S1: Nothing's off limits. Things off limits, bringing together experts and
S1: people with lived experience to discuss the topics we love
S1: to avoid but absolutely need to talk about made with
S1: the support of Vision Australia and the NDIS Information Linkages
S1: Capability Building Grant Building grants.
S2: Hello and welcome to the show where nothing's off limits.
S2: My name is Tess. I'm with my co-host Polly over
S2: the next 10 episodes. We're going to be delving into
S2: some subjects, which we might usually consider off limits, discussing
S2: them openly and honestly and through the specific lens of
S2: blindness and low vision.
S3: And to help us, we brought together a bevy of
S3: expert guests to explore some of the questions which I've
S3: always wanted to ask on subjects that matter to you.
S3: And a huge thanks to those of you who got
S3: in touch to tell us what you want to know.
S2: Subjects we'll be covering include dating and relationships, appearance and
S2: body image, mental health, physical well-being, and much more. Each
S2: episode of Nothing's Off Limits is available to download from
S2: the Vision Australia website. Just go to Vision Australia dot org.
S2: That's Vision Australia dot org type. Nothing's off limits into
S2: the search engine, and you will be directed to a
S2: web page where you can view this and other episodes
S2: and do make sure you subscribe to make sure you
S2: don't miss any or else. If you prefer, you can
S2: tune in via Vision Australia radio.
S3: Today, we're talking about physical wellbeing, fitness and nutrition. There's
S3: an abundance of evidence around the importance of physical wellbeing
S3: for everybody exercise and good nutrition, supporting better cardiovascular health
S3: and blood pressure. And there are lots of fitness options
S3: out there. Whether it's the gym, Pilarte, his classes or
S3: sports developed or adapted for those with a visual impairment
S3: such as goalball, swish line cricket and even blind Aussie
S3: rules football. And there are additional positive outcomes of taking
S3: part in physical activity. If you are blind or have
S3: low vision that relate to balance mobility, mental wellbeing, no falls,
S3: muscle strength, flexibility and gait. But a 2018 study published
S3: in the British Medical Journal found that compared with sighted individuals,
S3: people with visual impairment have a higher prevalence of chronic
S3: conditions and lower levels of physical activity. Tests does that
S3: surprise you?
S2: It doesn't mean I know someone who's blind how hard
S2: it can be to access exercise and fitness, and I
S2: guess it's it can be an uncomfortable, uncomfortable area for
S2: some people yet accessing ways of exercising and getting healthier
S2: for the first time. Maybe some people might feel a
S2: bit anxious about that. We hope that this episode might
S2: provide a bit more information on that.
S3: And we asked you, what barriers have you experienced in
S3: keeping healthy?
S1: Nothing's off limits with Tess and Polly Polly. What areas
S1: have you experienced in keeping healthy?
S4: Too much good
S5: food, too many good restaurants. Too many
S4: good people to enjoy good times with
S6: a person, you haven't experienced too many barriers, so I'm
S6: lucky in the sense that I'm fairly agile, fairly independent,
S6: so I'm probably one of the lucky ones.
S1: Apart from lockdown, probably the motivation proximity to various things,
S4: the barriers I
S5: experienced in keeping healthy is just around being able to
S5: access the types of activities that I enjoy
S7: very many years. I didn't feel very confident getting out
S7: and about in my community. I still find it a
S7: bit challenging. You know, someone says there's a great yoga
S7: class and it's three suburbs away and it's on a
S7: Monday night. I have to kind of think that through
S7: and go, Am I actually going to be able to
S7: do that? A and B the journey to the and
S7: from there going to be so stressful that the yoga
S7: class and they're going to be worth it. I would
S7: say that that's probably my biggest barrier, just terrible memories
S7: of being made to try and play sport as a
S7: child with a vision impairment, ball sports.
S6: Like what the hell? It's probably laziness, not squawking as
S6: much as I should. When we had two hours limited
S6: exercise period during lockdown, you made yourself go and do
S6: it because you only had that limited time frame. Well,
S6: I don't like exercise. That's the bottom line. So for me,
S6: the barriers have been about finding something that I can
S6: do independently and that I enjoy. And so while you
S6: might be able to do some exercise independently, like on
S6: the treadmill and things like that, others find it boring.
