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If you’re like the majority of people alive on this planet today, you know that you should be incorporating some kind of physical activity into your day to get (and stay) healthy. But it’s hard.

And the sheer number of choices when you’re deciding what kind of exercise? That’s just plain overwhelming.

Crossfit. Yoga. Cycling. Swimming. Strength training. Running. Agility training. Etcetera(s), almost without end.

And if you narrow it down to a single one of those, you run into even more questions.

Should you run, or jog? Should your yoga be hot and sweaty (Bikram style), power vinyasa style, or something a little more laid back? How often should you exercise? And, should you alternate types — say, strength training on Tuesdays and Thursdays, alternating with cardio? But then do you take a rest day?

And no matter which way you turn, there’s someone shouting from the rooftops that their exercise program is the best. If you’re not doing Crossfit, you’re not one of the cool kids. Everyone should be doing lots of yoga. Swimming is the best because it’s low impact on your joints…

The list goes on and on.

There’s a reason that there’s a kinesiology major in college… you can make an entire career out of figuring out what kind of exercise is best for any given person.

So it’s understandable that sometimes just the act of trying to decide what to do can cause you to say “eff it. I don’t have time to figure this out.”

But really, it boils down to one thing.

Life should be fun — exercise should be the same

Mark Sisson believes that “the single best exercise there is, hands down, is the one you’ll do.”

If you don’t enjoy the type of exercise that you think you should be doing, it’s awfully hard to get motivated to do it.

You’ve probably figured out by now that this series is all about embracing your fierce, awesome, and totally unique inner unicorn.

Last week, it was nutrition. This week, we’re moving on to how you move your body, and the guidance is going to sound really similar.

Lots of choices is a good thing

Maybe you’ve never actually been to a yoga class. Try one out (or several, with different teachers and different styles) and see if you like it. If not, try the next thing.

• Swim some laps.
• Ride your bike around town instead of driving.
• Take your dog for a walk.
• Try a Crossfit class.
• Work in your garden.
• Go kayaking with some friends.

The list of possibilities is huge — so instead of getting overwhelmed by all of the choices, take a minute to write down a few types of exercise that sound fun, and then give them a try.

If something doesn’t feel like a good fit after a couple of sessions, drop it from the list.

And for anything that you really enjoy, make time in your schedule to keep doing it!

Listen to your body, and stay safe

As you’re exploring all of the amazing ways that your body can move, it’s important to listen to what it’s telling you.

Yes, any new exercise routine is going to potentially be a little bit uncomfortable as you’re getting started. But you should never experience severe pain from exercising.

You’re not an Olympic athlete, and your career isn’t riding on being in super-human shape, so don’t push yourself past your limits. Explore the edges, but don’t push too far — there’s always tomorrow, to see if you can go a little further.

Pain is not “weakness leaving the body”. It’s your body, telling you that you’re doing something it really doesn’t like.

Unlike the fight or flight response (which doesn’t really do us a whole lot of good in our modern world that’s free of saber-tooth tigers and high likelihood of sudden death), our pain response is one biological mechanism that we should be thankful for.

Ease into new types of exercise. Start with beginner classes. Take your time, and ask the instructor questions if you’re not sure about something (teachers and trainers really don’t mind when people come up after class with questions).

Similar to listening to how your body feels when you eat something, take a listen to how you feel while you’re working out, after you finish up, and into the next day or two.

Once you get past the initial discomfort or soreness of any new exercise, you should feel (mostly) great after a good session.

Consistency is key

Like most things in life, keeping some kind of movement in your daily life is what makes all the difference.

You don’t have to have a regimented fitness routine to stay healthy, with every single day planned out in advance, and an iron-clad agreement in place that you must stick to under penalty of noogies.

It’s as easy as “hey, maybe I’ll go to a yoga class today” or “it’s going to be really nice at lunch — I should take a walk during my lunch break” or even “instead of sitting on the couch and watching a movie, let’s have some wild sex.”

Mix it up. Have fun.

But most importantly? Get off your ass and get moving!

Because really, if you’re already a unicorn (hint: you are), you deserve to take full advantage of your awesomeness.

With a little bit of time and some self study, you can become the best unicorn you can be. Nutrition, exercise — it’s all part of living as a happy, healthy, totally magnificent… human being.

So, what kind of exercise sounds like fun for your inner unicorn? And how can you start to incorporate it into your daily life?

These days, it seems like you can’t browse the web without getting bombarded by messages about what you should be eating.

You have to be vegetarian (or vegan) — the average person gets too much protein; meat is destroying the planet; think of the animals!

You have to be paleo — it’s what our ancestors ate; it’s the best biological choice; vegans are dumb.

You have to eat raw… or slow carb… or Mediterranean… or Atkins… or McDougalls… or do juice cleanses…

Or, you should eat nothing but air, and compost your pocket lint.

Sigh.

A quick spin through the “comprehensive” list of diets on good ‘ole Wikipedia includes just under 100 different branded diets.

And while these diets might be a good place to start for those who are trying to figure out what they should (and shouldn’t) be eating, trying to bend yourself to someone else’s definition of diet is just plain unnecessary.

Seriously… You Are a Freakin’ Unicorn

Remember the post from a couple of weeks back, about how you are a complex, unique beast?

After reading that post, you might be wondering: what’s a unicorn supposed to eat?

One of the most important things to do when figuring out your own nutritional plan is to listen.

Listen to your body — pay attention to how your stomach feels after you eat something, how quickly you get hungry again, how you feel the next day. Are you sleeping well? Is your skin dry, or too oily? Are you really cranky some days, or feel like you can’t get through the afternoon without coffee on others?

