I talked about how exercise was a key piece of the puzzle when I was recovering from PTSD and depression.
It solidified to me how important exercise was in my daily life.
Ok, back to my usual chipper podcast show notes!
Have you wanted to implement an exercise routine but are confused about where to begin?
You are in luck because today I am talking all about exercise routine!
Get ready to learn about the five essential components of a successful exercise routine:
Affordability and accessibility
Compatibility with work and family commitments
Adaptability to injuries
Sustainability
Personal preference
We all know that exercise has many benefits, such as regulating blood sugar, combating disease, boosting social life, reducing stress, improving self-esteem, increasing focus and concentration, and strengthening immunity.
However, just knowing the benefits will not create a routine for yourself.
Remember, when building a routine, you must recognize that your needs are dynamic.
They'll shift frequently, and adjusting your routine accordingly is essential to stay on track.
By the end of the episode, you will better understand how to start and where to go to have a successful exercise routine!
I talked about how exercise was a key piece of the puzzle when I was recovering from PTSD and depression.
It solidified to me how important exercise was in my daily life.
Ok, back to my usual chipper podcast show notes!
Have you wanted to implement an exercise routine but are confused about where to begin?
You are in luck because today I am talking all about exercise routine!
Get ready to learn about the five essential components of a successful exercise routine:
Affordability and accessibility
Compatibility with work and family commitments
Adaptability to injuries
Sustainability
Personal preference
We all know that exercise has many benefits, such as regulating blood sugar, combating disease, boosting social life, reducing stress, improving self-esteem, increasing focus and concentration, and strengthening immunity.
However, just knowing the benefits will not create a routine for yourself.
Remember, when building a routine, you must recognize that your needs are dynamic.
They'll shift frequently, and adjusting your routine accordingly is essential to stay on track.
By the end of the episode, you will better understand how to start and where to go to have a successful exercise routine!
Hi and welcome to the Air we Breathe. I'm your host, heather Sayers-Layman. I'm a National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach, certified Intuitive Eating Counselor and Certified Personal Trainer. I help you get organized and consistent with healthy habits, without rules, obsession or exhaustion. The Air we Breathe the finding wellbeing that works for you is a podcast created to help you establish a trusted foundation of doable, healthy habits and smart self-care skills that can endure every season and last you a lifetime. My guest and I will share ways that you can focus on your physical and mental health with purpose, flexibility and ease. This podcast may contain talk about eating disorders and disordered eating. We minimize mentions of specific behaviors and numbers, but it's still a topic nonetheless. There also could be some swears and or adult language here. Choose wisely if those are problematic for you. Hi and welcome to this episode of the Air we Breathe.
Heather:
Today I'm talking about exercise routines, but not in the sense of prescriptive. Here's exactly what you should do. Everyone should be doing the same thing, and then we'll all look alike and not any of the biohacking. Oh, this is the best thing and this is the hottest trend. Blah, blah, blah, blah. So many blahs. I want to talk about the concept of the best routine is a routine you will do. What I find is people looking for the best routine for the most fat loss, for the most gains, shaping this part of your body, whittling away this part of your body, all completely body-centric, and I get it like that's 100% what we have been conditioned to think of physical activity. It is meant to change our bodies and focus on how we look.
Heather:
The good news is that's not all there is. There are a lot of other things that we can benefit from having a regular physical activity routine. A few things that we can get if we are a bit stumped on what else we can do. Physical activity helps all of the following it helps to elevate and stabilize mood, boost energy. It promotes better sleep. It increases our longevity. It can protect from injury. It can help us regulate blood sugar, combats disease, boosts social life, reduces stress, improves self-esteem, increases focus and concentration, reduces stress, improves self-esteem, increases focus and concentration and strengthens our immunity. So there's really not much it doesn't do, and there's literature on physical activity being more helpful than SSRIs. And if you're taking meds, take your meds, don't just start exercising. I just some of that kind of vein of talking about exercise. I just don't find helpful. What I think is good to focus on is what you can get from exercise, and I know for myself elevates and stabilizes mood is a piece that's really important to me.
Heather:
Many years ago I had PTSD and developed depression and at my worst I was very aware that I needed to get back into exercising regularly. To get back into exercising regularly, I was doing other things also going to a group, going to individual therapy. I started taking medication for a while because I needed to get out of this rock bottom and I have exercised in a gym since I was 15. But this was different and I really have hung my hat on the fact that it really helped elevate and stabilize my moods and I stand by that for sure. So it is one reason where I focus on.
