Busy Woman's Guide to Wellbeing

I used to have this thought that would go round and round in my head that, if I could just lose those last 7 lbs, everything will be okay. I truly believed that 7 lbs was the difference between me feeling too big and me feeling ‘just right’. Losing them would make my confidence bloom and my self-esteem grow. In this episode, I talk about The Myth of the Last 7 lbs and how it affects our confidence, our mood and our self-esteem. 
 What You Will Learn in This Episode:

- How to be confident and happy at whatever size you are now

- How to stop being anxious about weight gain and actually enjoy food and exercise

- How to do more of the things that are going to make you feel good (rather than just make you smaller)

- The path to feeling great whether you’ve ‘got rid’ of  those last 7 lbs or not

- Which stress reduction, nutrition and exercise strategies will help you be your healthiest self

- How to build your strength and confidence and increase your energy and focus

Those last 7 lbs represent pleasure. They represent meals out, without having to pick the dish that will be lowest in calories. They represent a  birthday cake with your kids, a few late afternoon bevvies with a friend, a roast and a glass of red wine on a winter Sunday. If we obsess over those  last 7 lbs, we actually lose so much more than just weight. We lose pleasure, freedom and joy. We lose ourselves.

Resources:

- Join Power up Your Perimenopause http://www.powerupyourperimenopause.com/ 

- The Perimenopause Minis: Episode 4 -The Key Elements of Midlife Fitness https://apple.co/3UszHTF

- Join the ChickFit Members Club - www.chickfit.co.uk/membersclub

- My website https://www.chickfit.co.uk/

- Find me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/alixchickfit

- Review and subscribe to my podcast https://www.podfollow.com/chickfit

Today we’re looking at fitness in midlife, what the key elements of that should be, and what to do if you’ve struggled to exercise the last few years due to stress, busyness, aches and pains, lack of motivation, or not knowing where to start. Because exercise and movement are absolutely non-negotiable at this point in your life, it’s more important now than ever that you do things that are going to help you build strength, fitness and resilience.


What You'll Learn:

- The physical and psychological reasons why exercise is vital in midlife

- Which steps to take to start getting back to fitness habits

- What elements to include into your fitness routines

- Why you should focus on resistance and weight training at this time of your life

Improving your midlife fitness is a big part of what I teach inside the Power Up Your Perimenopause. I’ve just opened the doors again to this fabulous 12-week course, and I would love to support you through your transformation into a powerful perimenopause woman. You too can go from feeling confused and overwhelmed about what to do and where to start to feeling awesome, to building your energy, your confidence and a deep knowledge of yourself. 


Learn more and sign up at www.powerupyourperimenopause.com. You can even claim a 20% discount on the full price of the course - use code PERI20 at the checkout! 

See you there! 


Resources:

- Join the ChickFit Members Club - www.chickfit.co.uk/membersclub

- My website https://www.chickfit.co.uk/

- Find me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/alixchickfit

- Review and subscribe to my podcast https://www.podfollow.com/chickfit 

I have a theory that feeling good isn’t as easy as it seems. Many of us have to learn how to feel good because our default is to feel anything but good most of the time. That’s why we keep going back to more stress by saying “yes” too often, and why we don’t exercise even though we know it will make us feel good. The fact is that feeling good takes training.

What You Will Learn in This Episode:

- How to stop sabotaging yourself and sliding back into your old habits

- The importance of having someone to catch you when you are sliding or tempted to stop doing what feels good

- How to be aware of your patterns and the way you limit yourself

- Using what you’ve learned to approach things differently next time

- How to train yourself to feel good and learn what that feels like, while feeling safe at the same time

The aim is not to feel good all the time, but to feel good more of the time. We weren’t put on this planet to feel bad, too stressed, too busy or too anxious. We are all allowed to feel good and we are all allowed to seek the things that are going to make that happen.

Resources:

- Join Power up Your Perimenopause https://chickfit.co.uk/power-up-your-perimenopause/

- Join the ChickFit Members Club - www.chickfit.co.uk/membersclub

- My website https://www.chickfit.co.uk/

- Find me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/alixchickfit

- Review and subscribe to my podcast https://www.podfollow.com/chickfit 

Final call! Join the free Fatigued to Fabulous Challenge starting on September 18th! https://chickfit.lpages.co/f-to-f-sept

Weight gain is part of the experience for a lot of perimenopause women, as well as the struggle to lose weight. I know that the question on everyone’s lips is “how do I lose this weight when the old ways aren’t working any more," so today I'll talk about the science of this phenomenon. The first thing to know is that this is normal, and I'll talk you through the various reasons why this is happening and what to do about it. 


