The Power in Motion Podcast

117 - Holiday Self Care Series #2: How to Stay Consistent with Exercise

Kim Hagle Episode 117

The holidays are indeed a busy time.  

When we’re busy and have lots of additional tasks and social engagements to manage, often the first thing that gets dropped is our own movement practice.

Though it’s easy to feel as if we don’t have time, or can’t justify taking time to exercise when there’s so much else to do, the consequence of putting movement on the back burner is more overwhelm and holiday burnout.

In this episode we’ll help you redefine what’s “enough” and how to take an all or something approach to movement (that’s also joyful) so that you come through the holidays feeling calm and cared for and don’t feel the need to start all over January first.

Mentioned in the Show:

If you’re a woman who tends to feel overwhelmed and put yourself last during the holidays, but you WANT to prioritize your own wellbeing so that you can roll into the New Year feeling centered, rested and nourished and avoid holiday burn out and New Year’s resolution regret - I have just  the thing for you.

Join my email list: www.radiantvitality.ca/email to learn about the Stress Free Holiday Solution - a 1:1 coaching offer that’s super affordable and will easily fit into your busy holiday schedule.


About the Host

Kim Hagle (she/her)  is Certified Personal Trainer, Registered Holistic Nutritionist, Body Image Coach and founder of Radiant Vitality Wellness. 

Through mindset and movement coaching she helps women heal their relationship with food and exercise while disconnecting their worth from their weight, so they can feel healthy, happy and confident in the body they have.  

New Here? Join our exclusive email community: Embrace Your Radiance is my weekly email series that helps women overcome feeling limited by their body. Each week you'll receive exclusive coaching tips to help you feel healthy, happy and confident no matter what the scale says. As a subscriber, you'll be notified when new podcast episodes drop and will also be the first to hear about all of my free and paid offers. Emails come out every Sunday at 7 pm.  

Want to feel good in your body without focusing on weight?  Register for our 5 day mini training course. For just $27, you'll receive one short video and worksheet each day for 5 days that will help get started with the non-diet approach and  feeling better in and about your body.

Ready to take the next step?  Book a free consultation call to discuss how coaching can help you reach your goals.

Let’s stay in touch! Kim is on Instagram and Facebook @radiantvitalitywellness.  

Disclaimer.  The information contained in this podcast is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for medical advice.  Always consult a health care professional about your unique needs.

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Speaker 1:

Hey there, welcome back to the Power in Motion podcast, and this is part two in our six part holiday self care series. And today we're going to be talking all about how to remain consistent with exercise over the holidays, because I don't know about you, but I hear this a lot that when things get busy, when there's lots to do, the first thing that falls by the wayside is our movement practice, and that only adds to the overwhelm that we feel. So we're going to talk about three strategies to remain consistent over the holiday season. But before we get into that, I want to remind you that if you're not yet on my email list to go and get on it, it's called embrace your radiance and you can join by visiting my website, wwwradientvitalityca email, because I've been telling you how I have a very special coaching offer that's out for the holiday season, and details for that were just announced yesterday and they're only being announced to my email community. So if you are a woman who tends to feel overwhelmed at the holiday season and tends to put yourself last, but you want to prioritize your own well being so that you can roll into the new year feeling centered, rested and nourished and avoid all of the holiday burnout and New Year's resolution regret, then you are going to want to be on my email list so you can hear about this very special, very affordable, very easy to fit into your life one to one coaching offer. So, again, go join my email list over at radiantvitalityca slash email.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so let's talk about how to stay consistent with exercise, and this is going to be short and sweet. Today I've got three tips for you, and really it's more a set of three don'ts and three dos. Right, because I think that the reason why we tend to struggle with consistency over the holiday period or at any period of time, really is because of the way that we're thinking about exercise in the first place. So tip number one is to notice when you you feel like you have to exercise, or when you're shitting on yourself, when you're saying things like God, I really should be moving more. And where you are tying exercise or the need to exercise to calorie burning or making up for the food that you're eating maybe extra food that you're eating over the holiday season, or more rich, sweeter foods that you're eating during this season or maybe where the inactivity that you're experiencing, where there might be a fear of weight gain associated with that, and we've talked on this podcast so many times in the past about how tying exercise to calorie burning or simply viewing it as a means to lose weight or shape your body is the number one thing that gets in the way of you feeling motivated. So notice where your brain wants to make you feel guilty for not exercising and where fear of weight gain comes up and where thoughts that you should be exercising to burn off the food that you're eating are entering in, and see if you could stop those thoughts and instead challenge yourself to think about what else is in it for you.

Speaker 1:

How else does keeping just a little bit of movement in your life serve you? I mean for me. I'll give a personal example. I am someone who struggles with seasonal effective disorder, so getting outside in the fresh air for even five minutes a day can make a huge difference to my overall well-being and my mental health. The clients that I work with will say that movement helps reduce their pain levels. It helps them sleep better at night, it reduces their stress, helps them think clearer. There's so many other benefits to movement. So I want you to just check in with yourself and remind yourself why else you would want to move, because when we're doing it as a form of self-care to take care of ourselves, it's a lot more motivating to get out there and do it than the shame of having to burn off calories.

