Nerissa Shea@nerissashea_fitness
Last week I stepped on that chunk of plastic that makes so many people feel horrible, regularly.
I always advise my clients against doing ANYTHING that could derail their motivation, so I normally advise judging their progress by more important factors such as -
Their clothes fitting better
Having more energy
Sleeping better
Better mood overall
Feeling more attractive and confident in themselves & their own bodies
Feeling strong #strongnotskinny
Their skin looking better
Their ability to cope with stress improving
Their motivation for things outside of training becoming higher
Becoming more active in their lives overall
I personally, tend to stay far away from things that have the power to put me in a bad mood, so to be quite honest, we keep the weighing scale in our apartment hidden in the back of a dusty cupboard.
I like to think that I have finally dealt with my OCD obsession with wanting to - BE A CERTAIN WEIGHT or LOOK LIKE X, Y, Z CELEBRITY, so I said okay, I will give it a go.
I will step on the ‘sad scale.’
More out of curiosity than anything else.
I realized that I have actually lost 5.5kg since hanging up my dancing shoes exactly a year ago. Thank you, Covid-19.
In the past year, I have put LESS PRESSURE on my body to look a certain way.
I have instead, chosen to honor it and give it the respect it SO deserves!
I am a dancer, so it is fair to say I have given myself a good bashing over the years - Physically, Mentally & Emotionally.
I took a step back and thought - WOW, you are an incredible ‘machine’, for want of a better word, you really do some remarkable things and I THANK YOU.
I now eat for fuel.
I don’t STARVE myself Monday to Friday and then crumble and binge during the weekends to start the whole vicious cycle again every Monday.
I train to get stronger and move better.
I TRAIN SMARTER as opposed to HARDER and I DEFINITELY DO NOT KILL MYSELF WITH HOURS OF CARDIO every day!
I focus on getting good sleep. QUALITY AND QUANTITY.
I have a bedtime routine and a morning routine and God bless anyone who gets in the way of that.
I practice YOGA regularly - for my mind as much as my body.
I live an overall active lifestyle. I go for walks whenever I can and generally just enjoy moving more.
What have I got in return for this? My body feels better than it has in over 15 years.
I don’t care so much about the 5.5kilos, that was just to draw focus to the point that if you treat your body with the respect it so deserves, it will reward you ten-fold.
Be grateful for what it does for you every day and realize you don’t need to look like X, Y, Z on Social Media.
I can guarantee you that X, Y, Z probably wants to look like A, B, C…
When clients first come to me, 99% of their Intake Forms states that they want to ‘lose weight’ & ‘tone up’. Tends to be the overriding theme of people's goals when they first start working with me. Understandable. Diet culture has been so ingrained in us all that very few women come to me and say, "You know what Nerissa…. I want to get REALLY strong and drop body fat while eating as much food as I can in the process". HOWEVER, this is normally their goal after working with me for a few weeks.
It entails a shift in mindset away from skinny and over to STRONG #strongnotskinny and also towards #nonscalevictories.
It is completely counterproductive to base your entire progress on a number on a scale.
For women, in particular, this number varies exponentially on a daily, weekly, monthly basis.
So WHY would you base your progress on an unreliable source of information?
ESPECIALLY if when it tells you something that demotivates you, you, in turn, act out in ways such as NOT TRAINING/BINGING… ‘throwing in the towel, so to speak’.
If anything de-motivates you in your fitness journey, ask yourself, is this something I really need to do? And if it isn’t (i.e. – weigh yourself) WHY NOT throw the scales in the bin and focus on the fact your clothes fit a little bit more comfortably and that you have more energy to play with your kids.
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@sheafitness1111
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