June 13, 2022
It’s easy to get caught up in an internal dialogue between wishing you could look like the latest Victoria’s Secret or Sports Illustrated model, and simply wanting to understand and be your “natural” weight – the weight you would be if you were taking outstanding care of yourself.
We’ve been so inundated, over the course of our entire lives, with external messages around what we “should” look like, or around what’s “appealing”. We spend so much of our lives pushing through workouts and diets, that we actually end up losing that deeper connection to what is right for us, and to what will feel the best for us.
Part of figuring this out is honoring what stage of life we are in, what our priorities are, and what we most value. Plus, we must be very honest with ourselves about the life we’ve already lived.
A robust movement history can help you, or hurt you, just as a sedentary movement history has its pros and cons. Knowing which ones you need to avoid or leverage starts with tuning in.
What is your “best” self?
Women come to us wanting to be the best versions of themselves, but what does that mean? Does that mean you want to be a version of yourself from ten years ago? Does it mean striving to look just like Gal Gadot did in Wonder Woman?
The answer is no.
As tempting as it may be, this way of thinking leaves out so many important factors that we must consider in order to keep up our motivation and morale throughout the journey of transformation that we have chosen to embark on.
At Tyzen Fit, we’ve seen tremendous success in clients across all generations. But those most successful at maintaining their initial transformations over time were those who focused on the present, rather than chasing a dream, fancy exercise, or fad.
Slow and steady wins the race
It is imperative to understand that, regardless of your starting point, you will not accomplish your goals by skipping steps, or by wishing you were somewhere else in the journey.
Getting fit is similar to building a scaffold. You need to build your base before you build the next level, and the next, and so on. Without a strong base, each additional level cannot be stable, no matter how good the structure of that level is.
To apply this to your fitness routine: you absolutely need to burn fat and build muscle in order to tone your body, and High Intensity Interval Training and lifting heavy weights are a great way to accomplish that – in fact, it is the PROVEN WAY to do so! However, this is what you should be doing once you’ve reached the top of your scaffold, not when you’re still at the base.
First and foremost, you must get your body well-aligned and in balance. This means releasing, unfolding, and opening up any overly-tight areas of your body, so you can get into a good posture and begin crafting a stable base level of fitness.
You do this by creating enough stability in your body to hold that posture.
You really shouldn’t be working to build a lot of strength on top of a mis-aligned, unstable body, because strength leads to a lot of power, and too much power on an unstable base leads to injury. Imagine firing a cannon off a canoe – that would destroy the canoe. Instead, you must focus on engaging in sustainable repetition at manageable levels, until you are ready to begin moving up the scaffold.
Loving your body at every stage
We have to re-evaluate our fitness goals and approaches as we age. Although it can be scary to feel you have no control over your changing body, the key to success is to enter every decade with a beginner’s mind. It’s easier to rearrange the fitness goals, methods, and habits at the top of the scaffold if the base you’re working with is tuned and sturdy.
Meet your body where it’s at, and try not to get frustrated at how it’s changing. Instead, please recognize that these changes are natural. The most important thing is to nourish, take care of, and enjoy your body, rather than trying to force it to be something it can’t.
The female body is beautiful. It is uniquely yours, and the experience of aging with your body is personal, emotional, and raw. Enjoy the gifts your body brings you at each stage of your life, and marvel at its ability to carry you and protect you for so long.
If you’re interested in learning more about how to harness the full power of your body, no matter the decade you are in, please book a FREE strategy call with us here: https://calendly.com/tyzenfit/chat-with-tysan
