If you’ve been checking out our instagram, you might have noticed a few fitness session video’s popping up on our feed. I’ve been training with a PT called Tania Weil, who is putting me through my paces as I really want to improve my fitness and make working out just a regular part of my week. If you’re in London come along to a box and burn class and say hi! Or try this HIIT workout at home.
When a friend this week asked me ‘What my goal was’ – when I turned down a night out to train with Tania, it reminded me just how society thinks about health and fitness. For while this is really an honest enough question, ‘What’s your goal?’ – the implication is always that fitness is something we do to either…
a. lose weight or
b. train for a particular event (hike or marathon / race)
But I think the problem when it comes to health, fitness, weight loss, obesity – the whole shebang – is that sometimes we have too many goals and too many expectations rather than seeing food and fitness as an on going lifestyle.
My overall goal is to be fit and healthy. And when Tania asked me to fill in some forms before we started, weight loss was never one of the goals I put down.
To eat healthily and to work out so that I can be active and race around as much as possible is all I want – but that is a goal with no end, it is an ongoing lifestyle choice. Something that most people still can’t get their head around.
‘I want to be lean too’ – was the reply from my friend.
When did I say this? I thought – but this is how society equates people that work out… an us and them. Those trying to shift the pounds are the ones in the gym and then there is everyone else – but to me that is the wrong way to look at things.
Working out, being active, eating food that is nutritious for our bodies isn’t for the so called end goal, for a ‘bikini body’ or to fit societal beauty standards. It is simply a lifestyle we can opt into.
We need to stop always automatically associating the idea of eating healthily and going to the gym as something we do with fixed parameters or end goals. It shouldn’t be about losing weight for an event or to be fit for a moment in time. Instead it needs to be treated as something we do at all sizes, always. Then there would be no place for diet culture and as a whole society could have a more balanced and healthier relationship with our bodies and food.
Here is a video from the end of our session – I will be uploading more to @slinkmagazine on instagram if you want some more fitness motivation!
We have been working out for about 8 weeks now and the change in my fitness has been great, I can really feel the work paying off and I look forward to every session. Check out our youtube as well for some great Hiit classes you can do at home!