Barre with Justine

Fitness and Wellness

Eating healthy for less

Before I had three kids and before inflation made food cost nearly triple what it did a few years ago(!), my grocery shops were typically filled with all kinds of lovely extras like magazines, new coffees (to test out), and organic everything. As much as I’d love to still shop that way, it’s completely unrealistic at this point with trying to feed three little people as well as ourselves.

It’s difficult to make healthy choices at the grocery store when, for example, romaine lettuce now costs nearly $6 each and a pint of strawberries can be nearly $8 at this time of year. Filling your cart with lots of fruits, vegetables, and lean protein can end up costing so much no matter which store you visit.

Let me share some of the tips that help me buy healthy food for our family, without spending a crazy amount each week:

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Times when it’s just hard to love your body…

“Sometimes the body is a weight pulling you all the way down.
And it’s hard to love the stone that drowns you.”

~Kate Bowler

I just love this quote from Kate Bowler because – as always – she speaks the truth. No matter how hard we work to love our bodies, they are notoriously and infuriatingly disappointing.

A few weeks ago, one of my favourite fitness mentors, Mariah, posted a thoughtful video encouraging fellow fitness instructors to reframe the feelings we have when our bodies “betray us” through injury, limitations, etc. Since then, I’ve been thinking about the times when I felt frustrated by and even disliked my body. It’s a difficult thing to admit because being grateful for and loving your body is something I encourage others to do all the time in fitness classes.

Read more: Times when it’s just hard to love your body…

It isn’t that I don’t believe in the importance of loving ourselves, but the reality is there are difficult seasons when our bodies refuse to cooperate despite our best efforts. I hope that by sharing my own experiences, you can give yourself some grace when it comes to your own feelings about your body. There are times when positive affirmations feel hollow and simply don’t make you feel any better about yourself.

The first time I felt super frustrated with my body was during the difficult time of trying to have a baby. It’s a sensitive topic and hard for me to write about even a decade later.

At the time, I was convinced that I needed to ease up on my fitness routine which, at that time, included teaching lots of high-impact aerobics. So I stopped teaching fitness, cut out intense aerobics and turned to yoga for ‘calm’. It would be lovely to say that this change did the trick but there were so many other things going on that it’s impossible to say for sure (in comparison, my littlest was a surprise during a busy time when I was teaching TONS of fitness classes, including BodyStep)

Giving up intense exercise DID make me upset and more stressed. I began to loathe yoga because it felt boring and I didn’t enjoy spending time in silence, overthinking everything. Doing yoga while pregnant was equally unsatisfying because, again, it was time spent ruminating and worrying about the baby. The only time I truly enjoyed my body was when I swam laps at lunch – the one form of cardio exercise (other than walking) I permitted myself to do.

When I had each of my lovely babies, it was another period of discomfort and frustration as I couldn’t go straight back to the gym or get back quickly to where I wished to be. The lack of sleep, time, and energy made it difficult to feel good about my body, despite the amazing things it had done to create the sweet little ones I loved so dearly.

The postpartum period is a difficult time for many women as they relate to a body that has changed so much over 10 months. Many friends I’ve talked to share that it feels like you hardly know your own body any longer.

Eventually, I was able to feel better about my body and better able to accept the amazing things that it did. As time passes, maybe it’s easier to move past the difficulties your body gives you…I’ve certainly forgotten a lot of the stress and have even fallen in love with yoga again!

There was one other time that I felt betrayed by my body and that was when I developed sacroiliac joint pain during COVID. I had never had back problems before and it was horrible. Trying to do a forward fold was impossible, sleeping was so difficult and I could barely exercise, let alone teach a class. I visited a chiropractor, massage therapist and looked up lots of foam rolling videos to help (shout out again to Mariah, who sent me some very helpful suggestions!).

The pain finally resolved after a few weeks but I remember the feeling of anger at my body, feeling like it was rebelling against my desire to move and stay healthy. There are times when I feel that same twinge and right away start working on flexibility and posture to avoid that same pain again.

One silver lining? I now understand the struggle of back pain! It’s one of the most common issues that I hear about from friends and exercise participants and now I can relate to what they experience. I’m better at providing modifications during class and aware of how back pain can affect how we move.

So please know it’s not great but it is completely normal to have feelings of anger and frustration towards your body. I think we all have things we wish we could change about our selves and we have all probably felt weighed down by our bodies as Kate Bowler writes.

