The Easter Hangover

Have you left the Easter weekend feeing like you over did it? Be it too much chocolate of the Egg variety or too much alcohol or maybe a bit of both (I’ll be honest, unlike normal me, I’ve had little chocolate this weekend but did wake up Sunday swearing to never drink again).

There can be a real temptation the day after a heavy weekend, or even just night, when you feel like you’ve over indulged and ruined your diet, to go all out healthy the next day. You know the one. i will eat nothing but leaves and drink nothing but water and run 50 miles each morning and meditate and lift heavy things and sleep for 12 hours a day and I will do this for the rest of my life to atone for the 500 extra calories I’ve convinced ruined my life over the weekend.

This in itself makes us feel worse in reality. We won’t stick to it for more than 23 minutes and then come 10 am when we’ve succumbed to a biscuit with a cup of tea we are kicking ourselves again at our obvious lack of willpower.

The fact of the matter is if you ate chocolate until you were sick or stayed up until 5am and spent yesterday in bed you might not feel very smug today. Smug is a bit of a dull feeling though and in actual fact if you just get back to normal today and eat your normal amount of food, drink plenty of fluids, train as you normally would, get some steps in you’ll actually feel pretty much back to normal by the time you go to bed. Maybe a little bit of extra fresh air would be beneficial if you do feel particularly rubbish.

Extremes rarely work. You have to have a very particular mindset to be comfortable sticking to very strict regimes for long periods of time and even if you are able to, it will often be at the cost of doing things you’ll enjoy. Balance, as so many PTs will say, is key. The problem is when we feel rubbish about ourselves our brains tell us that really strict will probably bring quicker results and when we feel rubbish that’s appealing. It actually takes quite a lot of willpower to override that little voice in your brain and just try and get back on with trying to be a bit sensible when you feel like that.

If you can today though, just try to be normal and not beat yourself up about any over indulgences.

Easter eggs and the art of patience

Happy Easter.

Probably my favourite holiday.

Because I like Easter Egg chocolate more than any other chocolate

And I get four whole days off of work.

Thats four lie ins, four days with no classes to teach (well that’s a lie I’m teaching a Body Pump tomorrow night but almost four days), four days to slow down, do the bare minimum, do it at a leisurely pace, drink too much champagne in my pajamas on a whim because I can.

I have trained each day too – just 30 to 60 minutes – because I wanted to.

Friday I did weights and went for a short run

Yesterday I did Murph (I don’t like Murph, I’ll write about that one day)

Today I did 30 minutes of HIIT in my living room.

So far I have eaten 3 easter eggs. Plus a fair few mini easter eggs. I still have one left.

My calorie intake this week will probably be double my energy expenditure.

I don’t feel guilty about this. It’s just one week.

After I trained this morning I looked at myself in the mirror and saw some definition in my stomach.

Only a little (and excuse the mismatched outfit i threw on – i wasn’t planning on taking a selfie!) but it’s progress. And this was after I’d eaten a whole easter egg for breakfast.

This was my breakfast today by the way.

You can not have the perfect diet, not be the best athlete in the world, not be 100% ‘on it’ all the time and still get results.

The fact is lasting results take time. Lifestyles have to be compatible with your actual life and sometimes you will have days where you aren’t as ‘on it’ as others.

Consistency is a word banded about in gym land a lot. It’s important. So is patience. Most of us have no patience. I know i’m often guilty of this. But I also know I’m starting to see real results – from a years worth of hard work. Not 6 weeks or a few months but from not giving in after a few weeks because I didn’t already have a six pac. Patience.

When i started writing this post I wasn’t really sure what it’s point would be.

I’m still not. I was just feeling reflective. Sometimes you need to reflect a bit to gain some perspective.

Now excuse me whilst I go and find that last easter egg…