Did The Health & Fitness Industry Crush our Intuition? | Jess Neary | TEDxScunthorpe
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6QRR5a1TxM Video ID: W6QRR5a1TxM ============================================================ when I was younger like many of us I learned to ride a bike with stabilizers on those two wheels that enable us to balance until our confidence grows to go to go It Alone one of my earliest memories is my dad by my side supporting encouraging and eventually removing those stabilizers from my trusty purple bike I counted on everything I thought felt and experienced in that moment to execute on just those two wheels now of course there was the risk of the potential fall or the reward of Independence I managed it all right in fact those stabilizers created a feedback loop enabling me to be deliberate with my decisions and ultimately build my intuition did I take a few bumps along the way sure but did I get back up dust myself off and go again you better did today the path to improve our health and fitness is assisted by more than just stabilizers technology and the media provides feedback connection and confirmation but does this allow me to be deliberate with my own thoughts and feelings or just offer a distraction am I in charge of shaping my own goals or is that dictated by some marketing Guru when it comes to our decisions around technology I ask these questions because I too find myself thinking did I really just move because I wanted to or because my watch told me to did I wake up this morning feeling less tired because I noticed my own energy levels or because my sleep tracker said so am I in charge of deciding how I want to look or feel or is that because the media is dictating it to trust in our intuition means we have truly experienced something life is what makes us human to indulge in our senses to explore meaning and to move forward in our endeavors to better understand ourselves and yet many of us still feel lost when it comes to our health and fitness and I think this is the reason that we have such a thirst for absolute facts and data we seek Clarity and confirmation that we're doing the right thing but the right thing isn't necessarily even what we're trying to achieve because there isn't a right or wrong it isn't black or white in fact it's probably somewhere in the middle a little bit of a gray area people say I just want to be told what to do and you would think as a health and fitness coach that would be music to my ears to take the helm and steer the ship for those people but that's not what a good coach does a good coach creates space for people to explore through experience by only ever being told with no explanation we remove our own curiosity and by only ever being instructed we end up coming Reliant in our Quest further outcomes we risk never being at peace and while we always try to look to the future we risk missing out on the present by being in this destination mindset we miss out on the Journey of self-exploration that makes this journey all the more worthwhile I use this a little bit like getting a helicopter to the top of a mountain to enjoy The View whereas actually the Trek and the hard work and the sweat that goes into that is what makes that journey and view all the more worth the while today our watches just like this one tell us to move exercise and stand but it's off for a couple of reasons this data that we clinch onto is a solution in itself isn't quite there yet there are so many variables that it does not account for such as our muscle mass our body fat percentage our genetics how our gut absorbs nutrients or whether you've got a stressful deadline looming over you at work that might impact you a bit more than normal so if this data isn't even individualized or necessarily even accurate is it helpful technology makes out like there's just one dimension to health and fitness be active move and although I do not disagree that there is great benefit in movement in fact these trackers often give us a nudge to get moving in the first place there needs to be better intention behind it there needs to be an acknowledgment of what's going on behind the scenes in our body the parts that we can't see for example we spend energy each day by growing reproducing storing energy balancing and lastly by being active now technology and the media sidesteps this vital piece of information and I think there's such a focus maybe on moving more today than anything else because society makes it easier for us to move less home deliveries escalators and even travelators that Usher us along through the airport to then sit on a plane for several hours and it's not just technology though it's it's the media too the media will say things like earn calories with this workout no excuses keep it moving a fitness influencer might preach as you crawl around on your hands and knees gasping for air after following one of their online workouts we are constantly told to move more but without purpose our intent behind it is it lost without use move more could simply mean jumping up and down on the spot for a few hours does that move you any closer towards your goals or further away my partner recently described his fixation with his own smartwatch to me reflecting on a time where he was pacing the London at 11 o'clock at night in an attempt to close his movement goal he said even though he knew it wasn't purposeful exercise he described it as a niche that needed to be scratched and a streak that he couldn't break or there was another instance of a client of mine who despite fracturing her foot playing sport still felt guilty when her watch told her she hadn't achieved her step goal for the day now these might sound like anecdotes and anomalies but they are more common than you think there is a Rippling effect happening within the health and fitness industry that everything can be solved by just hitting a number completing the latest Trend or never breaking a streak but where do we go from here when we hit the highest or lowest number does everything else feel insignificant Hollow even we've made Fitness feel like it's a finite game if the goal is long-term Health then surely the game is infinite we've gamified movement in order to make it more fun and we've glamorized the language around it but either of these things help us understand ourselves any better to understand ourselves means that we are really understanding the meaning of health and fitness and whilst we continue to search for this meaning at the moment we prescribe ourselves diet and work out Trends and whatever is the latest thing in order to almost hand the reins over to somebody else because it feels more certain than the unknown the unknown of self-exploration there is so much external focus on status and identity when do we pay attention to our internal signs and signals from our own body such as when to rest refuel or reassess the direction that we're going in these watches as far as I'm aware still cannot tell us whether we're hungry thirsty need to reassess the fact that our lifestyle and exercise regime isn't matching up the only tool that I know of that can do this so far is your body so imagine what it would be like to be aware of your body's utility even the bits you can't see because you've learned about your health and self along the way how empowering that would be just to truly feel something rather than just do something mindlessly a connection to your body and all its wonderful mechanisms and so what does a world look like where we use technology and evidence-backed sources to help us with our health and fitness endeavors I think it looks like this to truly experience think and feel our health and fitness is what makes this journey all the more worth the while tools can maybe create a sweet spot to begin with to make us do actions to start with but we need to approach them with caution so that we don't become too dependent or reliant on them for support our goal is to better understand ourselves and in order to do that we need to be able to create our own feedback loop those tools might help the support in the beginning but when connection crosses over to disconnection we need to stop and ask when do these stabilizers come off we can use these as a guide but do not treat them as gospel the deeper understanding and building your own intuition comes through your own experience it will then enable you to get better at being able to ask the right questions without dependency or support questions like why am I doing this is this helpful or hindering me am I being mindful or mindless notice the sensations on their deepest level when you are moving at rest or in thought what do you truly feel to build our health and fitness intuition we must truly experience it and in order to do that we need to increase our own awareness to upgrade Our intention as the world moves at such a fast pace we need to stop to be able to feel think and experience to make up our own mind about our health without that we run the risk of becoming physically illiterate with little to no intuition and so if I want you to take away one thing from today it's a quote from one of my favorite poets Camilla tall now and it fits really nicely here and that is if you never look up walking in circles just feels like you are moving forward thank you thank you