Small Changes

What change, big or small, would you like your blog to make in the world?

I came across this question the other day, and to be honest when I first set up a blog I just planned to write about myself and my own fitness, almost like a diary.

Over five years later it has developed into something that I hope is a bit more useful. I still write the odd post about me and what I’m doing (it’s cathartic right!) but I try to make the majority of posts about nutrition, training or mindset with either advice on how to overcome common problems or discussion about why certain fads or methods do or don’t work. I try to keep posts to around 300 words a time so they are quick and easy to read for people.

My blog has a modest reach (around 1,370 followers) and I share the posts on Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn. For the first few months it had a handful of followers and they were all friends who I’d asked to follow me, it’s gradually grown overtime, hopefully because some of those posts have been useful and made people think I could be worth a follow for future useful content.

That’s what I hope my blog provides. It makes me no money, but if every now and then one post teaches someone something useful to their fitness journey then it’s made an impact. As fitness professionals our aim is to help the people we train make positive changes to their health and lives. By also writing this blog I can hopefully spread that net of small changes a little wider (beyond people I know, have met or trained) and as the blog (hopefully) continues to grow it can hopefully also help create more positive changes to more people’s fitness journeys.

Change

Often as a PT we will talk to clients they will say they really want to make changes, eat better, train more, sleep better, lose weight, gain weight and so on.

We identify the things holding them back from these changes happening.

We suggest ways of overcoming these hurdles.

Let’s say eating out a lot is holding back someone from losing weight. We might suggest changing what they order to a lower calorie option, ordering one less course or skipping one meal out a week to socialise in a different way instead (like going for a walk or t the cinema).

Those aren’t dramatic suggestions, they’re adjusting the norm a bit for something you want.

Do you know how often we hear, but when I go out for dinner I want to order what I enjoy, if I’m spending money on it I want to get what I really want and other variations of the same theme.

And that’s fine. Nobody is saying you can’t. But in this situation you have to decide what you want more. The change you have said you want or the ideal dining experience. If you really want the change, you have to make adjustments. I’s about which thing you want more- there’s no right of wrong here, but you do need to be honest with yourself.

If you find that every time someone suggests an idea that might help you move closer to your goal, you find an objection. I you aren’t really willing to make any small sacrifices, if you already think your way of doing things is right anyway, it might be worth considering how much you really want that goal you’ve set. Because to create any type of change you have to actually make changes.

2023 Goals

If you’re looking to make changes or set yourself some challenges for 2023, it isn’t enough to just want things to change, you need to work out what actions you need to take to make those changes happen.

Here’s a podcast all about goals, what, why and how…

https://anchor.fm/heather-sherwood/episodes/Goal-Setting-Your-Why-and-How-e1pver7

Lean into Discomfort

If you’ve made some changes in the new year now is when it’s about to get tough.

Typically the first couple of days into something new aren’t too bad, any discomfort is balanced out by some optimism for the new. After that shine starts to wear off but it’s not yet a habit and no results can yet be seen, that is when it starts to get hard.

Because new breeds motivation but doesn’t last.

Results breed motivation but you need to do the habit for a while to see them.

Habits don’t require motivation but you’ve got to purposefully do the thing consistently first to create the habit.

So here is where it might feel difficult. Here is where you have to lean into a bit of discomfort and do things when you don’t want to, or say no to things when you want to say yes, or work when you would rather rest.

The thing is if nothing changes then nothing changes. So if every time you try and make a change you give up as soon as it gets hard noting will change. So if you do really want to make a change in 2022 and it starts to feel tough in the next few days / weeks, know it will get easier if you keep going but you have to lean into discomfort for a little while.

Beating yourself up

“I was good all week but then had a takeaway on Friday”

“I planned to exercise every day but only managed three times”

How often are you guilty of muttering a phrase like this? I do it all the time. We set ourselves up to have a great week and be really positive and good then berate ourselves for falling short.

What we forget though is that, in very broad terms, to stop gaining weight we need to consume less than we have been, to gte fitter we need to do more than we have been.

So if you’ve eaten less than normal on five days out of the week, then you’ve improved on the previous week, even if a couple of days didn’t go to plan. If you’ve trained three times more than normal your workign to imporving your fitness.

