1. London at 5am is otherworldly

The beauty of watching the sunrise, waking with the birds, riding an empty train carriage, bopping to my favourite beats while driving empty roads, and the bliss of that first sip of coffee! Just some of the things I enjoy between those ridiculously early alarms and the first client of the day.

2. Once you go stretchy, you’ll never go back

The last time I bought new clothes that weren’t lycra (denim dungaree shorts from Zara, this summer), they were abandoned to the back of my wardrobe within weeks. Stretchy leggings are great for exercise, yes, but also for dog walks, pub lunches and even dressing up with heels (by which I mean wedge trainers).

3. The sniff test is totally legitimate

Speaking of stretchy clothes, when you live in leggings and you work out most days, you can guess why my husband calls our washing basket ‘Oscar’ every other day. Cue the return of the sniff test.

4. The most demanding boss you’ll ever work for is yourself

Long hours, with no extra recognition. Criticism in rich supply. Tea runs when you’re stressed? Forget it. Working for yourself is no picnic, but it’s a hell of a lot harder to complain about your boss!

5. Originality is miles more interesting than imitation

In an industry where there are plenty of personalities, and a busy broadcasting platform called Instagram, it’s easy to add to the noise with yet more half naked mirror selfies and workout videos comprising more butt close-ups than Kim Kardashian’s favourite underwear. Yawn. Body-oggling does not equal genuine connection. I’d much rather inspire one person to try one of my (fully-clothed) workouts than have a million eyes oggling my peach emoticon.

6. Don’t trust a man who brings his own boxing gloves to a PT session

… Never again will I be punched in the face while doing my job! That’s a story for another time 😉

7. Music will never be just music

That new tune you hear on the radio? Not just a song to sing along to, but the perfect beat for your next spin playlist or for synchronised kettlebell swings.

8. Buzzwords rarely outlive a bee’s lifetime

There are so many trends out there, from flash diets to workout concepts to the particular body part most revered on social media, but most of it is nonsense. Healthy lifestyles and sound workouts are grounded in science – and science doesn’t change every four months (which just so happens to be the average lifetime of a bee).

9. Sacrifices are unavoidable

When your 9-5 becomes a 5-9, sleep, social life and free time sometimes take the hit. My own training often plays second fiddle to that of my clients. Friends may or may not understand the crazy schedule, but the ones who support you and your visions will be there regardless.

10. People make it matter

Your clients become your community; and competitive types better relax the hell out, because you’re going to need other trainers and peers from the fitness industry to keep you sane. Plus they’ll be your greatest teachers along the way. Open your mind, expand your education and put your clients first. Since they’re now also loyal friends, that shouldn’t feel like a chore!

Thank you for being part of the Fit Brit Collective journey! It has been an unforgettable year, and with a new beginning before us, I’m confident 2017 will bring even more endorphins, achievements and connections. First up, new Wimbledon and Raynes Park classes starting week one of January – find out more. The video below is just a little glimpse into the future. Happy Holidays everyone!

Brit xx 

Earlier this month, there was a UK wide campaign called National Work Life Week, which promoted a healthy work life balance and encouraged companies and individuals to fit exercise around their working days. Ah, that sacred work life balance – a never-perfect pursuit to juggle work, family, friends, hobbies and personal wellbeing.

This time last year, I was travelling around Australia and loved how the country had totally nailed work life balance. Get yourself to a park at 6pm in Sydney and just watch as the floods of commuters join together, backpacks in tow, to run, bootcamp and socialise their way into the evening. The transition between work and play literally ran like clockwork. Australia is almost synonymous with health and happiness, and I believe a big part of that comes down to their ability to draw a line in the sand and maintain those boundaries between office hours and all the other hours (there are rather a lot of them when you’re not glued to a screen day and night).

Here in the UK, I think we have a way to go. There is still so much that companies can do to improve work life balance and support a team culture where staying late is the exception, not the norm. But there is also a lot that YOU can do to take control of your work life balance and make more time for the things you love (and, in doing so, reignite your love for your work). By making time for exercise, in particular, you’ll be more productive at work and have more energy and enthusiasm during the time you spend with your family and friends – win, win! The stronger, fitter, leaner body is a happy side effect, of course.

