Hello, my name is Alex and I’ve become unfit. It’s upsetting to admit that, I’m very pro-exercise. I could give excuses (some valid, some questionable) but ultimately I didn’t prioritise my health as I should.
It would be fair to say I’ve been negatively affected by this in a few ways. It’s hurt my mental health, I’ve gained weight* and my general physical health has been impacted. At this point you would think the internal motivation to exercise and look after myself would be higher. In reality, right now, I find my motivation to be at its lowest.
*I just want to point out here, I’m body positive & believe we should love the body we’re in. I’m also one to advocate sensible eating rather than dieting. My current weight-gain is down to unhealthy choices, ultimately affecting my level of self-worth and how happy I feel, which is why I’m addressing it. However, my focus is on regaining my self-worth not on losing weight.
Unfortunately, autumn is that funny time of year (with the days darker for longer & the weather getting colder) where unless we’re already on a committed wellness path, we’re unlikely to begin to tread one. New starts usually come in January, don’t they?
But the right time of year to look after ourselves & our wellness is RIGHT NOW. Especially in the current climate when protecting our health & well-being is paramount. I realised my motivation needed to be kickstarted somehow.
Campaigns such as STOPTOBER (to encourage quitting smoking) and Sober October (to encourage lower alcohol consumption). These are great campaigns with loads of health benefits on offer for those that try them. They made me understand that a concerted effort with some form of accountability is what I needed here.
So for each day in October, I’m committing to consciously work on my wellness. I’m not deferring action until January, I’m going to improve my health & self-worth now. I’m going to challenge myself daily for the next 31 days!
And then I thought, perhaps I’m not the only person who will feel like this? Perhaps there are others who would welcome a wellness push at a tricky time of year? Which is why I’ve created a 31-day challenge sheet to encourage you to focus on your wellness every day throughout October too. Hopefully, it will be a kickstart (or reboot) of your own wellness journey.
Recently I attended the Plant-Powered Expo in London, an event designed to highlight the benefits of adopting a plant-based lifestyle. Although I don’t currently follow a plant-based or vegan (yes there is a difference) lifestyle, I attended because I was curious. Plant-based living or veganism – in the past few years – has really entered my consciousness & (in my opinion) society as a whole in a way that vegetarianism never quite has.
As I said, I’m not vegan. I’m also not anti-vegan. I’m open-minded. I understand there are evidenced wellness benefits to leading a plant-based lifestyle which I wanted to write about or at least, begin a discussion on.
Whether you classify yourself as vegan or plant-based usually depends on your motivation. Where vegans are often motivated out of compassion for animals, for plant-based dieters, the driving force can be more nutritionally motivated for increased health & longevity.
Ahh Autumn! Get ready to snuggle up in a chunky knit & reacquaint yourself with the heating dial.
It’s the time of year where we often start to take our foot off the accelerator. As the nights draw in, so do we. And whilst it can be great to turn the dial to slow for a while, we do run the risk of turning it all the way to dormant, which isn’t great when it comes to our overall wellness.
You see now is the perfect time to prepare our bodies & minds for the colder months ahead. Adopting some simple lifestyle habits will help keep you feeling well throughout autumn and beyond!
Today I’m welcoming fellow blogger Charlotte Smith MBPsS to Living.Pretty.Happy to share her experience & thoughts on a new approach to diet and it’s impact on self-acceptance…
What do you see when you look in the mirror? Are your first thoughts positive or negative?
Do you compare yourself to those you see in magazines or on social media? Do you want to change yourself somehow in order to feel more like them?
If you think that changing your body to fit an ideal will make you feel better about yourself, you’re not alone. We, as a society but especially women, have been conditioned to feel like our worth is measured by the number on the scales and the inches on our waist. From this, corporations are taking our money by selling us products that don’t work.
Diet culture keeps us trapped in a vicious circle which ultimately puts our money in their pockets.
I’m glad you asked! I’d like to introduce my saving grace: Food freedom. A complete rejection of diet culture and your first step to eating intuitively.
Spas have been around for centuries! OK maybe not the type with the fluffy robes & flip flops but some version of them has existed – well I believe – for a fair few thousand years now.
