What is fitness?
Fitness is essential for your health and wellbeing, helping you tackle daily tasks with ease and energy. Achieving fitness is a journey that involves balancing your nutrition, staying active, resting well, and following a recovery plan that suits your needs. While modern sedentary lifestyles might make this journey harder, with the right approach, fitness is achievable for everyone and well worth the effort.
Elements of Physical Fitness
Personalised Fitness: Fitness isn’t the same for everyone. It depends on what you want to improve—strength, endurance, balance, or flexibility. Mixing these elements into your routine is key to building a well-rounded fitness plan that works for you.
Health Benefits: Staying active helps prevent and manage chronic conditions, boosts your mood, and makes everyday life more manageable.
Overcoming Barriers to Exercise
No matter your age or current fitness level, there are effective ways to overcome barriers and make exercise a regular part of your life.
Find Activities You Enjoy: Choosing exercises you like can help keep you motivated. If it feels fun, you’re more likely to stick with it.
Set Realistic Goals: Break your fitness goals down into achievable steps. This will keep you on track without feeling overwhelmed.
Get Support: Turning to friends, family, or fitness professionals can provide the encouragement and accountability you need. Remember, every bit of movement counts, and starting small can lead to big changes over time.
More than half of people say they don’t exercise at all
More than 80% of the world's adolescent population is not physically active enough
63.1% of people aged 16+ in England are physically active
25.8% of people are inactive, exercising less than 30 minutes a week
What causes people to struggle with exercise?
Starting and sticking with a regular exercise routine can feel tough. Time constraints, the cost of gym memberships or equipment, and past attempts that didn’t last can make it feel daunting. If previous experiences didn’t bring quick results, finding the motivation to try again can be a challenge.
Health Issues and Life Changes: Health conditions can also make exercise difficult. Whether it’s a chronic illness or a life event like moving house, a new job, or expanding your family, it’s easy for fitness routines to be disrupted.
Genetic and Environmental Influences: You might find exercise harder due to your genes. Some people are naturally more inclined to enjoy physical activity, while others may struggle. Your environment plays a role too—not everyone has access to safe places to exercise, and cultural attitudes towards fitness can vary.
Overcoming Barriers to Exercise
Understanding what holds you back is the first step towards overcoming it. The goal is to find joy in movement so that exercise feels like a positive part of your life rather than a chore.
Find Enjoyable Activities: Pick exercises that you enjoy. The more fun it is, the easier it will be to stay motivated.
Set Achievable Targets: Setting realistic goals will help you stay focused and make progress without feeling overwhelmed.
Seek Support: Having a support system, whether from friends, family, or a fitness coach, can give you the encouragement you need to keep going. Every little bit of movement adds up, so make it part of your journey to feeling better both physically and mentally.
The impact of living with a lack of fitness
Skipping regular exercise doesn’t just lead to a few extra pounds. It can impact your entire wellbeing. When your body craves movement but doesn’t get it, the consequences go beyond muscle tone and calorie burn—you’re opening yourself up to potential health issues.
Physical Health Consequences: Living a sedentary lifestyle increases your risk of serious conditions like heart disease, diabetes, and certain cancers. Staying active helps you maintain a healthy weight, improve your heart health, and strengthen your muscles and bones.
Mental Health Effects: It’s not just your body that suffers—your mind does too. Avoiding exercise can worsen feelings of anxiety and depression, making daily stress harder to manage. A lack of movement can leave you feeling sluggish and down, affecting your overall mood and energy.
Daily Life Challenges: Low physical fitness affects more than just your health. Simple tasks like climbing stairs or keeping up with your kids become more difficult, making everyday life feel more challenging.
How can it be overcome?
Starting your fitness journey begins with setting clear goals. Whether you want to run a 5K, build strength, or simply feel more energised, having a target helps you stay motivated. Here are some ways to build a sustainable exercise routine:
Consider Your Goals: Think about what you want to achieve. It could be improving your heart health, gaining muscle, or just feeling better overall. Clear goals help you design an effective exercise plan.
Hire a Personal Trainer: If you’re new to fitness or want extra guidance, a personal trainer can design a plan tailored to your needs and ensure you’re doing exercises correctly.
Choose Activities You Enjoy: You’re more likely to stick to your routine if you’re having fun. If running doesn’t appeal to you, try something like swimming, yoga, or dancing.
Fit Exercise into Your Schedule: Incorporate exercise into your daily life, whether it’s a morning jog, cycling to work, or a quick lunchtime workout. Making it part of your routine will help you stay consistent.
Be Social: Exercising with others can boost your motivation. You might join a fitness class, participate in a ParkRun, or get involved in a team sport.
Schedule Rest and Recovery: Rest days are vital for recovery. Give your body time to repair, and don’t forget to celebrate your achievements along the way.
How can hypnotherapy help?
Hypnotherapy for fitness is like having a personal coach for your mind. It helps you not just get off the couch but change the way you think about being active. Hypnotherapy taps into your subconscious, making exercise feel like a natural, enjoyable part of life.
Subtle Yet Powerful Changes: Solution Focused Hypnotherapy works quietly behind the scenes, helping you shift the mental blocks that hold you back from enjoying exercise. It’s like making vegetables taste delicious without realising they’re there—the change is subtle but significant.
The Hypnotherapy Session: During a session, you’ll be in a deeply relaxed state, where your mind is more open to positive suggestions. You’ll mentally rehearse enjoying physical activities, visualising the pleasure of movement and the rewards it brings. Over time, these positive mental rehearsals can help you look forward to exercise.
Customised Programme: The number of sessions varies for everyone. Some feel motivated after just one session, while others may need a bit more time. Your hypnotherapist will create a plan that fits your needs.
Transformative Outcomes: Hypnotherapy fosters a new, positive outlook on fitness. Instead of dreading exercise, you may find yourself eager to move, with the mental resilience to overcome setbacks. Hypnotherapy doesn’t just encourage fitness—it helps you enjoy it as a lifelong habit.
Our Fitness Specialists
Benn Baker-Pollard
Sittingbourne
Carmen Harrington
Market Harborough
Caroline Prout
Thrapston
Chris Johannes
Spalding
Claire Noyelle
Maidstone East
Dawn Ibbetson
Chelmsford
Gary Johannes
Peterborough
Jill Whitehouse
Newcastle upon Tyne
Keeley Smith
Southend-on-Sea
Kerry Seymour
Weston-super-Mare
Peter Ely
Islington
Victoria Anderson
Sunderland
Why Choose Inspired To Change
Our solution focused hypnotherapists empower you to better understand your brain, helping to guide you towards solutions and achieve the outcomes you want. We have a team of fully trained hypnotherapists, giving you the choice of who to work with and how you want to work with them. Solution focused hypnotherapy is just as effective in-person or online in the comfort of your own home, so you can find the ideal therapist to help you reach your goals.
Every one of our hypnotherapists is recognised by governing bodies like the National Council for Hypnotherapy, the UK’s leading not-for-profit hypnotherapy professional association. They have all trained with Clifton Practice Hypnotherapy Training, one of the leading hypnotherapy schools in the UK.