You’ll probably also want to play around with how often you eat, and at what times. There are lots of variables to work with, and lots of potential areas for change and improvement.

But every experiment needs a control group, right?

Start With a Baseline

You don’t have to go so far as doing an elimination diet, but it’s good to start with some kind of healthy baseline.

I personally like Michael Pollan’s advice:

Eat food.
Not too much.
Mostly plants.”

In the article, he also cautions us that, “if you’re concerned about your health, you should probably avoid food products that make health claims. Why? Because a health claim on a food product is a good indication that it’s not really food, and food is what you want to eat.”

It may take some time to find the baseline that works for you, and your nutritional needs will shift and evolve with time, so be gentle on yourself while you’re figuring it out.

Know Where Your Food Comes From

As well as Pollan’s advice on the types of food to eat, there are a few other considerations that you can mix into the equation.

I personally like to know where my food comes from.

If I’m eating something that comes from an animal, I want to know that the animal had a good life. We humans share this planet with all of the other life forms, and as much as possible, I really do believe that we should take them into consideration as we make our decisions.

Eat local. This helps with the preference above. I know a lot of the farmers who raise the food we eat, because I see them every week at the farmers market. Having a human connection to the food and farms just feels better. Go hug a farmer. Seriously.

Eat organic, or low spray. If you can’t eat local, or there are things that you can do to minimize your exposure to the toxic chemicals that come along for the ride on conventional produce. Eat cleaner, and your body has less crap that it needs to process and get rid of.

Or, even better: grow your own! You don’t have to have a giant piece of property to have a garden. In fact, if you have a sunny balcony in your apartment, you can container garden and grow at least a little bit of the food you eat. I don’t know about you, but digging around in the dirt and then watching things sprout and grow is some of the best stress relief out there.

Your Skin Eats, Too

Did you know that your skin is your body’s largest (and fastest growing) organ?

And, much like our stomachs, our skin processes all the things that we put on it. When you put lotion on your hands, whatever ingredients are in that lotion get absorbed into the skin, and then into the body.

Have you read the ingredient label on your lotion, body wash, or any of your body care products?

My general rule of thumb is that I need to be able to pronounce the ingredients (or at least recognize and be comfortable with the source of the ingredient) — and I have a yoga teacher who recommends only using body care products that you would feel comfortable actually eating.

Start Somewhere

It can feel like a lot when you start to delve into what diet works for you. Trust me, I’ve been through many years and lots of mental anguish around food, and it’s something that I admittedly still struggle with.

Like most changes, the easiest way to get started… is to just start.

Pick one thing. Maybe it’s eating more vegetables (honestly, I’d start there if you’re lost as to where to start). Or maybe it’s cutting out refined sugar, or cutting down on your caffeine intake. Maybe it’s making sure that you’re staying hydrated.

There’s a reason most New Years Resolutions fail — it’s because people get these big audacious ideas in their head, and decide to make massive sweeping changes. And then 2 weeks later, it gets hard or they realize they can’t actually implement everything they wanted to. And then they fall right back into old patterns.

So instead, what one small thing can you do to start working on this week, for the proper feeding of your inner unicorn?

Let’s turn the clock back a few months, and imagine back in time for a moment.

I was winding down for the evening, letting my mind wander.

I was thinking about how well I had been doing with adapting some diet advice I’d been hearing everywhere: “eat more flax seeds. They’re high in Omega 3s, fiber, and all sorts of vitamins!”

So I did. I started putting them into our smoothies every morning. In fact, I’d been doing it for months by that point, and I was so proud of myself.

Until in my daydreaming I remembered the list I made of foods I should avoid or eliminate from my diet.

And when I checked that list I realized…

Not everything is good for everyone

It turns out that flax seed is among a number of questionable foodstuffs that may or may not cause issues for me.

(Science note: there’s research showing both positive health benefits and negative impacts, as is the case with a lot of things these days. I made the decision to get my Omega 3s from something that doesn’t come with a big list of questions.)

And here I was, thinking that I was doing such a great thing by getting more of it into my diet!

The thing is, every body is very different.

We’re all made up of the same general stardust (as Joni Mitchell would say), but how we’re configured as individuals is varied and unique, and we might as well all be… well… unicorns.

So what’s a unicorn to do?

With all the differing opinions, fad diets, and exercise crazes, it’s enough to make a person a little bit crazy trying to keep up.

It seems like every day there’s a new claim.

But let’s give ourselves some context around health claims.

Remember when doctors used to recommend smoking cigarettes?!

So if you can’t really trust what anyone else is telling you, who can you trust?

The answer might surprise you.

You are your own best teacher

Listen to your gut. Your heart. Your body.

Science is starting to figure out more and more how interconnected all of our body systems are.

And let me tell you, if you can really tune in to what your whole body is telling you, you are going to get some good wisdom out of the conversation. Your body is smart!

Eat something your body doesn’t like— it will tell you.

Go too hard into a new exercise series or a whole new type of exercise— it will tell you.

Make some other type of questionable decision — the list goes on and on.

You are a unicorn…

So start living like one.

Figure out what feels good for you, what makes you feel healthy, what gives you energy and makes you happy.

I’ll be back later this month with 2 more posts in this series, digging into both nutrition and exercise.

But in the meantime, start listening to what your body has to say.

Take whatever popular fad is going around with a grain of salt, and tune in to your innate wisdom.

Your body will be glad you did!

 

(Read more in this series: Eat like a unicorn. Move like a unicorn. Sleep like a unicorn.)