Across the globe, boot camps and personal trainers alike are beginning to take a new stance with respect to fitness, focusing on kickstarting fitness and wellness routines, rather than on merely losing weight.
It’s all in line with the new millennial philosophy and major healthy and gastronomic trends, which show a greater interest in healthy, nutritious, eco-friendly foods, as well as a greater interest in mindfulness and wellbeing.
In this post, we highlight the importance of seeing exercise as an opportunity for personal growth.
When we focus on losing “x” number of dress sizes or weighing as much as we used to in high school, we can quickly lose our motivation and revert to unhealthy ways of eating and become sedentary.
On the other hand, if we learn to make a mental shift, learning to truly value our health rather than our BMI, it can be a powerful incentive to be active and to eat well to boost our energy and vitality; to change the way we live so we actually feel better and more vital.
Indeed, the hardest goal to achieve when it comes to fitness is self-compassion: being as kind, accepting, and non-judgmental to ourselves and our bodies, as we would to the people we love. At the same time, self-compassion does not mean inertia.
It involves loving ourselves enough to be disciplined, constant, and committed.
While it is indeed true that obesity is linked to many serious diseases (including heart disease, diabetes etc.), by simply eating sensibly (rather than going on crash diets) and working out using a combination of cardiovascular and strength exercises, we naturally shed weight.
In fact, the more sensible our diet and workouts are, the more likely we are to be consistent; in the end, slow yet steady weight loss enables to keep weight off long-term, unlike crash diets and other regimens which may be very difficult to sustain.
What happens when we stop asking ourselves to lose weight and we start focusing on enjoying the flavor and health value of seasonal, organic foods?
Or when we start really enjoying our routine, choosing cardio classes that we naturally love instead of those that “promise to burn 800 calories per workout”?
How liberating must it be to focus on really improving our strength and times, not to beat any records or compete against others, but to prevent falls, or to enable us to walk uphill without feeling out of breath?
How willing would you be to make room for an hour or two a week for an activity such as yoga, which will help you achieve balance, fight stress, and improve your strength and flexibility?
Many personal trainers are advocating for a complete paradigm shift in the way we view fitness and food.
Tired of seeing clients who feel let down because unrealistic goals cannot be achieved, they are interested in building a healthy relationship between mind, body, and spirit, often with the help of mindfulness activities such as yoga and meditation.
If you are an ‘all or nothing’ person who wants to be either fit or fabulous or just give up, wake up to a healthier way of living in the 21st century.
