Slow and Behold

I have been wanting to write this blog post for sooooo long but work, life, pandemic etc. Anyway, today I want to talk to you about exercise. If you’ve been reading this blog you’ll know that I really struggle with exercise and a big factor in that is the association I have with exercise being a punishment for eating the “wrong” foods and being a chore that we have to do to obtain the “right” aesthetic. I have been really tackling this head on for almost a year now and though I am not fully there yet, I feel that I am definitely in a much better place. 

Last July, I left a job that was quite physical and I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t get sad about how my body would change as a result and I wouldn’t start exercising again as a way to “keep me in shape”. This did not happen. Well, not straight away anyway. The joy of that job was that it never felt like exercise and by that, I mean it never felt like a chore.

That was breakthrough number one - you can move your body to the point of sweating buckets and it doesn’t have to feel like a chore. 

All those years of hearing “Find the type of exercise you love” finally hit home. It wasn’t just something that people said to cover up for the fact that they actually thought you were a lazy lump who needed to get off your arse. No, finding movement that doesn’t feel like a chore is key. 

In the past, I have used home workout DVDs from Davina McCall to workout. In them, she never mentions calories but just how much fun she is having and how much she loves moving. However, doing those DVDS three times a week, every week, meant that I was bored of those routines and so they lay in a drawer gathering dust.  

Fast forward through many months of me not exercising due to a heavy work schedule, not knowing where to even begin, a knee injury and the sense of dread that putting on tight exercise clothing gives me, to the last few weeks in lockdown. 

Obviously, in the first few weeks, everyone went crazy for the workouts at home. Honestly, I found the pressure to exercise and come out of lockdown with the perfect body quite overwhelming at first. At the same time, every person that mentioned how “fat” they were getting in lockdown made me go full Hulk. I think I’ll probably write another post about it but the people who were saying that are not fat. A few extra hob nobs will not make you obese. If you do become obese in lockdown - so what? Why is being fat the worse thing that can happen to you in lockdown? Why is being fat the worse that can happen to you as a person? What does that say to actually fat people if the thought of becoming like them is your worst nightmare? These are the questions that I now ask myself every time I look in a mirror and think “Oh I am getting fat” SO WHAT! At least you are not turning into an asshole (obviously, if you are literally turning into an actual asshole, that is terrifying and you should immediately go to a hospital or find a genie). 

Anyway, back to exercise. In the first few weeks of lockdown I went so heavy on the calorie burning workout tutorials on YouTube and so intensely tried to over extend doing Yoga with Adriene that I burnt out any motivation that I had to workout almost immediately. So I took a breath and I had a little check in with myself, reminding myself that this was a long-term plan. If I was going to exercise for the rest of my life, I have to find what I enjoy and for the first time, I was in a lucky position, that I had all the time in the world to do that.

That was breakthrough number 2 - I could take the time to research what I wanted. I didn’t have to start straight away with hard-core routines. I could take time to learn and start slow. 

I took out, my now exercise bible, Tally Rye’s Train Happy: An intuitive exercise plan for every body. I saw a talk of hers at this years Anti Diet Riot Fest and she was ace. She is a fitness instructor who wants people to move because they enjoy it and whenever they feel like it. Obviously, if people come to a fitness instructor they want to set goals etc. and she helps with that too but I think in a much more sustainable way for those of us who aren’t super driven by exercise. Some people in the world are. I’ve met them. I will never be them. 

Then I looked on YouTube for workout routines that suited me. I love to dance and I really enjoy boxing routines so I started there. Anything that mentioned calories in the title, I ignored. If I found a routine that looked good I would skip through the video to get a sense of the language the instructor was using. If they were saying things like “feel the burn” or “work off that cake Amy” or anything similar, then I would ignore those too. 

Eventually, I found loads of videos that work for me. POPSUGAR Fitness and The Fitness Marshall are absolute favourites of mine though not all the videos on these channels match what I like, so even within these I am selective. 

Breakthrough number 3 - there are options out there for exactly what YOU want. You just have to do a little digging and then the algorithms will do the rest.  

I found I love workouts where they have people of different shapes and sizes as well as different levels so you can follow whichever person matches your ability or energy levels on a given day. I also, really tune into what I feel like doing that day and don’t lie to myself. So, if I’m full of energy I’ll do a full-on dance workout like this one or if there is a day where my energy is a bit lower then I’ll do this workout - which is my favourite because you still feel it but it’s at a more gentle pace (just ignore the weird stress tea advertising!).

If I don’t know what mood I am in then that is the day where I find a video I haven’t tried before. I find just figuring the routine out, syncing to the pace of the instructor and deciding whether I like it or not is really good for me when I am indecisive. Another thing I have found is that I love the videos where the instructor’s “backing dancers’ (I don’t know the real term) tell you how hard they are finding it - makes you feel normal and that you can feel that way and still enjoy it.

With yoga, I have decided to go back to basics. I’m sticking with Adriene because she is a goofball goddess but I am taking time with the poses. I’m enjoying spending some focused time really figuring out how to do them, how they feel for MY body and which ones I like. Restorative yoga is also my jam right now - it is so good for my mind and getting me through my day. I can’t get enough of it. 

So that is where I am at right now, a 30 minute workout three times a week and restorative yoga or foundations of yoga on the in between days. I think figuring all this out slowly means that for me I am finally finding the movement that I will enjoy for the rest of my life because honestly, every time I exercise now, I look forward to it and I FEEL SO GOOD. Better than that, the good feeling has nothing to do with how I look. Gawd, it feels good to say that too.