124. Habits in the Wild Series - Movement

If your movement plan only works when life is calm… that’s not a plan. That’s a fantasy.

In this episode of Habits in the Wild, Dr. Stacy breaks down why traditional exercise rules fall apart in real life — and how to build a movement habit that actually survives stress, fatigue, hormones, and chaos.

This isn’t about perfect workouts or peak motivation. It’s about protecting your identity as someone who moves, even when intensity isn’t possible.

You’ll learn:

• Why most exercise plans fail outside of “perfect conditions”
• The difference between captivity movement and movement in the wild
• How to release guilt around inconsistency
• Why any intentional movement counts
• What “Opportunities to Move” (OTMs) are — and how to use them
• Real-life, low-effort movement ideas that support sleep, digestion, mood, libido, and long-term fat loss
• How consistency (not intensity) is the real secret to sustainable health

If you’ve ever thought, “I was doing so well… and then life happened,” this episode is for you.

✨ Key takeaway:
If you can’t do your workout, do your minimum movement deposit.

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This episode was produced by The Podcast Teacher: www.ThePodcastTeacher.com.

Transcript

Hey everybody, welcome back to the podcast. This month I am doing a three-part series called Habits in the Wild. So the reason I wanted to do this series is because most of us really do not fail our habits because we don’t care. We fail because our habits are designed for perfect conditions, and that is not where we live.

We live in real life, where we are stressed and things are a little bit hectic sometimes, and kids don’t feel good, or we don’t feel good, or we are just super stressed, or our mental bandwidth is at a breaking point, okay? Maybe we’re tired. Maybe our hormones are acting weird. Like maybe our periods are all over the place because we’re perimenopausal. Like, who knows?

But it’s probably more often than not that we are in that spot in our real life, which I’m calling the wild, and not in our captivity, where things are perfect, right? Where we have this perfect plan and we get to meal prep every day, and we get to go to the gym for an hour every day, and we just have Pinterest-worthy, perfectly balanced nutritional meals where we sit as a family and sing Kumbaya. Whatever it is, like that’s just not real, okay?

So if your movement plan only works when your schedule is calm, that is not a plan. That is fantasy. That is captivity, and that is just not where we are. So if you have ever thought, “I was doing so well and then life happened,” then this episode is for you — and maybe last week’s and maybe next week’s too.

But I want to talk about movement specifically. So movement in the wild. This is not gym-perfect. We are not in our beautiful, color-coded, matching workout outfit. We are not in our peak motivation. This is where movement actually just survives exhaustion, chaos, and life, and low energy, okay?

More importantly, I want this movement not to — I want to teach you how to do this so you don’t feel like you’ve failed when you can’t do it right, okay? So I want to be really clear about this before we get into the heart of the episode.

But I really want you to think about what your rules are around exercise. Not only your consistency of exercise, but the timing of exercise. Like, do I need to be working out in clothes? Do I need to sweat? All of those things.

I want this episode to help you release the guilt about not doing it right. So whatever “right” means to you. When you start thinking about these rules — these unwritten rules in your brain about exercise — like I have to have tennis shoes on, and I have to do 30 minutes, and I have to sweat, and my heart rate has to be XYZ or whatever.

I want you in this episode to understand that those are made-up rules, and we don’t have to follow them if we don’t want to. And those rules do not need to be for every workout.

So I want you to be able to release the guilt about not doing it right. And when we do that, we can protect our identity as someone who moves, right? Because we talked about identity and that really being the cornerstone to how we’re doing our habits for 2026.

So if our identity is becoming a person who moves routinely or exercises routinely, then I want you to understand how to do that in the wild so we can protect that identity. I don’t want one messy life day where we don’t do it right to chip away at that new identity that we’re building.

So that is really the purpose of this episode. I want to reframe movement in a way where we release the rules so we can release the guilt, so we can protect that precious new identity that we are building.

