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If You Could Do Any Fitness Thing …
What fitness goal would you reach for if you could eliminate all of your current physical, financial, mental, or emotional barriers and do ANYTHING? Forget the fact that this is a Tummy Safe™ fitness site, and that you may have a diastasis. Put EVERY injury, every ache, every pain aside for a moment and write down the thing that seems irrational right now.
Maybe you’ve always wanted to downhill ski, but “it costs too much, and they probably don’t make bibs in my size!” Perhaps you’ve quietly dreamed of backpacking across Europe (that’s me) or climbing Mt. Everest one day. But again I ask, what athletic feat would you strive to accomplish if you could have whatever you think you need: the strength, the stamina, the patience, the fearlessness, your pre-pregnant body, the drive, the motivation?
Here are some fitness goals our fans shared:
Blair ⇒ Climb every mountain in the northwest!
Teresa ⇒ Run for miles along the ocean and breathe in the cold misty air
Becky ⇒ Go rock climbing! I have always thought that was so neat. Also, snow boarding!!!
Iyesha ⇒ I’d be hiking up a tremendously tall mountain and running off it with a hang glider!
Dawn ⇒ Triathlon!!!
I talk to a lot of people who say “I can’t.” But in my mind the word “can’t” is an awful four-letter word that can impact your mind and body worse than f*** or sh**. If you have told yourself that you can’t do something because you are scared or your body is too big, too small, too weak, too fat, then you need to ADD ONE WORD to your “I can’t” statements:
Just add “yet” to your “I can’t” fitness ideas
My mom would add “damn” to that swearing list because she’s sweet like that, and she constantly told me and taught me the following: God made this world for us to explore and enjoy, and we are designed to be strong and persevere and do amazing things to serve our Maker and the people around us. At age 76 now, she continues to model unashamed feminine strength to me, and I sure love her!
Maybe, it’s thanks to my mama, or maybe it’s all the research studies and experience I have from working in fitness for 20+ years, but I firmly believed the human body — that’s you! — is DESIGNED to heal!!!
You’re not meant to filter every choice you’ll ever make through your current holey strainer of brokenness, friend, so if you could do ANYTHING, what would YOU do?
Here’s where I’m going: Just because you’ve been pregnant, you don’t have to settle for stress incontinence, diastasis and a weak core. Just because your hips are full of osteoporosis, you don’t have sit in a chair the rest of your life. Rather, gentle exercise has been showed to improve bone density MORE than medication. Just because you had knee surgery, you don’t have to settle for never hiking again — I had knee surgery (meniscus) in 2011 and climbed South Sister in Oregon in 2018.
So fill in this blank: If I could do anything, set any fitness goal, I would love to
__ even though I can’t yet.
“Right now” is also powerful for fitness goal setting
Being in a slow-down season can be frustrating for female athletes. You might be recovering from pregnancy right now. You might have a nursing infant right now. You might be in core rehab right now. You might be so freakishly busy taking care of so many people right now, that you truly do not have time to devote to exercising for 30 minutes per day.
… And don’t you despise people who don’t get that? I have been there, going weeks at a non-stop pace while in crisis mode. Yes, that’s where we can practice (cue eye roll) squatting to pick things up and parking and walking a little further, but do those things even really cross our minds when there’s a miscarriage, other babies to tend, a family member dying, holiday events — oh, and feeding people?
That’s when you fill in the blank on that lonely little dream in the back of your mind like this: If I could do anything, set any fitness goal, I would love to
__ even though I can’t right now. One day I will.
Leave a comment and share how you’re filling in the blanks these days.
I’d like to go back to Vashon island and actually be able to bike those hills…all that is in my way is a bike with gears and some quality time increasing my endurance. I was just about to go walk my dog…it occurs to me know that I can run him on my bike instead!
Great video! Every birthday and New Year’s Eve, I ponder the same question. So much to do and so little time! We just have to do it!
I love This! Very well written. You “so get it” Beth and you are truly inspiring! Thank you for all your passion and hard work! Happy New year!
Thanks, Colleen! Happy New Year to you as well!
I would love to better control my sugar intake after the holidays, even though I can’t right now. But I am working at it!!
Jan, lessening your sugar intake is always helpful for many things. We have a 7-Day Sugar Free Challenge that’s very simple. It allows for some natural sugars while helping to motivate you to avoid processed sugars. Have you seen that yet? It’s in our shop here > fit2b.us/shop
If I could do any fitness thing, it would be to run my 5Ks in less than 40 min. A small goal, but as someone who only started running 4 yrs ago, and who has asthma and knee and ankle issues, I’ve been working really hard toward it.