“Living the Good Life” Tweetstorm

Lots of ‘fitness’ imagery presents a sexualized view of working out that makes us squirm

When we started ShapeLog, we had to determine what sort of company we wanted to become. So we immersed ourselves in industry events, media, videos, websites and books. Most of what we saw was really attractive people with no clothes on working out. The sexualized perfection that’s portrayed on many fitness company websites and media outlets is a little startling to the uninitiated. We want to help people look better, but our approach is using data and information in a way that is authentic and celebrates real people.

That’s why we love “Living the Good Life” a book by the founder of GoodLife Fitness, David Patchell-Evans. “Patch”, as he’s commonly known in the fitness industry, espouses an approachable brand of fitness that works for the masses. He says chasing somebody else’s vision of perfection is not only a waste of time, but harmful. We agree.

If you’re looking for a brand of fitness that is approachable, and compassionate, you should read Patch’s book. You can follow the general arc of the book below in this ‘tweetstorm’ of quotes pulled directly from the book. They are in order of appearance. It’s a decent way to get a feel for Patch’s approach to health and happiness.

For this tweetstorm and other company updates, follow us @shapelog.com on twitter.

1. 1. almost nobody has a perfect body

1. 1. I frequently saw club members getting happier with themselves despite not being perfect

1. 1. This book is about living a good life

1. 1. You can’t find happiness if you’re judging yourself or selling yourself short.

1. 1. Just because you’re imperfect (and who isn’t?) doesn’t lessen your ability to live comfortably in your own skin.

1. 1. Why is it that less than 20 percent of the population exercises regularly?…

1. 1. Because they think fitness is hard. They think they can’t do it, or that they don’t have time to do it.

1. 1. I’m here to tell you that it’s easy and that you can do it.

1. 1. This is the driving vision of my entire professional life.

1. 1. We [GoodLife] have only one reason for being: to make you fit and healthy, to make you believe you can do this, to get you off the couch and into your own body.

1. 1. It occurred to me that there was nobody out there with a vision about fitness who knew anything about business. So I decided to put the two together.

1. 1. You decide how fit you’re going to be.

1. 1. You can make a conscious decision about how well you want to be, and that decision will affect your entire quality of life.

1. 1. The really neat thing about fitness is you don’t have to spend a lot of time to get unbelievable benefits.

1. 1. If you spend half an hour three times a week doing fitness activities, you’ll be in better shape than 90% of the population.

1. 1. Now science and technology have made it even easier, because we’ve got exercise equipment today that didn’t exist before.

1. 1. Very few people in fitness really understand what it’s like to be old or weakened.

1. 1. You can exercise three times a week and still be amazingly fit.

1. 1. Your body will degenerate if you don’t use it, so use it! Everyone ages, but if you’re fit you’re going to age a lot more slowly.

1. 1. If you can engage your whole spirit in the pursuit  of fitness – not just your intellect, not just your emotions – you’ll discover what it is to be a whole person.

1. 1. One thing I think is really important in the field of fitness is that it’s not about perfection.

1. 1. Good enough is good enough.

1. 1. When you’ve reached your goals, you have three choices:

1. 1. First, you can go back home and do nothing further.

1. 1. The second choice is to say, “Good enough is good enough,” and then maintain the gains.

1. 1. If you do 20 minutes on the stair machine and eight strength exercises that work the whole body three times a week, that’s all you have to do forever.

1. 1. The third choice is the constant struggle to be better…that’s well and good if you want to do that. However, you don’t have to.

1. 1. The physiological difference between two hours of running and just half an hour is between 2 and 5 percent.

1. 1. If you exercise for half an hour three times a week, you gain the equivalent of 33 hours a week in terms of productivity.

1. 1. most people think their body has to be better.

1. 1. People who appear to be in great shape aren’t always happy with their bodies, either. We have to get away from this need for perfection to “it’s right for me.”

1. 1. One of the great lessons my life has taught me is that regret about the past and worry about the future robs us of happiness.

1. 1. if you believe that your life cannot be happy unless you are feeling 100 percent happy 24 hours a day, then you’re going to get the opposite result.

1. 1. You don’t always have to know why something happened in order for you to respond to it in a constructive and meaningful way.

1. 1. Paying attention to what is working in your life, even if they’re just small things at the moment, is an absolutely key ingredient of happiness.

1. 1. These days we seem to have cultivated a culture of distraction rather than a culture of presence, which I think is compromising our opportunities for real happiness.

1. 1. All differences count. It doesn’t have to be so dramatic…

1. 1. It can mean working hard to raise healthy, positive children. Or treating your colleagues with respect and making them happy to work with you.

