SF Fine Fettle

21/12/2025

🔥 THE COST OF NOT LIVING CRISIS 🔥
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Not a day seems to go by we hear about a cost of living crisis 💷📉
But we rarely talk about the cost of not living ⏳🖤
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Right now in the UK: 🇬🇧
• Around 25% of us are experiencing poor mental health 🧠⚠️
• 37% say they don’t exercise at all 🚫🏃‍♂️
• Just 13% of us exercise regularly ✅💪
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These numbers are not intended to scare, but to remind that:
👉 There is still plenty of time ⏰✨
👉 It is never too late to make our own interventions 🌱🔄
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Exercise isn’t about ❌
shrinking into ourselves, scales ⚖️, mirrors 🪞, clothes sizes 👕 nor “beach bodies” 🏖️
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Exercise is about:
✨ Space for us to work towards meaningful goals
🧠 Our mental health over aesthetics
🔥 Confidence over our clothes size
🤍 Self-respect over scales
🚫 A refusal to judge self-worth by appearance
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On my left side I have a tattoo of a skeleton at prayer ☠️🙏
taken from William Cheselden’s 1733 anatomical masterpiece Memento Mori 📜
Memento Mori is Latin for:
“Remember you have to die.” ⏳
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I don’t see it as morbid 🖤
I see it as grounding 🌍
It reminds me that when I die:

• I will have looked after the people I care about to the best of my ability and for as long as possible ❤️
• I will have, all things being equal, achieved all I wanted to 🎯
• I will offer myself up with no regrets ✨
• I will have done all these things whilst having as much fun as possible, at every opportunity 😄
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Exercise will have been the foundation of all of that 🏗️
Because it is, by far, the most potent longevity drug we have 💊⏳
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Ten years from now…
We won’t care what we weighed at the end of 2025 ⚖️❌
But we will care about:
• Our independence 🚶‍♂️💥
• Our energy⚡
• Keeping up with kids, grandkids, nieces and nephews
• Whether our lives feel expansive or restricted 🌈🔒
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✨ We can intervene now
✨ We can make our change now
✨ We can lay the foundations of living the rest of our lives how we want to, now 🧱🌱

14/12/2025

⭐ EXERCISE IS UNNATURAL👀🧠

Stay with me — because this isn’t the message you think it is. 😉
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Crowded House sang in 1991 🎶
“It's bigger than us
You don't have to worry about it
I know you're afraid
It's only natural
It's something I was born to
It's only natural”
They weren’t talking about movement… but they could have been.
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Because the truth is this:
👉 Movement is natural.
👉 Exercise… isn’t.
When we were evolving, there was no “working out” 🏋️‍♂️.
We moved because survival depended on it.
When we weren’t moving, we conserved energy — like a cheetah resting before a hunt 🐆.
From that perspective, believe it or not, being inactive is actually our more natural instinct.
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Fast-forward to modern life:
We’ve swapped hunting and gathering 🌿
for emails 📧, commutes 🚗, childcare 👶, bills 💸, screens 📱 and stress 😩.
Our bodies haven’t changed — but our environment has.
We’re now living in a way evolution never prepared us for.
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We’ve already had three huge revolutions:
🌾 Agricultural
🏭 Industrial
💻 Technological
…all in the blink of evolutionary time ⏳.
But we don’t allow our bodies to move how they were designed to move before all that.
And the impact hits both our mental and physical health ❤️‍🩹.
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Counter-intuitively, one of the biggest barriers to exercise is that the very idea of it is unnatural.
We’re asking a sedentary modern human to behave like an ancient mover 🏹.
No wonder it feels hard.
Add to that a fitness industry shouting at us to train like soldiers 🪖, chase aesthetics 💃, shrink sizes 👖, and conform to absurd ideals 🤦‍♂️… and it’s no surprise people feel judged, overwhelmed, or disconnected.
Treadmills were originally prison punishment ⚙️.
PE was created to prepare kids for national service 🎒.
We’ve inherited the baggage — and we feel it.
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So what’s the alternative? 🤔
Not arm days.
Not chest days.
Not forcing routines we hate. ❌
The solution is returning to what our body is designed to do:
✔ Fundamental movement patterns 🏃‍♀️
✔ Building physical balance ⚖️
✔ Moving in ways that feel natural, empowering, sustainable 🌱
✔ Reconnecting body & mind 🧘‍♂️
✔ Rediscovering the joy of movement 😄
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This is what I build my coaching on.
Helping people step outside their modern comfort zones 🚪➡️
Reconnect with something their body remembers 🧬
Feel proud when it clicks 🌟
And eventually… fall in love with movement again ❤️.
At 60, after everything I’ve lived and learned, I help people find that balance —
not by preaching intensity,
but by guiding them back to something deeply human 🌍.