Fitness and weight loss are not magic switches where a perfect week will suddenly make you drop three dress sizes and become an Olympic athlete. Even a perfect week will not, in issolation, create dramatic results. A consistent good but not perfect routine will over time create far superior results and make you feel far better, than one of two spot on perfect weeks then going back to normal will.

Aims are great and setting the bar high is commendable, but beating yourself up when you’ve not been perfect but have actually made progress is bonkers.

What Day Is It?

The bit between Christmas and New Year. The bit where days merge into one, nobody really knows what day it is, what time the shops shut and the fridge is still full of Christmas food meaning the food coma kind of just rumbles on.

This is the week you might well feel a bit rubbish, fat, unfit and generally feel the urge to commit to a month long detox in January where you consume only lemon and water.

Of course in actual reality your body does a pretty good job of ‘detoxing’ itself and actually just eating and training in moderation will make you feel better pretty quickly and be far more enjoyable.

People tend to like extremes. A diet doesn’t work unless we go from whatever size we are to emaciated stick in three days, a training programme doesn’t work if you can’t go from couch to marathon in three sessions. If it doesn’t have a label on it that says natural, vegan friendly and detox on it it isn’t goo to be effective.

These things don’t last though. When was the last time you made a drastic New Years resolution and actually stuck to it?

You know what does last? Finding a nice little routine that works for you.

I love food. I eat a lot. No point in being restrictive – I just ricochet the other way. I also enjoy moving. Running, lifting, classes – movement makes me feel good. So I move.

I’m writing this on an exercise bike in the gym – some people here are clearly working off their Christmas. Me – I felt stiff after a few days of largely sitting and wanted to move. I didn’t need to guilt myself to coming here – I wanted to, I woke up looking forward to it.

This January find yourself something for your body and mind that will make you feel good. Doesn’t matter if there is something my else that would be more ‘effective’ for fat loss or fitness. You’ll stick to the thing you look forward to doing, the thing that you feel great after doing. You won’t stick to the thing you ‘should’ do.

Then next year when Christmas is over (and we are in tier 784) you’ll be heading off to do that thing that makes you feel good for moving and not thinking about what you can do in January to feel less like baby elephant.

Going Back To The Gym

Tomorrow I teach my first class since 18th March.

The last time I taught I kind of knew I probably wouldn’t teach again for a while, or that if I did then those classes would probably be the last for a few weeks. At the time though that was what I thought, I’ll not be able to teach for a few weeks then we’ll all be back. I thought I’d see students who still had a few more months in Manchester back in classes, people would be back in their offices within weeks and coming to morning classes and that realistically I’d still remember all the choreography as you do when you’ve just been on holiday for a couple of weeks.

Almost 6 months later obviously that wasn’t the case.

Lots changed and lots has stayed the same in those 6 months. My job is both the same and different and in the same way coming back to the gym is familiar yet equally alien, not least because some of the classes I’m now teaching are different to before as gyms adapt to the financial restraints of being closed for so long.

I feel a mixture of nerves and excitement about the coming week. How will I manage all my class? Do I actually remember how to teach? How is it going to feel teaching and working again- I’ve done it before but not for 6 months?

I’ve written previously about how we quickly get used to things we never thought we could so I know that even if the first week or so feels a bit tough I will get back into the swing of things. This is an important thing to remember, no matter how far you might feel of your pre- lockdown fitness right now you will be quickly able to get back to a place you feel comfortable in by easing yourself back in kindly to your exercise regime.

If you need an idea of how to sensibly ease back into your training you can download this two week ‘back to the gym’ plan for ideas.

Back to Gym Training Plan

Has Lockdown Changed Your Periods?

Are your periods normally regular, but then over the last few months during lockdown you have found them become less regular? A few of my friends have mentioned this, perplexed as to why their cycle has suddenly changed.

Changes in your body’s level of the hormones (estrogen and progesterone) can disrupt the normal pattern of your period (hence why young girls going through puberty and women approaching the menopause often have irregular periods). There are also lots of other things that can affect your cycle however, and some of these relate to our environment / lifestyle, so for me, it’s not that shocking that the change to our lives and emotions that lockdown bought about might have affected how regular our periods are.

