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We are continuing with our Core Value Series where we’re diving a bit deeper into each core value of Worth the Work Fitness in order to help you get to know us better, and to help encourage you towards a healthier mindset with your health and wellness journey. Each week we are sharing one of our nine core values that are a part of the foundation of why we do what we do, and expanding on why each one is so significant to us and why we believe each can be significant to you as well.  We want to get away from the all-in or all-out mindset. We recognize that doing something is better than doing nothing. Health & wellness doesn’t have to be black & white. We’re comfortable living in the gray. Progress is more important than perfection. “Go all-in!”
“Give it everything you’ve got!” “Pull out all the stops!” “Spare no effort!” Those phrases all sound pretty motivating, right? They’re the kind of phrases we tell ourselves when we’re taking on something hard. They’re the mantras we adopt when we really want to go after our goals. They’re the kinds of things we hear from coaches or trainers when we are pushing through a workout. They’re what brings out the warrior in us to take on anything! But what does it actually mean to “go all-in”? What does it actually look like in day to day life? And more specifically what does it actually look like to apply that to your health and wellness? There are two main scenarios of adopting this mindset that we’ve seen come up time and time again throughout our work in the fitness industry. And unfortunately, time and time again we’ve seen how they have failed. Let’s take a look at how both of those scenarios play out. Sally and Wendy are ready to make changes in their habits and health, so they sign up for a short term program (think 30 day challenge, 21 day reset, and the like), because THIS will be the thing that kicks their butts into gear and gets them living healthier once and for all. Sally is ready to go all-in. She’s hung onto every word of instruction that she’s been given to succeed at this. She’s prepared all the meals, bought all the supplements, and planned out her workout schedule to set herself up for success to not just hit, but surpass, the goal she has set. She’s thinking that if she pulls out all the stops for the duration of this program, then she will achieve the body she wants, and then she can loosen up a little to easily maintain it. She gets started and never misses a workout. She even starts adding in additional workouts on the side - just to ensure the results she’s seeking. It’s hard for her to take all this time away from her family, but it’ll be worth it, she tells herself. Just a few more weeks. She measures out her food, counts her macros, and makes sure to never let a treat tempt her to cave in. Sure, it’s hard, especially when she watches her kids enjoy their Friday night pizza while she eats another salad. But she keeps telling herself, just a few more weeks. Just a few more days. She looks to that light at the end of the tunnel. And soon, she finishes the program strong, and sees amazing results in her body! She achieved her goals and she’s so proud of herself, but she’s also so relieved to be done. So now it’s time to celebrate. She’s earned a reward. She’s earned the right to loosen up. So she does. She indulges herself in a meal full of the treats she has been depriving herself of for weeks. But one meal sure isn’t enough. So she gives herself the freedom to indulge for a few more days. And a few more days after that. And she takes a couple days off of working out, because she’s earned a few rest days. And then she gives herself the freedom to rest a few more days. And a few more days after that. And then soon, Sally finds herself losing all of the progresa she made over the course of her program. And those habits she was so laser focused on are all but a bad memory she doesn’t want to return to because it was so hard to keep up with. She was all-in. And then she was all-out. Then there’s Wendy. Wendy really wants this to be the program that works. She’s ready to go all-in, because she knows that how she’s living isn’t working and the only way that makes sense to fix it is to change everything. So she does. She gets prepared for the challenge as well. Like Sally she prepares her food, gets all the supplements, and plans out her workout schedule to make sure she sets aside the time for every single one. She knows that if she can just do this all perfectly - if she can go all in - then she will achieve the results she’s longing for. She gets off to a great start and is building momentum, but then one day a meeting gets scheduled at work during her normal workout time, so she misses one. And then another day she forgets her lunch at home and has to scramble to find something quick to pick up. And then another day she sleeps through the alarm for her morning workout because she is so exhausted from staying up all night with a teething baby. Then in her exhaustion, she takes a bite into the cake served at her co-workers birthday lunch before she realizes what she put into her mouth. Basically, life happens. And she’s no longer nailing it. Her plans to be all-in are failing, because you can’t be all-in if you are sometimes out. So she feels guilty. She feels like a failure. And she’s stressed out trying to make it all come together. But she loses hope that she will be able to get the results she wanted because she’s already made so many mistakes along the way. If she can’t do it perfectly, then what’s the point? So she shamefully gives up. She doesn’t even finish the challenge. Because she