My hope for you is that those feelings pass and are balanced by a sense of appreciation for the things that your body can do and has done to make your life more beautiful. Close your eyes and think of the thrill from your first kiss or the pride of finishing a 5k run. Remember that our bodies can surprise us in amazing ways too. 💗

Things that are impossible to measure…

“Not everything that can be counted counts and not everything that counts can be counted.”

attributed to Albert Einstein, but the true source is murky!
crop sportswoman checking information on tracker
Photo by Ketut Subiyanto on Pexels.com

Are you someone who enjoys tracking your fitness goals? When I first began teaching fitness we would often take a moment to take our pulse and refer to a chart on the wall to figure out how hard we were working – completely low-tech! Now when I teach a class, almost everyone is glancing at their Apple watches or Fitbit to check in with their heart rate and step count. There are so many things we can measure when it comes to fitness these days, from sleep hygiene to our body’s response to stress (through an electrodermal sensor).

Research has found that wearable devices can help with motivation, accountability, and even alerting users to major health issues (this 2020 review, cited below, identifies the major benefits as articulated by consumers).

Of course, trackers do a great job of quantitatively tracking our health and fitness but lack the ability to capture the less tangible benefits to our health. Many of the qualitative benefits that we take away from fitness that have nothing to do with physical health and can be very difficult to measure. There is research that supports exercise for mood, focus, energy levels and sleep but there are many benefits we feel that are difficult to articulate and measure.

It could be the tiny adjustment to your posture that has a ripple effect, allowing you to feel more confident or breathe more deeply. It could be the relationship you have with another fitness class participant that boosts your happiness. Maybe it’s the empowerment you feel after finishing the 5k that you never thought you could do.

Is it possible to measure the subtle changes that we glean from exercise?

In many ways these are the changes that matter more than the numbers because they are what we connect with on an emotional level. It’s not the step count at the end of the day that makes us feel fulfilled so much as the experience that we may have had walking through the woods or catching up with a friend on a lunchtime stroll.

While there are established questionnaires and tools to measure emotions like happiness, it’s complicated. Many of the psychological benefits of exercise we hear are anecdotes, rather than established research. Then there is the difficulty of measuring moods and feelings that can mean different things to different people.

As an example, how can we measure grace? We often talk about feeling graceful after a barre class but what does that really mean?

Are the quantitative measurements that we use in fitness all that effective?

Many of the measurements that we follow have no real basis in science. The 10000 steps/day advice was put to the test in a recent study and, while there were benefits to moving more, there was nothing special about 10000 steps. The advice for 8 glasses water/day and calorie counts is not always clear cut but we often hear it and think that the goal is established and immutable. Relying too much on numbers can distance us from tuning into our body and its needs. If we force ourselves to hit 10000 steps on a day when we really need rest, its counterproductive to our health.

How can we get connect and feel the intangible benefits of fitness?

I believe that, while we can’t effectively MEASURE feelings like grace, joy, and emotional connection that can come from exercise, we can take steps to raise our own awareness to these sensations by:

  • choosing the workout that best fits what you need, physically AND emotionally
  • setting an intention for a workout (how do you want to feel at the end of your exercise time?)
  • pausing and reflecting on what you felt
  • acknowledging and celebrating progression in numbers but leaving space for the intangible – e.g. noting that “yes – I increased the length of my plank by 15 seconds!” but making the emotional connection to the feeling of empowerment hat it gave you!

Resources on the Emotional Benefits of Exercise:

Despite the issues in capturing exercise benefits that can’t easily be “counted”, there are some great resources on the topic of exercise and mental health:

  • Kelly McGonigal’s The Joy of Movement is an extremely enjoyable book that connects neuroscience with exercise and makes the argument that exercise is connected with happiness, community, and so much more.
  • John Ratey’s Spark: the Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain (which I used for my Wellness Book Club at Brock last year!) is an amazing read that collects the research on mental health and exercise to argue that exercise can have a positive effect on anxiety, dementia, depression and more.

What do you think? Are there ways to measure health that we just haven’t discovered? Do you like to track your health and fitness? Please share in the comments!

Until next time,

Justine xx

References

Chong, Kimberly P. L., et al. ‘Consumer Perceptions of Wearable Technology Devices: Retrospective Review and Analysis’. JMIR MHealth and UHealth, vol. 8, no. 4, Apr. 2020, p. e17544. PubMed, https://doi.org/10.2196/17544.

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