We all move constantly in our day-to-day lives. ‘Movement’ is one of the seven qualities that determine whether something is alive. Naturally, we all want to care for and preserve our freedom of movement as much as possible, and maintaining an exercise regime may seem like the logical way to do this. But what if exercise causes you more pain than gain?

We do not consciously co-ordinate every small movement we make. Movement is controlled by your Central Nervous System (CNS), and is therefore entirely reflex-driven and subconscious. We have a conscious thought, such as ‘pick that up’ or ‘walk there’, which is converted into a subconscious direction to our CNS that sets a chain of minute actions in motion that altogether make a natural movement. 

On the other hand, most exercise programmes and classes are designed to work on the basis of conscious muscle engagement, building particular muscle groups to be able to do the particular sequence of actions prescribed by pilates, boxing, spin or yoga. While this does carry a lot of benefits such as weight loss through burnt calories, it doesn’t necessarily follow that exercise in this format develops your fundamental natural movement. A person may be able to lift their own body mass on the bench press, but struggle with a bad lower back when gardening or picking up their kids.

The basics of this problem boil down to time. There simply isn’t time to be consciously engaged in your every movement in everyday life. Our conscious brain doesn’t have that kind of processing power or physiological awareness. Our muscles are designed to operate subconsciously, so exercise that consciously targets specific muscles can’t touch whatever lack of natural mobility still lies underneath. If we stumble or catch something falling, our brain cannot catch up in time to make sure we have the ‘right’ muscles engaged before the movement. This is where injuries crop up.

A survey recently found that increasing numbers of yoga teachers are suffering from significant hip injuries, which a leading physiotherapist put down to the fact that exercise formats like yoga encourage people to force their bodies to “fit prescribed positions, even if our natural physiology prevents it”. 

So is there a way to strengthen our natural physiology to make exercise as rounded and beneficial as possible?

Functional movement training reminds the body to link subconscious impulses to the correct muscles, enabling you to move through day-to-day life from a position of confidence and natural strength whilst reducing the risk of injury. Simply experiencing movements that suit your level of ability enhances the effectiveness of your exercise efforts, rejuvenating the body’s natural form and functional strength in everyday life.

Natural Fit has developed a unique system of bespoke training that focuses on building your body’s natural functional strength, re-connecting brain and body to enable you to rediscover moving how you were born to. 

Enquire now for more information about our natural movement studio and innovative classes.

We’re almost one month into the new decade, and this might be the moment you take stock of how you’ve kicked it off. How are those resolutions going? Are you still riding that new year high?

Year in, year out, we all find ourselves thinking to the future as the clock strikes midnight on New Year’s Eve, carrying us through into a new year or, in this year’s case, a new decade. A lot of people avoid actively making New Year’s resolutions to save all the baggage of ‘inevitable’ failure. But it is natural to still think about what version of yourself you would like to be a year from now. Maybe that person is fitter, more confident, more financially secure or can even speak un poco de español as the countdown to 2021 starts up. So what’s stopping you?

Starting the year on the ‘right foot’ is understandably easier said than done, and hard to keep going all year long. Making small, gradual lifestyle changes can feel strange and unstructured, so it’s tempting to try a gigantic lifestyle overhaul that feels like a quick fix, but end up fizzling out within a few weeks as your motivation falls foul of the post-Christmas January blues. The intentions are great, but the process can leave you feeling jaded and tired before you’ve even truly given yourself the right opportunity. 

The ‘SMART’ method helps to keep your goals achievable, but in a much more structured way for long-term success. SMART stands for:

• Specific: A focused goal that motivates you. What steps are required to make this happen? Where? When? What is needed? Who will help you?
• Measured: What does the completed version of this goal look like? At what point would you class this goal as successfully achieved? How will you see progress?
• Achievable: A goal that is personally attainable in a healthy, positive fashion.
• Realistic: Is this goal within your reach (even if it is a bit challenging)?
• Timely – bound to a specific, conducive timeline that provides urgency. Is there a target date for this goal, like an event, holiday or new job? Is this target date doable?

Let’s try taking a starter goal and turning it into a SMART goal:

1. Goal: “I want to lose weight”
2. SMART Goal: “I want to lose two stone by my wedding anniversary on 1st June 2020. To do this, I will walk the dog for 45 minutes every evening and attend two gym classes a week while following a nutrition plan worked out with my Natural Fit trainer. I will weigh myself each Sunday morning before breakfast to make sure I stay on track. I will achieve my goal if I aim to lose 1.5lbs a week.

