There’s only one skill you need to master if you’re going to succeed in the fitness industry (or any industry really) and it has nothing to do with sets and reps, macros and calorie balance, alignment or movement modifications. You can be an expert in all those things but it means nothing if you can’t safely self regulate your nervous system. Wellness work is based on relationships. Physical, mental and emotional dysregulation is the fastest way to kill personal and professional relationships and guarantees burnout. 

For many of us establishing strong boundaries is an ongoing evolutionary process. I have heard so many clients, mostly women, and colleagues, again mostly women, complain about a lack of boundaries and how they struggle to stick to them. There’s definitely a lot to unpack there for women. We could blame the patriarchy, “good girl” syndrome, people pleasing, codependency, imposter syndrome…really any and all the cultural things out there. But I believe a big part of our problem setting boundaries is actually in our understanding of what a boundary is. And what it should do for us.

This year is all about being more intentional on the work IN when it comes to health and that includes making conscious decisions around how and what we eat. If you’re a fit pro or in wellness at all you’ve probably gotten a lot of questions about what to eat from clients. And it’s difficult to answer those questions and stay within your scope. For myself and many of my colleagues it’s even harder when you also struggle with disordered eating. But I think that’s a beautiful thing about the fitness industry when you can share your own experience (which is always within your scope) and bring your people the latest nutrition information so they can make intentional informed choices for themselves. My guest today is author and health advocate Lynne Bowman.

Lynne is living proof that you can cook, eat, sleep, laugh, and walk your way out of type 2 diabetes, along with other chronic ailments, and her latest book, “Brownies for Breakfast, A Cookbook for Diabetics and the People Who Love Them," is a cool, fun, beautiful, guidebook for anybody who wants to reverse chronic disease, and eat healthy: vegan, vegetarian, plant-based, pescatarian, gluten-free, sugar-free. Plus, because she's a grandma, expect all kinds of advice along with the recipes from her lifetime of experiences.

Fitness. It’s a great career for many reasons. One of them is the low cost of entry. Most fitness certifications are fairly inexpensive compared to a 4 year degree. But all of them require some kind of continuing education to maintain. If you’ve been in the industry for any length of time you’ll find that a lot of what’s offered for cec’s while excellent information may not align with the kinds of things your clients need.

Nate Sleger is a speaker, author, and fitness industry expert who had his start as a personal trainer and nutrition coach. He’s the host of the Begin Within Podcast, where he interviews experts to uncover the behind-the-scenes of fitness motivation and lasting results. Nate is also the founder and operator of Begin Within Fitness, a 100% online personal training and nutrition coaching studio, designed to remove the barriers to fitness and make it EASY. Today we’re going to talk about how to lift the pressure of prescriptive fitness and how trauma-informed principles overlap when it comes to maintaining long term health habits.

We are after all only guides on the path to healthier lives. As guides we need to have a firm understanding of how to navigate in a trauma informed way in a trauma filled culture.. Over the past few weeks we’ve discussed the first half of that trauma informed navigation starting with the center point for yourself, co regulation and then activation. Now I want to share the secret sauce to anything trauma informed. It comes in 2 parts.