What You'll Learn:

- Why we are more prone to stress hormones in the perimenopause

- How insulin resistance and fluctuating blood sugar affect our weight

- Why our metabolism tends to get slower

- Why the quality of our sleep diminishes

- What gut dysbiosis is

- How dieting makes all the things above even worse

- What changes to our nutrition and lifestyle we can introduce instead of a diet

- Why working on body acceptance is key in this phase of our life


I hope that this will give you plenty of reasons to not diet and instead to look at other options that you have available to being happy, healthy and confident in the perimenopause. 

Resources:

- Fatigued to Fabulous FREE Challenge https://chickfit.lpages.co/f-to-f-sept/  


- Join the ChickFit Members Club - www.chickfit.co.uk/membersclub


- My website https://www.chickfit.co.uk/


- Find me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/alixchickfit


- Review and subscribe to my podcast https://www.podfollow.com/chickfit 

When it comes to fitness and wellness, making everything smaller so we can get the things that we want for ourselves is something I fully encourage all of my clients and members to do. Aiming for smaller steps in everything can help to take away the overwhelm, and give us a doable and sustainable action plan.

In this episode, I will give you some practical tips on how you can make everything smaller in order to finally start hitting some of your fitness and wellness goals.

What You Will Learn:

- How to stop making the excuses

- How to start making things smaller

- What’s really stopping you from exercising regularly

- Defining what areas of your nutrition you need improving

- Deciding on the time you have available or could make available for self-care

- How to create time to prioritise your wellbeing

- What foundations you need to put into place to allow this to happen

All of us try to do too much at once. We think way too big and become overwhelmed by the actions, so we end up not doing anything at all. Even when we have the time, we’ll fill it with something else or we just don’t know where to start. Just relax and remember - the smaller the better!

Resources:

- Fatigued to Fabulous Challenge https://chickfit.lpages.co/f-to-f-sept/

- Join Power up Your Perimenopause https://chickfit.co.uk/power-up-your-perimenopause/

- Join the ChickFit Members Club - www.chickfit.co.uk/membersclub

- My website https://www.chickfit.co.uk/

- Find me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/alixchickfit

- Review and subscribe to my podcast https://www.podfollow.com/chickfit 

September 18th: Join the free Fatigued to Fabulous Challenge! https://chickfit.lpages.co/f-to-f-sept 

When we start to notice the early menopause changes, I like to see this as our body giving us a little nudge. Usually at the start, it’s nothing to give us too much cause for concern, things just feel a little bit different. Some women have had less subtle signs and gone to their docs, only to be told that they’re too young to be in perimenopause. So, it can be easy for lots of reasons to dismiss this and soldier on. But for me, this is a golden opportunity to look at everything that’s going on in your life, your habits, your lifestyle, and to start making a few changes right now. So what are those three pillars for lifestyle change? 


What You'll Learn:

- Why you should always start from managing stress in your life

- The questions to ask yourself about stress

- Why exercise is healing and how to start moving your body more often

- Why blood sugar balance is key to regulating your nutrition

Now, it can feel overwhelming to take in all these things at once, so I always encourage you to choose one to start with. Usually the stress management piece is the first one to tackle, as that has a knock on effect on everything else. Stay tuned next week to learn more about these three pillars, and be sure to join the Fatigued to Fabulous free challenge starting on Sunday, 18th September!  
 Resources:

- Fatigued to Fabulous FREE Challenge https://chickfit.lpages.co/f-to-f-sept/ 

- Join the ChickFit Members Club - www.chickfit.co.uk/membersclub

- My website https://www.chickfit.co.uk/

- Find me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/alixchickfit

- Review and subscribe to my podcast https://www.podfollow.com/chickfit 

We all promise ourselves we’re going to do certain things, make a good start and then find that our good intentions have fallen by the wayside in no time at all. It can often leave us wondering what’s wrong with us. Is it the lack of willpower? Is it because we don’t have enough time? Is it because we weren’t focused enough? Is it because we didn’t find the right diet or fitness programme or trainer? 

It’s none of this and there is nothing wrong with you. It’s all about your nervous system and about creating safety so you can create the healthy new habits you want to.

What You Will Learn in this Episode:

- How to be more resilient to tiny stressors

- How to make more space in your brain to take positive actions

- Why you are spending too much time on high alert and how to stop it

- How to stop taking the easy route, the one that is familiar but it’s not serving you any more

- Seeing action or inaction as what it actually is

- What’s really going on with your nervous system and your life

- How to put yourself into the right state for your brain to accept change

This stuff is absolutely vital if you truly want to make a change. You have to stop piling more to do’s. Focus on spending more time in a place of calm and safety and I promise you - after you’ve allowed yourself to rest a little bit, you’ll find that you have reserves and resilience that you didn’t even think you had.