Try SMART goal setting to turn a wish into an actionable plan, to make success a reality and to give you control over your wellbeing. Any time is a great time to become a more invigorated you. A positive, healthy lifestyle is for your future, not just for New Year. 

Natural Fit will support and restore your natural potential through bespoke exercise plans that unlock a life of freedom and flexibility.

As life has been busier, food has become all about being ‘on the go’; convenience and drive-thru reign over traditional meal habits as we are encouraged to multitask our way through breakfast, lunch and dinner. Mealtimes have given way to scrolling on devices, working on laptops, or even just mindlessly snacking all evening only to still feel cravings later.

Christmastime brings its own joys and challenges; for every delicious mince pie, there is a tray of canapés that need scoffing – for every feast, a tin of Quality Street. As much as we all want to indulge in every treat the festive season has to offer, the inevitable New Year health kick looms and no one wants to spend Christmas worrying about starting 2020 on the wrong foot. So how can we keep our physical wellbeing a priority without denying ourselves all the wonderful tastes of Christmas?

‘Mindful eating’ began as a Buddhist meditative practice, and has now become a mainstay of modern-day wellness. Mindful eating focuses specifically on full enjoyment and appreciation of food, and has been popularised as the perfect antidote to the number-obsessed, restrictive diet culture that has come to the fore in recent decades. Evidence suggests that it can support weight loss, enhance one’s relationship with food including for those who struggle with disordered eating, and even improve body image. 

Essentially, it’s about taking small steps to approach each meal and snack with intent and purpose, and re-connecting brain and body by using every sense to get as much pleasure as possible out of eating something delicious and nourishing.

Try these five great starting tips to develop your mindful eating skills:

1. Reaching for a snack? Consult your headspace first by asking yourself some questions to better understand why you feel the impulse to eat what’s in front of you. Are you hungry? Are you bored? Is that the most appealing food available to you? Are you eating that food simply because it was offered to you? Is this a conscious choice, or habit? Will eating this now mean that you can’t eat something you like more later? Will you fully enjoy this food at this point in time?
2. Drink a glass of water before eating to cleanse your palate. This tip is used a lot as an appetite suppressant, but in the context of Mindful Eating this can be an excellent way of switching your mind into the ‘event’ of eating food. Turn ‘eating’ from a chore or passive necessity into an active pleasure by preparing your taste-buds like an artist priming a canvas.
3. Clear away all screens, laptops, books and distractions to create a peaceful dining environment. We live in a multi-task society, and the time spent eating can feel like dead time that needs to be filled with tasks. Designate a meal or a snack as sacred, something that both requires and deserves your full attention.
4. Until you feel confident and practised, take your time by setting a fixed number of chews, and try to notice something new with each bite. If you are eating avocado toast topped with tomatoes, perhaps you first notice the roughness of the toast. Then the creaminess of the avocado, the sweetness of the tomato, the combination of seasoning, and so on. Think creatively about what you are actively using to nourish your body and mind to infuse the experience with appreciation and gratitude.
5. Once you have practised these techniques, try to make every single choice conscious to draw the mindful awareness across the entire eating experience. This may sound daunting, but it can be as simple as selecting your plate and utensil with care, choosing your seat thoughtfully and sitting down to eat with deliberate purpose, as well as taking full advantage of every sense by taking a moment for visual presentation, smelling before tasting, and listening to the sound of the food as you chew.

There is no fixed way to try mindful eating, but consciously prioritising enjoyment of and engagement with food over Christmas will put you in your best frame of health to keep the good spirits going through to the New Year. Allow yourself to experience the full scope of life’s pleasures, to be a more invigorated you.

As part of the Natural Fit induction, we will give you a bespoke nutrition screening to help improve your health for life and support body and mind

We all know that the physical and the mental are interconnected. As the frost falls and sunny days become gold dust, it’s important to understand how the changing seasons can have a noticeable effect on both body and mind. We’ve explained here the best ways to physically care for yourself in the face of lack of sun, but what about mentally? 

