Parvati Magazine December 2014/January 2015: Consequence/Beginnings | Page 27

FITNESS
gym, overeat, stay up
late, and feel lousy about
yourself, a gym membership is not going to
change that - no matter
how many extras you buy
like a personal trainer, or
exhortations you put on
yourself like “don’t screw
it up this time!”.
Pursuing any fitness activity with a feeling of
dread, shame or aversion
is creating an experience
of self-punishment that
sets you up for failure.
Stress - and that includes
self-punishment - boosts
the body’s cortisol levels,
which trigger it to store
more fat around the
abdomen. Self-love and
self-compassion are part
of shedding the weight of
negative thoughts, which
then allows us to naturally
release physical weight
as well.
Healthy, balanced and
permanent changes
can start small. Perhaps
today you go out for a
walk around the block.
No big deal, no changing your clothes or buying
a bunch of fancy running

gear, just go walk around
the block. Tomorrow, go
for a longer walk. This
weekend, treat yourself
to a walk in nature. Start
to get your heart pumping. Feel the fierce vitality
of exertion that is within
your healthy range. Go
to some gentle yoga
classes that help you to
feel grounded and connected in your body.
Then, maybe you will
want to start riding a
bike, or jogging a little, or
going to the pool, or taking a dance class, or hitting up the squat rack at
the gym. But you build up
to it - not only in terms of
your fitness, but in terms
of making it a sustainable
habit. You don’t go from
0 to 60. (There’s a reason the gradual build of
“Couch to 5k” is a popular program for people
taking up running, and
“Couch to Marathon” is
not.)
Similarly, you make
changes in your diet
incrementally. Maybe
you cut back the mochas from daily to three
times a week to weekly

to monthly. Maybe you
add more green veggies
to your meals and slowly
scale back the refined
carbs. Maybe you move
back your evening eating so you do not normally eat after 9pm, then
8:30, then 8, then 7:30.
You never set yourself up
for feelings of starvation
or deprivation by making
drastic changes in your
intake. At each stage,
you allow yourself to integrate the change into
your life so that it feels
healthy and realistic,
before you make further
changes. Create conditions for your success.
Above all, thank your
body for bringing you this
far. It is not your enemy
but your friend and partner. Thank yourself for the
practice of self-compassion as you make positive, sustainable, healthy
changes. Enjoy the gift
of this year as an opportunity for self-love and
increased vitality through
movement.

Pranada Devi is a communications professional living in Toronto, Canada.
She is the Managing Editor of Parvati Magazine, and serves as an advisor
on marketing communications for Parvati’s various projects. In between
times, she enjoys being active at the gym, on her bike, in the pool and on
the running trail. She was competitive as a teenager in distance running,
badminton and ringette. 20 years later she built her running back up from
scratch and has finished races up to and including the marathon.