doesn’t believe that she can go all-in. So she boxes herself into being all-out. Can you relate to Sally or Wendy? Not everyone’s story looks exactly like either of theirs, but there are surely a lot of relevant features in them for many, many people (we know there are pieces of them that we ourselves have been able to relate to). And it doesn’t necessarily have to do with the short term programs themselves. It doesn’t even have to do with some of the habits that Sally or Wendy tried to implement. It has everything to do with the all-in or all-out mindset. When we go all-in for a set amount of time, there is always an end in sight. So it can set us up for a suffering mindset of gutting through it for that short period of time, and resenting the work it takes to get the results we want because it feels so extreme. Or we’re so scared to death of screwing up or breaking the diet, and striving to do it perfectly that we stress ourselves out. Either way it likely leads to us hating the process and therefore abandoning our efforts soon after (or even before) we finish that short term program, resorting back to many of the habits we wanted to change in the first place. But what if there’s an alternative? What if all-in or all-out are not your only options? What if you could find ways to establish healthy habits that you build on over time to become a healthy way of life? What if you could enjoy the work you are putting in because it feels worth it to you? Well, that’s what we want to help you do at Worth the Work Fitness. And what exactly does that look like? Well, it often looks a bit different for everyone. Because each of us have unique body types, personalities, and ways of thinking that all affect what healthy looks like for each of us. Yes, there are some general guidelines of what is good for our bodies, and what is not so good. But oftentimes the execution is going to vary. Ultimately, it’s going to look like doing workouts that you can actually enjoy - the kind that make you feel good; the kind that keep you coming back. Sometimes it looks like doing the same kind of workouts regularly to keep consistent. And other times it looks like mixing it up depending on how you feel on a given day. But ultimately you are moving your body consistently for a reasonable amount of time throughout the week in a way that fits into your schedule without sacrificing effectiveness or quality time for other priorities of life. It looks like choosing healthy foods to eat without stressing out over every bite you take. It looks like giving yourself the freedom to find healthy foods you like and enjoy a treat without feeling guilty. This kind of living looks like learning and adapting as you go. It looks like small changes, a little at a time, that build off one another. It looks like finding ways to sustain your healthy habits when life shifts. And sometimes that means shifting your methods as you go. It looks like having a journey mindset - knowing that you’re in it for the long haul, and that means there will be ups and downs and turns along the way, but you keep moving forward. Because progress is better than staying still. Progress is better than giving up. Progress is better than perfection. So let’s come up with a plan that works for you. Since it’s different for everyone, we’re here to help you figure out your best approach. We’re here to simplify the process for you and support you along the way. So what do you say? Are you in? We’re offering an entire week of our workouts FOR FREE for you to try out and see if working with us is going to be the best fit for you. Head over here to claim those workouts for yourself! Written by Kelly Pruim with Brett Henderson
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We are continuing with our Core Value Series where we’re diving a bit deeper into each core value of Worth the Work Fitness in order to help you get to know us better, and to help encourage you towards a healthier mindset with your health and wellness journey. Each week we are sharing one of our nine core values that are a part of the foundation of why we do what we do, and expanding on why each one is so significant to us and why we believe each can be significant to you as well. In our last post we briefly touched on how playing the comparison game when it comes to our health and wellness journeys can be detrimental to our forward progress. Today we’ll be expanding further on this comparison topic by chatting through the different standards we compare our bodies to, and how we can shift to a healthier approach.  We want to help you focus on being the best version of your current self. We’re not working to get the bodies we had in high school or the bodies we see in magazines. We want to avoid comparing ourselves to anyone else (even our former selves) because we know that all of our bodies are different. The perfect body is the healthiest version of the one you currently have. The Perfect Body
