opportunities open once the day has come and gone. What are your goals beyond Women’s National Fitness Day? And this isn’t a question you should only ask yourself if you identify as female. This is a question that supersedes identity. How will you encourage your mothers, daughters, sisters, and friends to take up the mantle of health and wellness? Well, in my opinion, the easiest way to influence others has been, and will continue to be, leading by example. We are highly adaptive creatures who respond and change to social cues and suggestions. Therefore, if you want a nation of Wonder Women (the reboot, not the cringey seventies version), then be that Wonder Woman—or Wonder Man, or Wonder Folk—and help train a nation of warriors through your role-
modeling. Push women into activity. I was pushed into sports, many of which I didn’t like, although via a process of elimination I soon learned what I did fancy. Show women that they are strong. Show them that weightlifting can be more than five-pound curls and Jane Fonda butterfly thigh contractions. I often go through this particular roadblock in my work as a lifestyle coach: the self-perception that women should lift very light weights because they are slighter and frailer and don’t want to bulk up. This is a gross misinterpretation of how the body works, since a woman won’t turn into a muscle god without a tremendous amount of calories and most likely hormonal injections. A woman can be strong, can lift strong, can treat her body in many ways no different to a man’s—to a human’s—and that is the capacity and goal to which we should have women achieve. Perhaps one day we’ll just be celebrating National Health and Fitness Day—nonbinary and without qualification. But we’re not there yet. Until we are, show your support and your leadership and encourage the women in your life to conquer life’s obstacles with the sheer determination of their bodies and wills. —C
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