I’m still learning how to strike the perfect balance, but to build on the momentum created by National Work Life Week I thought I’d share a few of the things I’ve learned through my own pursuit of balance and through working with clients with demanding lifestyles.

Exercise first thing in the morning

I have a lot of clients who run their own business or have family life to maintain alongside their work life, and I always advise that they get their training in first thing in the morning. If you have kids, you can take turns with your partner to put breakfast on the table and do the school drop while the other enjoys their morning workout. You will never regret getting up a half hour or hour earlier to train – it will energise you and make you feel so accomplished for the rest of the day. You’ll also sleep much better at night as your body will naturally want to promote recovery, so although the first mornings may be tough they will get easier and more enjoyable every time!

Make your meetings more active

For meetings, brainstorms and team building days, factor movement into your commitments. Take your brainstorm away from your desk and go for a walk with a colleague – the fresh air and endorphins will stimulate more ideas and you’ll return feeling far more invigorated. Once or twice a week, make an agreement with your friends or colleagues to get active during your lunch break. Nip out for a quick 5K, head to a local gym, take a class or elect your most fitness mad colleague to run a bootcamp for the office. Your team will feel more united – and you’ll have done a load of good for your body and posture by getting off your backside for an hour.

Even short workouts make a difference

Stop thinking you need an hour or more to make a session count. A tough fast-moving 15 minute circuit is enough to get your heart rate up, boost circulation and stimulate your metabolism. On particularly busy days, I often break my workout into four 15-minute bursts around clients and deadlines. It actually motivates me to work harder and more efficiently when I’m ‘on’, and I enjoy those brief ‘off’ periods so much more! Try a full-body circuit with 10 exercises (like the following) and do 10-15 reps of each consecutive move. Repeat at your next opportunity.

1. Inchworms
2. Press ups
3. Rolling forearm plank to side plank
4. Bicycle crunches
5. Glute bridge
6. Squat jumps
7. Alternating side lunges
8. Jump lunges
9. Plank shoulder taps
10. Tricep press ups

Everyone’s ideal work life balance looks different, but careful planning and an unshakeable commitment to your own wellbeing is certainly important for everyone looking to live a healthier lifestyle. When you are happy and healthy, your colleagues, family members and friends will notice and share in your amazing sense of wellness. Choosing an active, balanced lifestyle is not selfish – it’s just plain smart. As more of us choose to prioritise wellbeing and happiness, we open the doors for others to follow suit. Which is just the kind of momentum we need to create a healthy, happy nation. Then maybe those are two words we’ll soon find to be synonymous with Great Britain.

If you want help fitting exercise into your lifestyle, personal training sessions to fix dedicated workout time into your diary or a workout programme to motivate you towards a set of realistic and achievable goals, I’m here to help. Corporate and small group personal training also available. Get in touch with me by email on brit@fitbritcollective.com. Every transformation starts with a decision to act and a commitment to small, consistent changes. 

I’ve been home a week now but when I close my eyes I can still hear the strong waves crashing against the untouched beaches and see the healthy green aura Sri Lanka’s lush vegetation casts over everything. Sri Lanka is a country that stays with you, and in those particularly frenetic moments at my desk, part of me wishes I could have stayed with it, too. But now I get to relive a few of the highlights by sharing them with you. Perhaps you’ll feel inclined to book the next flight to Colombo, and hopefully you’ll also pick up a few tips for staying active on holiday – whatever the destination on the departure board.

The scenery

Green is the first word that comes to mind when describing Sri Lanka. Everything from the tropical trees to the low-lying plantation to the grass on the ground is so vibrant it seems to radiate a halo of light. And nowhere is this more true than in the tea plantations around Kandy.

