Today's topic is about exercise in my ongoing series, "What Works For Me?" We will explore the complexities of exercise, start avoiding using exercise to "fix" our bodies, and discover how to find joy in movement.
I will talk about my journey with exercise and how I have learned that the secret to lasting consistency isn't in the calorie count but in discovering what makes us feel good!
I'll then discuss how exercise isn't a one-size-fits-all approach but rather an ever-changing tapestry that adapts to your life's ebbs and flows. By the end, I hope you will discover how to start developing a unique exercise routine specially catered to you.
Today's topic is about exercise in my ongoing series, "What Works For Me?" We will explore the complexities of exercise, start avoiding using exercise to "fix" our bodies, and discover how to find joy in movement.
I will talk about my journey with exercise and how I have learned that the secret to lasting consistency isn't in the calorie count but in discovering what makes us feel good!
I'll then discuss how exercise isn't a one-size-fits-all approach but rather an ever-changing tapestry that adapts to your life's ebbs and flows. By the end, I hope you will discover how to start developing a unique exercise routine specially catered to you.
Hi and welcome to the Air we Breathe. I'm your host, heather Sears-Laman. I'm a national board certified health and wellness coach, certified intuitive eating counselor and certified personal trainer. I help you get organized and consistent with healthy habits, without rules, obsession or exhaustion. The Air we Breathe a finding wellbeing that works for you is a podcast created to help you establish a trusted foundation of doable healthy habits and smart self-care skills that can endure every season and last you a lifetime. My guests and I will share ways that you can focus on your physical and mental health with purpose, flexibility and ease. This podcast may contain talk about eating disorders and disordered eating. We minimize mentions of specific behaviors and numbers, but it's still a topic nonetheless. There also could be some squares and or adult language here. Choose wisely if those are problematic for you.
Speaker 2:
Hi everyone. I wanted to do an episode in this series to talk about exercise and figuring out what works for me. Why is this so hard? Why is this so difficult? I'll give you a couple of reasons. First, I want to talk about the diet culture Most of us have raised that exercise is to change our body, to make our body smaller, period. We can also change the shape of our body. Give ourselves bigger butts, broader shoulders, better abs, whatever it is.
Speaker 2:
Many people have a very complicated relationship with exercise because it has either been forced down their throat as the way to finally fix this problematic body of theirs or it has been a hope of theirs to fix this problematic body and many times that doesn't happen because the root is our body is not a problem and exercise is not here to fix it. So the complicated nature, I think, is so much worse today because I started going to the gym at 15. Ally and I went to Stan's Nautilus in Monty, indiana and that was hang on. 42? No, come on, heather, you can do it. 38? 38. No, 37. Ok, that's my final answer. 37 years ago, so it was a million years ago, might as well have been, and it was so different back then in going to the Nautilus, we did aerobics. There was a jam. Anyway, things have changed. And now fitness and what we see on Instagram, social media and all of these total knuckleheads we're talking about all the time, make it so complicated because they're using it as this very complicated metric solution to fix things. Because you've got to do a cold plunge because that fixes this. You've got to run at this pace for this long because that'll do this Most of the time. It's around again.
Speaker 2:
How do I make my body look better? One thing I try to do, help my clients with, is to find meaningful movement and a lot of people say joyful movement. That's just not my phrase per se, because I will say, as somebody who has exercised since at a gym, I was active in dance and sports and whatnot before that I don't necessarily I wouldn't call it joyful. I don't find myself like smiling at the gym. Some people do Zumba people. They seem pretty happy. Anyway, it's just not necessarily my personality. I find it meaningful because I like to move. I always feel better on a day that I move and I have been doing enough things to figure out what I enjoy doing now. So that now changes all the times. I can't tell you how many different things I've done over the years, and that goes again from Nautilus to aerobics, to back in the day it's called lifting free weights, but also then moving into a lot of running and then hiking and spin and Pilates and yoga. All of these different things.
Speaker 2:
There's so many different ways to move your body. So what I would like you to do is focus on moving your body and we give a little look-see into what am I trying to accomplish here, because we may be trying to. Again, I have multiple health conditions, so am I trying to just stay on top of things and make sure I'm having movement because that's good for my body? Multiple injuries, so movement usually is certainly in the name of helping my back to become stronger, strengthening my hips, maintaining my flexibility, maintaining mobility, but figuring out why you want to do it.