Heather:
Physical activity is something that I do regularly because I know that it can help that piece coming out my ears and my family. My bloodline is very strong for having a lot of problems, but there's also a lot of trauma in my family's past but also in my past, so it's just one of those things that I'm like you know what, let's keep this up. And also for myself. I know you've heard me talk about my back pain and it's always very ironic when I talk about like physical activity benefits and protects from injury is one, but also I injure myself quite often. It's it just, it is what it is and that's just where my body is now at 53. But again, I just think that it is really helpful to keep things moving. One of the things if I miss a couple of days of exercise, I really do start to feel stiff and my hips feel tighter. My back definitely feels tighter.
Heather:
So when I go to the gym, even if it's not to do a major workout I would say today I went because I had a little back flare up last week and I did probably 40% of what I did was part of actual our workout because I go to a group studio and the workout is written for us and the other 68 were just rehab exercises. That I was like no to this, but I'm saying yes to this. So it really can be helpful for a lot of reasons and I think finding your reasons is incredibly helpful to keep yourself going and why do I want to do this in the first place? So back to the concept of the best routine is a routine you will do For ever. I have seen people on this hamster wheel of sorts where they really are looking at where are my body goals and this is what exercise is for. Then the manner that they approach exercise definitely isn't the routine that they will do, because it might be too punishing, it might be too expensive, it could be too far.
Heather:
So I'm just going to go over a couple pieces that I think are really helpful to assess when you're trying to decide if this routine is the routine for me. Also, another caveat is your needs are going to change and they might change often. They might change, if you have kids, what the kids have going on, what's going on with your parents, what's going on with work, if you get sick, if you get hurt. So I never want this to be a static concept, but it's absolutely the best routine for me today and you can assess how often, however often you like and think that would be beneficial. So first, your routine needs to be affordable and accessible.
Heather:
There are statistics I haven't looked them up in forever, so I won't even try to guess what it is about how far people will go and maintain their routine, and the attrition level increases as the distance from that location increases, which absolutely makes sense, that we may be pretty jazzed to start driving 25 minutes to a gym, but over time we feel less jazzed. And would that be different if we only had to drive five or ten minutes? And obviously this is a luxury that I'm talking about for distance. Not everybody has a place that's close to them. But then it also brings up like, maybe home is a better option for me because I'm not going to drive 25 minutes but I can do some stuff at home.
Heather:
And the affordability piece. I don't think Groupon is nearly the thing that it used to be, but I used to have so many people that were trying Groupons and they were trying, like the VIP, super deluxe workouts, which I always think. That's the same as visiting either a home you want to buy or an apartment you want to rent that's completely out of your price range, because you're going to walk in there and you're going to be like dang, this place is nice. Oh, and if you are champagne dreams on a beer budget like you don't want to do that, you want to just look at what you can afford. So the same with exercise. I just don't think it's beneficial to go to a super bougie place that you're not going to be able to go to for very long, because then you might just feel more disappointed in what you can afford. So the best routine also fits with work and family commitments. Again, those two things might ebb and flow for you, they might remain the same, but it really needs to be something that in the long run, this is going to work.
Heather:
I'm not missing out on a lot of things and I'm not overscheduling myself to try to get this done Work before work, during work, after work like what really actually works best, what works well with my circadian rhythm? Oh boy, here comes Heather with another caveat. And sometimes we don't have the luxury of working with our circadian rhythm. I'm a morning person, and if there are times when my kids were very young and I was single, I just couldn't exercise in the morning. If I wanted to do something at home which was not my favorite, I couldn't do it because I needed to get up, we needed to get ready for school, all of those things. When I was married before that, then obviously I had a partner that could do those things, so then I could work out in the morning that could do those things so then I could work out in the morning.
Heather:
But your family commitments might take precedence over your personal preferences, and I think that is fine. Did you want another caveat? I don't think it's fine to say, oh my goodness, my young teenage kids can't get themselves ready for school because I need to be there and make them pancakes every day. We all have our personal preferences and sometimes we do more for others than maybe they actually need and we say we don't have time for ourselves and we say we don't have time for ourselves. Again, that's full of nuance and complexity, so it's not as easy as that. It's something to look at Absolutely, because I definitely know a lot of people that get their kids up until they leave home, which I don't always think is like the best preparation for them having to go to school or start a job and get themselves up and prepare to be there, like you can start that training early.