Speaker 1:

And the other part of this that goes along with viewing movement as a form of self-care is to notice the parts of you that believes that you don't have time or don't deserve self-care. If you notice thoughts in your head like I'm too busy for this, I can't fit it in, there's too much else to do that my friend is your inner people pleaser, who is trying to convince you that you're only worthy of self-care once everything is checked off your list or everybody else is looked after. And that viewpoint is anything but helpful, right? How do you feel when you think that way? When you think that you don't have time, that you can't take a little bit of time for yourself, it only adds to the level of overwhelm that you feel. And then your inner critic just gets louder and starts calling you names about being lazy and that you should be doing more. So notice this parts of you that thinks you can't look after you until everybody else is looked after, and challenge that mindset we know everybody says and it's true, you can't pour from an empty cup. When you are looked after, then you have more to give, and I know that that's a cliche saying, but it really is true. But you have to decide that you're worthy, that you're worthy of investing back into yourself, that you're worthy of saving a little bit of that love that you give to everybody else around you for yourself, so that you can feel good too.

Speaker 1:

And then the third and final self-sabotaging mindset that tends to come up, of course, is the all or nothing way of thinking, right? So check in with yourself and ask how are you defining remaining consistent? What does that mean to you? Does remaining consistent mean that you're following the so-called fitness rules, where you have to get in an hour, it has to be of a certain intensity, it has to be so many days a week? Are you operating from a perfectionistic mindset about what it means to be consistent? Cause here's the thing is, when the bar is set that high and we have this kind of outlook, it's really easy then to judge anything less than perfection, anything less than that hour of high intensity, so many days a week, as not enough. But that's just gonna lead to the guilt that you're feeling and it's gonna lead to you feeling really defeated.

Speaker 1:

So rather, I want you to consider that there are seasons for having big goals and for working hard at our physical activity, and then there's seasons for maintenance and there's seasons where just doing something is enough. So can you reduce your expectations on yourself and accept that you might have to redefine what it means to be consistent? Take this all or nothing approach to your physical activity. Can you reframe it and use a minimum baseline approach? And what minimum baseline means is lowering your bar of success way down. So, instead of setting the bar really high, where it's impossible to measure up and you constantly feel like you're falling short and you're a failure, can you lower the bar way, way, way down and decide what is the bare minimum that you can do with the time, energy and resources that you have during this busy season, where there's lots going on but where you still feel like you're caring for yourself, where you're caring for your body and where you're taking some action to help yourself feel good in your body as you navigate this season?

Speaker 1:

And can you allow for that to be enough? Maybe it is just walking to the mailbox every day, getting five minutes of outdoor activity, soaking up a little bit of sunshine. Maybe it's getting to the gym three days a week instead of six days a week. Maybe it's doing 20 minute workouts instead of 60 minute workout. Maybe it means lowering your intensity to something more moderate or something very gentle. Maybe it means squeezing in just a little bit of yoga or even just doing some dancing around your kitchen.

Speaker 1:

How can you define success? So that you feel cared for and like you are doing something to maintain your wellbeing during the season. So those are my three tips. To recap, it's to reestablish what's in it for you. Why are you wanting to move your body if not for body shaping and weight loss? What's your why? Decide that you're worthy of taking the time to care for your body and then lower your expectations about how much is enough.

Speaker 1:

And the last thing I'll say about this, about staying consistent, is maybe for this holiday season. Maybe you just let go of the idea of exercising altogether and instead it brings a more joyful movement approach. It is the holiday season, it is the season for joy, it is the season for fun, it's the season for play. So maybe you can look at this time as an opportunity to play more, to consider what would be fun for you, to get outside with your family and let yourself off the hook from prescribed structured exercise. All movement is good movement, and having a good time and letting it be joyful is what it's all about.

Speaker 1:

What we're trying to avoid here is the feeling that we haven't done enough, that we've let ourselves care slide or we've let ourselves go over the holiday season and then feel so burnt out and depleted by the time the new year comes.

Speaker 1:

We go looking for a diet or a program to help us find ourselves again. So by letting it be fun and letting it be joyful, that is what's gonna allow you to go into the new year calm, centered, nourished, so that you can avoid all of that new year's resolution regret. Okay. So I hope that this helps you reframe what it means to be consistent over the holidays and to help you consider how you might implement some movement to maintain your level of self-care as you navigate the holiday season. Next week, when we come back, we'll be talking about how to manage the expectations that we have on ourselves and how to manage the perceived pressure that we feel to do it all and do it all perfectly. We're gonna be talking about perfectionism and people pleasing, so next week will be a great place to pick up from where we left off today. Hope that you have a great week and I will see you back here next week.

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