Eat less, move more.
Focus on what your body can do, not what it looks like.
Listen to your body.
Your values, your body, your rules.
Your fitness journey is an evolution.
Does this sound familiar?
Tina had been going to the gym on and off for a few years. Usually it looked something like:
Warm up for 15 min on the elliptical while she scrolled FB and Insta for a workout. She’d also scope out the gym to see where she could set up and do squats and not worry about her cellulite showing through her tights when she squeezed her butt.
The workout was usually some iteration of glutes, arms and abs. The 15 min turns to 20 because she goes down a fitspo rabbit hole: equal parts curious about fitspo Judy’s BF and gutted that she STILL doesn’t look like that.
It was a grind.
Each workout was to offset the damage she did from overeating on the weekend. She was feeling fed up. Discouraged. Frustrated.
She saw a Groupon for a functional fitness class. Her brother's been raving about it so decide what the hell?
Nervous AF she went to her first class. It was the most disgusting, hardest thing she’d ever done ...
She loved it.
She was hooked.
She started to understand what women meant by ‘focus on what your body can do, not what it looks like’.
She started doing 3 classes a week. That turned into 6. Then she included extra lifting and intervals before and after class. Sometimes she’d go to the 24 hour gym after work and run 5KM.
She started following inspirational women online who spoke about having a strong squat not a 6 pack.
But they had a 6 pack and she was wondering why she STILL doesn’t have a 6 pack.
She started tracking macros. She took off her shirt for the first time in a workout. She thought that’s what confidence would look like.
But she still didn’t feel lean or strong enough.
Somewhere along Tina’s journey there was a tipping point.
There was a new perspective from exercising to control how she ate and what her body looked like, to strength and what she could lift.
But it still wasn’t enough: still not strong, skilled, muscular, lean enough.
She was exhausted.
Fitness is weird but you can find a place where your response to exercise can be not to do with your ego—how much you lift or what your body looks like—but simply because of how it aligns with your values as a human.
That new thing of ‘listening to your body’ is also available to you, just like you didn’t think ‘focussing on what your body could do but what it looks like’.
You don’t have to keep pushing through.
Just like you trusted your intuition to shift your focus to performance, you can trust your intuition things won’t fall apart if you shift again, try something new on again.
You can still be strong, be fit, feel athletic, do just enough in the gym without using it as a tool to counter decisions outside of the gym.
You can find freedom from exercise through exercise.
It doesn't have to be about a shape, a weight lifted, feeling guilt about training when you're tired because that's not 'listening to your body' ... there's is a place where all these things are relevant but it's all based on your values.
Things will present themselves to you, your journey will evolve as it's meant to. Don't forget to look back at where you started.
Read a bit about Miss G's journey.
We worked together 1:1 and once she had developed more understanding and autonomy over her health and training she moved into The Bold Collective.
“I had some vague ideas about what I wanted but a lot of them were just responses to different social pressures or ego based. Olivia provides holistic coaching right from the very start. I learned what was really actually important to me and how to anchor to that. Of course I have had moments of getting knocked off that focus, but she has also helped me learn how to get myself back on track. I'm now stronger, fitter, more aware of my body, all of those things that you would want from fitness coaching. But even better than that, I'm calmer, more centred, more able to listen to all of me and importantly value all of me. It's a cliche to say it but Olivia has literally played a big role in changing my life. How I see the world and my responses to that have changed and that has opened up amazing new opportunities that I hadn't even seen before.
The biggest change is my sense of self love and ability to listen to my body and soul. I think before I believed that if I wanted to like my body, I had to force into doing what I told it to do no matter what. I thought it was about pushing through. Back then exercise was a thing that I had to do to be fit. Now fitness and strength is just who I am. When I am having a hard day I know how to listen to my body and do a workout that suits what I need. Exercise is now the thing that lifts my day and my mood and it's fully integrated into my life. I love and trust my body and as woman over 40 I know that's not a common feeling. But it could be!”
In The Bold Collective, my group training program, you use purpose-driven, smart programming to discover your value system for fitness. Enrollment will be opening up at the end of April. Throw your name on the waitlist here and be the first to hear about when it opens!