S6: I have really worked to try and find something that
S6: I can do independently again in terms of eating well.
S6: I think over time that's become easier because you can
S6: now read much more packaging information on foods than you
S6: used to be able to. I do ballroom dancing, which
S6: is good exercise, but I like it, and that's the
S6: main reason I do it because I like
S1: nothing's off limits. With Tess and Polly,
S3: I think we all have areas that we can recognise
S3: there
S2: to help us explore this topic further. I'm delighted to
S2: welcome our first guest, Jason Weiter. Jason is a low
S2: vision body builder and a volunteer at Vision Australia, all
S2: alongside his day job as a director of his own
S2: real estate company. Jason, thanks for joining us.
S5: Thank you for having me on a pilot episode. Certainly,
S5: community was so
S3: thrilled to have you on. And thank you, so, Jason,
S3: can you maybe start by telling us a bit about
S3: the role that physical exercise has played in your life?
S5: Sure. So it's been a big part of my life.
S5: Growing up from the age of eight, I started taking
S5: parts and all sorts of sports that was somewhat Cricket
S5: Australia rules rugby in appealing getting to American football, you know, athletics.
S5: I loved everything that got me active and also outdoors,
S5: going probably about 17. I would say that I got
S5: into bodybuilding. I found weightlifting. That really made a change
S5: to the way I had my outlook on physical activity.
S5: In all that, the changes that you know, everybody goes
S5: through when you start lifting weights, as I call it,
S5: or what they call new me and really made me
S5: want to take it further. So at that point in time,
S5: I started trying to enter a bodybuilding competition which seemed
S5: to have become a gym junkie house, going to the
S5: gym three times a day. So I would pretty much
S5: be wake up in the morning, go down the gym,
S5: drill bit of training, go to work, get back to
S5: the gym at lunchtime, there'll be more training, go back
S5: to work and then on the way home, stop at
S5: the gym again and do more. And that was almost
S5: every day I would be doing that. My whole life
S5: revolved around me being in the gym. From there, I
S5: felt that, well, why not get into a career and
S5: become a personal trainer at some point? Then obviously our
S5: own had complications from diabetes that stopped me from playing.
S5: Sports and training had impact on my blood pressure, and
S5: it was a complications from the diabetes that affected my eyesight.
S5: So as a point in my life, I was completely
S5: blind and had had some operations done and that we
S5: have to fight a little bit of the issue somewhat.
S5: Somehow some are back, but that didn't stop me from training,
S5: other than the fact that I had to go for
S5: a kidney and pancreas transplant and recover from that.
S3: Were there any barriers that you found? Kind of. I mean,
S3: it sounds like you never stepped away far from fitness,
S3: but kind of approaching it after you'd experience vision loss.
S3: Were there any barriers that you came up across that
S3: you didn't have before?
S5: And one of the biggest challenges I think I faced
S5: was convincing my specialists to allow me to go into
S5: the gym. Yes, I've been saying it's just not a
S5: safe environment, and I understand it's not when you're in
S5: the gym, you're one of those people training and there's
S5: people that will leave weights on the floor and not worry,
S5: which represents a lift. And then the next thing that
S5: always happens to avoid touching a bars that are hanging
S5: over your head, you're going to hit them and you're
S5: going to have to buy machines. And so it's important
S5: to find ways around that, that challenge. And what were
S5: some of your strategies? Well, I end up getting an
S5: hour to coming to the gym and have a look
S5: at the licensing that they can do. They can't predict
S5: that people are going to lose weight, which I'm I
S5: started two years prior to having support workers there. I
S5: would just use my cane to navigate around as long
S5: as they were memorizing, where all the overhanging bars could
S5: be or would be just ensuring walking safely around them
S5: and really using, you know, your hearing to identify people nearby.
S5: So I would hear someone training next to me. So
S5: I know they're there. And these options are and you
S5: can also have a shirt that let people know that
S5: you have low vision or you're blind. So you know
S5: you could just for a one morning sort of signs.
