Body acceptance is the first step to taking better care of your body—while looking out for your mental and emotional health. Alison Tedford takes to the bells.
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Michele Burmaster is the owner of Surf City Fit Club, so she is no stranger to people coming to her, asking for advice on how to get fit, lose weight, or get strong. I talked to her about the best way to start a fitness journey to achieve physical results without sacrificing mental and emotional health. She shared with me some of the foundations of Fit 2.0, a movement she has started with other fitness professionals to change the way people think about fitness.
Is accepting one’s body a barrier to reaching fitness goals? What do you say to people who say it encourages complacency?
If you hate yourself the way you look now, odds are when you change the way you look, you’re not going to have fixed the root of the problem. When you change your body, it’s likely not going to make you a happier person.
If you dislike your body, the best thing you can do to initiate a healthier overall change for yourself would be to accept it and learn to love it. It’s going to be a catalyst to learn what you need to treat it well so that you can live in it longer.
You are naturally going to start to do things that are good for it. Fitness isn’t just physical. It’s mental and emotional as well. If you are going to start in a place of self-hate and drive yourself crazy to reach a goal, which I believe is unattainable if you’re in that mindset to begin with, it’s not going to do you any good. I’ve seen a lot of cases where it causes an identity crisis when you get to where you believe would make you happy and all of a sudden, you’re not.
What is your advice to someone getting started to make a change?
Choose something you enjoy because if you don’t enjoy it, you aren’t going to do it long term and you will be doing it from a place of perceived obligation. The enjoyment of community can sometimes trump the lack of enjoyment of a task. I hate spinning, I think it’s totally sadistic, but if a bunch of my friend said “Come on, let’s go spinning!” that’s the fun for me. The fun is in doing a social group activity.
When deciding on your frequency of activity, pick a routine upfront you feel 90% confident you will be able to pull off 100% of the time long term. You’re going to sit down at a sales table and they are going to tell you that you won’t get your desired results unless you train five times a week. You sign the contract because it’s someone you trust who has perceived credibility. You finish up week three at five times a week. Week four comes and your body and brain need rest more than anything in the world. You need to recharge and self-care and you burn out.
Body Positive Fitness Alliance believes that if I help you set a realistic goal right now for the amount of time that you would train during the week 90% of the time without fail, it’s going to look more like two times a week for an absolute beginner to set that habit. When you feel it’ s time to ramp up those workouts, you will. You’re not going to get complacent at two times a week. You are going to begin to enjoy the benefits of what you do. You’re going to want more. Your body was designed to work a lot. Your body will kick into gear and realize “Hey, this is good, I enjoy this, it feels good. I get better sleep now. I can move better now. Let’s do a bit more than this. I like being there.”
Two to three months in, you might ramp up to three times a week. The advantage of this approach is that I then have that client a year or two years from today, instead of them quitting the second their contract is up after I don’t see them after the first three weeks. We are working together to create a plan for them to instill a habit of appreciation for lifetime fitness.
Train safe, train smart. Just because now you are moving more doesn’t mean you should be hurting yourself. Listen to your body. A lot of Fit 2.0 and the new wave of fitness is about bringing health back to fitness and learning to trust ourselves.
Our bodies are amazing, self-preserving mechanisms. They tell you what they want if you can listen to them. We are trained from the day we are born to not listen to them and to listen to what advertisers are trying to sell us and listen to whatever whack theories people put out there so they can sell books. If we can get back to listening to our bodies to move when they need to move, to get strong when they need to get strong, to eat when they are hungry and stop eating when they are full, 99% of the world’s fitness issues would be resolved. I would be out of business.
Final fitness philosophy?
Do what you like. Set sustainable habits. The best part about doing what you like is that when you don’t like it anymore, you can do something else. We’ve been conditioned by the industry to think that we are a failure and we are not succeeding at fitness if we don’t commit to the same thing for a long term at a certain frequency. That’s just what they want you to believe so you will sign their crazy contracts.
Live an active lifestyle. Doing different things doesn’t make me a failure, it makes me awesome, because I love moving so much that I do it in so many different fun ways.
Dear All People What we’ve always wanted to say to all people.
Posted by Fit2point0 on Friday, 4 September 2015
Starting a fitness journey can be rewarding, when you choose a path that supports your physical, emotional and mental health. Michele’s advice can help you take those first steps in the right direction towards moving your body and having fun. You can follow Michele on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
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Photo courtesy of Surf City Fit Club
Great article!