Over the past few weeks there’s been parents queuing up at the booze isle so that they can choose their poison for the evening when they’ve put the kids to bed.
How do I know? Because I’ve been one of them. And although it hasn’t gotten to fisty cuffs just yet, there’s been a few near misses as I hurdle the crates and boxes placed by the staff in the centre of the isles to get to the last bottle of Montepulciano. I almost straddled Big Dave’s back to reach for this particularly fruity red but luckily he was headed for the stout section. Just as well. If I had to challenge him for my favourite tipple I think I would’ve lost.
Of course, it’s not just the parents heading for the booze section. A study published by The Lancet in 2017 found that global alcohol consumption had gone up by 70% from 1990 to 2017. Notice the dates. This was pre-pandemic. I can’t imagine the consumption of alcohol to have gone down.
People are finding work stressful. They turn on the news to wars and political unrest. The economy is a mess. Social media can be addictive but toxic. People are having to hang on in there. The daily grind leads to an alcohol unwind. I just made that up. It rhymed.
But anyway, my job as a fitness coach isn’t to analyse the many studies made on our society. But it is my job to know how to deal with the many different issues that our society brings up. Body confidence, work life balance, injuries, physical health, mental health and food anxieties are all things that I deal with regularly in my work.
But I’ll tell you why I am particularly good at what I do. Everything I have listed above I have had to deal with in my own life at some time or another. Some are more prominent than others, but damn, it hits you like a ton of bricks and knocks you off course pretty quickly. Alcohol, perhaps, becomes a crux for some. For others it might be over or under eating. And then there’s a whole myriad of people who self harm in other ways. There isn’t much I haven’t seen.
My weight management programme has been tweaked to what is now a well established offering to my clients. Why? Most people don’t even know they’re on a programme. It simply becomes a journey of self discovery. It deals with becoming stronger both physically and mentally. It is designed to challenge the body and the thought processes that we have. I not only wrote the programme, but I lived it first.
Adding a summer sports school for a hundred kids two days a week to my list of work commitments this summer has had me spinning those plates to the extent that, just maybe, Big Dave wouldn’t have stood a chance had he made a grab for my bottle of Montepulciano.
But come September, I’ll be back to dropping the kids off at school and having a focus on developing my online coaching programmes and my gym work.
And seeing as the kids go back to school next week and I’m about to open this bottle of Montepulciano right now, it could be the last of my summer wine.
Never Give Up PT 