How would you define the perfect body? Whether you are male or female, there’s probably a picture in your mind of ideal features that you are either working towards or wish you had. You might even have a particular person in mind that encapsulates every feature you’ve ever wanted. But here’s the thing, while there are certainly overlapping opinions about the perfect body type for men and women, we can guess that if you were to ask even 10 different people how they would define it, you’d get a variety of answers. There are a lot of deep rooted attachments in our minds to what we consider to be the ideal body type, but without getting into the psychology behind it all, we’d just like to point out that despite what we often fall prey to believing, there is no one version of a perfect body. To exemplify that, here is an article from a few years ago that shows the differences between the “ideal” female body between different countries around the world, and here is another article from a couple years ago that focuses on the “perfect” female body throughout American history. Both articles show the blatant proof that the so-called perfect body is elusive. Talk about a confusing standard to follow. Add into the mix the edited or photoshopped images in magazines or on the internet that present a false sense of reality, and the confusion sinks even deeper. And yet, even when we acknowledge the unrealistic nature of the standards placed on both men and women, we often still strive to look like someone else - whether consciously or unconsciously. And oftentimes, we even strive to look like another version of our own selves. Our Former Selves We can’t tell you how many past clients we’ve worked with that hyper focus on the ‘once upon a time’. How back in high school, back in college, just a few years ago, they were in great shape, but then [fill in the blank] happened. And the guilt of letting that body go, or those habits go, lingers over them and is shaming them into efforts to try to get back to what they once had so they don’t have to keep living with that feeling of failure. Once again, there’s plenty of psychology that plays into this, so without diving too deep in the weeds, we just want to point out that you are not who you used to be. And that is ok. In fact, it’s more than ok. However long ago the body you might compare yourself to existed, you’ve grown and matured and adapted with life since then - emotionally, mentally, and physically. There very well may be aspects of yourself you aren’t entirely happy with (which is normal, because there’s always more room for us to grow in life), but you have to be careful how you let any discontentment affect your motivation. Another thing to keep in mind when we think back on the glory days is that we’re likely going to end up competing with versions of ourselves in an unfair match. It's a scientific fact that our bodies change as we age. So we have to shift our expectations of what it takes for us to live healthily now in comparison to what it did back then - whenever ‘then’ may be. The Overarching Problem As a whole, this comparative way of thinking can set us up for unhealthy relationships with our bodies. We poke and prod and wish they were different. We speak negatively about them, either to ourselves or in front of others. We grow insecure about the features that noticeably stand out to us (that may or may not even stand out to others). We hyperfocus on the things we want to change and risk following drastic measures to achieve them (i.e. overexercising, crash diets, eating disorders, plastic surgery/botox). We can become critical of not just ourselves, but of others as well, tearing them down so we can build ourselves up to feel even just a little bit better. We can fool ourselves into thinking that once we get that body we’ve been dreaming of, or we get back to the body we once had, THEN we will be happy. But this way of thinking is not only risky for our bodies, but also for our mental, emotional, and relational health. There’s got to be a better approach. A better way. A healthier way. The Better Perfect Body So now, instead of dreaming about your idea of a perfect body, we want you to take a good look at the body you have at this very moment. Go on, take a look in the mirror right now. Take it all in. There might be parts of it that you are not happy to see. And it’s ultimately ok to want to make changes. But instead of letting those self proclaimed “problem areas” rule your decisions or feelings, we want your motivation to come from a place of freedom to live healthily. From a place of appreciation for the good things your body can do and has done. From a place of acceptance that you are uniquely beautiful and strong already, because you are more than just your body. Now take a look down at your feet. Think of where these feet have taken you. What they’ve carried you through. You can’t change what steps you took to get where you are now (good or bad). All you can control now is the effort you make going forward from here. You can choose to either let the guilt keep you stagnant or on a downward spiral, or you can choose to step forward in freedom towards sustainable health. That’s what we try to focus on at Worth the Work Fitness. We don’t want to feed into the insecurities and tell you simply how to try to fix them, tweak them, and change them. We want to lead you into whole health - the kind that focuses on taking care of the body you have, not just trying to “fix” it; the kind that focuses on treating yourself with respect, rather than shaming your body into something it’s not; the kind that focuses not just on physical health, but also mental, emotional, and relational health that goes beyond this current season of life, and carries on with you in all the seasons to come. It’s okay to be inspired by someone - including your former self. But if that inspiration turns into anything other than motivation - anything like guilt, shame, regret, obsession - then it’s time for a heart check. It’s time to refocus on your big picture ‘why’. So let’s ditch that comparison of our former selves. Let’s ditch measuring ourselves against every other body. Let’s ditch the goals of trying to look like X, Y, or Z. And let’s embrace the fact that a perfect body is just the healthiest version of the bodies we already have. Let’s figure out what is healthy for each of us individually right now. We promise when you do that, there is much greater health to come. Written by Kelly Pruim with Brett Henderson We are continuing with our Core Value Series where we’re diving a bit deeper into each core value of Worth the Work Fitness in order to help you get to know us better, and to help encourage you towards a healthier mindset with your health and wellness journey. Each week we are sharing one of our nine core values that are a part of the foundation of why we do what we do, and expanding on why each one is so significant to us and why we believe they can be significant to you as well.  