13/12/2025

And so speaks a very wise man.....

https://www.swindon24.co.uk/columnist/columnist-tim-howe-staying-independent-when-youre-over-50/

11/12/2025

"Ageing well is about staying strong enough to manage everyday movements....."

Amen: glad and proud to be playing a little part in this.

Swindon is starting to realise what an asset it has.

The Longevity Games

Tim Howe launched The Longevity Games in Swindon in 2024 as a community-driven fitness initiative aimed at helping adults of all ages and abilities improve their health, mobility and long-term wellbeing. The Games are built around functional exercise. Movements mimic everyday activity such as squ

07/12/2025

⭐ Wisdom and an Anti–Fitness Industry Message⭐

“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world.
Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.” ✨💡

Looking back as a 60-year-old, it took me far longer to reach that epiphany than it should. ⏳

The key thing about change that is often forgotten, is that we don’t have to do it on our own. 🤝💛

Quite often the scariest bit is asking for help, and that can be from family and friends just as much as anyone else. 🫂

If we all make small changes to better ourselves, the sum of our changes is always greater than the sum of its parts. 🌱🌟

Our influence on each other through our skills, support, role-modelling and simply our presence – is huge, and often underestimated. 🌍💫
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📣 Here’s what the fitness industry always shouts at this time of year — and why it’s unhelpful:

• ✨ “New Year, New You!” – we are already good enough 🫵 and my slate doesn’t need to be cleaned.
• 🍫 “Burn off the Christmas calories!”, detox / cleanse – we don’t owe a debt for enjoying ourselves.
• 💪 “Get shredded / beach body by summer!” – what our bodies can do is far more important than how they look.
• 😅 “No excuses!” – you don’t know us – how about tailored support instead of an all-or-nothing judgemental approach?
• ❌ “Transform your body in 6–12 weeks!” – meaningless short-term guarantees do not create long-term healthy habits.
• 🎯 “Smash your goals this year!” – how about sitting down with us to help identify what our goals should be, rather than dish out generic hype?
• 💰 Discount-driven gym ads – competing on price = admitting the product is inferior.
• 📅 “Start Monday / Start Jan 1 / Start strong!” – investment in self-health doesn’t begin on a fixed time frame, we can start gently, on any day we choose.
• ⚠️ Aggressive before / after photos – exercise for aesthetic reasons is linked with disordered behaviours, depression, eating disorders, and low self-esteem.
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We don’t need a “new us” — we need a “supported us” 💬💖

Change does not come from pressure, guilt, or meaningless promises.

It comes from small, repeatable actions, paced for our life, our energy, and our headspace 🧠✨

We do not start from zero — we start from experience, resilience, and everything we’ve already overcome 💪🔥
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🌟 My most significant responsibility as a Mental Health and Exercise Coach:

Breaking down barriers to exercise to make movement feel possible, fun, and enjoyable 🎾🏃‍♂️💃

Principles I’ve evolved to live by:

• 🎉 We are never too old to go out and play.
• ❤️ We have a responsibility to ourselves, our family, and friends to be around for as long as possible.
• ⏳ Time being alive is limited, not guaranteed — and the odds of maximising time alive can be weighed in our favour.
• 🚶‍♂️💨 We don’t stop moving because we get old… we get old because we stop moving.

Investing in our own mental and physical health is the most important gift we can give ourselves 🎁✨ — as it gives the greatest return. 💡💪
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If anyone wants a chat about movement, mindset, confidence, or getting started — my door (and kettle!) is always open even though I’m not taking on new clients at present☕💛

I’d love to pay for a tea, coffee, or soft drink 🥤 at a time and place that suits.

Let’s just have a chat. A connection. Maybe a smile 😊💫

We’re already enough — let’s try and make life feel a little easier, together. 💛🌿

30/11/2025

Did you know…

• 37% of us don’t exercise at all
• 87% of us don’t exercise regularly
• so, only 13% of us exercise as a healthy habit.

A big reason? Hidden barriers — exercise anxiety, fear of looking unfit, lack of guidance, cost, and the belief that “exercise isn’t for people like me.”

One of my responsibilities as Chippenham’s Mental Health & Exercise Coach is to break down such barriers and make movement feel possible, fun and enjoyable👇
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❌ “Exercise is about being stronger and faster.”
✅ Exercise should be fun, build transferrable life skills, and help us feel good.

❌ “I’m too old to start.”
✅ We don’t stop moving because we get old. We get old because we stop moving.

❌ “Stress is just part of life.”
✅ Stress needs releasing — just like p*e and poo. 🚽

❌ “My wellbeing is only about me.”
✅ Looking after ourselves helps us stay around longer for the people we care about. ❤️

❌ “I shouldn’t talk about mental health.”
✅ We ALL have physical health. We ALL have mental health. So, we are ALL qualified to talk about both. 🧠💬

❌ “Gyms scare me.”
✅ They often are intimidating — because they can focus on looks, not what our bodies can do.
💡 MOVEMENT DOES NOT HAVE TO HAPPEN IN A GYM.
❌ “Starting something new is scary.”

