Tools, Tips & Truths: A Health & Fitness Series by Shireen Fabing

Oh hey!

This is my ongoing blog series sharing my favourite tools, tips and truths related to health, fitness and wellness.  My take, my perspective and my experiences.  We all wear many hats these days so these will be from my perspective as a mom, an athlete, boxing coach, personal trainer and entrepreneur – not always all at once and not always in that order!  My goal is to help, inform and/or motivate as many humans as I can!

NEW – January 31, 2021:  Movement

Movement is medicine.  And just like medicine, everyone reacts differently to different types of movement.  Find your jam and find what makes you vibe.  Find it, feel it and do that.  Consistently and unapologetically!

Do what you like!

Have you ever been in a job you love(d) vs one that you hated?  Think of the outcome in each scenario.  We’ll focus on the positive for this post 😊.  Loving what you do is the first step to success doing what you love will show through and your light will shine brighter!  It can be a few things too – variety and balance right?

Do it consistently!

Practice leads to improvement.  You may love something with all your heart after trying it once, but you don’t necessarily know the how or the science behind it.  Moving consistently will leave you wanting more, feeling stronger, motivated, proud and accomplished.  It creates habits, healthy ones and ones which could help influence others which to me, is the bonus benefit.

Find it and feel it!

Be open to trying new things and if it looks too hard, start slow.  Running is my example.  Someone in my family said that the women in our family were prone to knee problems so we shouldn’t be running.  BS right?  That was about 20 years ago.  To date I’ve done 1 half marathon and more 5km, 10km and 15km than I can count.  I started by walking, then walking 5 minutes and a slow jog for 1 minute and I put that on repeat.  I built up from there.  Today, running is a medicine I need in my life.

Influencing one human at a time!

Sometimes it finds you.  I went to a boxing class with a past colleague and friend to get her to stop asking me to come try it with her.  That’s the truth.  I was hooked after that first class and just like I mentioned above, I didn’t know the first thing about boxing, hell I never even watched it back then.  What I did know is how moving that way made me feel and that first class left me wanting more.  Fast forward about 12 years and 11 fights later – I still don’t know all there is to know about the sport and to this day, every class, sparring session and fight leaves me wanting more.  Leaves me wanting to improve and continue to learn, grow and share that passion with others.

Today I have a collection of “medicines” that I’ve collected over the years and some I pull out more than others but point is that it can be one thing or a variety.  As long as you’re moving.

Reap the benefits!

I could write pages on the benefits, but daily movement is good for both physical and mental health.  It strengthens your muscles which in turn improves your stability and balance and that’s just by a simple movement like daily walking!  Various activities and disciplines come with their extended benefits and an example for me is yoga.  At the start of Covid I added yoga to my mental health toolbox.  Consistently.  It started with a 30 day challenge I gave myself but in those 30 days I built strength in different muscles and my overall mental state improved drastically.  My patience and tolerance were two things I had started struggling with and the benefits extended way beyond that.  I still practice – not daily but fairly consistently.

Do it unapologetically!

Sometimes, when we start something new or different from what society expects from us, we get mixed reactions.  Everyone will have an opinion about why you should or shouldn’t do something but remember, they’re not you.  They don’t feel what you feel and you should NEVER apologize or feel like you need to for wanting to better yourself.  So, even if you don’t know all the moves or all the words – dance and sing it like nobody is watching or, like me, do it like you’re on a world stage and everyone is cheering and chanting just for you!

So, you find your medicine and you do that with all you have and all you got.  The benefits, priceless!

PAST ENTRIES – click links

January 1, 2021:  Self-Care

December 9, 2020:  The Foam Roller