We don’t all have the same 24 hours

I’ve seen a lot of ‘fitness influences’ posting about how we all have the same 24 hours in a day to achieve our goals

 

And whilst this is technically true in terms of number of hours in the day, it drastically disregards the reality of individual circumstances

 

I can’t speak for all fitness influences, but I can speak for my own experience in a fitness job before I had children and a mortgage, compared to how my life is now that I have children and a mortgage to pay

 

Before I had my first child, my life was easy

 

I had tons of free time, I work in a gym, which means that access to exercise was straightforward for me, getting to bed on time and getting the right amount of sleep was not an issue and I had a comfortable level of income (with minimal outgoings) so I didn’t experience financial stress …. and I was generally in very good health

 

With all of my free time I could meal prep, make complicated recipes, experiment with new ideas and use my free time for anything I wanted

 

Now that I have one child and one on the way, my time comes with a huge tax and reality is very different

 

My free time is now almost non-existent

 

Despite working in a gym, I’m usually too exhausted to justify exercising (pregnant)

 

I usually get to bed on time because I’m so exhausted but often wake up in the night either to comfort Zoe or because I’m pregnant I need to go for a wee

 

Because maternity pay is basically non-existent for self-employed people, I no longer have the luxury of considering myself financially secure, along with a mortgage, bills and a kiddo to pay for

 

And with this second pregnancy has come a couple of health complications that add a level of stress that saps my energy even more making it harder to find the energy to exercise to food prep to plan, et cetera

 

I just think it’s really important that we all look at our own barriers to being active and to being consistent with our healthy habits and fundamentally give ourselves a break

 

Recognising that a 20-year-old ‘fitness model’ who lives with their parents, gets paid a bunch to create online content and has all the time in the world to make the perfect green smoothie, might have very different outcomes and results than a single mum with one or more children who is also working one or two jobs

 

One of the things I encourage my clients to do is to reflect on what is likely to get in the way of them being consistently active and consistently making the best choices for themselves with regards to nutrition hydration sleep et cetera

 

Some of the main barriers

 

 

If we don’t recognise that barriers exist, we just end up feeling stressed and frustrated with ourselves when we can’t maintain the new routines that we’re trying to implement

 

Identify your barriers

 

Be realistic with your plans

 

Be kind to yourself

 

Be patient with your results and recognise the small steps forward that you can take

 

If you need any extra help, just drop me an email and we can chat about it

 

Nicola

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