Sarah Gorman is a well-known and highly experienced fitness professional and entrepreneur who wants to change the thinking around exercise. In this her first column for SO magazine she explains a bit more about her unique approach to feeling good
I‘d like to begin by introducing myself and to also say a huge hello to all the readers. I’m thrilled I am to have been asked to write for this publication and I hope you will enjoy it.
I am a 46-year-old business owner, single mum of three (plus my dog!) and I am a fitness professional. I believe that I have a good understanding of how difficult finding time to focus on yourself can be. Like many other people my age I am feeling and seeing changes in my body as well as in my mindset and I want to be able to help relieve some of those symptoms and issues and help to build strength and positivity from the inside out.
My personal fitness philosophy is that exercise should be fun. Yes, you need to work hard to get results, but for me, it has to come with an element of joy. I have created the BlendFit Method over the past 15 years to provide an eclectic approach to training; blending disciplines to create energetic and fun classes to get people strong, mobile, fit and healthy.
By blending various disciplines together into one class you can effectively train your entire body, and mind, enabling you to feel you have given focus to your whole self. My BlendFit App has recently launched – and yes, I know there are a tonne of fitness apps out there, but I believe that mine has a personal feel to it by asking you to become a part of the BlendFit Family that we’ve created.
“January is a time to reset and reframe yourself and your goals. I’m a huge fan of being kind and making small, consistent steps towards glowing good health”
There are five live classes a week – every week! Which means you are never without a class! And if you can’t make the live sessions, they all go into the bank so you can do them in your own time. There are challenges and programmes on there as well as a nutrition section called BlendKitchen.
When I hear people talk about their fitness at this time of year I tend to hear they say ‘in the New Year it will all be different and that’s when I’ll get back on it!’ By giving yourself this ultimatum, you are setting yourself up for a possible fall. What if you don’t get back on it? Have you therefore failed? January is a very difficult period in the calendar of fitness and nutrition. We have made ourselves tonnes of promises that aren’t always achievable. My suggestion is that next year, in the lead up to Christmas and New Year, you try to continue with what makes you feel good. It could be moving your body in whatever ways you can, even if that means not making your usual quota of classes or gym visits, but that you’ve simply walked more. Then make some realistic and achievable goals for January.
January is a time to reset and reframe yourself and your goals. I’m a huge fan of being kind and gentle with ourselves, particularly at this time of year, and making small, consistent steps towards glowing good health. That’s why I don’t go in for the big detox/diet/radical overhaul thing. I’ve found from my years of coaching clients in fitness and nutrition that those dramatic all-or-nothing plans rarely last for long – and it’s the cumulative effect of small, consistent steps that add up to lasting changes. The main thing is laying the foundations. Think of it as a clean sweep before you start building new dietary and exercise habits.
Try to build up these healthy habits week by week so they become part of your routine, rather than trying to do everything at once. To begin with find a sport or exercise that you want do and that makes you happy as you’ll have more chance of sticking with it instead of finding excuses as to why you can’t!
Move of the month:
Each month I will give you a different move to try out. This month’s is to walk more and up your steps. It could be leaving the car just outside of town and walking the rest of the way – or not taking the car at all. If you don’t have a dog, pretend you do so you have to go out each morning and each afternoon to walk – even if it’s just round the block or to your local park. While you are outside, take some really good deep breaths and look around you. Take in the environment and hopefully get yourself into nature. Maybe this can become a new habit that you form – it really does do you the world of good.
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