Heather:
Have you ever felt like the do-it-yourself approach to improving your healthy habits ends up doing nothing except making you feel overwhelmed, guilty and defeated? Have you been struggling to find sustainable routines that work for your responsibilities, lifestyle, budget and personal preferences? You don't need more rules, influencers or structured programs. Let me help you discover what you want, what works for you and how to maintain healthy habits during the ever changing circumstances of your life. If you're ready to create systems that stick head to heathersayerslaymancom backslash health dash coaching and click, let's do it.
Heather:
The next piece is works with injuries. So, as a old, grizzled fitness person with multiple injuries, there are just things I can't do anymore. I absolutely can't jog. Hiking is pretty iffy for me. I can do fits and bursts of cardio, but long cardio just aggravates too much. So whether that's walking or riding the bike for a long time, it just the hip, it's a whole thing. So what I have to do is tailor my workouts to be kind to the bits and pieces of me that are not receptive to just doing whatever I want.
Heather:
I think that making sure you're tending to your injuries certainly increases your quality of life. We could absolutely push through and I'm going to tape this and hobble through this but I really think that does decrease your quality of life, because now you've got pain often, so are there routines that create less pain for you? I've seen people push through nuts kind of pain and I don't think it's a great plan in the long run. I think that you end up either mentally really struggling from the pain obviously physically you already are but it starts to really weigh you down and it makes it easy then to quit and not do anything. So maybe I'm not doing the same intensity as I was five years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, which I'll just tell you I'm not, and that's fine. I'm doing what works for my body at this stage of my life and there's just nothing wrong with that. If that's is, you can stick with it. So this can mean a lot of different things.
Heather:
I think that having a routine that you will do definitely has to take in consideration the weather. I have lived in the Midwest and ran in the Midwest year round. That was very cold and sometimes snowy, sometimes rainy, sometimes sleety, and I didn't mind it. I don't mind being cold in that way. And I also live in Phoenix, which is literally sitting on top of the sun, and for a solid five months of the year there is no activity outside for me other than literally getting in the pool and maybe puttering around my yard. It's hot and I can work out in the cold. I cannot work out in the heat. I had heat stroke. No, sorry heat. I have heat exhaustion a long time ago and it has really made me so tender and delicate to the heat.
Heather:
I don't think menopause helps either, quite frankly. So you could absolutely have two different routines a year where, okay, like this inclement weather, like I'm not going to do it, and some people don't like the cold so they're not going to run in the winter, and I think that's a fine choice. And I used to coach a lot of people that said then they just weren't going to do anything during those five months of the year where it's too hot. And I think that's where we can really put on our thinking cap and see for those five months, what else we can do. If it's in the budget, you can absolutely join a low budget gym. I think the closest one to me is $15 a month Not reachable for some people, but some people could be able to do that. And then, obviously, home is an option for you if going somewhere is out of your budget.
Heather:
But being able to stick with it also doesn't mean you're doing the exact same thing 365 days a year. You're going to adapt and do what works for you at the time. So, in the same vein of looking at. You can stick with it. That means that maybe it has enough variety for you that it doesn't get too old. Some people like doing the same thing all the time. Some people like doing kind of the same. I like group training because it's the same. We have heavier cardio days on Tuesday, thursday, saturday. We have more lifting days oh, I said that backwards. You don't care, though. Let's just say Monday, wednesday, friday. So it's routines, but we're emphasizing different things, so that changes all the time, but I'm still going to the same place at the same time seeing the same people, and absolutely that's something that I can stick with.
Heather:
So you really have to look at your personality and does your personality desire doing totally different things? Then you could stream a lot of different things. Or if you go to the gym, then one day might just be cardio, one day might be focusing on core, one might be lifting, or you can always do core, cardio, lift, and then the next day is lift, cardio, core, and just mix it up like that. But it has to be in a format that you can stick with. If you know you're a person that likes variety, then either as you get started or as you are going along. You need to be thinking ahead about what is going to satiate that variety monster inside of you, because just trying to overwrite it isn't always beneficial. It's hungry. It's hungry for variety. So you want to figure out how can I give you variety that works in my schedule, that's affordable, accessible, works with my work and works with my family commitments. And I think this is a great place to get out problem solving hats, to talk to people who do exercise and see what they do and what helps them stick with their program as well.