We stayed in the luxurious ‘tents’ of the Madulkelle Eco Lodge; more than a worthwhile resting place after a rather hair-raising four-hour ascent. The one-lane mountain road is bordered by steep cliffside vistas over a valley so lush I thought heaven must be near (though I wasn’t ready for early entry and, in any case, can’t be sure I’ve made the cut). It’s no coincidence that the nearby hiking hotspot called Adam’s Peak is a pilgrimage site with visitors believing Adam stopped here to take a final look over the land of Eden.

The final hour of the drive is lined by miles of tea fields. Beds of tea leaves looked so dense you’d think they would hold your weight if you were so inclined to jump in. On arrival, it was captivating to see the clouds roll in below and the base of the valley disappear.

After spending a few days with our heads above the clouds, it was time to get a little closer to sea level. The ocean on the south coast of Sri Lanka likes to make a statement – waves erupting from the rocks like lava. Yet the rhythmic lapping against the shore is the ultimate soundtrack for relaxation. Stick around for dusk and it’s impossible not to feel at peace – the big red sun sinking beneath the horizon in minutes as it leaves its trace in the evening’s rose-coloured clouds.

Staying active

Staying in shape (and getting even fitter) was easy in Sri Lanka. As the temperatures rose to 30 degrees and above by 8am, we established a healthy habit of going to bed and waking up early. Often the first up in the Jetwing Lighthouse Hotel in Galle, I’d have the gym to myself. Most of the equipment was a little out of date (head over to my Instagram account to see a step machine straight out of the 70’s), but it was fun to get a little old school and even run on a self-powered treadmill.

Daily swims in the beautiful Infinity pool were also the perfect way to stay cool. To avoid burning in the midday heat, I’d break my swims into two 15-minute sessions.

Making the most of the outdoors is especially important for me on holiday, as on working days in the UK I’ll easily spend all but one or two hours inside. I booked two private yoga classes on the balcony for my husband and I. Our instructor Upali specialises in Hatha yoga and had some unique approaches for getting into familiar moves, which I’ve since found useful for practising inversions like crow and headstand. Here he demonstrates a pretty impressive Scorpion handstand.

Upali definitely pushed me into some more progressive poses, so I was glad I’d spent a morning in the tea plantations warming up with a gentle stretch and flow session.

I also used the beautiful backdrop of the tea plantations to film this short sunbed circuit – proving that a sun lounger is good for more than just R&R. This sequence of step-ups, single-leg lunges, glute bridges (using the balcony railings for a little extra elevation), decline press-ups, tricep dips, plank-ups and teasers was an ideal full-body circuit to boost my metabolism and prevent any muscle loss while I took a break from my full-time routine.

Natural nourishment

Although I confess to the odd indulgence in Indian food, I prefer the creamy western varieties like Korma and Pasanda to the chilli-heavy variations loved by Sri Lanka’s locals. These fire dancers even swallowed the flames from their batons to prove just how resilient they are to the heat.

However, a daily soup course was a nice surprise, with ginger-infused broths having a warming quality without making your eyes water.

During a trip into the walled city of Galle Fort, we also stumbled across this independent spice boutique called Chilli Dragon, where I stocked up on some of my favourite ingredients like cinnamon for porridge and protein balls.

A cooler treat for the taste buds was a local drink called the Mint Frappe. Here Ben poses with the bright green beverage, which tastes as refreshing as it looks. I asked for the recipe so I could make it at home this summer, and it couldn’t be simpler.

Just blend the following: One large handful fresh mint leaves, juice of one lime, shot of sugar syrup and two handfuls ice.

I also loved the King Coconuts, served straight up with a straw, but those are a little harder to source at home…

My final favourite culinary discovery took place at the breakfast buffet: passionfruit crepes. Light and super sweet, passionfruit works so well as a pancake filling because it doesn’t need any further sweetener and packs in plenty of the antioxidants vitamin A and C, plus high amounts of dietary fibre to set up your digestive system for the day.

