How We Shifted Our Approach to Exercise and Fitness for a Happier Body, Mind, and Life
7 practical and empowering shifts for enjoyable exercise with satisfying and durable fitness and wellbeing
Exercise… The very word can mean vastly different things to different people: for some it’s about team sports, or crowded gyms, running on a treadmill, or running outside in the rain. Some connect it to pain and unpleasantness, others to elite power, or 6-pack bodies, and so on.
Looking back, one of the reasons we happened to stay away from exercise through different times of our lives, was the perception that it wasn’t worth investing time and energy to take further care of our bodies. That there was a strong and depressing disconnect between doing things and actually getting a result.
Indeed, for us, exercise came with the rather crippling conception that, between the now and potential results, was either a lot of time, discipline and effort, or foreshadowed failure.
Not the most alluring approach, for sure. Thank goodness, we were wrong.
PART I: 7 Practical Shifts
Through our journeys, we’ve been lucky enough to get to experience many ways to exercise, and that, connected to our desire to feel genuinely good in our bodies, has allowed us to find our own ways to happily experience that part of our lives.
So today, we’d like to share 7 shifts which have actually helped us take exercise from somewhat of a burden, to a genuine staple of our personal happiness.
Moving Beyond Fear, Doubts and Confusion
The first 4 shifts we want to share with you today have allowed us to directly address and get rid of the fears, doubts and confusion that were once part of our perspective of exercise.
SHIFT N°1: Results from exercise not only happen, they happen FASTER than many may think.
Our bodies are constantly aiming to optimize themselves according to how we use them: so much so that Ty and I both call this phenomenon our bodies’ autonomous adaptation — when it comes to exercise, some refer to it as overcompensation, and sometimes connect it to the concepts of hormesis and homeostasis.
At any rate, this means results start happening the minute exercise begins, in really noticeable ways, and varying aspects: anywhere from instantly, when it comes to how much better we can feel, to only 24 to 72 hours when it comes to aesthetics and performance, provided we pay enough attention.
And even more so when we synergize with our diet, which we’re going to come back to.
SHIFT N°2: Running or going to the gym are NOT the only ways to exercise.
Since results start happening the moment we get going, pretty much any physical activity has the potential to become exercise! Our bodies do not care about the difference between what we call exercise, and the rest of our physical activity.
We can be in the gym, or running a flight of stairs, or moving furniture: the only variables are the intensity and quantity of the effort, and the recovery that follows with diet and sleep.
It does not have to be any more complicated than that. And in our experience, choosing a physical activity we enjoy definitely does NOT get in the way of getting results!
So exercise can definitely be about going to the gym and running on a treadmill, but it can also be about walking, running for the sheer enjoyment of it, weight training, team sports, tennis, climbing, swimming, bike-riding, jumping around, yoga, dancing and so many more!
SHIFT N°3: The crippling disconnect between unpleasant effort now to get results later does NOT have to be.
With results happening the moment we get going, we don’t have to experience unpleasant exercise intensity to get these results, which means joyless performance is not the only way to exercise.
For us, there is a difference between pain and effort! Exercise doesn’t have to be about pain — which we see as a physiological feedback for pathological behaviour — and balancing effort so as to maintain enjoyment throughout exercise is not only possible, but it can actually give us a tremendous extra edge: it increases our involvement on the spot, leading to more results, and keeping us coming for more!
Our capacity for combined effort and enjoyment also increases progressively, which means it keeps getting easier and more enjoyable! So we’re free to keep muscle burn, how much we sweat and just how out of breath we get within our enjoyment zone.
As for delayed onset muscle soreness, or DOMS, it tends to appear within 24 to 72 hours, and varies according to the effort we’ve experienced, specifically its intensity and quantity, and how used to it we are. And it actually feels quite nice to us too!
SHIFT N°4: We can stay SAFE, by mindfully maintaining enjoyment as we exercise.
For us, a good movement form brings safety, efficiency AND enjoyment.
We can stay safe by maintaining the balance between effort and enjoyment, continuously following what feels good to us, with progressive intensity, from warmup to cooldown.
We also remember to breathe, make sure we feel sufficiently hydrated and engage our whole bodies with movements that offer left-right symmetry along with top-down and front-back balance.
Maximizing Enjoyment
As we’ve started talking about enjoyment, in combination with results, types of movement, effort and safety, let’s keep going with our 3 remaining shifts, which have allowed us to take that enjoyment to the next level!
SHIFT N°5: There are so many enjoyable results that come with exercise, it’s NOT just about weight!
In our experience, exercise is not just about weight management. And it doesn’t have to be seen as something abstract or intangible in its results on our bodies. Different kinds of body movement lead to different results in the aesthetics, fitness, and physical wellbeing we can enjoy with our bodies.
These results include fat and muscle mass management, but also: better mood, easier digestion, more energy, and even clearer skin, or reduced aches and pains.
