All tagged movement

Fitness Is a Vehicle for Connection

Fitness Is a Vehicle for Connection

Stephanie Ondrusek
mindset

I've often said fitness is a vehicle: it's where many of us meet folks who share our interests, and also where many of us end up meeting ourselves.

We don't always start out this way, though, or, at least, we don't always see it.

Most clients I've coached in the last 10+ years have come to me with a goal to change their bodies in some way, but when we dig underneath, rather than hearing they really want to be a certain size or hit a certain number on a squat platform, I hear things like...

"I'd really like to feel comfortable in my own skin."
"I'd like to be able to run around with my kids without knee pain."
"I hope someday I can teach my daughter how to take care of her body in ways that feel good."
"I want to feel accomplished, like I acheived something to be proud of."

So much of this is about acceptance, about belonging, about connection, about relationship. That's what we're all really after, after all. It's easy to get lost along the way, thinking this achievement or that thing will bring it to us, without realizing it's available to us, exactly as we are right now.

That gets sticky, too, though, doesn't it?

How Movement Helps Your Personal Development Practice

How Movement Helps Your Personal Development Practice

Stephanie Ondrusek
feminism, mindset

So, you're sitting there, mid-February, having abandoned all notions of resolutions, thinking about the hike you took this weekend and the dinner you're cooking later, wondering why you didn't allow yourself some space for freedom sooner. When all of a sudden you hear chatter creeping up, wafting through the breeze like the smell of city trash in the summer: your coworkers are on their way to the break room, making one self-deprecating comment after another about how they've "failed" already, and they sit down to join you. You're having a tough time listening without

a) ripping your hair out or flipping a table
and/or
b) feeling pulled back into the diet culture soup.

But of course you don't want to do either of those things, and you can't just leave, because you've been trying to be friendlier at work. Why do you always find yourself in these situations?

Why Fitness and Nutrition Feel So Complicated

Why Fitness and Nutrition Feel So Complicated

Stephanie Ondrusek
Bold Body Initiative, body image, coaching, FAQs + hacks


Sometimes I think we make fitness and nutrition more complicated than they need to be.

"Easy for you to say; you have a degree in this, and you've worked in this field for almost a decade. The rest of us don't have that knowledge and are supposed to eat low-carb and go on 74 walks a day one day, low-fat and nothing but short intense workouts the next," you might be thinking, and I get that.

But I firmly believe the barrier to entry feels so steep by design: if the world keeps you believing there's a secret or, "one weird trick," then you won't trust your own body or yourself, and you'll hand over whatever you have to restore that feeling of competence that seems to be locked in a golden tower.