Your Physical Health: Where Fitness Goes Wrong Every Year
100 Articles. 50 weeks. The new Mental Wealth Blog is up and running in 2023. Two articles a week for the rest of the year.
Hello, and apologies for the long, long hiatus.
I’m back with some exciting news! Every Tuesday and Friday, starting today, The Mental Wealth Blog will be back with weekly articles. That means no more sporadic article timing and bad time management on my part. You can get used to seeing these newsletters in your inbox at the same recurring time every single week, with Tuesday’s newsletter being the Mental Health piece and Friday’s being the Physical Health piece.
Ideally, both articles in tandem will flow together and coexist nicely so that you’ll never feel too off-kilter with either facet of your health. I’ll include what I think are the most relevant recent news articles in each piece, which means no more subscribers’ only news roundups. Nope. Everyone will get every bit of news for “mostly free.”
Okay, you got me; here’s the catch. Now that the newsletter is functioning as an arm of my health coaching business, articles will be longer and have a paywall after too much good information is given away. Paid subscribers will have access to the full article and my thoughts on the recent news and how to take action on it. Paid subscribers also have comment power and the ability to start discussions below posts (highly encouraged, along with the chat feature on the Substack App).
The latest Physical Health news: The Tripledemic
Okay, enough promotional writing. The health news concerning us all, whether or not you’re active and robustly immune, has been the looming threat of catching one of three sicknesses: RSV, the newest COVID strain, or the flu. It’s gotten so bad that Moderna has rushed to create a more potent RSV vaccine in (once again) record time.
I posted my tips and tricks for staying healthy when illnesses strike a few weeks ago because I had seen fully vaccinated clients and friends of mine come down with sicknesses despite taking every precaution. Even I — thinking my fitness and routine would get me through another winter without sniffles — succumbed to a bothersome upper respiratory infection in previous weeks that delayed the start of this newsletter.
I’ve learned that no one will stay fully healthy around this time of year. If you don’t get sick, you overeat during the holidays and slowly return to a routine. If that doesn’t happen, you’re seasonally depressed by the lack of sunlight and lack the energy to be as productive and spirited as you’d typically be. Where am I going with all this?
I’m frustrated with Fitness Culture’s January tactics so far.
I can’t help but wonder why gyms haven’t been more proactive in using ad campaigns and marketing to encourage exercise to stay on top of all the lulls that January brings. On social media, I see trainers and coaches complaining (COMPLAINING!) about new members flooding the gym. I’ve seen gyms launch campaigns alienating members or dropping the ball on New Year’s promotional content entirely. And this is the time of year when we should all encourage each other’s resolutions, whether fitness-based or not.
Just over a year ago, when TMWB was born, I doled out the statistics behind New Year’s Resolutions in the hopes that those reading might look at that and want to set a new standard. The impetus for starting this blog was hoping that I could get just a few people — clients, new readers, or friends of subscribers — to change their habits. This year, it seems like large corporations and companies haven’t done well to reinforce that, which means I have that much more work to do to ensure people are taking care of themselves!
It ain’t just the gyms, either
Journalistic publications usually fluff up their health verticals around this time of year with habit-related content that helps people stay on track, as well as advice from psychologists on building healthy relationships with themselves and others.
I wish it stopped there. When celebrities have to chime in with their incredibly sweaty, cortisol-driven workouts filled with exercises a lot of people might be better off without, it makes me want to submit a new, more hyperbolic definition to Merriam-Webster for the word cringe. Because that’s what I feel when I see that type of content. Celebrities (unfortunately) shape the way a lot of people view themselves and serve as role models for a lot of people. If their crazy workouts are normalized, their followers begin to think all those high-intensity workouts might be good for them too, and they aren’t always.
I’m all for working hard, but I've got a lot of confidence that I could show a few A-list actors and actresses a far better workout than some of the people they’ve hired to write their programs. Celebrity trainers also take some blame for commissioning these videos or not form-checking their clients’ before videos that could potentially harm people get posted without the proper information.
Okay, maybe that’s going too far with policing content. But we must break the cycle of celebrities inspiring crazy bodily tactics among the average person, a la the Kardashians.
What do sustainable fitness habits look like, then?
The most incredible weight loss, muscle gain, and strength-building stories don’t happen overnight, but just saying it takes months of consistent, empirical effort doesn’t tell the whole story either. There’s more nuance to gym habits (or general exercise and movement habits) than just going to a gym or buying some dumbbells. What if you hate the members? What if you get hurt? How do you bounce back after a tripledemic infection?
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