I want you to remember that these movement rules are really built for captivity, and we live in the wild. So we need to make some different rules, or allowable exchanges — you know I love my exercise exchange — allowable exchanges that let all of those thoughts we have about exercise work in real life.

Captivity movement looks like: I can only exercise when I have an hour. I need a full hour. My heart rate has to be whatever, and I have to be sweaty. I need time and energy and either a gym or good outside conditions. I have to have my workout shoes. I need my gym bag. I need to not be running late because I need X amount of time before I pick up the kids.

Those are all captivity movement.

Wild movement is like: I do my OTM — my opportunities to move. It’s okay if I forgot my gym bag. I can still walk outside no matter what I’m wearing. I can walk up and down the stairs one extra time before I leave. I can adapt.

I can keep my consistency — my continuity — even when my intensity is different.

Remember, March in the membership is all about consistency over intensity. Movement is a perfect example of that.

So in the wild, our movement anchor is an opportunity to move. It does not need to be our super intense, scripted, patterned rule for exercise.

Movement is not something that has to be done a certain way. It’s something we protect with flexibility.

I want you to take a minute and start thinking about what these pre-written rules around exercise are for you. Because if we can identify them, it’s easier to adapt them or ask ourselves if we even want to keep that rule. Does that still matter?

The rules I had about exercise when I was 20 are probably not applicable to me at 50.

I also want you to be mindful of whether we have rules around bartering exercise for food. I know I used to do that, and that was very unhealthy. Like I could only eat a certain thing if I went and ran a certain amount of miles. We don’t like that.

This is where OTMs — opportunities to move — come in. I wish I could remember the name of the book where I heard this idea, and if I do, I’ll put it in the show notes.

If you’re a child of the Northeast in my age group, you remember an ATM — an automatic teller machine. I like to think of OTMs like a reverse ATM. I’m putting movement in, and what I get out is a new identity as someone who consistently moves.

OTMs are any movement you would not do if you were sitting on the couch, sitting in your office chair, or laying down. If you’re not sitting or laying, you have an opportunity to move.

It can be anything. It all counts.

And I want you to listen to your brain here, because I hear this all the time: “Well, it counts a little,” or “It counts, but…”

No. It just counts. There is no “but.”

You don’t have to do anything else. These are for the crazy days. We just want an opportunity to move.

We are not lowering the bar. This counts. It protects our habit identity.

The fastest way to lose a habit is not skipping a workout. It’s deciding, “I didn’t do it perfectly, so it doesn’t count.”

Your habit does not get broken by skipping a workout. It gets broken by that mindset.

All movement counts. It adds up. Multiple studies show it’s okay to add it up. It does not have to be done all at one time.

OTMs keep our identity alive.

Think of that identity like a baby bird. We’re just feeding it a little bit so it can grow strong. It doesn’t need perfect workouts. It just needs consistency.

Even low-level movement supports better sleep, digestion, mood regulation, libido, blood sugar stability, joint health, and long-term fat loss.

Nutrition drives weight loss. Movement changes your shape. And when your body feels better, your confidence and libido often improve too.

If you’re navigating GLP-1s, perimenopause, or chronic stress, your body responds better to frequency than force.

Consistency, not intensity.

Some OTMs in the wild:

• Park farther away
• Walk while you’re on the phone
• Do squats or hip circles while coffee brews
• Stretch your calves at the counter
• Take a lap around the house
• Bring groceries in one bag at a time
• Take the stairs once
• Stand up and sit down during a show

None of these require motivation. None require changing clothes. And all of them count.

If life is wild and you can’t do your workout, do your minimum movement deposit. That’s how you protect continuity, identity, and the habit.

If you liked this episode, you’ll probably love what we’re doing inside Lifestyle Support Monthly. It’s not medical care — it’s real-life lifestyle support.

You get 30 days free, and March is all about consistency over intensity. The link is in the show notes.

I’ll see you next week for the final episode in Habits in the Wild, where we talk about mindset.

Until then — bye. 💛