: It is so much better. So much better. so I'm aware of that tendency. Also, when I have felt most uncomfortable in gyms, it's when people are staring at me , and just because somebody is looking at you doesn't mean anything dangerous or creepy.

They could be looking with you at admiration cause you're doing something bad ass. But for some reason that really makes me uncomfortable [00:29:00] because my default is to assume that they're going, what a weirdo. And I don't want to be the weirdo. I also have realized in my last few gym experiences that I tend to like, Put on functional athletic wear, like running shorts and a tank top and sneakers and go to the gym.

And then I get there and the women that are in there all have like full hair and makeup done and like matching sports bra legging sets with a little scrunch butt thing going on. And they are like very clearly looking feminine and sexy and on the market. And I am like, Feeling like swine over here doing my squats.

Shannon: We have all felt that way.

Georgie: I feel decidedly like not presentable enough for the gym. And yeah, sometimes it just feels like a meat market.

Shannon: So then how do you, how do you keep going? Like if you start to feel that way, do you do like a mental reframe, self talk? Like how do you sort of own [00:30:00] that space then?

Georgie: Well, nowadays I don't actually have to go to a gym very frequently. So I don't have a gym membership right now. I have fitness equipment in my house. So when I strength train, I usually will strength train here. Or I go to my coach's house. We actually have a backyard set up with a squat rack and dumbbells and kettlebells and everything outside so in the summer we go there and there's not a mirror in sight and it's just my friends and we are all sweaty beasts. Nobody is nobody's presenting carefully. But let's say I went on vacation and I wanted to go to a gym, which I do on occasion both of those things. I try and refocus my attention whenever I notice I'm looking in the mirror and I just think like you know, everybody gets to look like what they want to look like and if I want to go buy a matching yoga set and spend time to do my hair and makeup, like I can do that too. But I didn't today and there was a reason I didn't today. And, you know, she's doing her thing and I respect her and I'm doing my thing and [00:31:00] nobody's treating me with disrespect.

So I guess I'd go down the self talk line of like, you're okay, even if you don't necessarily look like everybody else here. So,

Shannon: yeah.

Georgie: How about you? Have you found any tricks that help you?

Shannon: One of the things that I find helpful when I go to the gym is that I always have a plan now when I go, and that is something very different than when I was in college and be like, okay, let's go to the fitness center and I don't know, okay, there's dumbbells. I don't really know what to do with those. I guess I'm just going to like go on the elliptical and listen to a podcast, you know,

Georgie: or you just look for the empty machine.

Shannon: Yes. Which one is empty and open? It doesn't look like it's been sweat on too much. So now I go in with a plan and I have it broken down into categories. I know what I'm going in to do. And so having a plan, I find really helpful. It's empowering to me actually, because it's like, all right, I'm here. I've got a plan. I'm doing my thing. Like I know, I know where I'm going [00:32:00] and what I'm doing. And I find that to be really helpful.

Georgie: Yeah. I think that's a good one for a lot of people, big confidence boost when you've done this workout before, you know, how to do all the exercises.

You're not confused. You know what's going on. You know you're capable. Alicia Fetters, who, you know, coauthored my most recent book with me, Give Yourself More. She has so many great, great empowering tips for women that are either just getting started with strength training or just looking to take themselves to the next level of strength and some of the tips that she wrote when we were putting together that book really stuck with me as like really good little gems to pass on to people like stake out your space like if you take one of those little folding mats and like a pair of dumbbells and like skiddle off into a corner with them and you're like this is my kingdom I'm doing my thing over here I don't have to look outside of this you just focus on what you're doing so. You know, just taking out your space can help you feel like, yes, I belong. I'm not getting crowded out of here or elbowed off of every machine. And then [00:33:00] using headphones, I mean, working out with headphones is totally normal. Many, many people in the gym are going to be wearing headphones and you can just focus on.

Whatever you're listening to, your music, your book, and you let the world do its thing and you do yours. I think those are both really good things that can help people walk into a gym confidently and enjoy their workout and not feel diminished in any sense.

Shannon: Yeah, the headphone bubble is real. I also find headphones to be really meditative too because it does put you in your own bubble. It's like you're just in your own world.

Georgie: And if you don't want to listen to something, you can just put the headphones on and use it as like a, don't talk to me signal.

Shannon: That is so true. Turn on some noise canceling.

Georgie: Totally. And of course, if somebody's not interested in the gym, they don't particularly want to lift weights or take classes, there's a lot of other things you can do. You can take a team sport. You can join a league. You can take a class. You can, do any number of outdoor activities. You certainly don't have to go to the [00:34:00] gym, even though that is a pretty common one. If your town has bike paths, just open your eyes next time you're out running errands and see what are people doing? Are people biking? Are people jogging? Are people rollerblading? What do people do? And if you have a friend that does some sport like maybe they're into canoeing or they love riding their horse some other activity that you have not done or that you want to try maybe just ask them if they could teach you or show you sometime and most people love to share our activities with other people.