Resources:

- Join the Fatigued to Fabulous Workshop https://chickfit.lpages.co/fatigued-to-fabulous/  

- Join the ChickFit Members Club - www.chickfit.co.uk/membersclub

- My website https://www.chickfit.co.uk/

- Find me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/alixchickfit

- Review and subscribe to my podcast https://www.podfollow.com/chickfit 

September 18th: Join my FREE challenge to take you from Fatigued to Fabulous https://chickfit.lpages.co/f-to-f-sept/ 

Welcome to the first of five mini-episodes that are coming your way every Wednesday for the next few weeks. I’m going to be giving you some bite-sized chunks of mega valuable information. This week I’m starting with the question that seems to be on everyone’s lips right now - am I actually perimenopausal? 

What You’ll Learn:

- The average duration of perimenopausal years

- The obvious and not-so-obvious symptoms of perimenopause

- Why the signs of perimenopause often get misdiagnosed

- How to get proactive with nutrition, exercise and stress management as you start noticing changes   
 If you find yourself struggling with some of the symptoms I talked about in this episode, join me on Sunday 18th September for my FREE Fatigued to Fabulous Challenge!

Over 5 days, we’re going to create your very own formula for building your energy and confidence throughout the perimenopause and beyond. We’ll be covering nutrition, exercise and stress management throughout the week, and you’ll be discovering the key lifestyle shifts that are going to help you feel amazing from your early to mid 40s onwards.

Sign up at https://chickfit.lpages.co/f-to-f-sept/  
 Resources:

- Join the ChickFit Members Club - www.chickfit.co.uk/membersclub

- My website https://www.chickfit.co.uk/

- Find me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/alixchickfit

- Review and subscribe to my podcast https://www.podfollow.com/chickfit 

I am a huge believer in planning.  By getting clear on what I want and then making a plan for how that’s going to happen is the only way I ever achieve anything in life. If having an amazing autumn of fitness and feeling fabulous is on your list, then this episode is for you, because I’m going to help you think about how to make a plan that’s really going to work for you.

What You Will Learn in This Episode:

- How to come up with a personal statement about what you want and why it’s important to you

- Discovering the specifics of what you want to achieve that relate back to your why

- Think about what’s going to stop you and what you can do about it

- How to calm your nervous system to be able to plan and stick to your plan

- How to create an outline plan that you can fill in each week

We can’t just look at each area of our life as a silo. We need them all to work together as they all interconnect. Sometimes the actions we decide to take can be at odds with how we actually want to feel in our lives. By being aware of the big picture first, we can make better decisions and take more aligned actions to get us where we want to be.

Resources:

- Join the ChickFit Members Club - www.chickfit.co.uk/membersclub

- My website https://www.chickfit.co.uk/

- Find me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/alixchickfit

- Review and subscribe to my podcast https://www.podfollow.com/chickfit 

I notice I have a tendency to silo certain parts of my life and look at them as separate entities. But over the last few years, I have learnt that there is a much better and more effective way of getting what you want, and that is to actually start looking at your goals in individual areas of your life in relation to all of the other parts of your life.  If you can do this effectively, then you can get amazing things in all areas of your life in a way that feels good for you. In this episode, I’m going to talk about creating your life vision and why this is so important. 
 What You Will Learn in This Episode:

- Gaining awareness of what your values are and what matters to you the most

- Ask yourself - how do you want to feel?

- What do you need to let go of that’s no longer serving you?

- Who do you need in order to commit to making these changes?

- Accepting that the way you do one thing is the way you do everything

- Ask yourself - what do you really want out of life, and how do you want to show up for yourself?

We all tend to just get on with our lives, get through every day, maybe feel a little bored or uninspired, or maybe even unhappy with certain areas of our lives. But with everything else going on, it can feel overwhelming and unrealistic to make big changes. We think next month or next year we’ll deal with it, but we all know that if we keep pushing things down the road, we never actually arrive there. You need to create your life vision and keep your life track, so you can feel good and have that excitement to get you started working on yourself. 
 Resources:

- Join the ChickFit Members Club - www.chickfit.co.uk/membersclub

- My website https://www.chickfit.co.uk/

- Find me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/alixchickfit

- Review and subscribe to my podcast https://www.podfollow.com/chickfit