S5: And if you've got a cane, people will keep their
S5: distance generally and then you might go to is quite
S5: small and we all know each other, say they will
S5: they walk out from anyway, just really great. And then
S5: I have a personal trainer as well who monitors me.
S5: And that was especially important during COVID because I was
S5: training at my own home gym and he would always
S5: identify hazards that were in my area. Morsi was training
S5: me over Zoom. You know, we managed to avoid those,
S5: I guess, those little things that most people would see
S5: as barriers. I won't say that self-image is one that
S5: I'm worried about me being fit and health is more
S5: important than what I look like or what a lot
S5: of other people. So I don't have a full lifting
S5: weights as long as I'm out with those weights and
S5: I do training groups as well. So I won't say
S5: it hasn't had that much of an impact on me
S5: being able to train.
S2: So when you lost your vision, Jason, you obviously had
S2: quite a background in health and fitness. What advice would
S2: you give to somebody who's blind or has low vision
S2: who doesn't have that background knowledge already of physical, physical
S2: health and fitness practices?
S5: OK, well, if you're not currently taking any physical activity
S5: or taking part, I recommend doing something and that could
S5: just be, you know, walking. I'm Daniel Hall for a
S5: little bit if you've got a whole way or some
S5: space because you know it's the feeling you give it,
S5: not just physically but mentally. And I think more so mentally,
S5: you're doing physical activity, the Bundesliga playing for your body.
S5: Are you getting oxygen to your mind? And it helps
S5: you think clearly it helps you help your mental illness.
S5: And also one he's taking part in some form of activity,
S5: particularly in a sedentary lifestyle. It's, you know, it does
S5: wonders to your lifestyle. But then if you want to
S5: take a photo, you want to have a purpose to
S5: your activity. Find out what that reason is. Why are
S5: you taking part in exercise, what you want to achieve?
S5: So is it that you just want to feel fitter
S5: in yourself? Or is it that you want to actually
S5: feel stronger or, you know, so identifying the reasons behind
S5: it and then identifying what you need to do that?
S5: So do you need to get to a gym or
S5: can you do it in a park? Do you need
S5: a personal trainer or can you just do it with
S5: a friend or support worker? Things like that. And. You
S5: need special equipment, do not need special them, and they
S5: once be identified, my sort of thing, take the next
S5: steps and actually go out for the membership. Take those
S5: first steps that lead to the next step and so
S5: on and so on.
S3: And physical health is also down to nutrition, and I
S3: know that's something that you're really passionate about. And can
S3: you share some strategies around knowing what you need from
S3: a nutritional perspective, particularly when you're shopping?
S5: One of the biggest impacts for someone who has my
S5: vision is actually trying to read those labels on the
S5: on the cans and the food. It's like, Well, what
S5: is I mean, I think probably hard enough in FullVision
S5: to do so, but finding out why don't know what
S5: they mean. So it's great that you have all these
S5: calories or calories, all these free products. And I'm not
S5: saying I'm an expert opinion. I'm not a nutritionist, so
S5: I can't really give advice here. But from my own
S5: personal understanding, it can be confusing. I do recommend if
S5: you want to take it to the next level, is
S5: it good to talk to a dietitian to work out
S5: what you eat in your diet and then understanding the
S5: food labels? So what? What are the calories mean? What's macronutrients?
S5: What micronutrients and what? How does that body to be
S5: trying to lose weight? They say You want to be
S5: in a calorie deficit, so how do you do that?
S5: What you are going to help you do that and
S5: eating healthy? So cleaning up your diet is really important. Again,
S5: that does not just for how you look for your
S5: mental health as well. You find you get more energy,
S5: you know, tons of blowtorch. That's all I found. And
S5: because of my transplant, I'm going to watch my diet anyway,
S5: so I can't eat regular bodybuilders diet. You know it.
S5: That doesn't make it important to find out what I
S5: can eat. And again, that's what a dietitian comes in handy.
