Well, hello, thank you for pressing play, tuning in listening in to this podcast from Body and Soul called Healthy Ish with Me Felicity Harley. Oh yes, we're in the depths of winter people, and working out is hard.
We get it.
That's why this week we're filling your ears with lots of motivation. I'm joined today from Singapore by global cycle coach, motivator and mum Alicia Portelli.
She makes it come back.
She's been on the podcast before and she's here to give your motivation a big fat boost.
She shares her.
Top tips for keeping your exercise on track when it's so bloody cold outside. Anyway, if you do it like what you hear from Alisia listening to extra Healthy Ish, where she talks about how to get more out of your indoor cycling class, you can grab that wherever we get your podcasts.
Nice.
Have you back on the Alicia from Singapore?
Yay, thank you so much for having me again.
Now I have to say you have You are one of the most motivating people I've ever had on this podcast, so I think you're the perfect person to get on in the middle of winter.
What how do you approach motivation?
Interestingly, enough winter for you guys, and like summer all year round for me. But it's interesting because like I face the same thing every year in Sydney winter, where like I know that in summer, like you bound out of bed, you've got energy, it feels good, like the heat's on your skin. But then all of a sudden in winter it's cold and you want to hug the bed sheets a little bit more, and you know, you start to find yourself moving less and it doesn't feel
as good, like it's gray outside. I think sometimes it's like making sure that you know on the daily that you've got a routine going on, and I know that it sounds really contrived and very monotonous. It's like okay, okay, But like if you have something that you're disciplined and dedicated to, like you're generally more focused in achieving it. And I also, this is going to sound really funny, but invest in really warm clothes because I personally hate
the cold. So one of the things that really stumbles is like obviously getting out of bed. So if I make sure that I've got like a sleeping bag or something to get to where I want to get to, I'm more inclined to go because I'm not going to feel like it's too cold. I can't do this, like I want to stay inside keep warm. So there's some things that I've adopted to help.
Do you know what.
It's not silly at all because I always have a conundrum when it comes to clothing when if I go for an outdoor run, should I wear this? Should I wear the T shirt? Should I wait? Now, I'm gonna be too calm in the single top. It's going to take me five minutes to walk up, like it's to warm up. It's that mental game of.
What am I gonna wear to keep warm?
Yeah?
And also when I get warm, what can I discard?
Is not too heavy to well throw if you're outside, so to speak, Well, that's it.
I mean, like, I think the biggest learning I had was when I went to New York in January, and I like, I loathe the cold, like I want to live in the heat all year round, which is why I love Singapore. But I've never been in a space where it was so cold. And of course, like I must have had about five six layers on. And of course what I learned in between walking, aside from getting frostbyed on my fingers. Was that when the cold hit my legs it was like cryotherapy. And then when I
got on the bike to train, I performed better. So all of a sudden, I went from hating the cold to being like, oh, this is making me perform better.
So a simple change in mindset. It's just reining and then off.
Figure, what about if you know, let's take you back to your Sydney days and you have a class full of people. They're all complaining they've got up early. Everyone's complaining that's cold. How do you motivate people to get up?
Oh my god, I loved morning class is because I'm usually bound full of energy and I don't really take bullshit with the whole like go go like what everyone's like, Oh god, I think at the end of the day, like you've managed to get there if it's cold, like we all warm up together. I usually start just with big energy, like it really does lead from the coach, and so like, if you find yourself around people that are not as motivated or not as energetic, like you're
gonna probably it probably rubs off on you. So my suggestion is find people that you know spark that motivation in your spark that energy in you, so that like it almost like it rubs off and becomes a domino effect. As a coach, like I have a choice, like I can walk in feeling sad or like taking on the cold,
or I can lead from a different place. And I always choose to lead from a different place because you don't pay me, or you don't come to see me, to to pander the you know, the lack of you come to see me, because like you want to feel something big or different, So that would be my suggestion, come come and find me.
I mean, I'm sure listeners you do this as well. But I often map out my weaker head based on who's coaching the classes, because particularly at this time of year, maybe in summer, I might it might be more around where my schedule is and oh yeah, oh you know, I can fit in a lunchtime class there. But now I literally look for people who are going to bring me up.
