What are your fitness & nutrition challenges? Survey results
A couple of months ago I posted a survey to see who you (my audience) are and what your struggles are when it comes to living a fit and healthy life. You’ll be pleased to hear that you aren’t alone in these struggles – there are some definite clear winners when it comes to the challenges you all face! But, just because they’re common, doesn’t mean it’s not something that can be overcome and I’m hoping that I can help you with my training options.
So, who are you? Well, I’m going to give you a brief synopsis:
In terms of age, I’m speaking with a range of ages from 26 to 75, covering all life stages, but nearly half of you are 35-44 (my age bracket so can totally relate here!) and in a postnatal stage (technically everyone who’s had a child is still classed as postnatal regardless of how old their child is!).
When it comes to fitness challenges and barriers to doing anything, time is the major issue with over half of you saying that. This isn’t any great shock, as we’re in a society where we’re expected to do more than ever before, but with no added hours in the day. As mums, we often feel pulled in all different directions and our own health and fitness goals often go to the wayside. I hate to say it but better time management is what’s needed here. Yes, I know it’s bloody hard and we all like to think we’re already super organised, but there are often ways we can improve on this – I’ll save that for another post. The second biggest challenge is motivation. This may well be because I did the survey in the colder winter months and people are less arsed than usual to get out and go to the gym or a class! The key here is to work on what your goals are – set them out using the SMART method, and everything else can come from here. I wrote a blog post recently giving simple tips for motivating yourself. Take a read.
And what of your nutritional challenges? Well this is all about the snacking and eating too much. I hear you! I’m a culprit of this too. Following closely on and totally interlinked is the lack of time for meal planning. The better you plan your week out the easier it is to grab a healthy snack rather than a biscuit, and meals that are balanced will prevent you craving more and over eating. So following on from the last point about improving time management, it’s important to try and have a regular slot to work out your meals, do the shopping list and do any prep work you can at the beginning of the week. Possibly a tedious task for many, but it does work.
What are your goals? Well, the vast majority of you are concerned about aesthetics, so I got a lot of you wanting to be more toned/shaped and to have less body fat. But I also have quite a lot of you concerned with your core and pelvic floor strength, which goes hand in hand with being postnatal and things not being the same as they were pre-baby. Working on your strength from the inside out is really important, so concentrate on your core and pelvic floor (they’re closely intertwined!) and the toning and reduced body fat will come with it in time.
The big question was ‘if none of these challenges/barriers existed, where would you want to be a year from now?’. Me personally, I’d like to be on a beach in the Maldives, but that’s just me 😉. Joking aside, what came out here was really just an extension of the other answers, but you basically want to look slimmer and feel healthier, energised and stronger. A strong core and pelvic floor was reiterated here again too.
I would love to try and help you out and I hope I can with one of my services. If you want the personal touch then I do 121 training, if you like the group community atmosphere I do classes, if you fancy working out in your PJ’s at home in your own time but with some accountability then I have online personal training, if you just need a kick start with some nutritional advice and short daily workouts for a fortnight then I have my 14 Day Healthy Starter Programme, or if you just need a bit of nutritional advice then I offer my EatFit service. I hope that one of these will help you on your way to a healthier lifestyle but please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you just need some direction and I’ll see what I can advise!
Tomorrow is another day, so just go on…..
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