Serenity found

This was definitely the healthy getaway I needed to reflect on the remainder of the busy year ahead and restore some balance to my life. As I watched the sun set on our incredible holiday, I felt inspired to test some of my newfound balance in the Sri Lankan waves. Struggling to so much as to reach my foot in this pose only a few months ago, it says a lot that within a week I was able to advance my yoga practice and feel stronger and taller inside and out. In part, that’s because Sri Lanka is a land of letting go. There on the island’s southern shores, I let go of a lot of things – stress, uncertainties and ego among them. And so far I’ve managed to leave them at sea…

Having just returned from 10 blissful days’ holiday in Sri Lanka, I’m feeling pretty good about my work life balance. But rewind three weeks and I was experiencing heart palpitations at my desk, a result of anxiety over meeting deadlines and personal pressure to be ‘successful’ in my career. Although I manage to fit at least four workouts and one yoga class into every week and allocate time every day for meditation and reflection, I have a bad habit of letting stress get the best of me. However, I’m increasingly learning that channeling all that ambition and passion takes focus and is unsustainable without designated time to ‘switch off’ and enjoy other outlets for energy, creativity and expression.

Rosie Paterson, founder of livingrosy.com, has started her wellness coaching business for precisely this reason. She is dedicating her career to helping other people find the success they want in their careers while achieving the balance they need to embrace friends, family and other personal interests. Read on for Rosie’s simple everyday tips to get a healthier work life balance, and take one step closer to a life as enjoyable as it is successful.

Having chosen a fast-paced banking role, you must be drawn to a challenge. When did the balance shift to make you realise that long working hours simply aren’t healthy? 

That was pretty evident to me very early on! I need quite a bit of sleep (my ideal is  about 8.5 hours per night) and I was getting about 6 at best. I was exhausted, felt nauseous in the morning and had a constant brain fog that impeded my ability to work properly.

Since I didn’t refresh during my sleep time, I ate for energy – chocolate, pasta, anything I could grab quickly. I put on 10kg in less than 2 years (about 20% of my body weight now).

What kind of impact did your frenetic lifestyle have on your activity levels and nutrition?

My body would just run on adrenaline and caffeine. It works day to day, but the long term effects are horrendous – you’re basically keeping your body under permanent stress 24/7.

I ended up burning out and developing coeliac disease from the stress. Coeliac is an auto-immune disorder where your body attacks the small intestine whenever traces of the protein gluten are ingested. Something messes up in your body to make it think that gluten is dangerous but it ends up attacking itself. It prevents you from digesting any nourishment from food, leading to serious long-term diseases like osteoporosis, low birth weight in babies and even cancer. It also makes you more likely to develop other auto-immune diseases like MS and rheumatoid arthritis.

Through Living Rosy, you talk about helping clients achieve balance. What does a balanced life look like to you? 

A balanced life is different to everyone. Some people enjoy working a little more, some would feel it detracted from their personal life if they continuously clocked up overtime. I help my clients find their own balance and break down any mental barriers they’ve created that stops them from achieving this.

For me, I love to cook and detest eating take out even for lunch. My dream when I was working was to cook lunch every day (forget the fact I could barely find the time to cook dinner). Working from home became a non-negotiable for me. I wanted total freedom in my schedule so I could get outside in the middle of the day every day, and work from anywhere. I also refuse to work ‘overtime’, i.e. evenings and weekends, as I have other interests and family/friends that I prioritise at those times.

I created all that by working for myself, but that’s because I had pretty strong demands! If you love your job, there are plenty of ways to create balance without giving it up. I developed my 15 minute morning routine while working my second stint in banking, after my burnout. It’s a super easy 5 step routine that sets you up for the day. I share that now with everyone – it really helps!

Is there one piece of advice that generally applies to someone who’s overworked? 

Remember you always have choice. Rather than falling into victim mode with a “why” question, alway rephrase that into a constructive “how” question: “Why do I have so much to do?” becomes “How can I do what I need to do?”.

This way, your brain starts solving the ‘problem’. You’ll be amazed at what creative answers pop up and how ‘doable’ your challenge becomes.

When tasks and distractions accumulate, what do you do to ‘silence the noise’ and reestablish your focus? 

Prioritise! Try the following task:

Take 4 columns on a spreadsheet, (1) “Important & Urgent” (2) “Urgent & Not Important” (3) “Important Not Urgent”  (4)”Not Important Not Urgent”.