We’re not concerned about what experience you have with exercise or what type of shape you’re currently in. It doesn’t matter to us whether you've never worked out in your life, or you currently work out 6 days/week. We are a community of like-minded individuals who recognize that while everyone’s journey is different and we’re all at different points, we're all in it together. We support any and everyone who is willing to put in the work with us, no matter where you're at on your journey. Have you ever felt intimidated by exercise? Or maybe better put, have you ever felt intimidated by people who exercise? Have you ever seen a fitness advertisement, or a group of people exercising, and think, “I don’t think I could ever do that” or “there’s no way I’d look like that doing that”? Have you ever walked into a gym and when you look around you feel like you’re an imposter - like you don’t belong? And have you ever let that intimidation STOP you from even starting in the first place?
It can absolutely feel intimidating for many people to walk into a gym when just starting out. You want to learn, but you don’t want anyone to notice that you have no idea what you’re doing. Even still, it can feel intimidating for some to walk into a gym even when they know what they’re doing. We all carry some level of insecurity, so we’re prone to measure ourselves against the person doing more reps, pushing more weight, or running faster or longer than we are, and convince ourselves that we don’t belong. It’s all too easy to let ourselves believe that lie, and feel discouraged, and stop showing up. But I’m here to tell you that you do belong. You get to show up and take care of yourself. Right where you’re at. That’s not a privilege solely allowed for people who already look a certain way, or have a certain set of habits, or who can already do the things that you are aiming to try. Each and every one of us gets to take care of ourselves in whatever way is best for us. And that is going to look different from person to person. Each of us have different starting points. Each of us have different hurdles. Each of us have different equipment and skills of our own to work with. Each of us have different goals we want to achieve. And I think that kind of allowance for diversity makes room for so much more freedom for us all. There’s no one standard we all have to measure up to. In the span of our careers in the fitness industry, we’ve worked with a wide variety of people at different points in their journeys. We’ve worked with people who have regularly worked out for years and are just wanting to mix up their workout routine. We’ve worked with people who have had an on and off relationship with their health for years. We’ve worked with people who were athletes “back in the day” but haven’t found a way to continue their lifestyle into adulthood. We’ve worked with people who have never set foot in a gym before. We’ve worked with people who have experienced injuries in the past and are trying to either regain strength or find a new kind of strength. It’s been all across the board. And you know what each of those people have had in common? They showed up for their workouts and put in the work to move their bodies in whatever way they were capable of at that time. When you look at a sample of people who exercise, of course one person is going to lift a heavier weight than another. One person is going to squat lower than another. One person is going to jump higher than another. One person is going to run out of breath faster than another. One person is going to be able to push a little harder than another. One person is going to take more water breaks than another. But none of that is what matters. What matters is that they are showing up where they’re at. They are moving their bodies how they can today. And each day they do that, they improve their odds of being able to do more tomorrow than they did today. We speak often about how we hold a journey mindset with our health and wellness - not a race mindset. And that’s not just because it’s a lifelong thing. It’s also because we’re not racing against anyone either. It’s not about one-upping our friend, neighbor, co-worker, or the person at the gym we envy. It’s about coming alongside each other no matter what point on the path we are each on. Our goal is to foster a community that is all about that. That looks like someone who has been consistently working out for years encouraging someone who is just getting started because they’ve been there, and they understand how it feels. That looks like someone who is having a hard time feeling motivated for their workouts finding inspiration from the person who just shared about a personal victory they had this week. That looks like when someone achieves a goal they’ve been working on for awhile, they share with the group and are celebrated. And when we do things like that, rather than a couple people advancing far ahead of everyone else, we all get to go farther together. So let’s remove the competition. Let’s remove the comparison. And