Caring for Our Bodies Through The Decades

For most people, caring for our body may not seem like a priority in our 20’s.
We’re young, vibrant & bullet-proof, right? We bounce right back from a big night out, no aches and pains, and we look at your parents (and anyone over 40) as The Old Folks.

In our 30’s, life can take a more serious turn.
With a focus on career, family & the future, we are all systems go. If we’ve been fit & active up to this point, that activity can tend to fall away as other priorities come to the fore.

If fitness was never really our thing, those aches & pains I mentioned become a little too frequent, mostly due to an inactive lifestyle.

In our 40’s, is often the time we take stock of how far we’ve come & look ahead to our future (remember those Old Folks? Yep. Now that’s you).

This is often the time when we start to take our health more seriously, especially if we or loved ones have gone through serious injury or illness.

In our 50’s and beyond, we come to realise that moving well & pain-free, means we’re on a better road for the decades ahead. Being active means living independently for longer & reducing risks and complications of chronic conditions like heart disease, type 2 diabetes and arthritis.

This is where MET Fitness can help.

We understand the time pressures & realities of life, work & family, which is why our classes are designed to give you maximum bang for buck in terms of time, money & fitness.

We work with people of all levels of fitness and mobility; our clients have included people with knee replacements in both knees and other conditions that mean we adapt.

There is always a way to be fitter, stronger, healthier & happier.

Being fit FEELS GOOD, it’s not about what you look like.

Being fitter & healthier reduces your risk of 35 chronic diseases, including 4 types of cancer.

Being fit gives you more energy to live a great life.

Healthy is an outfit that looks different on everybody – fitness is the foundation.

You CAN Do More Than You Think

Think back to before you started training; could you possibly have imagined....

That you would maintain a fitness program?

That you would enjoy healthy food choices?

That you don't need to "eat your feelings"?

That you would ENJOY EXERCISE?

Well it's happening for you now.

You are working harder, getting fitter & stronger.

Your results are tangible in the way you feel, the way you move through your life, and for who have body-fat reduction as a goal, the way the measurements are coming down.

Henry Ford as right when he said "whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right".

YOU do the work, YOU show up, YOU feel the results.

Good work guys! :)

Beautiful Reality

I went to Wanderlust last weekend with a brilliant bunch of great people, including some big people in small bodies, (which is how I usually refer to children).

It’s a Mindfulness Triathlon which, instead of the usual swim/bike/run, was  5kms walk or run, just over an hour of yoga and meditation to finish.

Melbourne turned on a spectacular day and the walk along Beaconsfield Parade was a great opportunity to catch up on news & share stories. The big people in small bodies also enjoyed playing peek-a-boo from inside their prams.

Doing yoga with 2700 other people, all on our mats, ready to move in a conscious & joyful way had a profound impact on me. When the instructor pointed out that we were all here for a purpose, that we were all connected at that moment, I felt tears in my eyes.

Connection is more than just being with people, to feel connection even with yourself, you really need to pay attention.

I felt part of the bigger whole, I felt connected to each of the people around me, and it felt beautiful. There were people of all shapes, sizes and levels of flexibility who were doing their thing in the sunshine. This got me thinking later about what we think of as real, in terms of our health, fitness and body image.

What we see in the media isn’t real.
Hollywood & celebrities exist to pretend; their job is to sell stories, images and ideas that aren’t real for the purpose of marketing.

One way they do this is by marketing a sense of dissatisfaction with our own, not always glamourous, non-photo-shopped, messy, real lives.  There’s even a marketing term for this, called a ‘pain point’. Hit someone’s ‘pain point’, the theory goes, and they’ll buy what you’re selling as the solution to their problem.

The problem with this is when the marketing convinces you that you have the problem in the first place. Hands up who had heard of a thigh-gap in 2000? Hands down if you understand that it’s not an achievement.

I’m all for feeling your best and looking your best but not at the expense of your sense of self, not when your happiness depends on a number on a scale or on the tag of your clothing.

What about the sass in your step, the fire in your eyes, the spark in your soul? These are all so much more important that the size of your dress.

Tying self-worth to body image can be dangerous. If you’re eating fresh, healthy food, exercising 3-4 times a week, are active enough to keep up with your kids and live your great life, then your body is perfect as it is. 

