One of the things that I feel very strongly about is that you really CAN do just about anything you want to do or used to do as a religious person, whether that’s an Orthodox Jew or whatever your faith tradition is. Sure, there are some things that just aren’t compatible, but I think it’s easy to assume that something isn’t going to work even before you try to see if it will fit or talk to your religious leaders to figure out if it will.
My RABBI is the one who told me I should get another motorcycle, people! But…that’s a story for another time.
For me, one of the first questions I had when I began looking at different workout and nutrition programs was, “Will this work with my religious lifestyle?” I researched MULTIPLE different options and settled on Beachbody and I do make it work for me, but there are some tweaks I’ve had to make.
For starters, I’ll level with you here…none of their shakes or nutritional supplements are under kosher supervision. None. They do have some vegan options, if that is within your comfort zone, but if you are careful with heckshers or keep Halal, they’re probably not going to be a good fit for you. That being said, it’s not difficult to go online and find replacements for those products if you feel they will improve your workouts or nutrition AND they’re absolutely not necessary to take advantage of either the fitness or nutrition programs in Beachbody. I’ll be posting reviews of my favorite kosher (and in most cases Halal) options for things like protein shakes and such and I can explain to you how you can substitute these in when you need to. My hope is that one day they’ll opt for kosher supervision, but until then, I have workarounds I can share with you.
Now, on to the better news!
For women in particular, the workouts are easy to fit into a religious lifestyle. You can do them in the privacy of your own home and you can stream them whenever it works for you. There are even workouts where women only are in the videos. For me, it’s a little tougher in that most of the videos do have at least one woman in them and those women are often in workout clothes, so depending on your comfort level with that, it may or may not work for you. Beachbody on Demand, the workout portion of their programs, is essentially like Netflix or any other streaming service for workouts and has the largest selection of workouts of any service like it, so odds are you can find something that fits your fitness level, goals, and that you enjoy. Most videos are 30 minutes to 1 hour, so it can be easy to find a quick workout that you can fit into your busy day. If you’re looking for something in particular or aren’t sure which workout is right for you, please reach out and I’m happy to help you find one!
The nutrition programs really are a snap to adjust for different diet restrictions. Beachbody has 2 different nutrition programs on top of the nutrition guidelines they offer with each of their workouts. Pairing one of them with a workout program will give you the best results and neither of them are fad or crash diets, but are nutritionist approved ways of changing your eating habits for a lifetime. Which one is best for you really depends more on what issues you’re looking to address in your eating. For me, I really struggled with eating healthy portion sizes, even when I was eating healthy foods, so I chose Ultimate Portion Fix. If emotional eating is your struggle or if you want something less structured, then 2B Mindset might be a better fit. In both, there are recipes that you can easily adjust to be kosher or halal as well as recipes that are already vegetarian or vegan or ones that are easy to adjust to be vegetarian and vegan. There is even an entire vegan plan in Ultimate Portion Fix. About the only diet that is not compatible with either nutrition program is keto, but that’s a whole other post. You can fit paleo, mediterranean, and almost anything else into either program and they even have tips and tricks that make staying on plan for holiday meals easy. Again, if you’re unsure which plan is right for you, just reach out to me and I’m happy to walk you through it. I’ll also be posting tips and tricks for handling these over holidays or the Sabbath and how I handle fast days on the plan.
In short, it IS possible to begin to see those transformational results that all the Beachbody ads promise WITHOUT compromising your religious lifestyle. Even more, you’ll be healthier and have more energy for everything else in your life AND be able to life a longer, healthier life. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me if you need help finding the details of how.
Geek Yoga 