Some theories also predict that body movement helps with the motion of lymph, a substance running through our bodies, which carries immunity cells, and helps drain waste from across our systems. Unlike blood being pumped by our hearts through our bodies, there is no pump in the lymphatic system, and the movement of that substance through our bodies is a direct result of our moving about. This tends to explain why even a short walk can be an instant booster and shake off numbness and fuzziness, which we actually verify in practice daily.
And, on top of all these results, right after performing, we get to experience that feeling so unique to physical activity: the undeniable, deep sensation that we’ve done something good for ourselves, a delightful mix of satisfaction, mind clarity, stress-dissolving hindsight, serenity and confidence.
SHIFT N°6: We can make our exercise CIRCUMSTANCES super enjoyable too!
Exercising with or without music, inside or outside, at home or at the gym, during the day or at night, alone or with others, et cetera!
On top of the physical activity we choose, we can adjust our exercise circumstances in so many ways, to help maximize our enjoyment.
And that goes for what we do before and after too, whether watching an inspirational video before to get pumped, or taking a nice relaxing bath after. It’s down to us to experiment and find whatever helps maximize our own enjoyment!
SHIFT N°7, last but not least: We can access and enjoy a powerful lifestyle SYNERGY with exercise.
In our experience, there are really tangible connections between exercise, diet and sleep. Not only can some foods provide us with more energy, and even put us in the mood to exercise, but adequate diet also boosts the results that we get with exercise, through efficient recovery.
The same goes for sleep: adequate sleep provides us with energy and greatly matters in supporting the results from exercise through recovery and our bodies’ autonomous adaptation.
And, in turn, exercise helps regulate our sleep, and appetite. And, by boosting our mood and being a genuine source of enjoyment in itself, exercise also helps us make more empowering choices with our diet, much more easily.
PART II: Towards an Empowering Holistic Approach
Thanks to the 7 shifts above, one thing that’s really helped us take our enjoyment of exercise to the next level, is to stop considering it as an activity separate from other aspects of our lives.
Moving Our Bodies
Just like eating, thinking and breathing, moving is something that we do everyday.
It’s getting out of bed in the morning; it’s climbing a flight of stairs; it’s a lunch-break walk on the street; it’s stretching our necks on our way to the water cooler; it’s dancing our butts off on a Friday night; just as much as it can be a dedicated work-out session or a jog through the park.
As we mentioned in shift n°2, our bodies do not care about what we call exercise and the rest of our physical activity, and our bodies’ capacity for autonomous adaptation based on how we use them still applies.
And so, if we expand the notion of exercise to the wider perspective of moving our bodies, i.e. physical activity, rather than artificially separating it from the rest, things open up in a pretty spectacular way.
Indeed, as we are continuously moving our bodies, it is only the kind of movement and the intensity of that movement which vary. This intensity induces fluctuations in the rate of our metabolisms, to extents that define either maintenance or growth.
So what most refer to as exercise, is simply whatever gets our heart-rates up or has us breaking a sweat.
Types of movement, intensities, and the quantity or duration of movement at a given intensity — what some call volume — vary, but it can always be about moving, enjoying it, and automatically getting results from it.
Fitness We Enjoy
There are a few commonly identified parameters observed in traditional approaches to exercise and the results it can yield: speed, strength, endurance, mobility, coordination, …
Personally, the one unifying parameter we keep in mind is simply that:
Whatever we do is whatever our body can get better at doing, hence the results in aesthetics, fitness and wellbeing.
Unfortunately, many culturally inherited behaviours tend to have us sitting at desks, in transports, taking the elevator, and so on, only to restrict body movement to dedicated work-out sessions AND subsequently associate these with a good deal of constraint, pressure, and abstract requirements and specs.
But we remain free to mindfully choose to shift our approach, and enjoy our natural ability to move our bodies as a whole, with all the autonomously occurring happy results that come with it.
And that’s precisely what fitness is all about for us: being able, or fit, to move our bodies in ways we enjoy.
For us, there’s no need for external, arbitrary or abstract requirements and validation. If we enjoy moving our bodies and are able to keep doing it, we’ve already won.
From Moving to Results with The Digestion Connection
We mentioned a connection between exercise and digestion in shift n°5.
Well, not only does moving — and exercise — help promote easier digestion by fostering peristalsis — the movement of our guts that helps digested matter travel through our intestines — but we found it is through digestion itself that moving and exercise are connected to the results they give us access too.
Indeed, digestion is a central part of our metabolism, which determines our energy levels, body composition — including body fat and muscle mass — and waste management — evacuation and detoxing.
And so, by influencing how easy and efficient digestion can be, our body movement directly factors in the digestion-and-metabolism results that make up the aesthetics, wellbeing, and ability to move in ways we enjoy, or fitness, we end up experiencing.
