Exercise
Channeled song: get well soon by Ariana Grande
Exercise is how you stimulate your own energy within your body. It gets your energy flowing and removes all stagnation. There are so many physical, mental, and emotional benefits to it. I graduated from LSU with a degree in Kinesiology, which is all about how the body moves. Some of the most outstanding things I’ve learned about exercise are that it prevents aging, increases your pain tolerance and ability to deal with everyday stressors, and it generally makes you feel better.
The hardest part is starting or getting back on the wagon if you’ve fallen off. I want to change your view of exercise. Society tells us that it’s this annoying thing that’s necessary if you want your body to look a certain way. Most of the benefits presented to us are physical ones. I want to tell you what it does for my soul. It makes me feel more accomplished, and when you celebrate small accomplishments like finishing a daily workout, it increases your own “self-efficacy,” which is your own judgement on how well you can do things. It makes you self-assured in all areas of your life. There’s nothing like meditating after a workout that has your body pulsing everywhere—it’s truly a different experience. You’d love it.
Advice
When you pull this card as advice, it means you should go out and move your body! This can be a long walk, a yoga class, a workout at the gym—any of these things are good enough. My biggest advice to you as someone with a degree in this kind of stuff and lots of experience crafting workouts and teaching exercise classes is this: find something you like. It can be really fun! Open your mind and body to the idea that exercise is meant to be enjoyed. If you go to the gym because you want your body to look a certain way, but absolutely hate the workout, it won’t stick unless you just enjoy spending your time doing things you don’t like. If you can find something you genuinely enjoy, you’ll always want to go back and keep trying new things that are similar. I really love group fitness classes. There are so many of them—yoga, weightlifting, boxing, swimming, dancing! You name the topic, there’s probably a class out there. All you have to do is show up—in person or on the internet.
Barre and Pilates have been trending lately, and for good reason—they’re a great workout with low stress on the body and a high number of results. I’ll put some resources to my personal favorite YouTube instructors and everything.
You can Google or YouTube most of these names and you’ll see their content come up. A lot of them have separate subscriptions—I’d personally go with Tracey Mallet and Les Mills On Demand because they offer the biggest bang for your buck!
Workouts, Yoga, Tai Chi: I have a good amount of workouts, yoga, and other stuff as well as horoscopes and rising sign readings on my own YouTube channel! It’s called Destiny Jenae’ and the handle is @DestinyJenae
Barre & Pilates: Tracey Mallet (she has an amazing class called bootybarre and it is SO fun! I did it a lot while training to become an instructor!) There’s also a girl on YouTube who will get you right! Her name is Amy’s Beach Fitness and she has a similar style to Tracey Mallet while also being free.
Yoga: Les Mills on Demand – BodyFlow. This is a class I used to teach, and the choreography is exceptional! It’s a mixture between yoga, tai chi, and Pilates! Another class I used to teach, BodyPump is also featured in this subscription. I also recommend BodyCombat, RPM, and BodyJam if you like boxing style classes, spin classes, or dance classes. You’ll never run out of content with them, and they have their own version of Barre too!
Weight-lifting: Fit with Iulia on Instagram! She has an app that provides programs with step-by-step instructions on how to use the machines in the gym, the amount of reps to do, and even weight suggestions. Her IG has a lot of free workouts, too. The Sweat app is also a pretty good app to have if you’re starting out.
Journal prompt
What is your relationship like with your body?
Do you want to improve your fitness levels out of genuine celebration for your body or because you dislike the way you look and want to punish yourself for it?
Does your body look like you want it to?
Why?
Where does your mindset concerning your body come from?
What are your motivations for working out?
Why?
Is there a type of exercise that you enjoy?
Why or why not?
Are you open to trying something new?
Why or why not?
