A Wellness-Centred Approach to Staying Fit this Fall

BY KELSEY ELLIS, rhn

For most families, September means settling into a new school year and scheduled routines. After a summer of sippin’ on sangria and indulging in cool treats like ice cream, you might be on a mission to trade in your flip flops for sneakers. With summer vacations coming to an end, it seems like a good time of year to get back on track with your health. You might have well-meaning intentions, but if you’re thinking about following in the same footsteps as a previous New Year’s resolution, you may want to hit pause.

KELSEY ELLIS is a Registered Holistic Nutritionist, Personal Trainer, and Life Coach who specializes in eating behaviour and body liberation. She is deeply passionate about helping people re-connect to their bodies through movement therapies, make peace with food, and step into their personal power so they can live whole-hearted and fulfilling lives.

It’s easy to slip into the Autumn version of the “New Year, New Me” trap. Research shows that the average resolutioner makes it only 17 days before tapping out. But what about the word “resolution” itself? When you make a resolution, you are subconsciously saying

“I am not good enough as I am and I need to fix it.” As a solution, most of us seek out a fitness program. But quick fixes are only temporary and lackluster results can leave you feeling more frustrated than when you started. Instead of reaching out externally, what if you turned inward and worked from a wellness-centred approach instead of a weight-centred focus?

Traditionally, most fitness programs are intense and regimented, allow for little flexibility, and are more or less geared toward changing your body shape or size. Goals set with a weight-centred mentality are often linear and unattainable. This mindset is synonymous with self-sabotaging behaviours of perfectionism and often result in feelings of failure.

On the other hand, a wellness-centred mindset focuses on the way you feel, not on how you look. This approach leads the way with intuition, self-compassion, and patience instead of fear, obligation, and resentment. It gives you the power and freedom to choose what kind of exercise feels best for you and offers the flexibility to go with the flow. Instead of feeling disempowered, you are inspired to design your own fitness journey, greatly increasing your adherence to staying fit.

So how does one dismantle the old fitness paradigm ways of thinking and move to a more wellness-centred approach to fitness?

There are more benefits of exercising than just losing weight.

Set non-weight related goals.

Everyone benefits from being more active. It makes you feel good and can prevent future health problems. There are more benefits of exercising than just losing weight. Cardiovascular fitness can improve your heart and lung strength, while strength training can preserve lean muscle tissue and improve metabolism. Exercise can also balance mood, decrease blood pressure, regulate appetite, and even prevent cognitive decline associated with ageing. Using weight loss as the ultimate reason for physical activity could drive you to over-exercise and potentially do more harm than good. Movement is important for its own sake and should be considered a way to promote health, not become a destructive form of punishment.

Focus on the feeling, not the number on the scale.

One key to consistent exercise is to shift your focus to how it feels, rather than counting calories burned or weighing yourself. Explore how you feel throughout the day when you exercise. Are you able to handle stress better? Do you feel more alert and have more energy? Are you sleeping better and waking up feeling more rested? Ditch the scale and bring awareness back to the benefits you’re experiencing. When you can feel the difference between exercising consistently and being inactive, the positive feelings can be a motivating factor.

Ditch destructive language and redefine self-limiting beliefs.

We are our own worst enemies and our internal dialogue often reflects that. Imagine, your friend says they want to start a new fitness routine. You wouldn’t respond negatively, or point out that they’ve tried several times before and never actually followed through, would you? So, why would you say that to yourself?

Try talking to yourself in an encouraging and positive way. Instead of saying “I can’t do 10 push-ups!”, try saying “I am going to do as many push-ups as I can, and I can modify them until I’m strong enough to do all 10!” Simply reframing your words can make a big difference in your attitude. The more you use compassion toward yourself, the easier it becomes.

Stay flexible and be open to change.

Resolve to take life as it comes rather than adding too much to your plate and succumbing to the anxiety it produces. Just like one or two workouts isn’t going to get you in shape, one or two missed workouts isn’t going to undo your hard work. Schedule your workouts, but stay adaptable and flexible to change if things don’t go as planned.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to work out more and feel good, but how you go about it can make all the difference. A wellness-centred approach to fitness encourages mindfulness and living consciously. By creating a deeper connection to your body, you can build a healthier relationship with exercise, better gauge your workouts, and deconstruct barriers that have held you back. Simply put, the pursuit of exercise is about feeling good. No resolutions required.

Movement is important for its own sake and should be considered a way to promote health, not become a destructive form of punishment.