Fitness Doesn’t Have a Look

“Exercise is a celebration of what your body can do.” This commonly used quote amplifies what fitness is when we don’t connect it to body image, calories, or a weight and size. How you think about fitness and physical activity can affect your motivation to work out. It can also impact how successful you are at building healthy exercise habits. 

Mindful movement and health at every size encourages tuning out thoughts about what exercise should be. Instead, it focuses on movement that feels good for you. This is also called intuitive movement, or mindful exercise, and encompasses so much more than what most people think about fitness. 

What exactly is intuitive exercise? 

Any kind of regular exercise and movement can fall under the intuitive exercise umbrella. This means walking, gardening, lifting weights, playing outside, hiking, etc. Traditional types of workouts can fall into this category too, as long as they are activities you enjoy doing. 

If you dread doing a particular type of physical activity, don’t do it. Don’t spend your time doing aerobic activities, like a HITT class, if it’s something you dread. The easiest way to be consistent with any form of exercise is to do what you enjoy. 

Intuitive exercise is also about listening to your body’s needs. Some days, you may need to practice relaxation yoga to focus on your mental health. Other days, your body may crave an activity that gets your heart rate up. 

When you focus on creating an intuitive fitness plan, you have flexibility over the movement you do. 

Fitness Programs that Support Health at Every Size 

Health at Every Size, or HAES, shifts the focus from body weight to overall health. HAES encourages body acceptance, intuitive eating, and intuitive exercise. The HAES approach values bodies of all sizes and encourages more social support for body acceptance. 

HAES principles emerged as a response to weight bias in our health system and the lack of success that traditional diet and exercise principles have had regarding overall health. We also want to disentangle body weight from a person’s perception of their overall health and self-esteem. 

When physical health is attached to a certain bodyweight, many individuals take part in disordered eating or excessive exercise to attain the weight goal. 

Fitness programs that move away from body weight goals can lead to a lower risk of injury and avoid burnout. Health benefits of HAES-based programs include improved: 

• eating practices and attitudes 
• perception of body image  
• physical fitness and capacity 
• perception on quality of life 

How to Follow a HAES Fitness Program 

Intuitive movement means enhancing your awareness of how you’re moving. This often means slowing down and being more mindful. 

Keep in mind that intuitive movement means different things to different people. That’s the point of staying with this mindset. You get to let go of rules and move your body in ways that feel good to you. 

It may challenge you at first to understand what your body needs, especially if it’s been a long time since you’ve felt connected to your body. 

Here are some tips on how to adopt mindful movement:

1. Accept that you can engage in movement that’s enjoyable and suitable for your unique body. Let go of the “have to” and “must” with exercise. Changing your thoughts around exercise can help improve motivation and your relationship with body movement.
2. Show up for physical fitness without strict rules. If you straddle your spin bike and it doesn’t feel good, get off. Switch to yoga or something less intense. An important component of a HAES program is you distinguish when your body really needs rest or a certain type of movement. 
3. Mindful movement doesn’t mean you can’t have fitness goals or follow a program. It just means you build flexibility into both your goals and routine. For example, if you’re training for a running event, include a range for your weekly mileage goal and 1-2 dedicated cross training or rest days. It doesn’t have to be a specific day of the week so you can move things around depending on how your body feels. 
4. Don’t weigh yourself (or at least step on the scale less frequently). Health outcomes from physical activity include more than just weight management. Instead of creating fitness goals around weight loss, connect them to your mental and emotional health and decrease your risk of developing health conditions. 
5. The best part of intuitive exercise is that nothing is off-limits. If walking the dog, running along the creek, or hitting up a group fitness class feels good, do that. It just depends on what you like to do and how you can keep doing those activities more and more. 
6. It takes time to shift your mindset. Have patience as you embrace intuitive exercise and HAES principles. You may have to disconnect from social media accounts, gym memberships, or specific media outlets so you can surround yourself with voices that align with where you want to be.

Remember, every day is different, so your fitness needs may be different. You may opt for something high-intensity one day, then go on a more relaxed walk another day. Both types of movement are valid when you’re moving for you, not for a look.