You are amazing.

“It is only through extensive and continual conditioning that an intelligent human being comes to see herself as an ornament, whose first priority is the attainment of a slender body, rather than as a complete human being who has myriad other concerns and unlimited potential”

Conscious Fitness

Starting a training program can seem daunting at the beginning, there is a lot to learn about the exercise techniques, how to perform each movement, even how to breathe for optimal results.

Your body may move in ways you have not experienced before and you may feel uncertain, even anxious about what you are being asked to do.

MET Fitness training programs are more than just exercises; they are designed to improve your strength and posture and teach you to be more conscious of how you move your body, in your training session and in everyday life.

We often dissociate physical activity from our thoughts and feelings, but as many clients will attest, they have noticed profound changes in the way they think and feel in the whole of their lives, as a direct result of participation in their training program.

The word ‘whole’ comes from the same root as the word ‘health’ and by inquiring into deeper causes of our health problems, not ‘what’ but how we eat, drink, exercise and go about living our lives, we give ourselves the ability to influence our health in a profound and lasting way.

Increased personal neglect contributes to increased reliance on symptomatic ‘fixes’ such as drugs or surgery. What is required are new ways of thinking, feeling and being in our bodies with an awareness that we operate as ‘whole’ rather than a collection of our parts.

Criticism vs Cooperation

By confronting learning opportunities with curiosity instead of fear and being comfortable with the idea of ‘not knowing’ while we are learning, we give ourselves the space to observe, receive feedback and alter our habitual patterns, creating new ways of moving and being.

We usually think that ‘controlling’ ourselves is the best way to effect changes in our lives or ‘improve’ ourselves, when what is needed most is cooperation.

Overemphasis on ‘knowing’ as opposed to ‘learning’ makes looking good in the short term more important that being good in the long term.

A new perspective is required.

Cooperating with ourselves

At MET Fitness we focus on deep learning on a physical level that allows us to embody new capabilities for effective action and movement. This embodiment is a developmental process that continues over time, in a continuous cycle of action and practice.

The impatient quest for improvement often results in superficial changes that leave our deeper patterns untouched. Conscious action is critical for transforming our will, thinking, emotions and body; we must be fully conscious to be fully effective for deeper learning.

Deeper learning often produces fewer obvious consequences for long periods of time.
In order to embody new competencies we have to practice continuously for periods of no apparent improvement. In Chinese, ‘learning’ is expressed by two symbols: the first stands for ‘take in’, the second stands for ‘practice constantly’. In the West, we are so focused on results that we have little time for ‘practice constantly’.”

Learning is a lifelong process that doesn’t end when we leave school; it can feel dangerous or scary ‘not knowing’ and many people prefer the safety of this, rather than questioning, exploring or experiencing anything new in their lives.

We humans are complex beings, we need to experience the unity of our system as a whole, working with our breath and being fully present in our body, to experience conscious activation of the correct muscles for the job.

What we tell ourselves about that feeling can stop us in our tracks and prevent us learning something new and delightful about ourselves, our bodies and our relationships.

There are no mistakes with learning. 
You cannot do it wrong.
Just keep going.

Start Your Engine

Your metabolism is the engine room of your body, it's what gives you your energy, helps you get up in the morning and allows you to burn off extra kilos throughout your day.

You can begin to lose muscle strength and muscle mass in your 30's, if you are not participating in some kind of strength training program.

It is increased calorie consumption and decreased activity that sees people gaining weight as they get older, it certainly isn't 'natural' and doesn't have to be 'the way it is'.

As you lose this muscle mass you not only lose strength you also lose energy, as your metabolism slows down.

This is why strength training is essential for weight loss programs as it's the best way to increase your metabolism and my clients who know they are stronger than they've ever been, can attest to what a great feeling that is.

Your body is like a car in the sense that even if it is not running on all cylinders, it still runs, but not as well or as efficiently.

How well is your body running?

Living and Training from the Inside Out

Most people think about training and exercise as something that we do to make our body to look better, that it's all about changing the outside, but what's not the whole story.
Making the decision to take action and start a training program can also cause profound shifts within as well.
 
When I started exercising, long before I became a fitness trainer, it was to lose the 40kgs I had gained during pregnancy, an 'outside-focused' motivation.

