Dear Michelle Bridges: Stop heckling us

MICHELLE Bridges says women are full of excuses about why they can’t exercise. But shaming us for our “fairy tale” excuses isn’t going to help, writes Wendy Tuohy.

Michelle Bridges with Blackmores products. Socials; Blackmores and Michelle Bridges invite guests to the launch of a new partnership. They are having breakfast with a healthy twist at The Sailors Club

WHO knows how many women the dynamic Michelle Bridges has helped to get healthier in her long fitness career — the number must be huge.

And well done to her for turning herself into a national brand using nothing more than her own energy, vision and motivation.

Proper respect to her for all she has created, the lady has more bounce than the Energizer bunny. But is there a risk that in her latest 75kg iron-pumping, ab-tastic muscle machine incarnation, with her bullish pronouncements about “the excuses women make” not to exercise like her, that she will put quite a few of us off? With respect, I think so.

Bridges gave an interview to News Corp at the weekend in which she dismissed women who don’t “prioritise” their exercise, or who give in to “road blocks” or “fairy tales” and fail to get it done.

They’re bad, bad ladies who can presumably think of anything they would rather do than look after their bodies and shoot for peak health.

When it comes to training and motivating other women, Bridges says she’s heard every excuse under the sun:

“Women tend to self sabotage, they’re prone to the victim mentality or the blame game.”

She says the biggest excuse is, unsurprisingly, time: “I’m too busy”.

Unacceptable, says Bridges, who is currently balancing several new ventures at once and still finds the time to keep her body in peak condition.

“Take a look at Obama, he trains everyday. Call me old-fashioned but I’m guessing the President of the United States is a pretty busy man. So if he can find the time then no one has an excuse.”

She tells us “accountability” plays a massive role in fitness (especially her own branded 12-week body challenge). “It’s all about prioritising, just how badly to you want it to happen?” she asks us.

Well, I can tell you the answer on my behalf, and judging by the lives of friends juggling a similar load in their forties, grabbing some minutes or even an hour away from other areas where a very high degree of accountability is encouraged is a cherished luxury. Between parenting, child-shuttling, working and helping out at schools, Michelle, we really want to make it happen. Badly!

We do want to prioritise ourselves and our health, but for long stretches of our lives (you know, the juggly bit) we can find it extremely difficult to put ourselves first.

We know we should, we do want to, we understand that the only way we can keep supporting and caring for and providing for people around us is if we stay healthy ... but we get a bit caught up with the job at hand.

In my dreams I would spend an hour and a half a day exercising, at least. Like a Michelle, or a Gwyneth or a Sandra Bullock. I absolutely love the way strong exercise makes me feel. But in reality, that would mean cribbing time from activities that matter to me more right now, namely devoting myself to the wellbeing of the family in the most hands-on way I can.

That takes just about all of my energy every day I’m conscious. I’m sure I’m not alone.

I exercise as much as I can, at least four hours a week (mainly fast-walking our dogs, and strong yoga) and I would love to find the time to do enough training to learn to pump serious weights and get a back and abs as awesomely sculpted as Bridges’.

But what will not help me improve my fitness — or I believe other women in my mid-life busy situation — to achieve a more toned tummy, or better guns, or harder thighs is to suggest we are sabotaging ourselves or playing the victim by not somehow finding time for more than we are doing.

I know your advice comes from a helpful place, and at 42 you are a truly exemplary fitness role model Ms Bridges. But shaming us about “excuses” or our “fairy tales”, really, isn’t going to help.

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