S5: But I think really, what these are most confusing part
S5: is knowing what the labels are. I mean, it's so
S5: much information out there with YouTube influencers and all these.
S5: It's a technology that say, Well, this is what we
S5: need to be doing, and we don't actually listen to
S5: our own body. So, you know, we're going on these
S5: fad diets and then we don't see changes. So we
S5: give up on that time to go to the next
S5: one or we're going to stay on it long enough
S5: because we're not getting the instant results of these influence.
S5: So you're a skinny person saying, I was on this
S5: diet for a week and this is what I look
S5: like and then it doesn't have to be here. You
S5: give up an image selection and just almost revert back
S5: into unhealthy habits again.
S3: That's an excellent piece of advice. I think you right
S3: about technology, but is there anything that you'd recommend any
S3: apps or any pieces of tech that can help you
S3: in your fitness journey? I know a lot of people
S3: resort to Fitbits as a way to motivate and track
S3: their activity. Is that something that you've used? Is there
S3: anything accessible out there?
S5: For me personally, I don't use a lot of those
S5: apps any afternoon to you, just something to record my
S5: training programs. So that's what I use called JFI. But
S5: there's plenty of them out there, and they just basically
S5: put your workout exercise in their tracks, how much lifting
S5: the number of sets of reps. And then you've also
S5: got those ones that track, you know, your calorie intake
S5: and output. Not that I find beats. And if you
S5: get overwhelmed with too much information, as I mentioned, we
S5: start relying too much on that and you don't listen
S5: to your body. So you're trying to target Omaha at
S5: this range all the time, but that's not always effective
S5: for the type of training one day. I think it's
S5: important more to have some expert knowledge from a personal
S5: trainer or a doctor or allied health professional, get the
S5: guidance from them and then stick to a plan for
S5: at least six weeks or longer, and then to see
S5: it actually progress on that. So, you know, keeping a
S5: written diary or an HIIT progress, if it's heading in
S5: the direction you want to head, then you know you're
S5: doing right. And if it's not the only reason you
S5: need to make a change, but again, as we get
S5: some expert advice and guidance, what can make a change?
S3: That's great advice. And I guess just just before we
S3: wind up, how do you find the expert? How do
S3: you find a dietitian? How do you find a personal
S3: trainer and how do you find the one that's right
S3: for you?
S5: That's where it's been really hard. Being someone with low
S5: vision is where do we find someone that knows what
S5: they're doing? So a lot of personal trainers don't have
S5: the patience to train someone who has location, so they
S5: may actually want to have you trained as if you
S5: could see. And when they do take it on, you
S5: want to make sure that they're able to, you know,
S5: audibly describe that exercise or workout you're doing. So I've
S5: been to I've seen a lot of people trying to
S5: train people and they say, Can you get into this stance?
S5: And that's that, you know, somebody can't say, we don't
S5: know what this stent is. We're doing what you're doing.
S5: And I still describing it as if you ever know
S5: the exercise. So I mean, an example is if you've
S5: never done a push up in your life and then
S5: someone says gentle push up position, you're not going to
S5: know what that is. And that's what happened. It's great
S5: to see you need someone. This is what I was
S5: done with. My personal trainer is the audio descriptive thing
S5: I'll say is basically lay flat on your chest and
S5: put your arms to your sides, palms on the ground
S5: and then push out for your shoulders and elbows. Now
S5: that the audio descriptive and you can technically identify with that,
S5: and if you got to support, they can guide you
S5: alongside their personal trainer. Just trying to find that was
S5: was the hardest thing for me or trying to find
S5: any sort of physical activity so blunt. It took me
S5: a long time before I even, you know, existed. This
S5: really sports and recreation of The Good Place to go,
S5: talk and choose different support network groups that also would place.
S5: I need sort of providers that can help you.
S3: There are wonderful things, Jason, and I think that that's
S3: a great kind of tip to leave us with that.
S3: If you need more information, just keep out your trainer
S3: until they've described it properly. It's their job to do that.
S3: That's great. Thank you so, so much for joining us.
S3: It's been a fantastic interview, and all of the things
S3: that you've referenced will make sure that they're on the
S3: website as well if people want to follow up on those.