Shannon: Absolutely. My friend and I recently, especially because where it's winter and we just don't typically get outside as much as normal, we've been doing weekly friend walks, is what we call it, and so we've also been trying different parks while we've done this in our city, and so we've been picking a different park every week, and we just go for a walk for like an hour, and we catch up and it's the fastest hour of my whole week, walking with my friends, and we laugh a great time. It's the best.

Georgie: That sounds fantastic.

Shannon: And that's not a gym.

Georgie: Yeah.

Shannon: It's outside and joyful.

Georgie: And it's free.[00:35:00]

Shannon: And it's free.

Georgie: Even better. Okay. So from the stuff that we've covered, we've talked about how there's a lot more options then you may have thought about how you might not like the same activity as other people and you may have to try some things and do some experimenting to find what you enjoy.

That your particular reason for pursuing exercise might not be weight loss, it might be mental health, it might be energy, it might be setting a good example for your kids or socializing or just breaking out of the cubicle. But whatever it is. When you can connect to something really positive with movement, you stand a much greater chance of doing it regularly for the rest of your life.

So some last reminders. The goal doesn't necessarily have to be physical, and it doesn't even have to be progress. I know lots of people that enjoy biking or running, and they don't necessarily get faster from year to year because they're not in it [00:36:00] to necessarily become a faster runner. They just want to enjoy running.

You might find that you really like the socializing or spending time with your friends, or you might find it fun to pick different events. Like, Oh, I'm going to do this obstacle course race with my friend. And then we're going to try doing this like mini triathlon. And then we're going to try doing this hike in a national park and picking out specific events can keep you motivated by, having dates on the calendar and things to plan for.

Second reminder I would say you can't train all the things all the time. So if you are somebody who's motivated by progress and you want to become faster and stronger and more powerful and have greater endurance, you can't just expand all of those things infinitely forever. So if you work with a professional coach or trainer, they'll probably be able to help you with what's called a periodized program where you emphasize certain aspects of your physical ability at certain times of the year and other times you transition to other [00:37:00] areas. So I find I do tons of strength training in the summer, and then I'm totally sick of it. Come fall, I dabble in it through the winter to try and maintain something. And then I come back to it with a gusto in the summer. And, you know, that sort of fluctuation is perfectly okay. It leaves me more time in the winter for, doing more skiing. So it works out. What other reminders would you give people?

Shannon: one of my reminders I would love to say is just having gratitude that we can move our body. And sometimes this is maybe, this is my yoga side baby coming out.

Let's look at some gratitude here, but I think that just having that moment to realize what a privilege it is to live in these beautiful bodies that we have, and think about all that we get to experience, but like the feeling of going for a walk with your friend or taking your dog for a walk or skiing across some fresh snow or a glacier, Georgie, you know, those are just really beautiful, amazing moments that we get to experience with life [00:38:00] and having gratitude that we get to experience those that we get to find joy through moving our body is just the height of privilege to be able to do that.

Georgie: It is.

Shannon: And then also getting into the specifics of movement, something that I've seen with clients and heard and talked about, and have also been in this mindset myself before of, you know, you get that, that new workout video series and it's like, okay, you're going to get a six pack in six weeks or whatever it is, you know, and sometimes putting such a high expectation such a short amount of time and then maybe not fully reaching that can be difficult. So don't lose heart if you're in it for a very, very specific goal and it hasn't happened yet. I know one of the things we work with our clients on is growth mindset.

And it's around the like yet part. right there sometimes. Sometimes goals, when it comes to fitness [00:39:00] goals, they take time. They take so much time. Our bodies are their own sovereign being and they move at their own pace sometimes. And we have to honor that. And so enjoy, I know it sounds really like trite to say, but enjoying the journey to make it something sustainable that you enjoy longterm is such a wonderful gift that you can give yourself.

Because if you enjoy it, you're going to keep showing up and showing up and showing up. Even if you didn't get that sixth ab on the sixth week.

Georgie: You only got five.

Shannon: But we only got five. it's just really beautiful to enjoy the journey as you go, because you'll keep showing up for yourself. And honestly, what a beautiful thing we can do is keep showing up for ourselves.

Georgie: Yeah. It's like, if you're not continuing your exercise program, like what did you start doing with that time? Probably wasn't something that's as fulfilling or good for you. So I think finding the positives in exercise that [00:40:00] keep us doing it, they also, prevent us from doing other things that might feel like they add to our stress or add to the difficulty in our lives.

So yeah, grateful for all the things exercise can do for us, as well as our bodies and the ways that they can move. Even if we have some limitations, you know, luckily there's so many different things that we can do to work around them.

Shannon: There are, I'm quick example here. My dad has multiple sclerosis.

He is never going to get out and run a mile for exercise. He just physically can't do it. But you know what? He does his best to walk and he does things to move around the house as much as he can. When he gets tired, he stops and he takes a break. He grabs his cane and he, he keeps going. And so, do what your body can do.

Georgie: Yeah, exactly. All right. So in summary, for everybody listening, you're not too old, you're not too uncoordinated, you're not too big or too small to enjoy movement. You don't have to do a ton of it so that you start to hate it and you don't have to be great at any particular skill. Just take the [00:41:00] pressure and expectations away and go have a fun time moving around. We will see you in the next episode.