For some people, managing the winter months might be as simple as breaking up the dark with twinkly lights, mulled wine and plenty of Christmassy cosiness. But if, year-on-year, you find it tricky to keep your physical and mental health in good shape once the clocks go back, you’re not alone.

Seasonal Affective Disorder is a type of depression that people experience during certain times of the year depending on the season and weather, often during winter time as the days get shorter and the weather more temperamental. While everybody feels perhaps a bit sluggish on an average gloomy day in January, people who are affected by SAD experience significant mental and physical symptoms including low mood, carbohydrate cravings, hyperphagia (excessive eating), anxiety, irritability, weight gain, and lethargy. 

When symptoms like these can noticeably impact quality of life for months at a time each year, it is vital to have an idea of what small habits you can include in your day-to-day life to keep your mind and body as healthy, invigorated and peaceful as possible. 

1. Keep mornings light with a dawn simulator alarm clock that bathes your bedroom in simulated sunlight in the thirty minutes leading up to your wake-up time, waking you gradually and naturally as the light builds, and so staves off the dark wintry mornings to start the day as positively as possible.
2. Invest in a SAD light therapy box, which can be used for 20 to 60 minutes a day depending on your personal experience. Lightboxes of 10,000 lux that are specifically designed for light therapy, or phototherapy, have been proven to help symptoms of SAD with daily use through the winter months, by providing artificially produced sunlight that filters out 99% of harmful ultraviolet rays. All you need to do is place the lightbox two feet away from your face at a 10 o’clock or 2 o’clock angle. Pair your lightbox-time with your morning routine so that it becomes a natural part of your day; simply switching it on while you answer your emails, put on makeup or eat breakfast could enormously improve your mindset for the day.
3. We’ve previously sung the praises of meditation and the effect it can have on your mental wellbeing year-round, and it can be especially helpful when managing the psychological effects of SAD in the form of breathing in sunlight. Spending just 15 minutes outside in the morning and performing a mindfulness ritual that helps you feel more connected to the sunlight can have fantastic benefits. It can be as easy as facing the sun and practising a breathing exercise, visualising the sunlight flowing to your lungs and being absorbed by your body and mind as you inhale. 
4. The quality of our diet is the catalyst for all our mental and physical wellbeing. It’s easy to give into the SAD carbohydrate cravings that set in or the impulse to overeat in the search for energy, but the physiological effects of doing so can actually make symptoms feel more overwhelming. Focus on making sure your diet is packed out with all the vitamins and nutrients you need to bolster yourself against the effects of SAD, such as eating plenty of protein and foods rich in Vitamin D and B such as wild salmon, green vegetables, legumes and fruit juices. If you struggle to keep vitamin levels up through diet, consider a vitamin supplement in consultation with your GP.
5. Lastly, exercise is always an excellent way to boost energy, regulate hormone levels and stabilise mental wellbeing, especially when it comes to SAD. It can also help provide fantastic structure when the evenings feel long and lethargic, and become a new hobby which buoys you through the winter. Set aside just half an hour to reconnect brain and body, get your heart-rate pumping, or even simply just go for a walk during your lunch time in the precious daylight hours, and your mind and body will both thank you.

Seasonal Affective Disorder is more than just ‘winter blues’ and is as valid and worthy of treatment as any other mental health disorders. We at Natural Fit believe in synchronicity between mind and body, and are therefore giving our all to support and restore your natural potential. 

Revitalise the mind with a guided exercise programme and nutrition plan that is tailored to your individual needs.

The sun has set on Daylight Savings Time for 2019 – that wonderful extra hour of sleep officially ushering in evenings spent snuggled under a blanket, toes toasting in the glow of a fire and festive films with warm mugs of hot chocolate. The countdown to the most wonderful time of the year is on.

But you may be starting to notice just how scarce the sunlight hours are becoming during the day, and wondering what effect this has on your health each year. Perhaps you have noticed fatigue washing over you just as we passed Hallowe’en or perhaps that your mood dips from the onset of winter until springtime.

When we absorb less sunlight, our body creates less vitamin D. Vitamin D is crucial for helping to absorb calcium, promote bone growth, regulate insulin levels and support the health of the immune system. Symptoms of early vitamin D deficiency can include muscle pain, unexplained fatigue, hair loss, difficulty walking and overall weakness, as well as links to poor mental health and even Seasonal Affective Disorder.