The other thing I had to add to that as well is change your routine. If getting up in the morning is hard, find a lunch class or like take your lunch break to move so there's different ways around it. Or like we tend to find that evening classes become
more popular in winter and less popular in summer. So where we get up early in Australia to train when it's warm so that we can enjoy the day, but when it's less inclined to get up, like, find different times that you can move, you know, there's no excuse. And I get that it's harder sometimes to have the
motivation to go at night. But at least if you develop a routine, or you find people to go with, or like you said, find the right coaches, there's always an easy solve, or you know, finding different times where the weather feels more appropriate. Or I'm one of those people that I've just got to get it done, like is once it's done, it's done, you know, then I
can enjoy the day. And I think actually James Smith did a post on this a while ago that I really identify with, and essentially it was like, get the hard stuff done first, because once it's done, then you can relax and enjoy the problem that we have as humans sometimes is we keep putting off, putting off, putting off, putting off, and then nine times out of ten, the
putoff continues to get put off. So like tackle the things that you waste time on procrastinating on first, because then all of a sudden you've then opened up your day to explore so much more and do things that you love. Right, I mean, I personally love exercising, but that doesn't mean that every day I'm motivated to do it, you know, like it It's like, okay, get it done. Some days I love it, some days I bound out of bed. I'm like, yes, like I love coaching, ride
ride is an exercise for me. But weight training, yes, like okay, cool, I've got to get to the gym and I don't have to do it. I choose to do it because it's good for me and it helps support the other things that I love and a healthy body and a healthy mind.
So yeah, and acknowledging, I mean, I think the acknowledgment that I feel like doing this, just do it, and I have this mantra, yeah, think about how you'll feel afterwards, and that kind of gets me there.
Yeah, well exactly, like I mean, for most of the reason, Like for most reasons, people train to feel good, to feel good mentally, to feel good emotionally, to feel good physically. You can't ignore, you know, all of that, so you know,
knowing that you're doing something good for yourself. Yeah, it might taste good in the moment, but you no, long term, that's not going to necessarily feel good later on energy wise versus you know something that like I still think tastes good, but like will fuel your body to be able to get you to do you know what you want to do? Yeah, and keep your insights healthy exactly.
Now, how have you stayed motivated?
You've had a pretty well tumultuous is that the word, or exciting past, also closing your business and moving overseas.
How have you stayed motivated through this period?
I guess I always come back to my goals and why I do it, and I coach my trainers in the same way. When you have a really solid why, you tend to not veer from it. So if you come back to your reason for doing it, and at the end of the day, if you can be really clear on why you do it, then you're more likely to continue it.
I can't.
I can't like lie and say that every day is felt like you know, a walk in the park and I've bound it out of bed and being like okay, cool, Like there's been pigs and troughs, and of course, like closing your business meant that I had to invest more time in tearing down walls, I had to invest more time in like selling bikes, and so then of course the things that I love doing or my fitness routine
kind of went out the door. And I got to a point where I was a little bit out of practice, and that's really confronting, and I know that people face that, especially when there's periods of time where you know they're out of practice and they're out of shape, and so people tend to avoid having to go back, but unfortunately, sometimes you've just got to rip the band aid off.
I train.
I coached and trained at a place called Undercart in Sydney. Best Kim out there, just giving you guys a shout out. Great Jim, they're amazing. You probably didn't do my class so because you would remember me. But I started going back to their classes. I started getting up at six am every day and going to the seven to fifteen class and it sucked. For a week. I was awful, you know, it was confronting, Like my body hurt. I was slower than everybody else, like even picking up the
weights that I used to pick up. I wasn't great at but within three weeks I was back to find form. So sometimes it's just about persevering, you know, through the hard stuff, and like that's also a life lesson and that's something I coached when we're on the bike, Like you have to face hard stuff and the more that you try and avoid it, it continues to build and
grow and it's always going to be there. So you can choose to back away from the fire, you can step into the heat, like what's it going to be? That was my messaging class yesterday. It was like, you can choose to be defeated, or you can choose to be challenged, like what's it going to be defeated? Lie on the ground, don't get back up, challenged like let it cook you, but let it inspire you.
I'm taking the heat in July, it was lovely having you on Healthyish.
Thank you for joining us again.
Thanks okay, people, no more excuses, none more sleeping in, throw the dinner off, get out there.
I'm also saying this to myself. I need motivation. We all need motivation.
Spring you the long way away. No, No, it's close, it's close. It's getting there anyway. I hope you did enjoy this chat with Alisha. If you doant listen to my last chat with her where we talked about rhythm writing, I will leave a link to that in the show notes. Jump on, tell us what you think about this episode. You can rate and review it, or of course, subscribe to this podcast. Then you know exactly when we drop
a new web anything else. Jump online, Body andsoul dot com dot you follow us on socials, grab our print edition which is out in your local Sunday paper, and until tomorrow. Go on, get out there, exercise and stay healthy ish