What Healthy Is

Share a lesson you wish you had learned earlier in life.

Being healthy is not:

Being a certain weight

Being a certain size or shape

Being ripped / having defined visible muscle

Being able to run a distance in a certain time

Being able to lift really heavy weights

Eating really strictly

All these things can be a result of being healthy but in themselves they are not indicative off being healthy.

I know people who live incredibly disciplined lifestyles and look in great shape. They are undoubtedly fit. That doesn’t mean they are healthy.

You can be in great shape but have difficulty managing your training and beat yourself up if you don’t stick to your training schedule and feel like you must do a certain amount each day.

You can be in great shape but beat yourself up for eating certain foods or having some time off from your normal diet, or find yourself being careful on nights out to avoid causing damage to your fitness.

You can have an Instagram worthy routine and lifestyle and find yourself turning down social events because it would interrupt that.

Equally you can be a little bigger than you’d like and eat a more rounded diet and still be fit and healthy, and importantly healthy in more way than just one, because you know that not doing things perfectly doesn’t matter.

That’s not to say I think being overweight is healthy. If you don’t do any exercise and eat too much that is likely to lead to health problems and not be healthy.

We don’t have to live to an extreme though and a balance where we eat well and move (preferably in a way we enjoy) to allow us to feel good and enjoy life is probably the healthiest way to be.

A Less Articulate Google

What was the last thing you searched for online? Why were you looking for it?

So I like taking these blog prompts and trying to answer them in line with the purpose of my blog, i.e as a personal trainer.

So, the last thing searched for was reviews for a restaurant in the old town of Trogir, because I passed it yesterday and liked the chairs, but really even I know you don’t eat somewhere based on the chairs. The reviews were good by the way so I’m writing this blog from there and it’s lovely, busy, atmospheric as it’s right in the maze of Old Town streets so you can people watch and they have a set menu which I think is great value and so far the starter was lovely.

But back to my blog. My aim with this page is to try and answer the sort of questions I think people often Google regarding their health and fitness. How do you lose weight, tone up, what sort of training should you do, when, how often. I listen to clients, class members, family and friends questions and I try answer those over time because if they are thinking it so are slots of other people.

You know when you Google something and you type in a few words and the rest of the question comes up and you realise that random thing you didn’t know but wondered is something lots of others have clearly also asked? Fitness questions are a lot like that and there are lots of things that people might be scared to ask because they think it should be obvious but the fact is those things aren’t obvious and lots of people do wonder the same thing. That’s why I try and talk about common questions and themes here to try and be a little bit like a less articulate Google!

Small Changes

What change, big or small, would you like your blog to make in the world?

I came across this question the other day, and to be honest when I first set up a blog I just planned to write about myself and my own fitness, almost like a diary.

Over five years later it has developed into something that I hope is a bit more useful. I still write the odd post about me and what I’m doing (it’s cathartic right!) but I try to make the majority of posts about nutrition, training or mindset with either advice on how to overcome common problems or discussion about why certain fads or methods do or don’t work. I try to keep posts to around 300 words a time so they are quick and easy to read for people.

My blog has a modest reach (around 1,370 followers) and I share the posts on Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn. For the first few months it had a handful of followers and they were all friends who I’d asked to follow me, it’s gradually grown overtime, hopefully because some of those posts have been useful and made people think I could be worth a follow for future useful content.

That’s what I hope my blog provides. It makes me no money, but if every now and then one post teaches someone something useful to their fitness journey then it’s made an impact. As fitness professionals our aim is to help the people we train make positive changes to their health and lives. By also writing this blog I can hopefully spread that net of small changes a little wider (beyond people I know, have met or trained) and as the blog (hopefully) continues to grow it can hopefully also help create more positive changes to more people’s fitness journeys.

Priorities

Fitness is about prioritising. We can’t do everything. You can have lots of goals, and they can cover multiple disciplines or be very different to one another, but in reality at any given time you need to focus on one more than the other.