The most natural source is the vitamin D created by the body itself but it is not always easy to absorb enough sunlight through the skin to produce the levels of vitamin D we need, especially for those in Northern climates and people with darker skin. 

With busy modern life keeping many of us inside for the increasingly precious hours of daylight through the winter months, there is all the more need to stay mindful of how much vitamin D we miss out on. So how can we get enough for what we need?

1. Eat thoughtfully: You can get vitamin D from your diet, though it is trickier than other vitamins. Egg yolks, cod liver oil and fatty fish such as tuna or salmon can be great sources of vitamin D when eaten regularly. In fact, the average person can satisfy their weekly dietary vitamin D requirement with just 2.5 servings of wild salmon per week. For plant-based diets, mushrooms, spinach and soybeans can help absorb vitamin D at a slightly less efficient rate than animal products. You can also buy calcium-fortified and vitamin D-fortified foods such as orange juice, cow’s milk, alternative milks, cereals and yoghurts.
2. Find alternatives: The NHS advises considering a small daily vitamin D supplement to keep your intake steady throughout the winter months. The average adult needs no more than 600 IU of vitamin D per day; a proportion of this can be found in daily multivitamins, which typically contain around 100 IU to accompany sun and diet. If you’re unsure what kind of supplement to choose, consult your doctor for an idea of how much you ought to take on top of your diet.
3. Follow the Sun!: The best and most natural source of vitamin D is through sunlight, so try to make the most of every moment you can snag in the sun. It can take from just 15 minutes of skin exposure each day to absorb what you need. Make it a daily priority to get out into the open air; the wavelengths required to produce vitamin D are lost through glass, so sitting by a window is not enough! Take your lunch break outside a few times a week, or set aside even just a quarter of an hour for a brisk, rejuvenating walk. Vitamin D can be stored in the body, so stock up on sunlight at the weekends with one of our favourite local walks in the Tunbridge Wells area. 

Every body is unique, and knowing what building blocks keep your physical self at its best is the key to improving your health and strength for future life. At Natural Fit, we’re all about restoring you to your most natural self, to be a more invigorated you. 

Natural Fit members will receive a full body screening so that we can tailor a bespoke exercise and nutrition plan to your individual needs.

An active lifestyle is about more than just workouts, targets and diet plans. The way we see it, it’s about making little but great choices each day that allow you to enjoy a full, rounded life with family and friends. 

Autumn is a fantastic time to reconnect with your body, mind, loved ones and the peacefulness of the changing seasons. With the children off-school this half-term and your wellbeing to look after as winter draws closer, take advantage of all of the natural beauty that Kent has to offer year-round. 

We’ve put together a wonderful itinerary that’s packed with plentiful opportunities in the Tunbridge Wells area for the whole family to join in active, outdoor fun!

Walks to invigorate and inspire

We really couldn’t be luckier than to be so close to Ashdown Forest, the inspiration for Winnie-the-Pooh’s stamping ground The Hundred Acre Wood. There are 13 different walks to take through this historic forest from Pooh-themed trails to archaeological treks and even a route that follows an airstrip from the Second World War, so there is something for all interests and ages! There are some accessible areas for pushchairs and wheelchairs, and dogs are very much welcome. Maps can be downloaded from the website or picked up at the Forest Centre for a small donation of 50p. Horse riders can purchase a permit to hack within the Forest on a day, winter and annual basis.

Enjoy walking for a little part of each day, or triumph with a full hike, with the Tunbridge Wells Circular Walks. The full route is 27.5 miles and takes you all around the countryside on the outskirts of the town, skirting the Kent-Sussex border round to Pembury, Tudeley Natural Park, and Southborough before closing back in around Langton Green. If the full course sounds a bit daunting, try out one or part of the four smaller circulars that range between 8 and 15 miles starting in the town centre, so you can pick whichever best fits your ability level and appeals to your inner explorer.

If you’d like to stay more local to town, take a stroll along the Heritage Walking Trail, which guides you through all of the best historical sites in the town of Royal Tunbridge Wells. The trail includes a tour of the finest examples of Tunbridge Wells’ beautifully preserved Regency architecture and commemorative plaques, spanning from the homes of novelists and Shakespearean actors to the local residence of Queen Victoria. 

Breathe in our rich local history and the crisp autumn air this half-term in just a few active, family-friendly hours.

Be active without noticing!