✅ It can be — but life doesn’t get better by chance. It gets better by change. 🔄
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Soon social media will be full of “New Year, New Us” rubbish.
Yes, it’s never too late to start — but we don’t have to wait for bu****it societal judgment and idealism to guilt us into action.

👉 Our “why” isn’t about who we should become — the current us is already good enough, whether we realise it or not.
It’s about how we want to evolve, what we want to achieve and experience, and how we want to live.

Ultimately the only person we are destined to become is the person we decide to be.

Health isn’t “not being ill.” It’s mental, social and physical wellbeing working in harmony. ⚖️

It is about us gifting ourselves the ability to enjoy life, and support ourselves, wife/husband/partner, children, grandchildren, mum, dad, nan, granddad, brother, sister, niece, nephew, cousin and friends for as long as possible.

🏃‍♂️ Exercise is the ability to enjoy life and support the people we love.
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🔎 And don’t tell me there is nothing to do in Chippenham — there are over 150 local organisations listed on the Chippenham Activity Finder:

👉 https://onechippenham.org.uk/chippenham-activity-finder/

🗣️ Social Activities
🧘‍♀️ Yoga & Pilates
👩‍👩‍👧 Women-only spaces
💷 Low-cost or free groups
🧒👨‍🦽👵 All-ages & all-abilities activities
🎨 Arts & Crafts
🏃 Bootcamps, football, rugby, cycling, martial arts, climbing, walking groups
🌱 Gardening & environmental clubs
🧠 Mental health & support groups
👶 Baby, toddler & youth sessions
🤝 Community & volunteering
🧶 Knitting
⚽ Walking football
💃 Belly dancing
🧗 Climbing
🧓 Adult movement
🧪 STEM for children
….and more
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So, before you worry about what you’re buying everyone else this Christmas…

🎁 Ask yourself what you’re going to gift YOU.

And if you want a chat about movement, mindset, confidence or getting started — my door (and kettle!) is always open.

24/11/2025

https://accreditation.cimspa.co.uk/verify/7239bb6b00f83dca31c2e3bc0caf4b7876bfa315a899269bc241fb27a06d1b35

The holder has completed the Gym Instructor occupational professional standard by evidencing all of its competency statements. This has been evaluated through a comprehensive review of their professional qualifications and experience.

23/11/2025

EXERCISE IS MEDICINE — BUT SOMETIMES I USE BISCUITS AS A SPOON FOR ICE CREAM 🍪🍨😅

Bishop Desmond Tutu said:

“There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they are falling in.”

That’s exactly what exercise and movement does.

It’s the closest thing we have to a longevity drug 🧬 — helping us stay upright, resilient, and capable. Nothing else comes close to what exercise does for our Healthspan, Lifespan, and cognitive & physical function 💪🧠.

Neuroscientists argue that the primary purpose of the human brain is movement — our most ancient survival tool. Ever since we first left Africa, movement has meant safety, exploration, connection, and progress 🌍👣.

But in the blink of an evolutionary eye — the Agricultural, Industrial and Technology revolutions — we drifted far from our natural patterns ⚙️💻🌾. And that shift has consequences for both our mental and physical health.

Our ancestral movements were simple, balanced, and fundamental and every fitness professional should be teaching and supporting them.

And yet:

• 25% of us struggle with poor mental health 💭
• 37% of us don’t exercise at all
• 87% of us don’t exercise regularly

Despite the fact that movement is our natural default state.

Think about how we grow:

• We crawl 🤱
• We walk 🚶
• We run — usually to someone because we’ve hurt ourselves 🏃‍♂️💨
• Then we do it all again

Before we can talk, we adapt, aspire, connect, act independently, and are brave.

These traits — along with confidence, resilience, self-worth, calm, discipline, and appreciation — are all natural byproducts of exercise ⭐.
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My mission, as Chippenham’s only Mental Health & Exercise Coach 🧠💪, is to help people understand:

• Life is limited — not guaranteed ⏳
• We can tip the odds of longevity in our favour
• We owe it to ourselves and those we love to stay around to enjoy and support them❤️
• We don’t stop moving because we get old — we get old because we stop moving 👟
• Mental health can be positive too 🌤️

And the REAL reasons to exercise have nothing to do with ridiculous societal idealism:

• Fun 😄
• Independence 🙌
• Longevity 🧓
• Appreciation of life 🌱
• Self-care 🧘‍♂️
• Empowerment 🔥
• Value 💛

This is what I call SELF HEALTH, not health care.