Given how quickly things come & go out of the public psyche nowadays, it’s surely a testament to how beneficial a spa is to our well-being that these wellness institutes have stood the test of time.
Yes, the benefits of spending time at a spa have long been known, but in case you weren’t fully sure…
Sleep has long been heralded as one of the 3 pillars of wellness alongside diet and exercise. Counting the Zzz’s is as essential to our well-being as breathing, food and water. But for so many of us, it’s one of the first things we’re likely to forfeit.
The importance of getting a good night’s sleep has been reinforced into us since birth (although maybe that was more for our parent’s sanity rather than our increased well-being). However, until we’re suffering the apparent effects of lack of it, we rarely seem to make it a priority.
When it comes to our sleep habits, if we’re not putting in the right amount of attention and effort, we’re actually causing ourselves harm. Far beyond being a bit snappy and sporting some puffy under eye bags, we’re damaging our physical and mental health.
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. I may receive a commission if you visit a link and buy something on my recommendation. Purchasing via an affiliate link is at no extra cost to you, but does help towards the running costs of this site. All opinions expressed within are my own. For more details see my disclaimer here.
Congratulations! You’re running! Or at least I assume you are if you’re here seeking advice on how to stay motivated to run.
As I previously mentioned in How to start running: tips for beginner runners, running is as much a mental challenge as a physical one, so it’s not surprising at times your motivation to run can be lacking.
Having stuck with it for the past 7 years now (my longest commitment to anything so far other than my husband!) I have a few tricks up my sleeve which keep the running motivation going.
Running is my sport of choice – it’s been of massive benefit to me both physically & mentally. If you’d like to find out more about my story and experiences, you can in: Why I run: my running story
Having run for years now (not continuously – I’m not Forest Gump), people often stop to chat to me about it. More often than not the comment – I want to run but I don’t think I would be any good at it – is given. Well let’s put it this way, every runner started somewhere. Usain Bolt didn’t come out of his mother’s womb carrying a relay baton now did he?
I truly believe that as long as you don’t have a physical condition preventing you – anyone can run. Yes, anyone.
You might not want to run (and that’s totally acceptable) but that’s not the same as not being able to run.
If you’re ready to start your own running journey – but not quite sure how – then you’ve come to the right place!
It’s all too easy when you’re new to running (or considering running for the first time) to look at more experienced runners and feel inadequate. Maybe making the judgement that it’s somehow out of your reach.
This post is here to tell you it isn’t.
As a runner, I felt it important to share my story about why I run and how it all began. The hope is that anyone reading this – who may want to take up running or is feeling unsure or incapable – will gain some confidence from my experience and perhaps even the drive to start their own running story.
Physically and mentally exercise is very good for us – period.
However, I can more than appreciate not everyone enjoys working out. You may have even been advised against certain forms of it by your medical practitioner. Sometimes the thought of the effort, the expense, the weather looking shifty – can be enough to make you place your trainers into the first charity donation bag that lands through your letter box.
But all is not lost! There are numerous exercise hacks available to allow you to still reap the benefits working out can provide without a gym membership in sight.
These exercise hacks are so simple and require so little extra effort from you, that I wouldn’t blame you for questioning how effective they actually are. With this in mind, allow me to explain…
Exercise is any physical movement that elevates your heart rate. What really matters the most is that you’re working your muscles and getting moving. Even if you’re doing this completely subconsciously.
A small-ish side note:
First and foremost, I’m an advocate of exercise for improving your overall well-being. As I mentioned in 5 Ways exercise makes you happy – weight loss is not my main driver for exercising. For me, exercise is about improving your physical and mental health. So, whilst I won’t be focusing on the calorie burn potential for the majority of these exercise hacks, I do want to note that they will contribute to higher calorie burn (if that is of interest to you.)
Before anyone starts eye-rolling at the mere mention of the word exercise hear me out…
Exercise – in my humble opinion -is one of the biggest contributors to unlocking a healthy body & happy mind lifestyle.
It ticks plenty of boxes on the well-being scale (read: Improving well-being: the key to being happy?) and through continued commitment to it (even in bite-size chunks) you will reap happy results.
Sceptical? Thought you might be.