Sneak some steps into your day by visiting one of the many historic attractions in the Tunbridge Wells area as a family day out. 

Hole Park Gardens is open between 11am-6pm this Wednesday and Thursday, with a family-run tea room onsite. Catch the magnificent changing colours of the trees at this dog-friendly Georgian estate before it closes for the winter after 31st October.

Pop out to Scotney Castle for a leafy wander around the grounds, lakes and even the Hallowe’en themed children’s trail available until the 3rd November. Also dog-friendly, Scotney Castle is currently in the midst of harvest and so features pumpkins for sale plus a carved pumpkin display by the National Trust team, perfect for a spooky family day out!

Being active can be natural and easy.

Natural Fit can help you move freely and with greater longevity, aiding your everyday functional movement to enable you to rediscover moving how you were born to. Experience life at its full with the people close to you, every day of the year for years to come.

It’s National Heart Month 2020, when the British Heart Foundation do important work to shed light on how best to avoid causes and symptoms of heart disease, yet wading through the information and diet recommendations may seem daunting.

Nutrition is the foundation of health, and each food we eat influences the well-being of the body and soul. We all know the basics: have your five a day, don’t have chocolate for breakfast, breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and so on. Beyond that, the diet landscape can appear to be a bit of a minefield, littered with disprovable old wives’ tales, muddled research theories and ‘miracle’ crash diets.

One thing that crops up a lot, particularly as we age, is keeping the heart strong and healthy by managing our ‘cholesterol levels’. The textbook one-size-fits-all advice is to eat less fatty food because too much saturated fat in the diet causes high cholesterol, which is very bad for you and can put you at risk of cardiovascular disease. But how true is this?

Myth 1: Cholesterol in food is the same as Cholesterol in the blood

‘Cholesterol’ in itself is not the bad guy, any more than saturated fat. In the same way that saturated fat unfairly gets the blame for body fat, cholesterol in food is blamed for body cholesterol; they are two separate things! 

Cholesterol is crucial to our survival. It helps with making hormones and vitamin D, plus it helps maintain the structure of cells. In the average person, the body regulates how much cholesterol is in the blood by only creating enough body cholesterol for what it needs, based on how much food cholesterol is in your diet.

It’s actually very simple: the more cholesterol you eat, the less the body makes. The less cholesterol you eat, the more your body makes. Therefore, eating less cholesterol will not ‘lower your cholesterol’. The amount of cholesterol in the average person’s body stays about the same all of the time.

Myth 2: The more saturated fats you eat, the higher your cholesterol

So what is food cholesterol, and how is it part of our diet? 

Until now, the common misconception has been that saturated fat makes your blood cholesterol levels rise, but this is another example of the food vs body cholesterol mix-up! 

Foods that are high in saturated fats are also high in cholesterol. Food cholesterol reduces the amount of cholesterol made by the body, so foods rich in saturated fats will not raise cholesterol levels even though they have a high cholesterol content.

In fact, research has suggested that replacing saturated fats with alternatives can increase the risk of coronary heart disease, so clearly saturated fats can’t be to blame!

Natural foods that are high in saturated fats and cholesterol are important to your diet and very nutritionally valuable when eaten in non-excessive quantities. Great examples are grass-fed beef, whole eggs, fish oil and full-fat dairy products.

Myth 3: Too much cholesterol causes heart disease

We’ve now made a distinction between food and body cholesterol, and we already know that it’s very difficult for cholesterol levels to rise. So, how could it be cholesterol itself that causes all of the trouble?

Lipoproteins carry cholesterol around the body, and can be sorted into two types: High-Density Lipoproteins and Low-Density Lipoproteins.

Low-Density Lipoproteins (LDLs) are created when we eat too many carbohydrates than can be properly processed, so the excess is converted into fatty acids in the liver. When this happens, Very-Low-Density Lipoproteins are released into the bloodstream carrying cholesterol, before shrinking down in size to become LDLs. The more LDLs that carry the body cholesterol around the bloodstream, the higher the risk of cholesterol clogs in the arteries and the risk of heart disease.

High-Density Lipoproteins filter excess cholesterol in the bloodstream back towards the liver to be processed properly, keeping the arteries clear.

The simple truth?

