not every workout has to be hard.
Life is hard. Work is hard. Relationships, parenting, world news—hard.
What if your workouts didn’t always have to be?
What if working out didn’t have to feel like punishment or a chore?
What if it didn’t have to feel like the last thing you wanted to do, or like it’s just another thing on your never-ending to-do list?
Here’s the truth:
Something powerful happens when you start to untangle your workouts from diet culture.
When you let go of the “this for that” thinking.
When you stop tying movement to guilt, shame, and “earning” your food or rest.
A new sort of freedom reveals itself.
The freedom to move because it feels good.
To move for joy. For a quick energy boost. For a stress release.
To let movement serve you—without needing it to be intense, punishing, or “productive.”
Now, let me be clear: I love a hard workout.
I love a challenge. I love pushing myself and discovering what my body can do.
This isn’t about rejecting intensity.
It’s about releasing the belief that going hard at an all-out intensity is the only workout that counts.
Not every workout has to be:
A personal best
A heavy lift
A sweat-drenched grind
An improvement on the last
Sometimes, a workout just is.
It’s for feeling.
It’s for joy.
It’s for resilience.
It’s for you—and whatever you need it to be that day.
One of my favorite examples of this? Walking.
Walking is incredibly versatile. It can be easy. It can be challenging. It can meet you exactly where you are.
You can dial it up by:
Increasing your speed
Adding power intervals or sprints
Throwing on a weighted vest
Doing a guided Peloton workout or moving to a high-energy playlist
Or you can dial it down by:
Slowing your pace
Focusing on breath and mindfulness
Listening to a podcast that helps you relax instead of rush
Both count. Both are valid. They just serve different purposes—and both are valuable.
And this mindset? It applies to any workout modality.
Strength training. Yoga. Cycling. Dance. Whatever you love.
The power is in the decoupling—pulling movement out of the context of punishment, shrinking, or transaction.
When you stop asking your workout to fix, shrink, or prove something…
you finally allow it to support you.
That’s where the magic lives. It’s sustainable and something that you might even look forward to doing for the rest of your life.