S3: But thank you so much, Jason, that was so helpful. Pleasure.
S1: You're listening to nothing is off limits with Tess and
S1: Polly reduced by Vision Australia radio. Did you know? Visit
S1: Australia is Australia's largest provider of services for people with
S1: blindness and low vision. To find out more about our services,
S1: visit Vision Australia dot org or call one 800 eight
S1: four seven four six.
S3: Our second guest is Tyler Marin, and Tyler is a
S3: personal trainer and motivational speaker and three time Paralympic athlete,
S3: as well as a husband, a father and a business
S3: owner and all the way from Indiana. Is that right?
S4: Tyler, you have all the way from Indiana and the US.
S3: Thank you so much for joining us. It's such a
S3: pleasure to have you on the show.
S4: Thank you. Absolutely. It's great to be here with you.
S2: Tyler, can you tell us a bit about your journey
S2: with fitness and exercise?
S4: I grew up in Southwest Michigan, so kind of like
S4: the Midwest of the U.S. I grew up on a
S4: farm in a pretty rural area and had a lot
S4: of space to roam. I had a lot of siblings
S4: and cousins and in the area, so we we just
S4: found a lot of things to be active with. I
S4: was always climbing trees and digging holes and swimming in
S4: ponds and riding bikes and all kinds of stuff like that.
S4: When I was little, there were definitely some extra challenges
S4: that I faced without really understanding what was going on.
S4: So I have retinitis pigmentosa, and when I was about
S4: three years old, I was diagnosed with an underdeveloped retina
S4: and we didn't really understand what that meant at the time.
S4: But you know, I dealt with some things like night
S4: blindness and tunnel vision, which made the ball sport kind
S4: of challenging. Despite that, again, you know, whether all the
S4: activity that I had going on around me coming from
S4: a family of athletes, I just grew up in an
S4: environment where I was just always doing something physical. I
S4: turned 14, 15 years old and was officially given the
S4: diagnosis of retinitis pigmentosa. I started losing more vision. At
S4: that point. It's the digressive condition, so I started having
S4: trouble reading my books and things like that, seeing the
S4: chalkboard in my classroom. So I went and got tested,
S4: got that official diagnosis. And that's when I started getting
S4: services like learning how to use the cane, learning to
S4: read braille. I was introduced to adaptive technology, and that's
S4: where I was introduced to adaptive sports as well. And
S4: so just coming from a fitness background and an athletic background,
S4: I took to Adaptive Athletic very, very quickly. I did
S4: wrestling and track and field. I went to sports education
S4: camps where I did swimming in judo and cycling. The
S4: one sport that I really picked up on was goalball
S4: accelerated at it very quickly and made the USA national
S4: Paralympic team at a pretty young age, and it really
S4: drove me to try to find out what this fitness
S4: thing was all about. So I spent a lot of
S4: years engaging in fitness, but now I really wanted to
S4: make it a study. I went to Western Michigan University,
S4: got my bachelor's degree in exercise science, became nationally certified
S4: in strength and conditioning, and spent a number of years
S4: as a personal trainer working for 24 hour. Fitness is
S4: one of the master personal trainers and more recently has
S4: kind of spun off. I opened up my own business
S4: and I'm taking all of that experience and knowledge education
S4: and approaching the blindness and low vision community and creating
S4: a program to help people who are blind and visually
S4: impaired connect to fitness and absorb it. The way that
S4: I was able to do that, I was blessed to
S4: get when I was as I was growing up.
S2: As well as being an elite athlete, you're also a
S2: personal trainer and one of your specialties is training people
S2: who are blind or have low vision. What do you
S2: do differently when working with a client who is blind
S2: or has low vision compared to if you're working with
S2: somebody who's sighted?
S4: Is there the main difference? Really, it comes down to
S4: the way that somebody is taught. Right. So it's surprisingly
S4: similar to the way that I would train a sighted person.
S4: So when I worked for 24 hour fitness, 99 percent
S4: of my clientele were sighted since I opened up my
S4: own business. Most of my clientele was visually impaired, and
S4: really the way that I teach is is very, very similar.
