Fitness Blogging Nostalgia Manifesto

It arrived at around 6pm yesterday. After 2 full days to myself at home, sorting out the house and garden, and putting my plans in place for another week, I sat down with a heap of fitness blogging nostalgia. What happened to the good old days, the early days of the blogosphere where you could find real and authentic voices online?

My team at work has been talking about this, how AI has eroded authenticity and how - we predict - there will be a surge of desire to get back to what it means to be human. Not the productivity tricks, not the bio hacks, and certainly not AI. But the real graft and craft of living a human life, with all the curves and challenges that entails.

As an educator, I’ve noticed an increasing use of AI in research and academic writing. Even when logging it to write this post a text box and message popped up inviting me to write my blog ideas and an AI tool would create it quickly for me. My stomach turned. How easy it has become for people to portray something they are not. Surely they must feel it at some level, that artificial means, well, artificial and not authentic?

I’m tired of reading the posts. Even academic posts are following predictable patterns. Here’s the subject, here’s the problem, here’s some science that helps solve that, now here are some tips you can follow to fix yourself. There is an utter absence of any personality or character and quite frankly, it doesn’t work for me.

Here’s the thing. I’m not motivated by numbers. I earn a living away from the numbers, quietly getting my head down to teach and run a company. That’s rewarding and tiring enough in itself, and I have absolutely no need to be seen for or capitalise on this work. But I do have a need to speak openly about the things that matter.

I’m absolutely fed up with the artificial presence that proliferates the online world. Three years shy of 50 with a partner recovering from treatment for cancer, I honestly don’t care about plastic social media posts. What I look for at 6pm on a Sunday, after having worked hard all week at work and home is a dose of reality. Not an assault of fantasy where my attention is being bought and sold at a pace I can’t even imagine.

So that’s what’s calling me. A desire to write about the ordinary life of “keeping fit” as my grandmother used to call it. Not to promote the idea that there is one way of doing this and I have the magic answers but rather, as a way to document how I’m doing it and how it’s going in the day-to-day amidst the reality of life.

I’m not interested either in the other extreme of vulnerability. Yes, we all feel vulnerable at times and yes, to be authentic means accepting this. Emotions do get messy, we do feel awkward, but I have no desire to spill my heart on this either.

And lastly, I’m not interested in sounding smart. I’m not giving or seeking fitness advice, I’m not selling a product. I’m writing as a way to log my fitness journey, as it evolves.

With that said and done, I focused on mobility and strength this morning. 10 mins of neck mobility, 10 mins of shoulder mobility. Then a 35 mins strength workout. It felt good to get it in before the midday sun hit. It wasn’t the 7.30am I had planned for. My partner’s cancer treatment effects had us up late so it got done at 10.30am.

The car service that was planned for 10.30am didn’t get done as I’m not about to leave my partner in the midst of chills and low energy. So it’s another day house bound but that’s ok. These are days we all have to walk through, at some point or another.

If you’re reading this post and you’re going through your own twists and turns in life, I hope you feel some strength to take one step after the other, however small those steps might be. It’s not about getting somewhere, it’s about being right here.