Hi all,

Hope you are well and have clear plans towards your freedom this week.  Even if that means meal to meal intention that is great.

In my FB lives last week, I talked quite a bit about movement.  We all get to the point in this coming home to ourselves with food and body that we want to address how we utilize movement.

I don’t know about you but I want to feel great physically and for most of us movement can be a part of that.

However, I deeply empathize with those of us ( I spent at least 3 years in fatigue to the point I couldn’t move without pain or exhaustion) who need to be very gentle and careful with movement even to the point of not moving until we have had enough rest and nervous system healing for the body to feel vital enough to move again.

And it’s okay to start slow.  If you haven’t been moving for a while, refrain from blaming your body or comparing your body to a younger, past version for how you think things should be now.  When I used to do that, all I ever felt was demoralized and doing things at a pace or doing activities I didn’t want to.

Start with neutral activities that can be built upon themselves where the environment feels safe and hopefully enjoyable.  You are not obligated to go to a gym but if you like gyms and can ignore the blatant fat prejudice, more power to you!

If you are the opposite, which is where I lived with activity for many years,  learning to slow yourself down without compensating with calorie restriction may be your growth edge.

What I can tell you that is vital is that the more you can allow yourself to tune in to what you like versus what you think you have to do and actually take the risk to not do things you don’t like/want/feel obligated to do out of fear of weight gain, the closer that you will get to joyful movement.

So…. if you are ready for this I encourage you to back down on your intensity, frequency, sets, etc.  Get outside. Switch it up. Take more days off.  Take a week off.

And most importantly for us all, moving our bodies is our birthright.  Moving is not an indicator of your worth, even if people celebrate the way you exercise.

We will not get brownie points at the end of our life and beyond for how many hours per week you worked out, how low your bodyfat is or level of muscle tone.

I had lots to say about all this on FB this week so you are getting a full-on mini-session today!

Enjoy parts 1 and 2 around healing our relationship with movement below. As well a bonus part 3 about the role of how our stress response impacts our ability to move our bodies appropriately.  This is information you won’t find most places.

Would love to hear your comments.  What is your edge around having a peaceful relationship with movement?

To your support
xo
Tracy

PS:  
If you are looking for a few of the tools I discussed in video 3, you can take a look here.