Cholesterol itself isn’t the problem, rather what type of lipoprotein transports it around the body. Instead of worrying about saturated fats causing ‘high’ or ‘low’ cholesterol, eating the right quantities of fat, protein and carbohydrates for your body will help keep everything ticking along smoothly and with vitality.

As part of the Natural Fit induction, we will give you a bespoke nutrition screening to help improve your health for life and support your body and mind.

It’s BackCare Awareness Week (7th-11th October), and we believe that it is always a good time to learn to protect yourself from back pain and restore natural everyday movement to your life.

It often seems as though everyone suffers from back trouble these days, from injuries to simply feeling like you carry all of life’s stresses in your shoulders or lower back. When it is estimated that office workers spend 75% of the work-day sitting down, it is especially important to understand how the way you sit and the time you spend sitting still can affect your back.

Sitting in the same position for long periods can reduce the flexibility and mobility of your hips and lower back, leading to tightness, stiffness, and even pain in your body. The discomfort of a tricky back might even keep you from taking part in hobbies and activities that you enjoy.

It is never too late to revitalise your body and move with comfort and confidence.

The good news? It’s easy to add some small changes in your day to help you on the way to moving freely and feeling at ease with your body.

Here’s a few quick and simple tips:

1. Sit well: You can give yourself a significantly more natural and restful experience when sitting for hours at a time by simply tweaking your sitting position to erase the pressure on your hips and back. The best way is to sit with your hips slightly higher than your knees; an angle of just around 10 degrees should do it!. There are specialist chairs that you can buy that are designed with this posture in mind, but any chair can be modified using cushions for even more comfort.
2. Stay flexible: If you often find yourself sitting for lengthy periods of time, take a moment to reconnect your mind and body. Remind yourself once an hour to practise this simple extension exercise:
   • Sit upright in the position above with your chin slightly dropped, eyes level with the horizon. Take a deep breath in as you lift your chest up and arch it backwards looking up to the ceiling. Exhale, and slouch forwards into a rounded shoulder posture. Repeat this 10 times.
3. Reset your body: ‘Baby rocking’ is a great way to re-activate mobility, flexibility and stability in your entire body, and it’s easy!
   • A couple of times a day, find a soft surface and position yourself on your hands and knees. Place your knees directly underneath your hips, and hands directly underneath your shoulders. At your own pace, sit back as far as you feel comfortable then rock forwards to return to the starting position.
   • Take care to only rock forwards to the starting position, as pushing further could upset your lower back.
   • Repeat until your body feels light and free to move easily, which will usually only take between 30 seconds and 1 minute.

It is never too late to revitalise your body and move with comfort and confidence. We can help you take good care of your mobility and wellbeing through a restorative exercise programme that is personal to you and what you want to achieve.

Enjoy moments with family and friends without discomfort or concern, and gift yourself the feeling of freedom and ability.

This Stoptober, use our simple guide to finally break bad habits and form better, healthier habits that restore your natural potential.

As much as we try, no one is perfect all of the time. Everybody has habits that we regret but continue to do anyway because we’re human. In fact, research has suggested that the average adult will try to put a stop to their ‘bad’ habit around twice a year. It might be something as small as checking social media first thing in the morning or as impactful on your well-being as smoking.

It’s understandable to feel a bit lost when trying to go about breaking a habit that’s been a part of your life for a long time like biting your nails or smoking a cigarette. However, once you understand what steps go into creating a habit and therefore how to break ‘bad’ habits in favour of ‘good’ ones, it’s simple and achievable!

The two main starting points are to:

• Motivate yourself: List the benefits of stopping the bad habit – big and small. In what ways would stopping improve your life and wellness? For nail-biters, that could be something as simple as being able to treat yourself to a manicure. For social media users, it could be improving your attention span or sleeping better without having your phone to hand before bed. For smokers, it might be improving health, or just not having to constantly step outside during work or social events.
• Swap bad for good: Consider what ‘good’ habits could replace the bad to contribute even more to your quality of life. Perhaps it could be meditation first thing in the morning rather than browsing Facebook, or drinking a cup of your favourite tea in place of having a cigarette.

A habit is formed in three stages: the ‘trigger’, the ‘action’ and the ‘reward’. When we first start performing an action, we are consciously aware of the trigger. In smokers, the trigger may have initially been a stressful event for which only smoking a cigarette (action) could bring about relief (reward), then repeated until the habit loop is almost entirely subconscious. 

