I was chatting to Andy, one of our coaches, the other day.
He was telling me about one of the ninjas who’d just hit the 20lbs mark on her challenge.
I was doing some work at the same time, so didn’t quite catch the name.
“What name did you say?” I asked.
“Her name is Debra”
To which I, obviously, replied “It never suited her”
Andy looked confused (as he often does).
So, I explained in song;
“Your name was Deb-o-rah. It never suited ya”
Still blank.
“Oh Deborah, do you recall? Your house was very small. With wood chip on the wall. And when I cam round to call, you never noticed me at all”
Still blank.
It is, of course, Disco 2000 by Pulp.
Andy, despite claiming to be doing a music degree, knows very little about mid 90s BritPop.
I’ve tested this on several people my age.
They all start singing along.
But……….
I’m sure plenty of teenagers would be amazed I couldn’t continue a line from, I don’t know, Bieber or someone similar.
And they’ll be plenty of you in your 50s aghast that I don’t know Rolling Stones (for example) lyrics.
You get the point.
Our youth is the the point where we take everything in.
Like sponges.
And it forms a big part of what we know as we get older.
We can, of course, learn new stuff.
But nothing goes in quite as easily as it did back then.
It’s the same with our habits and beliefs related to food and exercise.
The way we’re taught to view it in our youth has a huge impact on how we view it for the rest of our lives.
Hated PE at school at it’s natural we’d think all exercise is horrible.
Everyone around you used to say that healthy food was boring………
Or get really excited when ‘treats’ came out……..
Or always talked about ‘diets’ in this short term way………
Then it’s natural we’d think the same way.
It’s easy to spend our lives restricted by these experiences of our youth.
As it takes a lot to have the same impact (in the opposite direction) as we get older.
But……….
Like we can learn new music………
We can make these changes.
We can come to realise that exercise can be fun and rewarding (myrise.co.uk/briefing-meeting).
That healthy eating can be tasty and enjoyable.
That both can be things we can do, most of the time, for the rest of our lives.
We just need to challenge these long held beliefs.
To realise, firstly, that they are only beliefs.
Not hard facts.
To question them.
To explore other approaches.
That may serve us better.
Much love,
Jon ‘Disappointed Andy wouldn’t sing Bieber at last week’s BBQ’ Hall and Matt ‘Love Bieber’ Nicholson
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RISE Macclesfield – myrise.co.uk
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