Some common causes of irregular periods include:

Having an IUD fitted
Changing birth control method or using certain medications
Too much exercise
PCOS
Pregnancy
Breastfeeding
Stress
Dramatic weight gain or weight loss
Overactive thyroid
Underactive thyroid
Thickening of the uterine lining

Some of these reasons are medical and obviously require seeing a doctor to get the correct treatment. Equally if you find your birth control has started to negatively affect your cycle it’s always worth speaking to the nurse or doctor about this as there might be a better alternative for you. But some of these changes, specifically over exercising, dramatic weight changes and stress are lifestyle related.

For instance some women find they have changes in their periods because they exercise too much. They may need to make workouts less intense, or exercise less often to combat this.

If stress is the problem, learning how to manage stress levels or remove the stressful situations from your life can help.

Extreme changes in your weight can affect your periods with weight gain making it harder for your body to ovulate whilst extreme, sudden weight loss can also lead to infrequent or irregular periods. It’s important to stress here that losing weight sensibly or gaining a few pounds is not likely to have a dramatic effect to your periods (hence using the word extreme!).

Beyond these well accepted reasons that our cycles can change there are other factors that have been recognised as affecting our cycle, syncing with other women we spend a lot of time with, changes to our alcohol intake / patterns, changes to our diet, inconsistent work schedules (working late / changes in pattern) and changes to our sleep pattern (getting less sleep, going to bed later for example).

When you think about how our lives have changed in lockdown it isn’t overly surprising that some of us have found our cycles a little disrupted – our normal routines have gone out the window. And with that you may have found your periods have change slightly as a result.

Because when you think about lockdown so many of the factors mentioned above will possibly have come into play for you.

Yes, gyms have been shut, but with many people either working from home or being on furlough / unable to go to work lots of people have had more time to exercise an so changes and potential dramatic increases to training will have been seen by many. Conversely some people (me included) will have found their activity levels dramatically drop (even with training every day) and that change itself could also affect your period regularity.

I don’t know many people who haven’t reported feeling stress and anxiety about the pandemic at some point, whether your worries centered around Covid itself or the economy or both I think we’ve all felt a greater degree of stress.

Many people will have seen a dietary change- some for the better, some maybe not. We are eating at home more but being indoors all day means we are more tempted by the fridge more often, therefore changes in diet and potential weight gain will not have been uncommon for many people in recent months.

Many people will also have increased their alcohol intake in lockdown, a mixture of it being cheaper to drink at home, having more time to drink etc. means that alcohol intake patterns will have changed (and increased) for some.

For the majority of people their working environment has changed, working from home, changes to hours and due to the challenges many businesses have faced many people are finding they are needing to work longer hours. Suddenly not bein able to work is equally a sudden dramatic change to routine.

If you live with other females, you have possibly spent more time with them over lockdown so may have found your cycle sync with them.

And finally sleep. We should theoretically have been able to sleep more – take away commuting, or work or social plans out of the house and early nights / lie ins should have been possible. In reality, I found, and most people I’ve spoken to have said similar, sleep has been disrupted. I’ve struggled to get to sleep until the early hours most nights and woken up frequently, which I put down to a mixture of worry and stress and also not being as active during the day meaning I find it harder to get ready to sleep. This has meant I’ve probably had a lower quality of sleep in lockdown!

So when you think about it, given the amount of changes to our lifestyle that could potentially affect how regular our periods are that we have found ourselves facing in recent months, it’s not shocking at all that many women have found their once regular cycle has maybe become less regular.

Is this something to worry about? Probably not, I track my cycle on the Fitbit app an have found that although I’ve had some changes, those changes appear to have settled me into a ‘new regular’ cycle. I anticipate that as things continue to change as lockdown lifts I might see some more changes as my routine changes (and stress levels will probably continue to remain quite high) but again I will keep an eye on those via tracking and I expect they will settle.

But I’d always encourage you to speak to a doctor if you are concerned. If the changes to your cycle are affecting your life, you continue to remain very irregular or anything seems out of the ordinary it’s always best to get yourself checked out.

If you have any of these symptoms it is generally advised you consult a doctor:

You miss three or more periods a year.
You get your period more often than every 21 days.
You get your period less often than every 35 days.
You are bleeding more heavily than usual during your period.
You bleed for more than 7 days (I know this is not unusual for many women but if you have a sudden change in period length it is worth getting it checked out)
You have more pain than usual during a period

All in all being aware of your cycle and changes to it is always a positive thing, as knowing your own body is the best way of being able to spot early on if something is wrong and understanding changes you might face can be helpful in that understanding of yourself.

