Abbie recently sat down with Strength and Conditioning Coach Simon Jones to chat through all things nutrition and fitness. Now, Simon is a high-performance coach, working with both male and female top athletes across a range of disciplines. But that doesn’t mean that he can’t break down the advice he’s providing to them to make it applicable for everyone. In fact, he’s recently helped Abbie to find exercise and movement that fits in with her life.

How does he do this? The first key element is:

Love squash, gardening, dancing or long walks? Then schedule that in. Those work-outs or movement sessions that you procrastinate doing, cut-short or dread aren’t the answer. Instead, he suggests finding things that you love and then tweaking the intensity. This will allow you to add exercise into your life for the long term.

This is similar to the approach that we apply to food at Feel Fresh Nutrition. Strict rules that leave you feeling depleted or like you’re missing out aren’t sustainable. Finding healthy habits that work for you and stacking those on each other builds resilience and long-term success.

The second element is finding the exercise that fits best with your lifestyle. Live a high-paced life running from work to family commitments? Do you pack as much into each day as possible? High-intensity exercise could be placing more stress on your body and mental health, rather than providing an outlet and chance for your brain to recover. Instead, it might be more beneficial for you to look at incorporating a calming yoga class, walk around the neighbourhood or a social game of tennis into your schedule.

Speaking of mental health, we also need to remember that our exercise or movement practice is there to support us. If you wanted to go out for an hour-long run, but time restraints mean that it can only be fifteen minutes, make sure you congratulate yourself. Wanted to get to a Pilates class but instead managed ten minutes of stretches after the kids went to bed? It’s still worth celebrating. You made time for yourself, in amongst a packed schedule.

A structure can support us by removing some of the decisions from our day. But for some, it can be so rigid that it leaves them feeling like they haven’t achieved enough or that they should have done more. By focussing on the positives and each step you make on your health journey, you’ll build momentum towards your goals.

Finally, within both movement and nutrition, it’s best to not take an all or nothing approach. If you work late and end up grabbing takeaways on the way home, that doesn’t mean that you might as well restart your meal plan on Monday. If you miss your run on Tuesday, you can still do your next planned gym session. One missed meal or class won’t change you, but the daily habits that you build will create the healthy life that you want.

Want to hear more about how to find the motivation for movement? Check out the full interview with Simon on our YouTube channel.