1. 1. The deepest sense of happiness comes from the feeling that our life matter – matters to us and to others.

1. 1. Popular media throughout history have often promoted “perfect” stereotypes, trying to influence men and women to achieve ideal bodies.

1. 1. At the end of a long, busy day, the fit person is the one who still has a spark of energy.

1. 1. Exercise can give you an inner and outer radiance that makes people notice you.

1. 1. You’ll look good by looking like you at your very best in the present moment, by feeling comfortable inside your skin, and by heightening your aliveness as a human being!

1. 1. As you get older, you lose, on average, half a pound of muscle a year.

1. 1. A full range of motion is important because the number one reason people get old is that they lose flexibility.

1. 1. Invariably most people can lift more weight in a short range of motion, but only half the weight with a full range of motion.

1. 1. If you’re exercising using your whole range of motion, within your first month you will start to build muscle.

1. 1. As research shows, the metabolic rate of muscles is much faster than the metabolic rate of organs.

1. 1. People who have more muscle burn more calories even at rest.

1. 1. Muscle takes up less space than fat and looks better. That’s why fit people tend to look better longer.

1. 1. You don’t need to know the biochemistry of endorphins to know that they make you feel good and that they are triggered by exercise.

1. 1. All you need to do, three times a week, is make your muscles a little stronger than they were by means of what we call a progressive overload system.

1. 1. It is motivating to watch your heart rate zones as you work out, to see how many calories you are burning, how far you have cycled, or how efficient your strokes are on the rowing machine.

1. 1. As adults, it is important we shed any feelings of judgment – any residual feelings of “I don’t measure up.”

1. 1. You can learn to use the strength-training machines in less than half an hour.

1. 1. Magazines and TV make money from portraying extreme imperfection or extreme perfection. They will tell you there are a thousand ways to strengthen your biceps. It’s not that complicated!

1. 1. if we can move from 17 to 30 percent of the population participating in exercise to 40 percent, that will create an enormous jump in positive health outcomes.

1. 1. Even sex is better if you’re fit.

1. 1. You will never make yourself happy with someone else’s opinion of what your weight should be.

1. 1. When it comes to weight, the influence of public media is insidious.

1. 1. We need to learn to distinguish between a good weight, which is possible for us, and a perfect weight, which doesn’t exist.

1. 1. One of the misconceptions about exercise and weight control is that you need to do a lot of cardiovascular training to burn calories.

1. 1. You also need exercises that build muscle, because muscles burn calories all the time.

1. 1. Any weight-control group or program that doesn’t encourage exercise is not telling the whole story.

1. 1. It was the motorcycle accident and my subsequent experiences as a competitive athlete that led me to the business I am in now.

1. 1. Think of an injury as an opportunity to discover more about yourself.

1. 1. I consider that my arthritis made my business successful. It made me a happier, more caring person.

1. 1. A happy life is not a life devoid of grief, loss, or disappointment.

1. 1. Light can’t exist without dark, up cannot exist without down, and happy cannot exist without sad.

1. 1. As I look at my childhood, I realize that my father’s death contributed to my becoming a more compassionate person as an adult.

1. 1. if you’ve never been disappointed, if you’ve never failed, if you’ve never tried hard and didn’t achieve what you wanted, then you will never understand happiness.

1. 1. I think the people tho tell me they have never felt disappointment probably don’t care deeply about anything.

1. 1. I’ve established these core values in my business: happiness, integrity, trust, personal fitness, passion, and peak attitude.

1. 1. Anytime you say yes to something, you say no to something else.

1. 1. This mental clarity arising from regular fitness helps fit people be more productive, make more money, and lead happier lives.

1. 1. Children who exercise during the school day will be happier, readier to learn, and healthier overall.

1. 1. Teachers have an opportunity to be role models to their students, supporting a culture that includes exercise in their daily lives.

1. 1. I think the path to happiness is the balance of dreams and reality.

1. 1. There are three stages to becoming fit:

1. 1. The first sage is to stop getting worse.

1. 1. The second stage is to begin reversing the damage.

1. 1. The third stage is simply maintenance.

1. 1. A training routine for good health and fitness should always be done in cycles. Think of it ias waves on a beach, coming one after another.

1. 1. Magazine publishers can’t sell magazines to you if you think you’re OK.

1. If you’ve always wanted to do something, and the opportunity arises to do it, then do it.

About GoodLife Fitness

When GoodLife first opened in 1979 in London, Ontario, it was a small fitness club measuring just 2,000 square feet. Now, in 2015, GoodLife has over 350 clubs, stretching from Newfoundland to British Columbia, more than 1.2 million members, and over 13,000 staff. One in every 34 Canadians is a GoodLife member.