Speaker 2:
I know for me that my mood it's just helpful. I feel grumpier when I don't. So anytime I've been sick or been sick for a while, obviously I just don't feel good, but it affects my mood and I just am itchy. I feel like I wanna move my body and do something. So just spend some time with yourself, as always. Journal about it, because I feel good about walking through some things, killing the onion with yourself, spending some time with your good friend yourself and figuring out why you wanna do this in the first place. So heathersayerslaymancomcom to download your 3D journaling guide Very helpful if you're just trying to figure out how to do it.
Speaker 2:
So what is it I want? Because people want different things. When I'm never saying it's wrong of you to want to change your body, I am saying it's challenging to change your body and having that as a goal can be very discouraging to many people's because that change doesn't happen and then they're like what's the point of doing this? So I really like to focus on energy, mood, mobility, being able to carry heavy things, being able to do things around your house without getting exhausted, being able to keep up with your kids or be involved in other active pursuits and feeling good about your conditioning while you're doing those. So it's a very individual question but looking at perhaps to like what are the costs of me not being active? And, given we all have different abilities and disabilities, are there any costs if I'm not doing some kind of movement? And again, for me that is definitely majorly mood, but also with my back.
Speaker 2:
Movement is key. It always feels better once I get up, because I also do like distinct stretches for it as well. I think that just you're gonna deep dive into what you're trying to get because, also, you wanna have a bit of a North Star when it comes to getting ready to try to do it, and then you don't feel like doing it. What am I doing this for anyway? Okay, it will give me energy later. It will help me sleep better. So I think it's really important to start there and figure out what's the goal here and having that be a realistic goal of what you can accomplish, because, like, I'm not gonna cure any hormonal or blood sugar issues that I have with exercise, but I'm putting some energy into trying to help those process, that's for sure.
Speaker 1:
Have you ever felt like the do-it-yourself approach to improving your healthy habits ends up doing nothing except making you feel overwhelmed, guilty and defeated? Have you been struggling to find sustainable routines that work for your responsibilities, lifestyle, budget and personal preferences? You don't need more rules, influencers or structured programs. Let me help you discover what you want, what works for you and how to maintain healthy habits during the ever-changing circumstances of your life.
Speaker 2:
If you're ready to create systems that stick head to heathersayerslaymancom, backslash health-coaching and click, let's do it so when it comes to exercise, there are obviously a bazillion things you can do and a bazillion different ways you can do them. I don't like the concepts of what is best. Although certainly here's a personal training, I was always trying to focus on having you do what burned the most calories and I'm sorry about that, apologies. As you are picking what you want to get out of it, it helps to inform what you want to do. I think that there is really no point in doing things that you hate. There are certainly things that I hate. There are things I absolutely don't like because I know I'm going to get hurt. Put me in a CrossFit gym and then Olympic lifts just aren't for my body anymore and I'm going to get hurt. We don't have the range of motion, I don't have the strength. It's fine, don't worry about me, but there has always been the school of thought certainly I came up in the no pain, no gain, but that you don't. It's fine to do something that you hate, but from a longevity perspective, like people really aren't going to do things they hate for a very long time. So, when it comes to what, are there things that you do like For me, for whatever reason, I like to lift some heavy stuff not too heavy but I don't enjoy things like Pilates or yoga even as much. There's nothing. Having involved in Pilates just hurts, even though it's stuff that's heavy, that is painful. I don't care for that kind of pain, but I like heavy weight. Pain, I don't know, make it make sense? I can't, but that's just my personal preference and that's my personal preference right now Because, again, I have been a runner, I have been a hiker, I did yoga for a lot of years, so right now I'm just not into it.
Speaker 2:
So, within the what, looking at all of the different kinds of exercise? So again, even if you're just talking about going to the gym, there's so many different things that could be focusing on cardio, and that cardio is on treadmill, that cardio is on elliptical, that is on a rowing machine or that's from a class. What is it? So what is it that I like to do and what do I feel could be meaningful for me? And then, even if you're just talking about weights, we've got a lot of free weights. So there's also Kettlebells, there's medicine balls, there's machines, like there's all kinds of stuff. So what are some things that you like to do? As always like these are things that you like to do right now. We're not doing any face tattoos today. I'm not. I encourage you to not as well.
Speaker 2:
But in thinking about these things, you also want to understand as your life changes, your needs change, your budget changes, your responsibilities change, your time commitments change, these things will change as well. I think that exercise is an evolution. I certainly know people who are doing the exact same thing they were 10 years ago and it's not better or worse. Being prepared that what's working right now. So again, like with my back, I haven't squatted in a while. That's fine. Find other things to do, but people change because of injury. People change again because it seasons Arizona it's 115 this summer like not a lot of running for me.
