I think one thing that is always worth reminding yourself is that harder is not always better.
Sometimes when things don’t feel like they’re going well it can be tempting to look to making drastic changes, be that training to the extreme, dieting to the extreme or filling your day to the point you have no downtime whatsoever. Logic seems to work that if you push super hard results will be amazing and come super quick. Of course what actually happens when we try and go ‘all or nothing’ is when we miss one session, have one bad meal we feel like everything was pointless and give up. When we plan in no rest, we burn out and need to stop doing everything completely.
Making small manageable changes seems so boring and like it’s really not going to have an effect and we just aren’t trying hard enough. Yet in reality hitting two to three sessions in the gym each week consistently over a few months is always going to have better results than going twice a day every day for a week and then doing nothing for two weeks because we’re injured / shattered. Eating within a calorie deficit 80% of days for six weeks will produce better results than doing a juice detox for 5 days and then eating whatever you want for three weeks after because you were famished by day 6.
In the same way, sometimes, even when we are training and eating sensibly we still need to take time out. A de-load week isn’t failure, it’s actually a smart way of letting the body recover so we can continue to improve. Increasing our calories to maintenance strategically sometimes (for instance ladies that time each month when you feel more hungry) might actually improve your results rather than hinder.
In a nutshell trying to go all out often ends up having the opposite effect whilst also making you feel a bit miserable and like a failure. Small steady changes which don’t feel like much on the other hand will be easier to stick with and over time make you feel more positive and start to see results.
Heather Sherwood Fitness 