What is sick fit?
Sick fit is the term to describe someone who looks fit and healthy, but on the inside is sick from over-raining, under-recovering, dieting heavily and focussing only on what they look like on the outside and paying no attention to what’s happening on the inside of their body or how their actual health is.
This drove me to keep pushing, keep dieting, keep lifting heavier and heavier, and to keep absolutely smashing my body.
Eventually I developed a stage 3 adrenal fatigue and had to take a few weeks off work to sleep. I had to quit training altogether for 3 months and just walk. My blood pressure was so low that I would almost pass out when I was at work. I would train a client, and then go to the staff room to sleep on the floor. I was wrecked.
Even after I came out of the later stages of adrenal fatigue, I went right back to thrashing my body again. I dropped running, big whoop! Ha.
But I continued to lift 6 days a week, dieted heavily, never paid any attention to gut healing, immune health or on noticing that every single week I had a headache. Yes EVERY SINGLE WEEK I had a debilitating headache, often making me want to vomit. Sometimes lasting for weeks.
The point of my story is that I looked great! I looked healthy to the untrained eye, I looked fit as fuck!! But I was very unwell on the inside.
I was ‘sick fit’.
In the fitness industry it is praised to look a certain way, to be able to deadlift a certain amount or just to do cool looking shit for Instagram, but what is happening to the inside of the body from all of the dieting and over training? Nothing good that’s for sure! Unhealthy people are spreading an unhealthy mentality around health and fitness. It’s not their fault, they only know what they know, like I only knew what I knew back then.
After I moved away from Sydney and away from the big gyms I was able to fully adopt a much more healthy training style and to actually heal my body. I learned how to eat to nourish my body, how to train and not end up with a debilitating headache, I learned why I was getting recurring shoulder pain (my food and gut health!) and best of all, I learned how to rest and not to feel guilty about it. Well, sometimes I still struggle with this one, but remember – I was an addict and those habits die hard.
The point that I’m making is that a lot of the industry that is teaching health and fitness is actually sick and unwell themselves. Yes ,they look great, they are ripped, they have abs, they can do pull ups, but often they have poor immune function, they get recurring pain or injuries due to poor connective tissue and poor organ function, they have terrible gut health due to not eating a variety of foods and they take a shit tonne of supplements just to feel good because they are starving themselves of actual nutrients. This isn’t health or fitness, it is sick fit. Making yourself sick to look fit.
Health and fitness is:
- Being healthy not only on the outside but on the inside too
- Having a healthy immune system
- Having good digestion
- Not dieting, but eating to give your body energy and to have incredible health
- Having a healthy mindset about yourself and about training
- Training well and resting well too
- Training to get results but also knowing when to back off to get results
- Sleeping well
- Managing your stress levels
- Having other ways to move that are not limited to a gym
Our body is always communicating with us in different ways but the simplest way it is showing you if you’re on the right path is;
- Good energy
- Good immune function (not getting colds and flu)
- Good POOP
- Good sleep
- Not feeling in a constant state of stress
- Healthy period (no pain, moodiness, bloating, booby soreness, extreme fatigue)
- No recurring pain in the body (there are exceptions to this of course)
- Good moods
- Good response to exercise
Listen to the whispers or you will be forced to hear the screams.
Learn how to train better, not necessarily harder, and that will be different to every body as we are all unique. Learn how to eat to fuel and to heal your body. Learn how to reduce the stressors that wreak havoc on your health.
Lastly if you do need help learning a better way to look after your body in a much more balanced approach, reach out. It is my goal to help as many people as possible to heal themselves through health and fitness and to not only chase, but to live their dream life.