S4: So when teaching somebody who is visually impaired, the one
S4: thing to remember is that so much of our input,
S4: so much of what we understand about the world around
S4: us does come from visual input. People who have vision,
S4: they learn things through their site without even realizing that
S4: that's what they're doing. Take a standard pushup, for example.
S4: Most people who are sighted have seen people, whether it's
S4: just in a movie, whether it's in their own gym class,
S4: they've seen people do pushups. Hey, do a push up.
S4: Now they may not know the exact technical. How far?
S4: Year and still apart, what is the angle of your elbows?
S4: What do you do with your midsection? But they know
S4: what the idea is. Somebody who's visually impaired may not
S4: have a clue what a pushup is, is or how
S4: it works or what your body is supposed to do.
S4: So in teaching somebody who is visually impaired, the biggest
S4: difference is just the hyper level of description involved, the
S4: nuances of how the body is supposed to feel and
S4: how it's positioned almost in nausea. It's almost overkill with
S4: the amount of description, because there's so many little things
S4: that that you may miss. You know, if I tell
S4: you get down on your hands and your toes, your
S4: belly should be off the ground and your hips level
S4: with your shoulders. They're still going to be a lot
S4: of different variations. You're going to maybe drop your head,
S4: you might raise your head up, you might turn your
S4: hands in or turn your hands out. There are still
S4: many different things that you could do. So it's an
S4: excessive amount of description. Usually, I find that that helps
S4: teach proper exercise to people who are visually impaired.
S2: And you've created your revision online workouts. Congratulations, by the way,
S2: on winning the home and prize. That's very
S4: exciting. And I appreciate that. Yeah, it's very easy.
S2: Is it true that you are using that that award
S2: to develop your online series of revision workouts into an app?
S4: Yeah, that's exactly it. I have a couple of resources
S4: that I have a YouTube channel and a Facebook group
S4: that I've hosted, you know, kind of free workouts, any
S4: various topics, instructional videos. But what I've done with the
S4: and Pro in that grant funding is I'm using that
S4: to develop a digital platform where I can start to
S4: collect all of this information. So think about it is
S4: is almost like a library. There's a couple of main sections.
S4: There's a classroom section where you can go and just
S4: learn about individual exercises. You know, if you want to
S4: know how to do a tree pose in yoga or
S4: a push up or a squat, and you can go
S4: there and find those lessons and find the descriptions of
S4: how to do them. And then from there, you can
S4: either take that information, go to your local fitness center
S4: and follow in their classrooms or do the exercises in
S4: your living room. Or you can go into the fitness
S4: studio that I've developed on my platform, where we have
S4: several accessible workout beginner level advanced level workouts built into
S4: this digital platform. And then from there, what I kind
S4: of say is the exercises are the ingredients, the workouts
S4: are your utensils and fitness plans are the actual recipe, right?
S4: So we have recipes or fitness plans that you can
S4: dive into as well. We take these workouts and these
S4: exercise classes. And what do you do with them? What
S4: days and what order should you do them? And so
S4: we have some fitness plans on there. You can follow
S4: depending on what your goals are and what your circumstances are.
S4: So I've used that whole approach to build a platform
S4: that it's still kind of in the beta stages. There's
S4: still some development, but we have several dozen people who
S4: are signed up and using that information to get themselves
S4: more fit. All right. So it's pretty exciting. We'll put
S3: all the details about that on our website as well,
S4: Tyler.
S2: Great nutrition is another key component of physical health. What
S2: barriers have you noticed with your clients and eating healthily?
S2: What strategies do you give them?
S4: There are definitely some challenges when it comes to nutrition.
S4: The things as simple as reading labels on the side
S4: of the box, picking out maybe the right types of
S4: vegetables and things like that. As you're going down the
S4: produce day off, it can be a little more tricky.
S4: It can be a little bit more daunting, but I
S4: don't think that nutrition is any more daunting than any
S4: other daily life task. Yes, because of the visual impairment.