We can’t control everything — but we can improve the quality of our lives as well as the length of them. And yes, we can still enjoy the things we love along the way, like biscuits and ice cream!

Balance trumps deprivation, every time 🍦😉.

18/11/2025

Love, love, love being part of this 💚

18/11/2025

Fun, friendly and local....what's not to love?

Give it a go... you may just like it.....

Finish lines not finish times......

16/11/2025

☕GREAT CONVERSATIONS CHANGE LIVES💬

Ever felt like you should be doing more for your health…
…but don’t quite know where to start, or what’s actually right for you?
You’re not alone — and you don’t need to figure it out by yourself either.
👋 I’m Chippenham’s only Mental Health & Exercise Coach.
And whilst I’m not taking on new clients right now, I’d still love to buy anyone a tea or coffee (other soft drinks available!) for a friendly, no-obligation chat.
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☀️ A little about me 👇
• 60 years and 16 days old
• besotted husband and grandfather of two (not necessarily in that order, depending on who’s listening! 😅)
• heart attack survivor ❤️‍🩹
• son of three parents lost to cancer — the first when I was 15 🎗️
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Health isn’t “not being ill.”
It is a balance of physical, social and mental wellbeing — that’s the World Health Organisation’s definition, not mine! 🌍
My own journey as a coach began when I realised that the hardest part of recovering from my heart attack wasn’t physical — it’ was psychological.
That realisation changed everything. 💭
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💡 Now I help people:
💪 rebuild confidence if life knocks them down
🧘‍♀️ find harmony between body and mind
😊 discover joy and purpose through movement — not punishment
My mission is to tear down barriers that stop people from moving, living and laughing.
Because exercise should always be:
✅ fun first
✅ focused on Healthspan before Lifespan
✅ about enjoying life — not chasing numbers or appearances
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Putting ourselves first isn’t selfish — it’s selfless.
It’s how we stay healthy enough to enjoy, and be there, for the people we love. ❤️
We all carry doubts like:
💭 “I’m too old.”
💭 “I’ll be judged.”
💭 “I’m not fit enough.”
💭 “I don’t have time.”
💭 “I can live with stress.” (You can’t — it needs to go, like p*e and poo! 💨)
💭 “I’m scared of not being seen for myself.”
💭 “I fear comparison.”
💭 “I don’t want to feel like the first day at school again.”
These thoughts just prove one thing: we’re human.
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🌱 Life doesn’t get better by chance — it gets better through change.
And sometimes the bravest part of change is simply asking for help.
We’re never too old to go out and play; sometimes we just need someone to show us the way.
People are instinctively compassionate, tolerant and inclusive.
Life thinks it can bury those natural traits — but we have the ability to keep coming up for air, to keep rising up, and to keep being ourselves. 💚
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So, if you’d like a chat — no sales, no pressure — just a conversation over a cuppa ☕
…just let me know.
Because connection is where magic happens. ✨
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09/11/2025

I don’t use gimmicks such as “befores” and “afters” to encourage people to exercise — I prefer to give people more credit than that.

My goal is to educate and inform, helping people decide their own reasons to invest in their wellbeing.

The fitness industry is full of “reasons” to exercise — some constructive, others… not so much.

As a Mental Health and Exercise Coach, I want to be clear about the principles that shape the support I offer:

💥 Exercise must be fun — we’ll never be too old to go out and just play.
❤️ We have a responsibility to ourselves, our families, and our friends to be around and enjoy life with them for as long as possible.
💓 Our time is limited and not guaranteed — my heart attack made that clear — but we can still tilt the odds in our favour.
🏃‍♂️ We won’t stop moving because we get old… we’ll get old if we stop moving.

My motivation isn’t just about lifespan, it’s about healthspan — that vital period of life where we can actively influence our wellbeing.

Think about it — the whole purpose of our brain is to produce movement. It’s how we’ve survived for millennia. When we stop moving, our bodies and minds both suffer.

I’m not a “people whisperer”, but my qualification in mental health and exercise coaching allows me to work with empathy — to help improve both physical and mental fitness together.

It’s easy for someone to say “Exercise makes you feel better”, but it’s far more powerful to understand why that happens and how to make it meaningful.

Here’s what happens when we move our bodies:

🌿 Stress Reduction – Endorphins act as natural stress relievers, helping us release tension (because we can’t hold onto stress — we have to get rid of it, just like we p*e and poo!).
😊 Mood Enhancement – Regular exercise lowers the risk of depression and anxiety, and boosts happiness through endorphins.
😴 Better Sleep Quality – Movement promotes relaxation, reducing insomnia and helps us sleep deeply.
🧠 Boosted Cognitive Function – Exercise improves memory, concentration, and protects against cognitive decline.

Exercise is more than movement — it’s a life skill.

It brings happiness, confidence, self-worth, resilience, calm, and connection.