Heather:
The last piece is you like it? Now? I've talked before about the whole. I'm not super jazzed into the joyful activity. I find meaningful movement works for me because it means I feel better, it means I sleep better, my back doesn't hurt as much and I don't hate it because I absolutely have had different stints in physical activity where I went to spin for probably a year and I hated it.
Heather:
I will say I was working on a thing of okay, is this going to help my hip? Because I couldn't run working on a theory and I just my biggest beef. It was so loud. I felt grandma complaining all the time. Because it was so loud I had to wear earplugs and I had a decibel meter on my phone. This is 110. This is too loud. They're actually like literally causing hearing damage. Again, I had to bounce because I just I didn't love the workout enough to deal with the hassle of losing my hearing as well.
Heather:
Or you get on the bike and you get all set up and then the workout starts and then I forgot my earplug. So then I got to get up and clip out and put my earplug. That was the whole thing and I seem to just like gym stuff. I don't like doing a lot of cardio, I don't. I don't like doing things like Pilates per se, just weights, throw in a little bit of treadmill bike for a couple of minutes. That's way more up my alley. So I would say I like it, like it's good, it's fine, and there are so many options for people to choose from because again now there are different types of places you can go. There are general places you can stream at home. You can get workouts literally from some of the resources at your library.
Heather:
But what is really important is that you like it. You're not sobbing every time you have to go or on the way home that you're like, oh, that wasn't bad. And when you leave you feel like, okay, I'm glad I did that. So if those things aren't happening for you, it might be time to inspect a little bit. And is there anything else I would like to do that fits in with my family commitments, my work, it's affordable, it's accessible, it works with my injuries and sometimes if you're in a season of life of no like with my work schedule, this is it it. Then there is a little bit of emotional and mental work to do to accept that okay, with these things going on, this is as good as it gets right now, and telling myself that when these things lighten up, then I will change my exercise routine. But I just need to hang on so I can cross the finish line with some other things. So the liking it has the same kind of context and nuance as well. But I do think finding a way to be happy with what you're doing can be really helpful, can be really helpful and at the same time, looking at if I'm not happy, what could I change, that I might like a bit more. So hopefully that helps.
Heather:
I feel like when I'm talking in nuance and different situations, the difference is there's never like one answer, which this is what bugs me so much about people that focus on one answer. There is not one answer for everyone. If people are really like lifting heavy and doing Olympic lifts and they're like this is the best thing for everyone, absolutely not. It's not the best thing for everyone, because you really need to take context, personal preferences, budgets, time, all of those things into consideration, and when people are giving kind of pat answers, they're either selling something or they're misinformed or they are willfully ignorant. Really, it could be any of those.
Heather:
I keep seeing this gif going around and it has, of course, women and they're doing like a bungee class or they're drumming on like the big giant physio balls and the title is what women will do to avoid lifting weights, which I don't even know where to start with this, Mind your business, like. What women are doing really doesn't matter to you or affect you. Then quit making dumb memes about it, because if what gets somebody's blood pumping is doing a bungee routine, great. If drumming on a ball like really gets them excited about working out, super, do that. I just also think people are being jerks.
Heather:
And that conversation and just knowing that's out there, I think wedges people into areas of working out that maybe they're not jazzed about, but they know also there are these big bullies out there that are just going to make fun if they do something else. If they do something else, and you just have to be really comfortable with the fact that you are doing what works for you, and I think that takes a little work to drill down to the confidence piece of knowing no, yes, this person is a big expert and they have a big following, but what they're doing doesn't work for me and I don't have to do it. Hopefully these pieces help. Remember routine is affordable, accessible, fits with work and family commitments, works with injuries. You can stick with it and you'll like it. I hope that you can take a few minutes and work through those things and then put on the old thinking cap if you want to change anything. Good luck to you.
Heather:
Thanks so much for listening today. Do you know what would be really fun if you popped over to my Instagram at Heather Sayers Lehman and dropped me a DM and let me know what topics you want me to cover? Something bugging you, something holding you up? Please just let me know and I will tweak some content and get an episode out just for you. As always, please follow show or you can leave a five-star review on apple or spotify. That would be fun too. See you in the next episode.
