Embracing Movement & Weight Loss

Me doing some yoga (not at home!).

Welcome to a month dedicated to enhancing your well-being through movement! As I dive into September, a time of fresh beginnings, we're shifting our focus towards a concept that transcends the traditional notions of "exercise." For busy professionals like you, health isn't just about pumping iron at the gym; it's about incorporating movement into your daily life. This blog kicks off a four-part series, where we'll explore various aspects of movement and health. Let's start by debunking some myths and redefining our approach to movement.

Why Movement Matters More Than "Exercise":

Before we delve into the intricacies of movement, I’d like to clarify my perspective. The term "exercise" often conjures images of intense gym sessions and rigorous routines. While those have their place, I prefer the term "movement" for its encompassing nature. Movement includes not just structured workouts, but also the physical activities woven into your everyday life, like walking, stretching, taking the stairs and not the lift and playing with your kids.

A Fresh Look at Weight Loss and Movement: This week, we're honing in on the relationship between movement and weight loss. It's time to debunk the outdated belief that weight loss boils down to a simple equation of eating less and exercising more. This is seriously old school, think 1980’s leotards!

The truth is, our bodies are far more complex. We need to consider the intricate dance between digestion, metabolism, hormones, stress and relaxation.

Me mountain biking out the back of Nelson

Understanding the Body's Response: As I keep saying, our bodies are incredible ancient bio-computers that are programmed a certain way. We need to understand this programming to work with our bodies and not against them.

As always, we need to look at our bodies holistically. Did you know that 80% of the way your body is, is due to the food you eat and 20% is movement. Don’t get me wrong, daily movement of any form is critical to overall health, but with respect to loosing weight, you need to look at what you are putting in your mouth first. Now, if that is in a good place you also need to understand this next important part of your bodies programming.

The body will only every digest and assimilate the nutrients from our food when our bodies are in a relaxed state. The only way to communicate with your body that you are in that relaxed state is your breath. Slow, deep, belly breathing tells your body you are relaxed. Short, shallow, chest breathing, tells your body you are in some form of stress. When this happens, the body will naturally slow down or turn off the digestion processes and even start to turn on the fat storing system so that it can deal to digesting and metabolising when it can, once this ‘stress’ period is over. Many forms of exercise will end up making you breathless, breathing from your chest. That is not a bad thing, when it’s a small defined period.

Nige and I on a 2 hour bush walk

The issue comes when that small ‘stress’ period doesn’t end. When our bodies are in a constant form of stress. When that is the case, the body is programmed to hold ONTO the fat. It doesn’t feel safe to release it. It will seek fast metabolising energy (sugar) to keep it going and store the fat.

I can tell you now, if you are reading this and thinking, yep, I have some seriously stubborn fat, this could be something you need to look into. If I look at how I used to exercise within my overall life, I was adding so much stress to my body, no wonder it was holding onto an unnecessary amount of fat. I’d work long hours (stress), in the advertising world (stress) as a leader (stress), raising 3 children, at times as a single mum (stress), and when I wanted to fit in some exercise, what did I do? Mountain Biking….an adrenalin filled sport. Adding more stress hormones to my body.

Life will always be full of real and perceived stress, but you can look at helping your body digest and assimilate better by taking out some stress or incorporating other movement that supports the ‘health and digest’ mode you want your body to be in.

Let’s be clear, I’m still mountain biking and now I’m also learning to paraglide (yes a lot more adrenaline!), but I also incorporate a 20min yoga session every morning. I do deep breathing exercises (3 deep belly breaths a few times a day) and where I can, I walk. On weekends I love getting out into nature with my husband, friends and if I’m lucky one of my children! I’d also love to learn Tai Chi, one day!

It's all about finding the balance between movement that energizes and movement that relaxes. So have a think about your movement. Are you adding to an already stressed system with your approach to movement or are you supporting it?

Put the mask on you first, balance your movement between energizing and relaxing and thrive again!

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