let’s each show up exactly where we’re at right. now. Let’s embrace the journey, together - no matter where we’re each at on it. Written by Kelly Pruim We’re excited to kick off a series today on our blog to do a bit of a deep dive into our core values. Each value is a part of the foundation of why we do what we do, so we think it will be helpful to explore them a bit further with you in order to 1) help you get to know us better and 2) help to encourage you towards a healthier mindset with your health and wellness journey. Each week you can expect us to share one of our nine core values and then expand on why they are so significant to us and why we believe they should be significant to you as well. So without further ado, here’s our first core value…  We focus on overall health & wellness with a long-term vision. We believe in creating sustainable habits instead of offering short-term programs. No quick fixes here. Even though 6 week challenges, 21 day fixes, 50 day shreds, or bikini body summer challenges sound appealing, from our experience, we have seen that short-term programs foster a short-term commitment. We focus on consistency and sustainability over the long run when it comes to both exercise & eating habits. Let’s be real, the word ‘commitment’ can feel a little daunting. I mean, it’s a rather serious thing to be in a committed relationship. So to make a commitment with our health can be a little overwhelming and scary - especially if we’ve had a rocky relationship with it in the past. That’s a big reason why the fitness industry often focuses on the short term as a marketing approach. What sounds more appealing: health & wellness is a forever thing and something that you must focus on every day for the rest of your life, or just buckle down for 30 days to get your body where you want it, and then all you have to do is maintain? I can bet that most people would probably lean towards the latter, and I get it. Quick fixes sound great. We all want them. We’ve all let ourselves believe that they’re possible. But I’m going to be completely honest here: unfortunately, the quick fixes don’t produce results, habits, or mindsets that last. It’s all short term. You can only maintain what you get from something if you continue with it. While it might sound intimidating, your health is something that you should have a long term relationship with. But you have a choice in how healthy of a relationship that is. Because in reality, either approach you take is a forever thing. If all you ever do is that one short term challenge every year, you will continue to cycle back to it over and over again. You do the challenge, you get some results, you return to your habits, you lose your results, you return to where you were before you started (or worse), you do another challenge to try it again (because surely this time it’ll work) - wash, rinse, repeat. But rather than only getting serious and strict for a brief period, what if you found ways to take your health seriously every day throughout the year? It won’t be as intense as the short term programs. It probably won’t get you dramatic results as quickly as the short term programs promise either. But you will create habits and achieve results that improve your health in a lasting way without the added stress of a timeline. At Worth the Work Fitness, we aim to help you make a few small changes at a time that you can keep adding to along the way, and those small steps and small changes will add up to lasting results over the long run. Think of it like learning to walk. It first takes babies some time to learn to stand and find out that they have strength in their legs to hold them up. Once they master that, they start to figure out how to move their wobbly legs while hanging on to something. Then they start to find their balance. Some time after comes one or two steps. Over and over again a baby will try, fail, and get back up again, until eventually that one step turns into five steps, which turns into ten steps, which turns into a full blown walking toddler. No one ever expects a baby to go from crawling to walking immediately. It takes time to learn. It takes time for the body to adjust and get comfortable. Just like any skill or habit, a step by step approach helps build a better foundation for the skill or habit to stick. And oftentimes with our health it’s not just about learning a new skill or habit - it’s about changing a habit. Which means we likely have some unlearning to do as we go. That’s even harder. And so there is grace. No one is a fitness guru after one workout. No one loses those 20 pounds they’ve been wanting to after one salad. I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but achieving your goals will take time. It’ll take effort. It won’t always be pretty. It won’t always be linear. Just like a newly walking baby still stumbles and falls after they’ve been walking for weeks, we’re going to fumble a bit too. And that’s OK. It’s a journey. We get it. We know it’s hard. We know it’s overwhelming. But that’s what WE are here for. To help you in this journey. To offer you guidance and a plan that you can follow along with - which takes the pressure off of you to learn all the things. To offer you support - which gives you accountability and affirmation to stick to the habits you are building. So, what kind of relationship do you want to have with your health? The rocky, “it’s complicated” kind that - let’s be honest - never really does us any good? Or the healthy, committed relationship that brings joy and fulfillment that lasts? Written by Brett Henderson and Kelly Pruim
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