Today on the podcast:
Shona Vertue is a personal trainer and yoga teacher with over 420k followers on Instagram and one of the most popular yoga channels in the UK on YouTube.
Shona’s method, developed during her decade of teaching, combines weighted resistance training and cardio with her life-long passions – yoga and meditation – placing just as much importance on rest and recovery as hours in the gym in the pursuit of fitness.
We got through so much in this episode and it’s definitely one I will be going back over; so I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed recording it.
Here are some of the things we talked about in today’s show:
Episode Outline
- 03:47 What got her into health and fitness whilst growing up in Australia
- 07:51 How she moved from a 1:1 training into social media and the UK culture and weather shock
- 10:42 Why your body is a temple, not a gym and the importance of using fitness to enhance your experience of life, not dominate it, and how over-identifying with your body can lead you down a path of unhappiness that will catch up with you when you’re injured, aged, or ill
- 17:09 The reason fitness should never come at the cost of health
- 25:25 Using science to guide but not override what you’re feeling
- 28:50 How fitness is a celebration of what your body can do and an opportunity to push it into adaptation, another amazing feature of this human life. It’s not about repenting for perceived dietary or lifestyle sins
- 33:17 Using intuition to guide your exercise and dietary choices, and moving toward skill-based goals
- 37:53 The problem with rely too much on evidence to gauge your progress
- 43:33 Let the magic ten guide your next steps
Key Points
- Eastern philosophy tells us that your body is a temple that you must maintain and optimize to thrive in the world you live in. However, it’s possible to put too much focus on physical appearance and ability. In fact, prioritizing the superficial when it comes to the body only leads to suffering. The body changes, ages, and experiences illness at some point. If you are not willing to let these things happen, you will experience mental and physical distress over time.
- Never let yourself become attached to your physical appearance. The health journey is a process of unfolding. Each stage of life will challenge us in a different way, and our priorities naturally change as we age. This is especially true if you intend to have children. When considering how to organize your lifestyle, from your physical activities to your nutritional plan, always ask whether your choices align with your future goals.
- Prioritize skills-based goals ove appearance-based goals. It’s okay to be motivated by aesthetics, particularly when you’re beginning a new fitness regimen, but if you can’t move past the surface-level motivations and move toward sustainable goals, you will always be at the mercy of your constantly-fluctuating self-esteem.
Powerful Quotes by Shona
- According to Eastern philosophy, your body is your temple. It’s a vessel we can use to explore this physical reality we exist in.
- There is no such thing as a dietary sin. The more we dichotomize food and our actions around food as “good” and “bad”, the worse our relationship with food becomes.
- You have to do the thing first before you experience the motivation to do it.
Guest Info
