What is "Sustainable Fitness"?
What do you think of when you hear the phrase “sustainable fitness”?
Maybe you picture a yoga mat company that donates to an eco cause with every item sold. Or leggings made from recycled plastic, or buying second-hand dumbbells, or bringing a reusable water bottle to the gym instead of a fresh Dasani. These are all good things.
So many industries today are tightly enmeshed with overconsumption and waste, and the fitness sector might be one of the worst offenders, especially considering its ostensible focus on health. But when it comes to sets and reps and progressions and wind sprints and strength and power and flexibility…staying well (which is hopefully a goal for everyone) doesn’t stop at buying used and supporting socially conscious companies. You’ll only keep up with all that if you build sustainable health practices. Practices distinctly, uniquely suited to you. The definition of sustainable is “Capable of being maintained.” If you ask me, the road to that result requires checking at least two out of three boxes:
- You understand the why.
- You do it regularly.
- You enjoy it.
As an educator focused on sustainable health, these are the requirements of any fitness or nutrition program I develop with a client. These programs are a collaborative endeavour. Coaching isn’t an expert–client relationship; it’s a partnership between two pros: one who’s knowledgeable about fitness (me) and one who’s knowledgeable about the client (the client). I’m not a drill sergeant or a prescriber. I’m a sounding board, a listener, a questioner, a map-maker.
So, what does sustainable fitness look like for you?
You understand the why.
Understanding how your action items serve your overarching goals helps make habits stick.
I’m not talking here about grasping every biomechanical and gastroenterological interaction going on in your body. Understanding how the things you’re “supposed” to be doing will make a difference, though—whether that's achieved through mental comprehension or evidence you saw with your own eyes—goes miles toward making a program stick.
When I talk about “understanding,” I mean being able to trace the action items on your fitness to-do list directly back to the overarching goals they serve. If my client’s main goal is to build strength for an upcoming 3-day backpacking trip, for example, and I keep harping on the importance of pushups in every workout…I’d better have some pretty compelling evidence for why that’s a better road to their goals than, say, step ups and deadlifts. Without that evidence, they’re a lot less likely to keep up with the workouts.
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You do it regularly.
Practices you’re driven to do regularly—because they fit in your schedule, are making a difference, are just challenging enough—are sustainable.
The vast majority of people seeking fitness and nutrition coaching know at least the bare bones of what they “ought” to be doing. They know they need to move more and prioritize nutritious foods.
They’re not hiring me to tell them that. They’re hiring me to help them do it.
We can skip right over the stupid argument that everyone has the same 24 hours and the same access and requirements. If that were true, we wouldn’t need coaches and trainers and individualized programs at all. Everyone could go to that one website that prescribes exactly what every body needs to be fit, and that’d be the end of it.
On the other hand, you don’t need to hire a professional to start doing something every day or two to three times a week. You just need to pick something and start doing it. It’s not easy to make space in a hectic schedule for yet another requirement, though. Don’t you already walk the dog, and brush your teeth, and go to bed at a decent time, and chop vegetables because you’ve been taught that’s healthy? Isn’t that enough?
It’s not, unfortunately; not in the long term. But the first things you being doing regularly don't have to be 90-minute gym sessions or scheduled fitness classes either. You can start smaller, with a daily walk or an extra carrot. That said, paying and pre-registering does tend to push us into doing things regularly—one positive of social and financial pressure.
You enjoy it.
If you like it, you’re more likely to make time for it. It’s that simple.
This one is at the end not because it’s the least important of the three but because if you find a practice that checks the first two boxes, you’re either a wunderkind endowed with endless motivation and push-through-it-ness or you actually like whatever you’re doing regularly, at least a little bit.
I firmly believe there’s a type of movement out there for everyone. Maybe you won’t love every aspect of a super well-rounded fitness and nutrition regimen, but anyone can find something they’re into. And if you can habit-stack that something onto the less-appealing parts—all the better.
If you don’t like jogging, don’t jog. If you don’t like lifting really heavy, don’t lift really heavy. If you don’t like kale, don’t eat kale. Yes, cardio, and weighted exercise, and leafy greens are important, but there’s always an alternative! And I pretty much guarantee we can find one you don’t hate.
Your reusable water bottle and your carbon-neutral shoes are great. And, it’s time to stop treating eating well and working out like events we attend only when a client cancels their meeting or a friend bails on coffee. It’s time to integrate them rather than ostracize them from our lives. It doesn’t have to be hugely time-consuming, or guilt-causing, or miserable.
Think about the practices you currently stick to.
How many boxes do they check?
