This Is What Change Feels Like - By Chris at Forté Physical Health

So it turns out that training for a 100mile race is pretty hard!

Regular readers may know that I am training for a 100-mile ultramarathon, and since doing so, I’ve been so tired!

also like to discuss lifestyle factors - not just to get you out of pain but to live a healthy life with well-being as a priority.

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And hungry.

Tired and hungry...

That sums me up in a nutshell.

I was so shattered at the beginning of the plan that I did a blood test with Thriva to check under the hood.

Thankfully everything came back fine, so I just realised that, yep; training for a hundred miles is hard. As someone who can’t run one hundred miles but wants to run a hundred miles, the transition between the two takes a lot of work.

I will be tired, and I will be hungry. It’s just how it is. That’s what change feels like.

I realised that this applies to everything in life.

As an example, I’d like to ask you a question; how much effort does it take to stay the weight you are? None! You buy the same foods, you cook the same way, you eat the same stuff. No thought is needed, and your weight stays the same. But what if you want to change your weight? You may need to read a book, listen to podcasts, make new habits, learn to cook new dishes, acquire new tastes. It’s hard! But it’s the only way to change.

What if your trusty osteopath has told you that your recurring back pain is due to weak hips? It requires zero effort for your hips to stay the same strength, but to make a change, those exercises need to get done. We’re all busy, and Netflix is oh-so enticing, so fitting the exercises in can be challenging. But finding a way is the only path to improving your back.

What about shoulder pain? You’ve been told that it’s linked to too much desk work and not getting up often enough to move. The fix sounds easy, but it takes mental and physical work to remind yourself to break the cycle and get up and stretch. It’s tricky!

As I go through my training plan (and am slowly reaping the fruits of my labour), I’m finding that we need to embrace the discomfort. To enjoy the struggle.

Our brain is a survival machine forged by millions of years of evolution. It wants to keep us safe, it wants to keep us comfortable.

This helped us when we were roaming the plains, but in our modern world, comfort might just be the biggest enemy to progress.

As I approach 15 years of being an osteopath, I have become fascinated with the psychology of habit forming. Health is so simple, but it’s not easy. You know what to do to be healthy, but getting it done is the hard bit.

Change is hard. But maybe we need to embrace that to make the progress we desire?

What do you need to change to improve your well-being? And is the answer lying on the other side of some struggle? I have a feeling it is...

If pain and injury are holding you back, we can help in my clinic. We