Self-Care Isn't Selfish: Embracing Personal Growth in Your 40s
[Estimated reading time: 4 minutes, 48 seconds.]
Are you one of those people who is putting in the hours in the gym, whether at home or elsewhere, and not getting the results you’re expecting?
Yep, been there. It sucks. You feel as though you are doing all of the right things around exercising, eating habits, etc. And yet, it’s still not coming together.
Let’s talk about one of Go Long’s clients, Aditi*. A little bit about her:
In her 40s and works for one of the FAANGs
Married with two teenagers
Her mother lives with her while her husband’s parents reside in India
Has PCOS
Follows a vegetarian diet and loves her HIIT runs
Knows she needs strength training to prevent the onset of osteoporosis
Goals are travel, high quality of life as she gets older, active as a grandparent when the time comes
OK, Aditi REALLY LOVES her HIIT runs. But she has been told by a couple of personal trainers over the past few years she needs to stop doing her HIIT runs.
Feeling like everything is climbing an endless mountain of stairs?
As Aditi explained all of this in her introductory call with Go Long, I kept wondering ‘why’? She wasn’t getting injured. She loved how she felt after.
None of the trainers wanted to understand PCOS and how that impacts someone suffering from it. Aditi explained she didn’t feel heard about what she needed and what her goals were, which is a common complaint heard at Go Long. When she asked them why she had to completely drop HIIT runs, they didn’t have a compelling answer.
Now Go Long loves their strength training. It has tons of benefits for everyone, especially if you’re in Aditi’s demographic. But asking someone to give up something that brings them joy and isn’t causing them harm seems nonsensical.
When Aditi finished going through her backstory, I was in awe. She was doing lots of the right things in terms of trying to stay healthy. She was frustrated by menopause belly and lagging energy. Aditi reiterated she couldn’t understand why what worked in the past wasn’t working now, which diminished her self-confidence.
“Are you tired of being treated in a “one-size-fits-all” approach?”
Establishing the partnership between Aditi and Go Long
Given Aditi’s experiences with personal trainers, it was critical to establish trust with her. If the HIIT runs were harming her health, that would have been one thing. But since they weren’t, the question posed to her by Go Long was around ‘AND’ as opposed to ‘OR’.
In other words, what if you allocated a little less time to HIIT runs AND a little more time to strength training?
She was intrigued. It shouldn’t have been a novel concept but that’s the world of wellness these days. Go Long works back from what you want.
Aditi knew about osteoporosis and how it is caused. For her, strength training had a negative connotation. It was punishment because she associated it with giving up something she enjoyed. Go Long worked with her to change that perception.
Her initial goals were around gaining energy back and feeling more like herself. We agreed benchmarking would be a good place to start. Aditi got tested and recorded her lean mass and body fat percentages. She went in and had a baseline bone scan. Then we put those numbers to the side.
As with most people in Aditi’s demographic, she has a crazy schedule. After discussing her answers in Go Long’s intake questionnaire, she decided she wanted an online training program. But she wanted to ensure she had access to a coach to get feedback on her form so she didn’t injure herself.
Aditi didn’t want an easy program. She was committed. It was about finding the right program to bring her along gradually. She was interested in having an online community but she’s not a prolific poster. In the end, Go Long was able to curate 3 options for Aditi.
In parallel, Aditi and I discussed her nutrition plan. She adheres to a vegetarian diet so we discussed different ways to ensure she was getting enough protein. With a couple of tweaks at breakfast and in the evenings when she is driving her kids around, she has improved her protein consumption.
Through monthly accountability calls and texts in between, we have strategized when different “life gets in the way” scenarios have shown up. Every plan at Go Long is built for this kind of thing.
Living your life and staying healthy do not need to be mutually exclusive.
How is Aditi doing now?
In order to make room for strength training 2x/week, Aditi cut the # of days and the length of her runs down. Her running times improved with less running (not a typo).
Aditi is enjoying the strength training program Go Long found for her. While she doesn’t love it as much as her HIIT runs, she is motivated to increase her strength.
Aditi improved her lean mass and body fat percentages in 3 months. She’s also made a conscious decision to stop measuring success based on her weight through our accountability calls.
She is contemplating adding an additional day of strength training since she has seen the benefits, including increased energy and improved body composition. Aditi knows she would need to give up another day of running based on her time constraints.
“I am deciding to choose to leave something behind in order to move forward towards something better. That’s because I felt seen and understood by Jill. She brought me along at a pace I was comfortable with.”
— Aditi
I need and am ready for accountability
Want something similar for you?
No matter where you are in your health and wellness journey, you have the power to achieve what Aditi has.
Want the same for yourself?
Go Long can help.
**Not her real name, at her request.