If you’ve multiple different types of events coming up, you’re going to need to focus your training to the event coming up as it draws nearer, as other elements of your routine perhaps drop off a little. If you’re a Les mills instructor and new releases are coming up, you’re probably going to find your own training pulls back a bit as you spend more time learning choreography and practicing moves. If you’re goals are aesthetic you might find you need periods in a calorie deficit and periods in a surplus as you focus on different things. My point is, even if you consider yourself a Hybrid athlete because you don’t just do one thing, you will need to inevitably focus in on certain things at certain times in order to achieve various goals.

Part of being able to do this is accepting that you can’t do everything all the time and being flexible and prioritising what’s going to be most beneficial to you at that point, and then letting go of the thing you can’t do right now without stressing. Trying to do everything at once makes it much less likely you’ll be able to succeed.

Rules are Rules

If calories in is less than calories out you will lose weight.

I’ve done no exercise in the last couple of weeks because I’ve been ill. I’ve also eaten, in terms of nutritious food, poorly. Essentially I’ve eat what I can a) stomach and b) make or buy with minimal effort. That has been food, most people would generally consider ‘bad’ and pretty high calorie in comparison to density. But I’ve not eaten much of it because I’ve been ill.

I lost weight, quite a bit quit quickly.

Because even though the food wasn’t low calorie or ‘healthy’ I ate fewer calories than I was using to exist (I was ill, I was literally just existing!).

Remember that even if you aren’t doing everything you think you should or being perfect, if the basic principles of a calorie deficit are being adhered to the results will still come. Your body doesn’t over rule a calorie deficit because you didn’t eat enough fruit or veg that week.

Change

Often as a PT we will talk to clients they will say they really want to make changes, eat better, train more, sleep better, lose weight, gain weight and so on.

We identify the things holding them back from these changes happening.

We suggest ways of overcoming these hurdles.

Let’s say eating out a lot is holding back someone from losing weight. We might suggest changing what they order to a lower calorie option, ordering one less course or skipping one meal out a week to socialise in a different way instead (like going for a walk or t the cinema).

Those aren’t dramatic suggestions, they’re adjusting the norm a bit for something you want.

Do you know how often we hear, but when I go out for dinner I want to order what I enjoy, if I’m spending money on it I want to get what I really want and other variations of the same theme.

And that’s fine. Nobody is saying you can’t. But in this situation you have to decide what you want more. The change you have said you want or the ideal dining experience. If you really want the change, you have to make adjustments. I’s about which thing you want more- there’s no right of wrong here, but you do need to be honest with yourself.

If you find that every time someone suggests an idea that might help you move closer to your goal, you find an objection. I you aren’t really willing to make any small sacrifices, if you already think your way of doing things is right anyway, it might be worth considering how much you really want that goal you’ve set. Because to create any type of change you have to actually make changes.

Why Pay?

There’s so much information for free on the internet why would you ever pay for a PT?

It’s true you could lose weight without paying anything. You can work out your TDEE and track calories for free using apps, you can plan your own workouts within a gym or even at home. There is literally no need to pay anything beyond your weekly food shop to get results.

As long as you do the work.

What is hard though is staying consistent, motivated, accountable to yourself, and sticking to the basic principles regardless of the noise and fads around you.

This is where PTs and online coaches come in. They might not tell you anything you don’t already know (of course they might) but they will hold you accountable, work with you on the tough days and when your mindset starts to wobble help you. Knowing things is all well and good, applying it is much much much harder. A PT will also have experience with actual people. Advice online is generic, for instance, a TDEE calculator can be pretty accurate but won’t take into account the actual person, the little specifics about them that might mean that number needs adjusting. Here is where having an actual coach in your corner makes a difference. The other difference is buy in. Investing in something will often make you more committed to it, paying for a coach in itself might just make you a bit more invested in actually sticking to what you’re doing when things get tough, because even with a coach you still have to put in the work so having parted with cash you might just find yourself more motivated.

Consistency

I hate the feeling of unless things are perfect you’re failing. I think most of us know that consistency is more important that perfection. But it’s tallying the two notions up and finding the balance and feeling ok with that, that’s difficult.

I tend to beat myself up if I’ve not done everything I meant to in a week. I can have eaten in a calorie deficit but just not necessarily the meals I planned to and I can have trained more than most people, just not completing every session I meant to, and see that as a bad week. When in reality it’s helped me get closer to my goals regardless. The issue in my head is that I’m not meeting the standard I decided to set for myself, even though in reality I’m pretty consistent.