And this connection between moving and digestion is actually what explains the synergy we discussed in shift n°7. Just like moving and exercise, eating, sleeping, and even breathing are also deeply connected to digestion, which means they’re all connected together through digestion.
Our Takeaway
How Shifting Our Approach to Exercise and Fitness Has Changed Our Lives for the Better
Thanks to the 7 practical shifts we shared with you, we were able to go beyond fear, doubts and confusion regarding exercise, and efficiently find ways to maximize our enjoyment of it.
After that, based on our experience with our bodies’ autonomous adaptation and the process of digestion, we were able to holistically expand our perspective of exercise to the wider notion of moving our bodies, while approaching fitness in a subjectively concrete and empowering new light, as the very ability to be moving our bodies in enjoyable ways.
And establishing genuine enjoyment in the moment with our physical activity is where it all begins. From there, it can resonate into a veritable continuum of enjoyment:
- we have fun on the spot and stay safe, with whatever body movement we choose;
- we get that unique undeniable feeling of satisfaction right after;
- we keep the enjoyment going by synergizing more easily with how we eat and sleep;
- we get fast and really noticeable subsequent results as well, in aesthetics, performance and wellbeing, thanks to our bodies’ autonomous adaptation and the connections of body movement to digestion;
- we just keep coming for more, consistently drawn to all of the above, which solves the motivation problem, and feeds a continuity that lets us enjoy our exercise lifestyle as a whole.
Beyond constraint, guilt, or the need for self-discipline, for us, unlocking and maximizing enjoyment with our physical activity as a whole has been key to accessing satisfying and durable fitness and wellbeing.
What We Recommend
The way we see it, new results require trying new things, whether in how we think or what we do.
This means that, if you’re not fully satisfied with your relationship to exercise or fitness, this approach can be an opportunity to feel better in your body. There are so many ways to move and enjoy ourselves, so we simply recommend experimenting with the following:
- Movement types: there are countless types of movement, formats and combinations. And, in our experience, there’s nothing to it, but to do it! However we may choose to enjoy moving our bodies, we just tend to keep the following principles in mind: whatever position we put our bodies in, whether for an instant or a prolonged duration, we aim at respecting their innate biomechanics, avoiding painful strain in our joints, and keeping our joints and segments in alignment; we resort to a balanced involvement and work of the totality of our bodies for left-right symmetry along with top-bottom and front-back balance; finally, we keep our breathing complete, even and synched with our movement.
- Movement intensity: keeping our movement intensity and effort progressive, and continuously balancing effort and enjoyment has done wonders for us and still does today.
- Movement quantity: you’re free to experiment with how long you enjoy a given type of body movement, and how often, by keeping it enjoyable.
- Movement circumstances: before, after, during, … you can make your physical activity circumstances fun for you, and maximize your enjoyment.
- Lifestyle synergy: regardless of the experiences we had had before, when we finally figured out we could steer the two horses that were how he ate and how we moved in the same direction, that of what we thoroughly and unequivocally enjoyed, centered around a happier digestion, our carriages reached speeds they had never attained before, and in less time than we ever thought possible. We wrote about our empowering approach to eating and diet in this story, here on Medium. Add sufficient sleep to that equation, for effective recovery through our bodies’ autonomous adaptation, and we get to enjoy empowering lifestyle synergy. We also make sure to feel sufficiently hydrated, particularly when we enjoy higher intensity movement.
- Movement you enjoy: we’d describe our bodies as organic machines, and following movement that we enjoy, instead of approaching exercise as limited, mechanical and repetitive, makes it all the more pleasant and effective. So just trust your results, trust your body and trust yourself.
Feeling good in our bodies has really given us a sense of purpose and meaning in how we deal with life. It anchors and relaxes us, cleanses our focus, and satisfies us in a unique way. It makes everything feel easier and more enjoyable.
And moving our bodies in ways we enjoy, what we now call exercise and fitness, definitely has a BIG part to play in experiencing that.
Thanks for reading, we hope you enjoyed our take on what exercise and fitness can mean, based on our personal experiences.
If you’re looking to get more enjoyment out of your body, we hope you find inspiration in these few words, and what we’ve spent years experimenting with and putting together.
And if you’re interested in going even further, we wrote more about our perspective and experience with the central process of digestion and how it has allowed us to take our fitness and wellbeing to a whole new level, in a satisfying and durable way, in a previous story, here on Medium.
And, of course, you’re more than welcome to share your thoughts and experience by leaving a comment.
Until next time, stay safe and stay happy!
About Us
We are two brothers who have made feeling genuinely good a priority in our lives. We only share personal experience, of things we’ve done, and things we still do, in open, transparent and practical ways, because we believe that others can enjoy them as well, and that there’s value in trying! You’re welcome to check out our different outlets by visiting our website at cyrilandty.com.