Coming out of Lockdown? Do you have a Plan?

How weird is the world right now?

I spoke in a private Facebook coaching group yesterday about how I have genuinely found coming out of lockdown harder than going into it.

That surprised me because I was genuinely worried about my mental health prior to lockdown. But in hindsight although the build up, uncertainty and speculation was anxiety inducing at the time it also meant I mentally prepared myself for the absolute worst, and because of that it was nowhere near as hard as I’d expected. The rules weren’t as strict, I wasn’t arrested for buying non essentials with my shopping and I found a routine of sorts. There were bad days of course but I coped.

What I didn’t think about was how to manage leaving lockdown. I kind of assumed it would be easy- going back to normal. That would be a positive not difficult. Except it hasn’t been. It’s been more stressful and emotional and overwhelming and anxiety inducing than I ever expected.

There’s two things I’ve since realised.

Firstly, we get used to things much quicker than we think we will. So although I anticipated lockdown / work from home routine would be tough to adjust to, I had adjusted. So going back into the office, things being more open has been another period of readjustment, and it’s continually changing. Going into lockdown was very quick and a big change in one go, now things are evolving so every time I feel like I’ve got on an even footing things change a bit again. Of course gyms are not open yet so I know that things will change again as they open and classes are integrated back into my week too. The thing that threw me most about this is that I hadn’t really thought about how the change would impact me. I thought as it was going back to normal it wouldn’t affect me at all and that lack of preparation on my part I think probably contributed to the feeling of overwhelm. I’ve loved seeing real people again and getting back to a sense of reality but just because something is good in one sense doesn’t mean it isn’t also hard.

That brings me onto the second thing I’ve realised.

In March I expected a few weeks of lockdown then back to normal. But we are not going back to normal. Things are different, so you are going back to work and most things will be the same but some things won’t be. That’s going to be the same for going back to the gym, going on a night out, to the pub, to the shops. It isn’t bad or scary but it’s different and at first that is unsettling, because change is hard and takes adjustment.

So if I could give one piece of advice to people who are still essentially in lockdown and about to start easing that and going back out to work etc. be prepared. The thought you put into how lockdown would affect you, put that same amount of thought into how you feel about this change. being mentally prepared can help. Give yourself time to adjust. If you don’t train for the first week or so after you go back to work that’s ok, it’s likely to feel mentally and physically draining adjusting to the change so give yourself a break. Finally know that it’s normal to feel unsettled by this, it’s the unknown and that sort of change makes most of us feel anxious, so you aren’t bad at coping if you are struggling a bit, you are normal so allow yourself time.

Be A Lady

International Women’s Day. A day that conjures up lots of ‘Strong Women’ quotes and equally lots of why should we be designated just one day or surely there’s equality now why is it even needed.

If anything sums up why even in 2020 women’s rights still need to be campaigned for this video does.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/life-style/women/cynthia-nixon-be-a-lady-video-they-say-girls-magazine-feminism-a9359611.html%3famp

Whilst women in the majority of the western world have equality on paper, there’s still an awful lot of double standards we are exposed to.

So today is a day to celebrate female achievements but it’s also a day to campaign for continued change.

This years campaign theme is #EachforEqual

The website states

“An equal world is an enabled world.

Individually, we’re all responsible for our own thoughts and actions – all day, every day.

We can actively choose to challenge stereotypes, fight bias, broaden perceptions, improve situations and celebrate women’s achievements.

Collectively, each one of us can help create a gender equal world.

Let’s all be #EachforEqual.”

The crux of the campaign is that gender equality isn’t just a nice idea it’s an important issue in business and society as a whole and that our own individual actions can all add up together to create collective change.

So today, and in the spirit of this not just being one day. What can you do to promote gender equality (whether you are male or female), whether that idea be small or grand, work related or personal. To take today beyond the realm of ‘just another one of those special days’ requires taking some action.

Me?

One thing I want to continue to promote is the notion that not all women want to be skinny, some women want to be strong and enjoy lifting weights in the gym and the amazing feelings that come from finding your strength. The idea of strong and healthy and fit being more desirable as a goal than just being thin before all else has definitely grown in recent years and this is an area I think as a PT I can help develop and make a positive change in other females perception of themselves.