So, in order to break a habit and form a new good one, we break it down into these three achievable steps:

1. Identifying the trigger for your bad habit. Stress? Boredom? Does it happen at certain times of day or in certain places?
2. What action could go in place of the bad habit to create a new good habit? Is it something that can be done at the same times of day or in the same places?
3. What reward would the new good habit give you? Is it more appealing than the bad habit’s ‘reward’? (If not, think of a different new action!)

Try these straightforward steps with one small habit at a time, and empower yourself to tackle the bigger habits that you’ve always wished you could cut out of your routine. It’s said that it only takes a matter of weeks to form a habit; make it a good one that rejuvenates your mind and well-being!

Reconnect with life’s pleasures. Reward yourself for prioritising your health and restoring your natural potential. 

Natural Fit can support you in your newfound habit-forming skills to make our invigorating exercise and wellness ethos part of your rejuvenation process. Celebrate your efforts in our revitalising spa and café.

Stress doesn’t just affect the mind.

In fact, there are 6 forms of physiological stress that influence the body as well. Classed as physiological stress load factors (PSL), they include:

• Chemical stress
  Caused by chemical irritants contacting your skin or entering your lungs. These are often found in cleaning products and beauty products.
• Nutritional stress
  Every body is unique in the nutrients it requires. Food which is highly nutritious to one person may be useless, or even damaging, to another person if their body isn’t able to extract the nutrients properly. Consuming food which your body doesn’t agree with causes nutritional stress.
• Thermal stress
  Our bodies rely on a steady core temperature for normal function, so if we are exposed to extreme temperatures our bodies have to work really hard to keep the temperature steady and this causes thermal stress.
• Environmental stress
  The environment you are in can have a big impact on your stress load. If your senses are constantly being bombarded with information, such as bright lights, loud noises or even a tense situation your stress load will increase dramatically.
• Psychological stress
  This is what most people think of when they talk about stress. Psychological stress can come from the workplace, home life, juggling commitments, financial strain, difficult relationships, or just about anywhere. 
• Physical stress
  Exercise causes physical stress to the body, generally speaking, the higher the intensity, the higher the stress, and injuries can exacerbate this. However, you don’t have to be an athlete to experience high physical stress; the everyday physicality which life demands also causes physical stress to the body. 

Not all stress is bad for you!

We have evolved to use stress to our advantage. Stress can make our bodies perform well: our senses can heighten, along with our concentration, our blood flow increases and we can harness stress to make us stronger and fitter.

The body works efficiently to keep its systems balanced. Each of the body’s systems deal with these six stress factors on a daily basis and have an optimal level of stress under which they operate best.

The danger of too much stress

Stress in the various systems adds up and the body can only take so much. If each system is only slightly overworked, the sum of all stress combined could equate to a significant load, causing all manner of unwanted symptoms ranging from itchy skin to high blood pressure.

When your body is highly stressed, further stress produced through physical activity will only exacerbate an already stressed system. The effects of one or all of the six physiological stressors can play havoc with your rehabilitation or sporting performance, reducing your natural ability to promote health, heal or improve.

Stress loads on the body have a large effect on the intensity that an individual can work at during exercise to create a positive outcome!

Using this knowledge to your advantage

Someone who has a high physiological stress load and is trying to lose weight by exercising too intensely will struggle to see any results. They may find they are getting ill or injured easily. They are likely to see far greater results from lowering the intensity of their exercise, alongside reducing nutritional stress by cutting down on the worst offenders, such as processed foods and alcohol. It may seem counterintuitive, but giving the body the space it needs to re-balance, repair and revitalise would expedite weight loss and make the individual feel a lot better. The same goes for someone trying to build muscle.

An identical exercise programme performed by two different individuals can create two very different outcomes, often due to the total level of stress within an individual’s physiology. Appropriate exercise intensity directed by your PSL produces outstanding results!

So how do I know how much physical stress is the appropriate amount for me?

You can experiment yourself, taking the time to consciously think about how much stress you are under and try adjusting your diet and exercise accordingly. Eliminating stress in some areas which you have the most control over will enable you to manage your health. 

At Natural Fit, all of our coaches are trained to help you identify your stress load. We tailor exercises to your ability level and guide you to your fitness goals, making sure you are exerting yourself no more than is healthy for you.