Read as the PT opens up about the toxicity of social media, quitting IG, and her thoughts on the shiny influencer veneer, plus info on the new app which launches today.
Alice Liveing is known for her all-inclusive, evidence-based approach to health and fitness. Over the course of the three UK lockdowns, she shared daily positivity, non-biased exercise motivation and free workouts with her 701k followers. The fan testaments say it all, with one simply sharing: "You saved my life last year with your workouts and your smile. Thank you."
She's come a long way since she first started blogging under the moniker Clean Eating Alice back in 2014 and honestly? It's been refreshing to have watched the journey.
When we chat, she speaks candidly about over-training, social media toxicity and nearly quitting Instagram - the platform that made her so well known - last year. She's down-to-earth, highly educated on health and fitness, and a welcome break because she isn't afraid to speak both her mind and her story.
Today, ten months from when she first started planning to do so, she's launched her first ever fitness app, Give Me Strength. It's not just pre-programmed workouts, but training plans, recipes, expert-blogs, on-demand sweat sessions and educational content all in one place.
Alice stresses that there are thousands of apps on the market, and while she won't claim hers is above and beyond the rest, it is one thing: hers, and for her legions of fans, we reckon that'll be enough for them to download it.
Give Me Strength: 100's of Alice Liveing workouts in one place
According to the app description, Give Me Strength is 'a fitness app designed to help you look and feel stronger in every sense of the word'.
Think 12 week programmes, on-demand workouts, 100+ delicious recipes, meal tracking and more. There's even an education section with posts from leading industry experts ready to educate you on everything from sleep, to recovery, to your menstrual cycle and more.
The first rating gets 5 stars out of 5, with the user saying: "I have followed Alice for years on Instagram, her love workouts were a true lifeline during lockdown and I can’t wait to bring her with me to the gym via this app!! So worth the wait! 🌟"
So, why now?
According to the PT, for two reasons. "Firstly, I've always wanted to create a permanent product in the fitness space," she explains. "A a lot of my hesitations lay in the fact that I believed I needed more experience and to hone my craft as a PT. You need to gain experience in that space to develop credibility and a voice, and just learn how to properly train people. There’s so much skill that goes into being trainer," she stresses.
Having spent the past seven years doing that, Alice finally felt like it was time to put all that knowledge and learning to good use. "The catalyst for me was COVID. Teaching my online classes gave me confidence to be like, okay people really do trust me as a trainer," she goes on. "I haven't looked back since."
Quitting social media
As we touched on, the PT has spoken openly about her struggles with social media toxicity in the past few years. "Social media is great in so many ways - for giving people a voice and making things much more accessible than they were before - but it does have its downsides as well," she says to be over the phone.
"Prior to COVID, I really thought I was going to quit social media. I felt like I couldn't do it anymore and it didn't bring me as much enjoyment," she explains.
"I didn't know where I sat in the space anymore and I felt like it'd gone so far from what I thought it was and what I wanted to do with it," she shares. "I found that really really difficult."
So, how has she found a happy medium? And what are her top tips for you, if you're finding your social media usage more negative than positive?
"It's so hard. Over the last year, we probably relied on social media more than ever. It's been one of those things that we've learnt to use as a coping mechanism," she says. "For periods of lockdown where I felt particularly lonely or particularly isolated, social media was a real connection and lifeline for me to connect me with friends, family, my followers and just to be able to have that level of connection," she goes on.
"We need to respect the fact spending loads of time consuming what other people are doing comes with it's own negatives," she goes on. "Constantly seeing what other people are doing often makes us suddenly start to question the way we live ours," she shares. "Even the strongest people can start to question or undermine their own conscious decision."
4 tips for monitoring your social media usage
1. Try and note how much time you're spending on social each day
Remember: "we're still bombarded with images of perfection, and it's very difficult to see lots of perfect, edited images of people looking their best," shares the PT.
Try this: be mindful of how much time you're spending on social media each day. Easier said than done, but you'll likely find the less time you spend online, the more time you spend enjoying people's company IRL.
2. Tune in to how it makes you feel
Alice shares that on days when she's really busy with work so can't go on social media or look at her phone, she sees a marked difference in her anxiety levels. "I'm just focusing on my own work and what I'm doing: I'm way less distracted and less conscious about the way I look," she shares. "It does make a big difference."
Try this: Try one day off, one day on with your social media apps, and note if you see any difference in your mood levels.
3. Utilise your airplane mode
If Alice is busy or she's trying to get her head down and work, she puts her phone on airplane mode. "That way I'm sure I'll get some like solid work done," she shares. "I'm also just really conscious of when I go on and how often I use it, because it's a slippery slope," she explains.
"It can be really sort of dangerous - you find yourself kind of starting to use it and then you use it just a little bit more and before you know it you could have spent hours in a scroll hole, then you get to bed with these thoughts in your head which can cause a bad night's sleep," she stresses.
4. Curate your feed
And finally, make sure to unfollow any accounts that don't make you feel good.
"Curating your feed so that the people that you're following make you feel good is essential," emphasises Alice. "I sometimes forget we have autonomy over the people we follow. Make sure the people that you follow do make you feel good." Hear, hear.
Give Me Strength is available to download now from the app store for £16.99 a month.
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