Tally Rye: “Focusing on how you feel is the most important thing”
Train Happy author, podcast host and PT Tally Rye joins Happiful’s podcast to talk about building a positive relationship with exercise and how intuitive movement can help
Tally Rye knows all too well how diet culture and ‘fitspo’ mentality can permeate our thinking. As a result, she’s harnessed her own lived experience, training and extensive research to support others to create a positive relationship with exercise.
From her brilliant podcast to her social media accounts and books Train Happy and now The Train Happy Journal: An intuitive exercise plan for every body, she’s showing a way forward that can help us feel better, which is what we all need.
Her own journey
“I’ve been working in the fitness industry for the past seven years,” Tally explains. “In that time, I’ve gone on a personal and professional journey, changing my approach to what I think fitness is about.”
Tally’s mindset has changed dramatically and for the better over her career to date. “Originally, I thought it was all about how you looked, body transformations and before and after photos. I’ve since realised that can be really detrimental in the long term. Focusing on how we feel, rather than how we look, is most important.”
Intuitive movement
“I focus on intuitive movement,” Tally says. “You may have heard about intuitive eating? It’s really an offshoot of that work and that framework. It’s about helping people have a good relationship with exercise.”
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Forging a positive relationship with exercise
“People may not have a positive relationship with exercise because it can feel really fraught, something that they dread, they don’t really like it, they feel like they have to do it, they should do it…” Tally shares.
There are so many amazing benefits to moving your body which far outweigh the ones we’re told about
However, she’s keen to point out that there are reasons to rethink the dread when it comes to getting active. “There are so many amazing benefits to moving your body which far outweigh the ones we’re told about which is weight loss and the aesthetic transformation.”
Supporting your mental wellbeing and physical health are just two of the massive pluses, she notes, but our relationship with exercise can be all in the framing and the choices we make. “It’s great to move, but if you’re told that for a workout to be ‘effective’ it should be painful, punishing, you should feel exhausted and you have to do a ton of burpees and go for a really long run and all of these things you don’t enjoy – of course you’re not going to do it!”
“I really want to help people with not only addressing their own individual approach but really expanding their view of what exercise is and how it doesn’t just have to be the gym or running. It can be dancing, rock climbing, hiking, rolling skating and paddleboarding. All of these things are brilliant,” she smiles.
“One of the things I’m really passionate about is stopping people from limiting themselves and finding what works for them. There’s probably a reason you hate and dread going to the gym or a spin class if you’ve had negative experiences of that in the past. So, if we’re wanting to work on this relationship going forward, maybe doing something that you actually LIKE,” Tally laughs, “is going to be key!”
Hear more from Tally, including an explanation of intuitive movement in her episode of I am. I have.
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Find out more about Tally, her podcast and books Train Happy and The Train Happy Journal.
Follow Tally on Instagram.
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