S4: So what I mean by that is being visually impaired
S4: makes a lot of things more challenging. It's not that
S4: things can't be accomplished, it just it makes them a
S4: little more difficult. It makes you have to kind of
S4: think of doing things in different ways. Totally doable. You
S4: may just have to go about it in a different way.
S4: And most people are smart enough to understand the basics
S4: of nutrition. Even somebody who says, I know nothing about nutrition,
S4: you could ask them a few questions and they can
S4: generally sit out very good. Foundational nutritional information. Everybody knows
S4: that eating fruits and vegetables is really good for you, right?
S4: You shouldn't eat super sugary foods all the time. You
S4: should drink plenty of water. Those are the real basics.
S4: And honestly, the massive percentage of good nutrition just revolves
S4: around those general rules of thumb. Drink plenty of water,
S4: eat lots of fruits and vegetables. Try to steer clear
S4: of highly processed food. Greater detail goes into, you know,
S4: what programs are more accessible and calorie counting and things
S4: like that, which we discuss a lot of that in
S4: my Facebook group. So if you're interested in getting more
S4: information on that, you can definitely check that out as well.
S3: But what's your advice for people who don't have that
S3: background in physical exercise and who perhaps feel very intimidated
S3: about where to start? Would they feel self-conscious? How do
S3: you start the journey?
S4: If you're somebody listening to this, you're visually impaired, or
S4: maybe you're not. You see fitness, you think about fitness,
S4: and it just feels really overwhelming, feels intimidating. You think
S4: about going to the gym and it just you feel
S4: like a nervous wreck. Like, what if you do something wrong?
S4: You're kind of feeling embarrassed? Listen. That is so normal,
S4: it's so normal, don't think that you're alone in that.
S4: There's this idea that that's almost natural for us to think,
S4: but it's totally false that bitterness should just be something,
S4: you know, like if you can't do a push up
S4: and you can't run well or you can't squat like
S4: you should be ashamed of that or something like you
S4: should know how to move your own body. And that's
S4: just it's a falsehood. You know, if I came to
S4: you and said, here's a harmonica, you play me a
S4: song on this harmonica and you say, Well, I don't
S4: know how to play the harmonica. You wouldn't really be
S4: embarrassed by that. It's a skill that you haven't acquired,
S4: and learning exercise and fitness is no different. Right? There's
S4: no reason to be embarrassed. First of all, that's first
S4: and foremost is try your best to kind of push
S4: aside the sensation of like, I don't know what I'm doing.
S4: I'm going to be embarrassed. People are looking at me
S4: 99 percent of the time. They're not. They've got their
S4: headphones in and they're doing their own workouts, right? And
S4: so often people want to see you succeed. If they
S4: see you going in and being adventurous and trying to
S4: think you're more often than not, find people who are
S4: in your corner wanting to support you, and that when
S4: you think about becoming more fit and learning about fitness,
S4: just try to approach it with an open mind. Try
S4: to approach it with the idea that, yes, I am
S4: not a fitness expert, but I know I can do better.
S4: I want to do better for my health. I want
S4: to do better for my, my energy levels, my family,
S4: and I'm just going to keep working at it. I'm
S4: going to try new things, I'm going to ask questions,
S4: and it's OK if I make some mistakes, and that's
S4: just part of the learning process of any new skill.
S3: Tyler, thank you so much.
S4: I appreciate you guys giving me the chance to share
S4: my knowledge.
S3: And good luck in Tokyo.
S4: Thank you. I appreciate it.
S2: We've only had 30 minutes to talk about physical well-being,
S2: but please don't let this be the end of the conversation.
S2: And remember, you can download this and other episodes of
S2: Nothing's Off Limits by going to the Vision Australia website
S2: and finding our web page. Or you can tune in
S2: via Vision Australia radio. The Vision Australia website also has
S2: some links to some really useful resources and information, including
S2: a great webinar by one of Vision Australia's physiotherapists about
S2: exercising in isolation and understanding fitness in general. Thank you
S3: again to our guests, and thank you for joining us
S3: for the show where
UU: nothing's off limits.
S1: That was nothing's off limits. Made with the support of
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