I wasn't sure I could do it, after all my Mum never lost her pregnancy weight, my body had changed, I was looking after a small baby, where would I find the time?

I made a plan so I knew what I needed to do physically, and I did it everyday, whether I felt like it or not, I stopped eating 'junk food' and ate much more fresh, unprocessed food instead. After a few weeks, I discovered a few changes within me that I hadn't anticipated.

I actually enjoyed the tastes & textures of so many fruits and vegetables and that when I noticed physical changes of carrying less weight, clothes fitting differently, being able to move more easily, it was wonderful.

I could see and feel the results of my decision, it empowered me to keep going and I began to realise that I liked being fitter, I had more energy & felt happier.

I've since seen this happen many times over with clients who start training for one reason and go on to discover myriad benefits in their life that they did not expect:

• more energy in everyday life
• no more 3pm energy slump
• breathing easier
• feeling stronger and more confident
• no more anti-depressant medication required (in consultation with GP)
• more flexibility of movement
• better quality of sleep
• and my favourite...
• being able to conduct a meeting after walking up 3 flights of stairs to the meeting room

Whether your motivation is internal or external, use it, start today with MET Fitness, and see the results of your decision in action.

Why I Run

A concerned friend once asked me why I run and what I was running from.

I found this an odd question, full of (her) assumptions about my motivation.

At the time I was training for a mini-triathlon so for me it was more about what I was working towards.
The question didn’t gel with my sense of why I was running, but as with all good questions, it got me really thinking about what I get from running and why I keep doing it.

Our bodies are made to run; in fact you and I wouldn’t be here now unless someone way back in our gene pool was better than running than the person behind, or the animal in from of them; they either got away or caught the food.

Let me be clear, I don’t consider myself a “proper runner”. There are people who can run faster and further than I can.

I’ll get out and train for a specific event and sometimes mix up my training program with a quick couple of kilometres, but I don’t run several times a week with any regularity.

Having since completed more than a few mini-triathlons and other running events, I am far more aware of the internal benefits they give me.
I feel an incredible sense of calm before a race, none of the nervous anticipation I sometimes experience in the weeks leading up to an event.
On race day there are no butterflies in my stomach, no thoughts of “what if I can’t”, or of anything going wrong; there’s just me, calm and centred, knowing that I have prepared for what lies ahead, that I will do what I can do and get through this race.
I don’t always have a specific time goal in mind other than finishing and I’m usually quite conservative with my estimate of how long an event will take – the first time.
Then it’s a matter of working out my own level of challenge, and I'm happy when I exceed my own expectations.

Running serves a purpose that is less about the distance covered or the time taken, and more about shifting the focus to my body to clear the busyness from my mind, getting in touch with the rhythm of my breath and doing something I previously thought impossible.

Believing I can do it is important otherwise I would never even begin and preparation is key.

Training for any event means putting in the physical work and each event takes place foremost in the mind - that’s what gives up first, not the legs or lungs.

I finished the Sydney City To Surf a couple of weeks ago and race day was the first time I’ve ever run 14 kilometres. I didn’t run the whole way; I walked when I needed to.

When the going got tough, I checked in with myself to see if I needed to stop and walk or if I just wanted to; answering THAT question honestly, every time, is why I was so proud of myself when I crossed the line, not because of the time but because I knew I had run my best race.

Happy Cardio

We all have a hard time getting in as much cardiovascular work as our bodies need.

This includes me and sometimes doing the “huffy-puffy work” that gets our hearts & lungs working better, can just be downright dull.

My solution is Happy Cardio.

Questions:

a) do you have happy songs, you know, the ones where you can’t resist moving and dancing about with joy?

b) do you have an iPod or similar device that lets you pump up the volume without disturbing your household?

c) do you have space & time to dance around your house with abandon?

d) do you need to do more cardio?

If you answered “Yes” to any or all of these questions, load up your music player with aforementioned Happy Songs and dance your little heart out!


If you answered no to c) you need to reconsider your life priorities & accommodation choices!


Even just dancing all the way through to two or three songs will give you 10 minutes more cardio work than doing nothing.

It's not about "doing it right" or looking good, it's about moving to the music you enjoy and feeling great!

Listening to your happy songs, it won’t feel like a chore, you will feel great when you finish and for the rest of your day.

So start dancing and let me know how you go.