Speaker 2:
Figuring out the what, really looking at these, all of these different options and really what's in your budget, is so important. There are so many free resources for exercise and I certainly encourage you to use your libraries because they have a lot of different streaming things, different books, so always keep that if you're looking for free things. Obviously, youtube has a lot of different things and when I'm talking about looking at resources, this sounds weird, but I almost don't listen to all of them, because there are some people and they might have good workouts, but then the garbage that comes out of their mouth is awful, and I'll certainly use Beachbody. It's one of my favorite things to talk about how awful many of the points of views from their quote unquote coaches are because, again, they're very oriented around body shape and even though they've started some kind of body positivity, whatever that they gave lip service to, that's not it. So, again, if you're looking for movement, many times you have to disconnect that from many of their messages.
Speaker 2:
Again, the type of activity is one thing that you are looking for. What do I wanna try right now? And then there are so many different ways, like where do I want to do this? And it can depending. When my kids were younger and I was a single parent like, my schedule varied incredibly with theirs, so I was able to have more activity when they were either at school or asleep and I could do stuff at home. But trying to figure out like, do I wanna do something at home?
Speaker 2:
Sometimes gyms are uncomfortable. Sometimes gyms are unwelcoming. They can also be cost prohibitive. That might not be for you, or you might say I just can't do this in my living room, so I wanna do it somewhere else. So I think about really focusing on, like, where you want to be to either start your journey or tweak your journey, and the house has changed so much. Last time I was just going to a gym, so I go to a gym right now. That is like a group training gym and there's a workout and there's a coach whether it pays attention to them or not, and they are taking us through this work out. That's helpful for me, because I do stuff that I wouldn't normally do, I wouldn't make myself do and I don't wanna think about it.
Speaker 2:
I owned a gym. I personal trained for years and I'm just tired of wearing workouts. I don't wanna do it. I like it when somebody is here's the thing Got it. I used to do that through App Forum. I used to use AppTiv. What is that? Aptib or APTIB, not sure, but it was really good because it was an audio. They've changed it and they have so much more video now, but you can really go through that and, my gosh, do I want upper body? Do I want lower body? Do I want full body? Do I want something as a new person, as moderate, do I want it to be intense. Is this for treadmill? Is this for free weights? Is this a medicine ball, like you can really specialize what you're doing within that. So there are so many apps, again, youtube channels, there are a lot of places to find out where you want You're instruction from. If you want instruction, because that might be part of your how, no, I'm just gonna decide what I want to do and program it myself and do it that way.
Speaker 2:
So, again, none of these things are right or wrong. It's really about figuring out what's going to work for you, and many times we figure out what works for us by doing things that don't work for us. That is absolutely part of the process Is doing something and saying I don't think I like that, I don't wanna do that again. Great, then don't. And then try something else. But you really wanna have that try again spirit so that you know that you can keep trying something different and keep moving forward like that.
Speaker 2:
So there's also a who. Do you wanna do this by yourself? Do you wanna do it in a group? Do you wanna do it with a buddy? Do you wanna have a virtual accountability buddy? Again, no right or wrong. It just really depends on what's working for you at this time. I don't find any accountability per se with my group, but it starts at a particular time, so I work out at five and I gotta be there by five am. Actually, I need to be there a few minutes early, so that works for me.
Speaker 2:
When I have had periods of when I've been at the gym and I can get there. When I get there, that's a lot harder. I just I need that time crunch and your personality may or may not, so I think that's something that's important to think about as well. And when I was meeting people, I used to hike with friends all the time and again you gotta show up when everybody else is there. So that was helpful as well.
Speaker 2:
So think about the who that you want involved. And then you've gotta look at a bit of the nitty gritties and that is like when do I want to do that? And the when is a day and the when is also a time, because when I am working with clients, we are always creating smart goals. Some people, like other goal formats, snark yourself out doesn't really matter what you're using, as long as you are using something to keep track of everything. Because, again, I use smart goals just because I like them. I think they're super easy to use and they're very specific.
