You can't kill a person with your face.

Also, is this the one where we cancel posture? Let's find out!

I started the day apologising for my face.

My make up free face, complete with un-styled, messy hair

To be absolutely clear, my business partner who sits opposite me, the one who would be offended at my plain, pale face and messy hair, gives zero fucks about what I look like and looks more irritated than offended when I’m on this weird face apology bent.

One of my fabulous peers, her name is Rachel Klaver, she said to me once when we were on a zoom and I was again, apologising for my face.

She said “You can’t kill a person with your face, so quit apologising for it”

And I thought that was pretty spot on.

Definitely the kick up the arse I needed. So while I still apologise for my face to David and sometimes other people I’m on a zoom with, I’ve found channeling Rachel’s very bold statement is helpful. Try it?

Find your people

I took a sick day yesterday because of an endo flare up, and also an asthmatic cough I’ve had for weeks now is really zapping my energy. I wasn’t well, I looked like hell, but life goes on, right? I needed to pick my kid up from school.

And as I waited for my child to exit the school gates at a glacial pace, I got some looks from parents who had a bit more time and energy to present themselves better than I did. And you know when you feel like shite and you look like shite, and people politely smile at you with pity and maybe a bit of disgust, and you’re doing your best to deal with those feelings appropriately, and then your mate also picking up their kid sees you and says “fuck me, you look terrible, what happened?”

And at that moment, you’re just full of gratitude for people who are your people.

The ones who can tell when you’re an inch away from a total meltdown and know how to pick you up from the floor.

The ones who give it to you straight if you’re actually the asshole, or when you’re actually not.

The ones who when you’ve completely run out of steam and you just can’t take it anymore, remind you to go and pay money to talk to someone about it.

If any of this stuff rings true for you, can I make a recommendation to somehow find your people so you don’t have to feel any kinds of shit from other people who are definitely not your people. Those people can get in the trash.

Moving on to posture.

Treading warily and carefully here, because I’ve only just started reading about this stuff, I don’t have linked evidence yet, but also because I know most physiotherapists are in the camp of good posture equals healthy back. Some of my best mates are physios, so y’know. Don’t come at me just yet.

Here’s the article that got me interested in this. And it was shared by Lauren Slater who is a rehab and injury coach in the UK. Lauren is planning on sharing more of their research, and when they do I’ll pass it on, but for now, here’s the article.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/aug/06/good-posture-back-pain-how-to-avoid

It’s free to read, but you’ll have to register a free account to get all of it. Summary of it here though.

The article quotes Peter O’Sullivan who got his physio ticket from Otago!

He is a physiotherapist by trade, but has also done a stack of time back at school and is now a professor at Curtin University. He shares his lived experience of having a wonky back from a ski-ing incident, being told to stand up straight and being in immense pain from doing so. When he slouched in a more comfortable state, the pain went away.

He was so interested in this anecdote, that he went back to university to study posture and came to the conclusion that there is no good evidence to suggest that good back health comes from good posture, and that actually, good back health comes from all the other things that lead to generally good health - exercise and moving our bodies, eating well, sleeping well, managing stress etc.

Am I surprised?

No babe, not even a little bit.

Your spine is like a kinda S shape, yeah? Not surprisingly if you try to make that less of an S, things aren’t gonna go too well for you. This article is so good! It just spells out common sense, everywhere!

It does say in that article, that there is some evidence of head position and back of neck pain we get, but so much more research is needed as no one’s sure how that pain is manifesting.

Here’s Lauren. (Link goes to her insta post on this whole subject)

Lauren is wonderful. I’ve been following her for years. She is no nonsense about everything. Her coaching techniques pretty much cancel out anything taught by under qualified personal trainers and her way of explaining all the things is golden. Please go look at her instagram account, give her a follow etc, it will really help with separating the fitness trash out come bin day.

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Thanks for reading this newsy. I really appreciate the time you give to me for this and I hope you get some value from it. If you have any questions you can reply directly to this email or if you’ve landed here from a link, email lou@sweatypals.nz. You can also follow me on Twitter here, and instagram here.

Please remember while I am a qualified fitness trainer, and I’ve done a couple of nutrition papers, I am not a registered dietitian or nutritionist. Information shared here is through my own lived experience, personal study or a peer reviewed study I have nerded out on reading and sharing with you.

Lou xx

Photo by Jackson Simmer on Unsplash