Rebecca Louise was supposed to go to Mount Everest [1] in May. "My whole year was planned," said the YouTuber [2] and trainer, who's releasing her first book, It Takes Grit, this September. "The idea was to have a picture of my book on top of Mount Everest. I had this whole vision and a whole tour planned. And literally in a second, everything was taken away."
For a day, Rebecca Louise remembered, she felt uncertain, unsure, and "a little bit lost." Then she made the conscious decision to "reset my brain," throwing herself into a new opportunity: hosting live workouts on her app, Burn by Rebecca Louise [3]. "We had never done live workouts before, even on YouTube, but it's been amazing," she told POPSUGAR. "We just had to adapt."
Adaptation and finding inner strength are big themes for Rebecca Louise, and the reason why "It Takes Grit" is the title of both her book and her YouTube podcast [4]. From fitness to family to career, "everything in life takes some sort of grit," she explained. "We all have setbacks. We all have had bad things happen to us, and it's just about how we react."
Rebecca Louise's own approach to fitness has evolved over the years she's been in the industry. "Even when I started doing workouts on YouTube, I wasn't feeding my body the best in nutrition," she remembered. She didn't understand the importance of nutrition to overall wellness; according to Rebecca Louise, about 80 percent of your health comes down to what you eat [6], with workouts making up the other 20 percent. "I take it a lot more seriously now. I make sure that my health is number one because if you can't look after yourself, how are you going to look after others? I wanted to be the best version of myself to inspire others."
This year, the pandemic brought about another mindset change. "We have all had to adapt [7]," Rebecca Louise said. "We can sit here and say, 'Oh my goodness, I can't believe this is happening to me' or we can say, 'Right, what is this an opportunity for? This is an opportunity for me to do something different. This is an opportunity for change.'" Rebecca Louise's live workouts have now become some of her favorites. "The live workouts all give a sense of being together," she said. "Who knows if we would have done that had this pandemic not happened!"
Still, Rebecca Louise knows better than anyone the struggle to adapt and, when it comes to fitness, stay motivated [8] during the pandemic. ("How do I stay motivated [9]?" is actually the most common question she's asked.) Her advice? "It is all about the action. Action comes before motivation," Rebecca Louise said. She recommended finding a mentor to follow and surrounding yourself with people who have the same goals as you, especially when it comes to fitness. "If you feel stuck, remember: there is no such thing as stuck. You just have to take a step," Rebecca Louise explained. "It can be forward. It can be backwards. It can be left or right. But you will get unstuck, and you will be led down the path you need to go."
Rebecca Louise's Tips For Fitness and Positivity During the Pandemic
- Change your mindset. "When you change the way you look at things, the things that you look at will change," Rebecca Louise said. Instead of focusing on the difficulties, acknowledge them and then look at this time as an opportunity to grow. "'What am I going to get from this?' That is how we stay positive," Rebecca Louise said.
- Spend time with people who are positive and inspiring. "If you are following people on social media [11] who are constantly saying, 'Ugh, this happened to me today, I was stuck in traffic' and all of this negativity, you are going to consume yourself with that," Rebecca Louise said. "Where focus goes, energy flows." By instead surrounding yourself with positivity, she explained, "you can lift yourself up."
- Eat a balanced diet [12]. "You need full, balanced nutrition" to feel your best, Rebecca Louise said. "Eat lots of fruits and vegetables, protein, and plants. I am a pescatarian myself. Eating lots of great foods with a couple of supplements along the way really helps." Try this two-week healthy eating plan [13] to start.
- Exercise. "Getting your workout in is so important for your mental health," Rebecca Louise said. In her workouts, she strives to lift people up and provide a boost of energy. "We do dance parties. We have fun. We just increase our mood," she continued. "Just being in that environment around people who are lifting themselves up — that's something everyone wants to be a part of." (Here's an at-home workout plan [14] to get you started.)