14 - Debunking Fitness Myths with Tom Whitaker - Part 3

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And here's another great episode with Tom and the final episode of our three-part special. Welcome to Happiness, Health and Relationships podcast. If you're looking for inspiration on powerful healthy habits, you've come to the right place.

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I'm Angeline and I've been working with people for over 10 years in therapy and this podcast will cut through the myths and misinformation on healthy lifestyle. I'll be interviewing experts in their field, providing top tips and motivation for six elements of living medicine. The six elements are reducing stress, exercise and fitness, nutrition, sleep, reducing addictive substances and how to master healthy relationships.

Let's get started. What would you say to anybody who is wanting to make some changes and start the small steps of, you know, getting into some kind of a sport or joining a group, whether it be hiking or running or joining a gym and they're feeling intimidated or, you know, it's difficult to get started, isn't it? Let's start with if they're feeling a bit intimidated. Yeah, I completely understand it.

Again, particularly from the gym front, there are certain connotations with people who go to the gym and I happen to work in a gym where there are some very big and strong people who are lovely people but from a distance look intimidating just because they're massive tattooed and bearded kind of thing. Honestly, lovely people but, you know, it's the initial impression, pretty difficult. Particularly for people that have been in there before is very often it's the feeling of not wanting to look like an idiot in front of people because you don't know what you're doing and they think, oh, I don't want to go in there, do something and have people laugh at me.

The reality is most people in the gym will either help you or are so focused on what they're doing they won't notice. It's hard to kind of just accept that when you're the one for the first time. So, I'm not saying it's, oh, just get on with it.

It's not quite that simple. Most people are rooting for each other, aren't they? Absolutely. That's more of the experience really that people say fair play to you, you know, people that are turning up that are new in the gym.

It's more an attitude of, you know, fair play to you and, you know, acknowledging that really rather than the other way around, you know, it's highly unlikely that everybody's going to laugh at you. It's very rare that that happens. And again, if it's something that happened in the gym is other people would call them out on it.

If I saw someone not being that nice in the gym or laughing at people, making fun of people is obviously I work there as well. So, there's that reason, but I'd have to stand there and go like, why? Why are you doing that? And then kind of let that person know that they're not doing anything wrong by doing something wrong. That person's just being a dick.

That isn't the norm. And even if it's outside the gym with sports is a lot of people, even if they don't play sports, they'll watch sports and they'll be like, so like my auntie hates football, but likes watching rugby. It might be like, oh, so what do you enjoy watching? If you enjoy watching it, you're more likely to want to take part in it because you either enjoy it or you relate to it.

You understand the rules a bit more. Unfortunately, it is a case of what opportunities you have around you. But at the minute there's big pushes for like walking football.

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So, if you want to play football, but you've never played or you haven't played since you're in school, walking football can be a good break yourself in gently. It's not as fast paced, smaller pitches. It can be easier to get started in tag rugby instead of full contact rugby.

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Again, the gym's really easy because physically it's really easy to adjust things because it's kind of what you're doing. You don't have to worry about other people hitting you or playing around. But a lot of clubs are able to coach anyone.

So, like I say, I've worked people from the age of eight years old up to 84 and we can coach all of them. You can adapt it according to ability. Actually, going back, that's one of the misconceptions about fitness is you need a certain fitness level to start because you get a lot of people, like with the classes, is they'll be like, oh, I need to get a bit fitter before I try those.

And they're like, but they're the things that get you fit. They're the things that get you in. But people, and I understand that they have this impression that, oh, there's people in there that can do this.

If I can't at least do this, I shouldn't be in there with them. And they think that there's a prerequisite for starting when really it's if you're physically capable of doing it, we can adjust it for you. People are understanding as well because everybody has had to start somewhere.

Nobody, in my experience anyway, and highly unlikely for adults anyway, to judge anybody harshly in that way really. So what would you advise our listeners to get started with? We've got six pillars, haven't we, of living medicine. So you've already kind of said that do a little bit of each one.

What can people do this week? So this week could be, firstly, write a shopping list to prepare yourself for next week. So like fruit and veg, what fruit and veg can you get? What protein sources can you get? Stick predominantly to whole foods first, like quality foods with plenty of nutrients in them as well. And then like the extra snacks and stuff is kind of if your nutrition goals allow for it.

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So yeah, write yourself a shopping list of what you need to achieve your goal. And then I'd say have a think about what sports you enjoy watching and then see if there's anything like that near you, because they're the ones you're probably going to enjoy more by trying. Because like I say, if the gym scares you, but you enjoy watching gymnastics in the Olympics, have a look for a gymnastics club or like I say, a walking football, whatever.

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That's a great idea. Yeah. Yeah.

And if you are still in doubt, consult a professional. That's what we're here for. A lot my clients when they came to me were brand new athletes and non-athletes.

They're just like, oh yeah, I've never done the gym before. I just need some help getting started. And that's literally what we're there for.

Again, we don't judge. It's literally our job to teach people how to do it, how to help them, teach them how to manage everything without them feeling overwhelmed and pressured. I think that's a great way in, if people are thinking about the gym, to join either like a circuit training class where you're getting shown the different form, you know, because if you join a gym and you're trying to use the equipment and you're only shown once, it's not enough really.

It's a lot bigger and confusing. Yeah. So, you know, to either join a class or a one-to-one personal trainer where people, so you've got somebody helping you in how to, the correct body form and all that kind of a thing.

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So what an interesting conversation. Yeah. I've enjoyed that.

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It's been great. So Tom, you can contact Tom if you would like to get in touch on Instagram. Yeah, that's probably the easiest.

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And it's TW underscore coaching. That's the one. Tom is so knowledgeable.

He's so helpful. Thank you so much, Tom, for being with us today and some great top tips and advice there. Thank you for having me.

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I'm excited because we're going to be doing a whole series of episodes and we're going to be getting into more detail on our six pillars of lifestyle medicine. So can't wait. And that's it for another episode of Happiness, Health and Relationships podcast.

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If you'd like to find out more ways that you can work with me, then head over to happinesshealthrelationshipspodcast.com and I'll see you on the next episode.