Is She Ok? - Female Fitness Q&A - Cycle Syncing Workouts, Alcohol, Fat Loss & More!

Episode Date: December 13, 2024

A special fitness Q&A covering a range of hot topics, from Cycle Syncing Workouts, Alcohol & Fat Loss, Sleep Tips & More!

Hi everyone and welcome to the Is She OK? podcast. I'm Chans and I'm Sophie and we're here to unpack life's ups and downs and all the in-betweens. Having the conversations every woman's thinking about but rarely says out loud. Every week we'll chat about topics that really matter, aiming to answer the question we all ask ourselves, is she OK? Hi guys and welcome to what is going to be the first solo episode of the Is She Okay podcast. Before I get into today's episode, which is going to be a fitness Q&A, so we're going to be covering everything from alcohol and fat loss, cycle syncing workouts and more. I just want to say a really big thank you for everyone for listening.

And a little ask that if you are tuned in and you like what you're hearing, please do rate and review the Is She Okay podcast. It really does help other women find us too and hopefully kind of carry on the conversation outside of here. And if you really want to show us some love, it would be really great if you could share the podcast on your Instagram stories

so we can get more women listening and having these conversations. So as I said, today is a solo episode and it's going to be fitness questions that you guys sent in via my Instagram stories. If you don't already follow me, you can find me at Sophie Borwich on Instagram. So I'm just going to dive straight in with some of your questions. So the first one that I've got here is, can I drink alcohol and still lose weight and the answer to this is yes there is nothing that you have to exclude from your diet um if we're looking at alcohol as purely calories um there's no reason why they can't be included will they help you lose weight no um i think a big thing with

alcohol is it's just about kind of moderation and dare i say balance so the same as we would need to do with any food we need to factor it into your daily calories um and sometimes this is something that i think people neglect to do um like I can't tell you how many times I've been like reviewing someone's food diary and be like right is this everything for the week and then it's come out I was like oh you know I went out on Friday night and my dip the meal that I had is in there but actually there was a bottle of wine and then some cocktails and you're like right okay so it's really important that we are accountable with those calories um and also to think that a bottle of wine for example is like 700 800 calories

in itself um and cocktails you can have 500 calories just from one cocktail quite easily um so we've got to view alcohol if we're talking about alcohol in relation to fat loss um it's like a snack or a meal in of itself so we've got to have that accountability there um one thing that i like to do with clients is just kind of encourage them to choose wisely um there are less calorific options out there um and set some boundaries especially when it's a really kind of busy social season um and sometimes that might be something like we set a amount of days per week that you're gonna be drinking on um and again it's just kind of refining and kind of limiting the impact that it's going to have. Sometimes it's units per week. So sometimes it's like, right, you can have four glasses of wine and they can be on any day you want.

But that's where we're capping it. So it's just putting kind of some sensible restrictions in place because there are going to have to be compromises along the way um also a key thing is planning around it um oftentimes it's not so much the alcohol itself but it's everything that follows like the night out is where things really fall apart for example um you've had a big night out and the next day you're hungover so you're very unlikely to reach for a healthy breakfast um and it's kind of the next day is then eating greasy food rossing on the sofa um and then you don't do your food shop and then you don't do your food shop, and then you don't do your food prep for the week, so Monday comes around, and you don't have anything in the house all prepared, so you are then buying lunch out, and then you get a takeaway for dinner, and then before you know it,

it's Friday again, and so it's really that thing of just like alcohol, it's never going to do you any favors like at the end of the day it's a toxin but um you don't have to be completely sober you can drink and still lose weight um but there are considerations and things that you need to do um just to prioritize both goals i guess um question two can cycle syncing workouts be beneficial no um to be honest it's not really a thing it's basically just a new faddy social media trend targeting women and all their insecurities so that people can sell you workout programs that promise something different or new or make you feel like you've been you know missing out on something. I'm not saying there's no validity to us acknowledging that we can feel different throughout the month and throughout the stages of my menstrual cycle.