Speaker 2:
So figuring out when and if you are just jumping and please, for the love of everything, don't say I'm just gonna jump in with six days a week or seven days a week, even worse, easing in is smart and it's kind to your body and it's kind to your mind. And getting to a point where you're like I think I could do more so much easier than being in a place where you're like, oh my gosh, I need to do less. So be kind and start slow for sure. We also need to think about a duration. How long do I want to do this? And there's a lot of weird. Oh, you gotta go for an hour. Oh no, we do this in this way. It's gotta be 20 minutes or whatever. 22 is the perfect number. Like, how long do you want to go for and how long do you have, which is the bigger question? I go to like close to 50 minutes.
Speaker 2:
I got all the time in the world right now because I don't have kids and I go early enough that I'm not missing anything. Work-wise, hooray for me. And that makes it really easy and there were absolutely periods in my life where it was not like that at all. I was scheduled to the Hilt, I had to be specific places, specific times, as most people do, and I didn't have that flexibility. If I had time for a half an hour workout, that's what I did.
Speaker 2:
So I think that, again, starting small is really important, but in hours, like a real rule of thumb and I don't know why it doesn't necessarily have to be you need to look at what you're trying to get out of it and, again, if you're talking about mood or energy and you go for 15 minutes, then you can really ask yourself then is this working, is this helping? And that brings me to our reassessment, the final piece, because I think you need to figure out what's going to work for you and try that for two weeks. I just always two weeks because it feels like it's not too long and it's not too short. But I do those two weeks and then assess, go back to my journal and ask myself like, how did that go? And we can also have questions about motivation showing up. We'll cover that in another show, but right now I'm talking about that at more of the nuts and bolts, but reassessing, like how that worked. And I will say, when you're getting started, like those first two weeks are a bear Like.
Speaker 2:
You are not going to necessarily be like oh my gosh, like that was amazing. You might be, like this was a mistake. You have to really understand that your body is getting used to it, your mind is getting used to it, the rest of your schedule is getting used to it. It shouldn't hurt. You shouldn't be like dying in pain. That's not necessary at all. But you want to take a look at what was working and how do I continue with that. What didn't work and how do I tweak that?
Speaker 2:
Because we are constantly a piece of coaching that I'm always doing is this experiment and tweak. And again, like things will change. Maybe my budget changes, something opened up and I could afford to go to different classes. Maybe my budget changed the other way. I'm just not going to be able to afford to go anywhere right now and I need to change. That. Experiment and tweak is the last part of my coaching formula, because we have to go through these periods of trying.
Speaker 2:
I think this is very hard because people really like to have a solid answer like, right now, here's what I'm doing, here's how I'm doing it, here's what it looks like, and it just doesn't always work like that. Like life is very flexible. Life is ever changing. We need to be flexible, and having a really rigid idea of what you need to be doing can really harm you in the long run, because things just don't always work out like that. So having a flexible mindset is helpful because if we're looking at so, we go all the way back to talking about diet culture. Diet culture certainly tells us there's a right way to do it. There is a certain amount we need to do, a certain thing we need to do. We're not doing those things right, then we are wrong, and then that leaves us with nowhere to go other than to do the things that we quote unquote should do.
Speaker 2:
What I'm talking about changing things for you now is what do you want to do and what is going to work for you? And that involves a lot more thinking and introspecting, which can feel very daunting, and it can feel like I'm going to put energy for that. That's why I just want somebody to tell me what to do. But figuring out what's going to work for you is what's going to give you the longevity and it's going to help you. Give yourself permission to find out what is going to work. Because, again, experiment, which we, is so important in this journey, because we want to be active lifelong, and if you start out walking and then you end up in five years and you're walking, hooray for you.
Speaker 2:
There is this concept around fitness that it needs to ever evolve, it needs to get harder and you need to be better, stronger, like I just don't necessarily adhere to that. If that's a goal that you have, that's fantastic, but it just doesn't always need to be harder, faster, longer. So hopefully these pieces are helpful. Figuring out the what, the where, the who, the when, how long, and then being able to reassess it give you some direction and some questions to start asking yourself when it comes to building a program that's going to work for you. I wish you all of the luck as you dive into this information and start writing and having a great conversation with your good friend, you, about what sounds like a great first step. All right, good luck.
Speaker 1:
Thanks so much for listening today. Do you know what would be really fun? If you popped over to my Instagram at Heather Sears-Laman and dropped me a DM and let me know what topics you want me to cover? Something bugging you, something holding you up? Please just let me know and I will tweak some content and get an episode out just for you. As always, please follow the show or you can leave a five star review on Apple or Spotify. That would be fun too. See you in the next episode.