Category: gym

Peace

My knee is a lot better (rest helps who knew!) and my cough, whilst still lingering, has improved. So my plan to spend the back end of 2024 creating good habits and finding my groove is going pretty well.

I think in the past, unless I was at the size / shape I wanted and doing lots I felt like I wasn’t in the right place, but actually I can say that, whilst no where near perfect, I’m eating reasonably well and I’m being active. The habits are coming and I’m feeling pretty good and I know that from that the weight loss will eventually follow.

It’s all a process and I need to get things in place bit by bit if I want to feel good whilst I’m losing weight. I don’t want to sacrifice enjoying things for the sake of getting to my goals a bit quicker.

One thing I have decided is that I only want to do things that I enjoy and make me feel good. I’ve given up forcing myself to aim for goals I think I should aim for and am looking to do more pilates and classes which are maybe less manic but more focused on technique and strength. I also accept that as I’m older and my knees are not what they once were, I am going to struggle with some things – that’s ok – I can work with that.

I feel like my mindset has shifted a bit and that in itself has made me feel better about myself even though I am not yet where I’d like to be and I think that’s a pretty good thing.

I’m Back

Well I haven’t written a blog post in ages!

This being fundamentally a fitness blog I’ve kind of lost my way with it as I quit teaching fitness classes and subsequently lost my fitness mojo too.

After years of having the regimented timetable of classes (which essentially means you have to exercise regardless of how you feel) the loss of structure made me feel a bit adrift.  That’s not to say I haven’t trained, I’ve still lited sporadically, started attending some new classes which I really enjoyed and have run a half marathon and 10k. It’s just not quite the intensity I’m used to, and that, combined with illness and hormonal changes I’ve put on weight and generally lost a lot of confidence.It feels like I’ve not quite managed to gte that spark back.

I signed up for a challenge in October with the aim of getting myself out of that funk, but realised it was too soon and that made me even more demotivated. So I’ve had a total rethink.

I’ve split my goals up into several chunks over the next 16 months or so (obviously subject to change) and will be focusing on different things one block at a time, to give myself more structure and make it all seem much less overwhelming.

For the next 10 weeks I’m focusing on the basics. Rebuilding some strength with some basic lifts and overload in the gym, working on my diet to lose some weight and trying some different things to get myself out of a rut.

Last week I tried a Tower Pilates class (the tower looks scary but it was actually good fun and I really felt like I’d worked afterwards) and I’ve signed up to a block of sessions at that pilates studio.  I’ve also signed up for a trial of Class Pass and have booked in  a few different classes over the next couple of weeks.

Hoping that by breaking my goals and training into periodic chunks I’ll start to feel the difference and feel good again.

Some weeks are tougher than others

The last couple of weeks have been busy at work so I knew I’d struggle to do loads during this time.

I’ve managed to run a few times though and as soon as I was quieter at work I got myself back to classes and did a step and cycle class on Wednesday. Generally I’ve felt pretty lacking in motivation though so I’ve also skipped workouts I could have got myself to.

I’ve been eating a lot too, I really find the food side so much harder than exercising! I’ve also struggled to regularly stick to healthy habits which is something I need to be more consistent with.

It’s starting to get a bit lighter though now so I’m hoping that will lift my spirits a bit so I can get outside more. Not looking forward to this week much but hoping that I can at least get to the gym and eat a bit better so I can look back on the week and be happy with my progress.

What Healthy Is

Share a lesson you wish you had learned earlier in life.

Being healthy is not:

Being a certain weight

Being a certain size or shape

Being ripped / having defined visible muscle

Being able to run a distance in a certain time

Being able to lift really heavy weights

Eating really strictly

All these things can be a result of being healthy but in themselves they are not indicative off being healthy.

I know people who live incredibly disciplined lifestyles and look in great shape. They are undoubtedly fit. That doesn’t mean they are healthy.

You can be in great shape but have difficulty managing your training and beat yourself up if you don’t stick to your training schedule and feel like you must do a certain amount each day.

You can be in great shape but beat yourself up for eating certain foods or having some time off from your normal diet, or find yourself being careful on nights out to avoid causing damage to your fitness.

You can have an Instagram worthy routine and lifestyle and find yourself turning down social events because it would interrupt that.

Equally you can be a little bigger than you’d like and eat a more rounded diet and still be fit and healthy, and importantly healthy in more way than just one, because you know that not doing things perfectly doesn’t matter.

That’s not to say I think being overweight is healthy. If you don’t do any exercise and eat too much that is likely to lead to health problems and not be healthy.

