Menopause Fitness Mistake #3: Do you look at fitness as a self-care affair?
Or is it a sneaky form of self-punishment?
When I posed this question in one of my weekly HOT FLASH email dispatches, my awesome subscriber, El, thoughtfully replied back:
“I think I viewed exercise as a kind of gruelling, silly torture for more than half my life…”
If your view of fitness has been similar – that it’s some sort of punishment for past “sins”, or the unfortunate price to be paid for the number you see on the scale, the truth is this common outlook (mistake!) could be the very thing keeping you from looking and feeling your best.
Ever guilt-tripped yourself into a punishing workout after a “bad” food day? (We’ve all done it – see mistake #1). Feel hungry all the time but still suffering through a meal plan you hate because you loathe just as much the way your clothes fit these days? (You’re also not alone here – see mistake #2). It’s not your fault. It’s what most of us have been taught.
It’s never struck me that making yourself miserable in the name of feeling happier is a particularly solid strategy for success. 🙃
What it IS a good strategy for is GIVING UP. Because seriously, who wants to keep THAT s#!t up?! All it’s really doing is keeping you in a circuit of setbacks, struggling and stuck.
If fitness feels like self-punishment to you right now, this might seem like a radical thought, but here goes… 🥁
Fitness is the ultimate form of self-care.
If you just swore at me, please bear with me here for a minute because I believe this with all my heart.
What if you could start to look at fitness as:
- a celebration of what your amazing body can do and how good you can feel, rather than a penance for what you ate;
- the fuel that fires up your energy and ignites your confidence right along with it, instead of a punishment for your present jeans size;
- the exact thing you turn to when the going gets tough, that keeps your motor running with more power and less stress through life’s ups and downs and never-ending to do list…
Would that change your approach? Your priorities? Your commitment? How you feel about the actions and improvements you make?
This idea might not take hold overnight, and that’s OK. But when fitness starts to become a joyful expression of self-love and care, it’s not only a game-changer but a changer that keeps you in the game!
Torture no more. Here are El’s words of her own journey through fitness self-discovery, so beautifully said:
“I now know exercise is the ultimate self-care. I still have to work at fitting it in and have a goal of making it my first priority. It is the answer to almost all that ails us. It can make almost anything better when done safely and will make all the difference in these next chapters of our lives.”
So how about you?
Are you willing to look at fitness as the most radical form of self love and the ultimate self-care? I’d love to hear from you!
In the next article in this series you’ll learn that size matters and your new best way forward for midlife fitness goals you can actually do!