But there is absolutely no need or benefit to changing the type of exercise that you do throughout your cycle. It's just it's truly not a thing. And if I'm being honest, it really frustrates me because it's essentially just preying on women's insecurities. And it's scaremongering. And it's another way of keeping us small. And that being said, everyone's body is different. Some people obviously suffer really badly with symptoms of PMS. However, exercise helps with that. And yes do yoga or pilates um and you know if you're really struggling take a rest day um but you don't need to stop doing cardiovascular activity or strength training or whatever it might be um just because you're on your period it's it's

nothing so no um right next question i'm really struggling to get to the gym for more than 30 And just because you're on your period is nothing. So, no. Right, next question. I'm really struggling to get to the gym for more than 30 minutes. Is it still worth it? Absolutely. either running around after kids or kind of high stressful um high profile jobs um whatever it might be and the thing that I really stress to them is something is always better than nothing um whether that is getting out for a 20 minute run around the block instead of not doing it or coming into the gym and maybe if you can only make it in 30 minutes, maybe you can do higher frequency, but less time once you're here. So if I was working with someone

who was only in for 30 minutes, but could maybe do 30 minutes three times a week, that's an hour and a half. And that is so you can do so much in that time. And it doesn't actually matter that is broken up into those 30 minute increments and we can prioritize big compound lifts we could put in a 30 minute um kind of cardiovascular session there's so much you can do and it will always be better than doing nothing so 100% like drop the all or nothing mindset a lot of people think if you're not in for an hour at time it's not worth it um but no 30 minutes absolutely um right next question my sleep is awful and it's making me really unmotivated is there anything I can do um yeah absolutely

sleep deprivation is just the absolute worst um and it's no wonder that you're feeling unmotivated if you aren't sleeping um when I have a bad night's sleep I always say like I feel like a day old sock the next day and my brain doesn't work properly and the last thing I want to do is really and truly anything um I do always feel better for exercising which I know probably isn't what you want to hear but um there are a few things that I would recommend trying um and I do want to stress that you do need to be consistent and a bit regimented with these things um but if it means that you're sleeping better it will be so worth it. One thing I always like to kind of remind people of is when you are a child, you have a bedtime routine.

But as adults, we don't implement the same things that seem so logical, which we do for our children or we're done for us. So it's kind of sometimes just making yourself think about it in that really basic way of like if I was looking after someone what would I do for them um it doesn't have to be something extensive and actually when someone comes to me and they're struggling with sleep we want to keep it fairly simple at the start especially just so that we can actually do it and it's fine to add to that over time um but keep it simple and keep it achievable and hopefully reap the rewards so if you find that you are waking up in the night and your brain is going like a million miles an

hour or the second your head hits the pillow um you can't switch off and all these things start kind of running through your head um one thing I would definitely recommend is journaling um and I know a lot of people are quite resistant to it because I think it's quite misunderstood I think when you say journaling people assume that you've got to like write this amazing novel or it's got to be something quite extensive um and it's really it's not that um even just doing something like a 10 minute brain dump so a lot of the times I just get people to start with simply a to-do list for the next day so you're just offloading everything from your brain onto pen and paper um and oftentimes when people start writing um other things start coming out I'll give people journal prompts I'll get them to do a little gratitude list um so yeah just getting things from your head onto paper can go a really

long way so that's one thing I would definitely start doing if you're not ready um my favorite app is called insight timer um and it's essentially a meditation app it's completely free and I could not recommend it enough it's it's kind of one of those things like calm or whatever um meditation again doesn't have to be extensive it can be five minutes um one thing on insight timer is they also have um like body scans yoga nidrae um and i really love them because it's a really good way of getting you out of your head and kind of into your body focusing on your breathing calming your body calming your nervous system. And it's amazing how quickly your mind starts to switch off. And then you can do that and just kind of like hopefully fall asleep while you're doing it or doze off after. Practical things like making sure you're not eating at least two hours before bed.

So your body isn't still digesting food this can be a really big one um reading before bedtime so going up to bed 15 minutes earlier reading a book again just kind of trying to avoid as much stimulation as possible i would say when it comes to reading um remember it's going to be something relaxing and not stimulating so just be aware of that and kind of maybe a bit mindful of what your reading choice is and one thing that really gets missed quite a lot is actually just keeping a regular sleep schedule our bodies thrive off routine that's when they work their best so going to bed at the same time and waking up at the same time every day um helps with our circadian rhythm again getting daylight first thing in the

morning um our bodies are incredibly intelligent so doing little things like that can be really beneficial um so yeah i hope you found that. Those are all the questions we're going to run through today. And again, just a massive thank you for listening. And please just give us a five star review and look forward to speaking to you next week.