We don’t have to live to an extreme though and a balance where we eat well and move (preferably in a way we enjoy) to allow us to feel good and enjoy life is probably the healthiest way to be.

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.

Therapy or Therapeutic?

Ask a lot of people who are into fitness why they train and you’ll get an answer that refers to mental health. There’s been a massive shift in recent years from people training purely for aesthetics to people training for how it makes them feel.

Exercise is a great stress relief, moving more literally releases endorphins, it can improve confidence, possibly get you outdoors and getting fresh air. So yes training can be incredibly beneficial to your mental health.

Viewing training as what your body can do and something that makes you feel better makes exercise a positive action rather than a form of punishment, where you train to eat more or change your appearance and size.

What exercise isn’t though, is therapy. It can be therapeutic of course it can. If I’m a bit stressed or anxious going to the gym or for a run can help alleviate the symptoms. If i don’t train for a few days I can feel the difference to my mood, largely because I actually enjoy the time I’m running or lifting, it makes me feel good, is a break from whatever is going on and a chance to blast some music and focus on me.

But exercise can’t replace therapy or solve actual problems. If training is literally the only thing keeping you sane or making you feel better it’s time to look at the issues exercise is acting as a sticking plaster for. The issue when you get to this point, is if you can’t train for whatever reason, you end up feeling terrible. When you feel like training through an injury because that would be better than how you’d feel if you took some time off, or rest days sound like a terrible idea because even though you’re knackered and burnt out a day off would make you feel guilty.

The benefits of training for mental health can’t be denied but we always need to remember that for it to be a benefit it needs to complement our life rather than dominate it, which means knowing when to rest even if you really want to train, when to pull back, when to take it easy and then appreciate what you are still able to do when you can train.

5 Fitness Facts

  1. If you don’t train at all at the moment exercising once a week is a 100% improvement, start there and build up.
  2. To get stronger you need to progressively overload the muscles and that doesn’t just have to be by adding weight. You can increase reps, number of sets, length of workout, adjust tempos, reduce rest periods (increase intensity) or change training frequency.
  3. What you do outside the gym matters more. Walking, moving about and your general daily activity will burn more calories than the most intense hour in the gym.
  4. To lose weight you need to be in a calorie deficit. If you aren’t no amount of supplements, protein shakes or specific meal timings will help. They are tools to fine tune a diet, having tools but no base material to work with is pointless.
  5. Chocolate, crisps and takeaways aren’t bad for you. Whilst less nutritionally valuable, if you are within your calorie target, eating them won’t affect your progress and mentally will probably help you stay on track.

Being Kinder To Yourslef

This week I’ve only trained three times (about 30 minutes), run three times and taught two classes. That’s not much for me. This isn’t because I’ve been lazy (well not totally) works just been a lot.


I’ve also not really paid any attention to my eating. Some meals I’ve prepped and taken with me to work (perhaps 60%) but others have been more convenience.


These two things combined have left me feeling a bit sluggish. Logically I know it’s stupid. I’ve still done about 5 hours exercise and statistically I’ve eaten vegetables more times than I’ve eaten chips. But I’m sometimes guilty of very much being an all or nothing person.

One bad week won’t undo months of hard work in the same way one good week won’t immediately turn you into an Olympic Athlete. The brain, however, isn’t always a muscle that reacts logically to events.


When I feel like this I often instinctively think, right I need a really ‘good’ week next week and I’ll do every training session planned and eat perfectly and not eat cake and so on and so on.


But, this isn’t good for me either. We are only human. We need to know that when we have weeks where we do a little less or eat a few too many calories it’s ok as long as we don’t let it continue for too long. I know that if I feel ‘fat’ because I’ve not had a perfect week of eating or training then there’s something wrong with my own mindset towards my body. Nobody can be perfect all the time and trying to be just sets us up for failure (and there we have that never-ending circle of feeling bad about ourselves).


Of course this is easier said than done and writing this doesn’t mean I suddenly feel great and healthy and happy with how I look today. Knowing something isn’t logical and not letting it bother you are two different things and overcoming those little demons in your mind isn’t always easy and even when you do overcome them sometimes they can creep back in!


But I’m not fat – a ‘bad’ week hasn’t made me fat. I’ve put a little weight on recently, yet in faculty I’m fit, I’m healthy and I’m in a much more positive position than I was. It’s ok to have a little wobble at times but we need to be kinder to ourselves in terms of our own expectations. Because if someone else outlined my week to me as their own I’d be pointing out all the positives, but because I’m looking at my own week I’ve focused on all the things I haven’t done.

Most people are kinder to others than they are to themselves I’m pretty sure I’m not the only person reading this to need to be reminded of that.

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