Write each task on your To Do list under the most relevant heading.

Always focus on Important over Urgent, i.e. do the tasks in the order of (1), (3), then (2) and – if you ever have time – (4).

How does mental wellbeing fit into the big picture of a healthy lifestyle? 

Mental wellbeing is a huge part of being healthy, as both the mind and body work together to find balance. There’s a huge amount of research going into the ability of our minds to affect the health of our bodies – stress is case in point. When we’re stressed, our cortisol rises, eventually leading to issues with everything from the strength of our heart to digestive issues such as insulin regulation.

Are there any apps, classes or activities you can recommend to help achieve mental wellbeing? 

Meditation is great, and so simple. I think it still seems like something a bit unreachable, like the most advanced form of yoga. But it really doesn’t need to be!

All you need to do is set a timer on your phone, even for 2 minutes at the beginning, and sit comfortably. Breathe in for as long as you can – somewhere between 3-7 seconds, hold for that time, then breathe out slowly for that time again. Just repeat that, focusing on your breath. If your mind wanders, just gently bring your focus back to your breath without any judgement or criticism. Increase the time you devote to meditation as you progress, and practice every day. (Apps like Headspace can also give you a bit of digital direction!)

What kind of ‘self checks’ do you make every day to reinforce your new healthy lifestyle? 

I’m quite in tune with my body now so I can feel if something is off – if I haven’t slept enough or even if I ate something a bit different. I don’t eat much meat so if I have a very heavy meal out then I’ll notice the next day.

Try keeping a diary for a week – note down what and how much you eat, drink, sleep, work out, etc and how you feel throughout the day. If you can do it for a month, even better. You’ll start to see some patterns and you can try experimenting to see how it changes how you feel.

Everyone is different so what works for me may not work for you at all, and vice versa.

Personally, my biggest challenge is drawing a line under a task or the day and giving myself permission to switch off. How did you learn to simply pack up and call it a day? 

Every quarter I take anything from 2 hours to half a day ‘off’ to strategise. I look at what I want to achieve on a quarterly basis, which informs my broad monthly plan, which then informs each week.

From there, each Friday I take stock of what I’ve achieved that week and set my goals for the next week and create a reasonable to do list each day. I literally schedule each task in my calendar. I used to schedule too much and feel guilty when I didn’t achieve it all, but this was a reflection of my scheduling rather than my own ability. If it takes me 1.5 hours to write my newsletter, I won’t write two newsletters in 2 hours!

This also forces you to focus on what’s important (going back to that spreadsheet above). What is getting you or your company toward your goals fastest? If you are employed, these plans are a great thing to discuss with your boss for 15 mins a week. Base them on your own promotion objectives or the company quarterly goals.

When you’re done with your tasks, you’re done! Go out and have a treat!

Let’s play a game of ‘Gut Reaction’. Without overthinking it, pick the preference that comes to you first… 

Fruit or Veg: Veg – too much fructose in fruit to live on that alone

Fast or Slow: Walk fast, savour slow time too – like a lazy Sunday

Walk or Run: Walk fast! (I’m a Londoner and a definitely Tube escalator-walking person)

Sea or Sand: Warm gentle sea (Fierce waves scare me, even though I am a fledgling surfer)

Rain or Shine: Shine, every time

Blue or Red: Blue, goes with my eyes

Morning or Night: Morning – so full of promise

Yoga or Pilates: Yoga is more spiritual

Dining in or Dining out: Both! (Foodie right here…) Dining out with coeliac is a massive hassle as I’m always terrified of gluten contamination and have to interrogate the poor waiter, demand to see the chef and it takes 3 hours to order, but sometimes it’s nice not to do the dishes.

Squat or Burpee: Squat! Burpees are too much effort…

Laptop or Paper: Laptop! My entire office is encased in one 13″ bit of metal

Home or Away: If Away is a warm beach somewhere, I won’t say no…

How do you feel about your work life balance? If you’d like to share any tricks of your own, or have questions about how to make a change, please leave a comment below and Rosie or I will be happy to help!