I think I’m pretty common on this.

Part of it comes from social media. On the one hand you see people talking about consistency but at an epic scale. Like, say you see someone super fit who trains on an epic scale every single day or runs every day and then presents this as consistency and shows you all the benefits from creating those habits. Now that’s both inspirational and a little bit disheartening. Because on the one hand you think look at them and if I was consistent like that it could be me. On the other hand, in reality how many people can be like a PT who works in a gym or an influencer who trains as a job? And when it’s someone who has a full time job and still manages to train like crazy, well that’s amazing but what have they had to give up to get it done? Prioritising getting a session in over sleep or seeing your friends isn’t admirable commitment, in my view it’s a bit worrying. Because consistency is getting things done and doing it regularly and week after week but not at the expense of everything else. It should help enrich your days not overtake them. Yes you need to find consistency to regularly make time for your health but also be ok with things changing, not happening, missing sessions or meals.

Of course there’s the other end of consistency, where you consistently do nothing and put getting started off. If you keep saying you’re going to implement a habit and then don’t so put it off for another week, well that won’t help you either. In these situations doing it and not being consistent at first is going to be better than taking an all or nothing approach. If you can then turn that into doing the habit more often than you don’t you will eventually find that consistency.

We need to remember too, that consistency can be lost and regained. Illness, injuries, life events can throw us off balance and it can be hard to regain that momentum again after sometimes. That’s not a failure on our parts, it ‘s pretty normal, and beating ourselves up about it probably does more harm than good.

Diet and exercise really is a lot about mindset and balance – not being all in one camp or all in another, not being all or nothing. Having goals but also being ok about where you are now, being able to celebrate what you can do or have done whilst also aiming to improve. Mentally that’s hard because you have different voices in your head competing and our brains tend to quite like black and white thinking and we’re less comfortable with the various shades of grey, so you have to find a way of not letting that make you feel bad. Fitness is in reality largely a mindset game.

Control the Controlables

You can’t control what happens but you can control how you react to it.

This applies to all aspects of life, things around us, decisions of others, other people’s actions will have an impact on your own life and change things, whether it be for the better or worse. Sometimes you might be able to influence them a bit but sometimes things really are beyond your control. When that happens how you decide to respond to it is the only thing you do have control over. You could ignore something, hide your head in the sand, decide to take the best curse of action available and so on. You can be angry and frustrated or decide no to stress about things you can’t control or anything in between.

This applies to your diet and exercise too.

Things will happen most weeks that stop you doing what you planned. Kids get sick, work deadlines, a cold, a birthday, the list is endless. Some of these things you can plan for and work round. Some will pop up and mean plans have to change and there’s not much you can do.

How you react to that is what matters here. You could press the f**k it button. Think well this weeks messed up so I may as well just do nothing and eat a load of junk and start again next week. Or you could think well, I can’t do what I planned but I could focus on doing what I can. I might not be able to cook the meal I planned but I could pick up something quick and easy and still healthy instead of ordering a takeaway. I might not be able to go to the gym after work now but I could still go for a quick walk when I get in and get some steps in and some fresh air.

Not only do these actions effectively act as damage limitation, they’re also more likely to make you feel more positive about yourself and the situation, less frustrated, and therefore not only just better about whatever happened in the first place also more positive about keeping working towards your goals.

Focusing on what you can control over what you can’t isn’t a magic wand. It won’t stop you being annoyed or frustrated about situations but it can help you reign those emotions in a bit and help you get the best possible scenario for yourself.

It’s OK to be Uncomfortable

Something to remember about losing weight, or mastering a new lift or sport or class or starting anything new fitness releated.

I often write that it needs to be sustainable and allow for breaks and blips and not be super prescriptive.

Too often though we can take that message to mean that we shouldn’t feel any discomfort.

The fact is if you need to consume less or move more it is, at first at least, going to be a little uncomfortable. You will feel hunger or achey or a little deprived or tired.

If you stop as soon as you hit this point because, YOLO, you will never create the changes required to change your body and fitness.

When we say it’s about balance don’t forget balance has two sides to it and as well as giving yourself freedom within your diet and exercise you also need to be able to exercise restraint and spend some time in discomfort too.