I’m Back

Well I haven’t written a blog post in ages!

This being fundamentally a fitness blog I’ve kind of lost my way with it as I quit teaching fitness classes and subsequently lost my fitness mojo too.

After years of having the regimented timetable of classes (which essentially means you have to exercise regardless of how you feel) the loss of structure made me feel a bit adrift. That’s not to say I haven’t trained, I’ve still lited sporadically, started attending some new classes which I really enjoyed and have run a half marathon and 10k. It’s just not quite the intensity I’m used to, and that, combined with illness and hormonal changes I’ve put on weight and generally lost a lot of confidence.It feels like I’ve not quite managed to gte that spark back.

I signed up for a challenge in October with the aim of getting myself out of that funk, but realised it was too soon and that made me even more demotivated. So I’ve had a total rethink.

I’ve split my goals up into several chunks over the next 16 months or so (obviously subject to change) and will be focusing on different things one block at a time, to give myself more structure and make it all seem much less overwhelming.

For the next 10 weeks I’m focusing on the basics. Rebuilding some strength with some basic lifts and overload in the gym, working on my diet to lose some weight and trying some different things to get myself out of a rut.

Last week I tried a Tower Pilates class (the tower looks scary but it was actually good fun and I really felt like I’d worked afterwards) and I’ve signed up to a block of sessions at that pilates studio. I’ve also signed up for a trial of Class Pass and have booked in a few different classes over the next couple of weeks.

Hoping that by breaking my goals and training into periodic chunks I’ll start to feel the difference and feel good again.

January is almost over

Wow, January is almost done and I’ve not written a blog post this year yet (or even since the start of the December). How have you found January? Have you managed to get started with resolutions for 2024 or has the month just slipped away? In my head I’ve been thinking well we’ve just got started with the year and I’ve loads of time then all of a sudden one month is almost over and I feel like I haven’t really achieved much yet. If I’m fair to myself I have though, but I think to realise that I need to properly reflect on what I have actually done.

My goals this year are:

Lose some weight – ideally 10kg
Regain strength (deadlift 120kg, Hip thrust 200kg, unassisted pull up, press up on toes as basic markers to aim for)
Improve mobility so I don’t become the actual tin man
Get better and more consistent at running – aiming to get closer to a 30 min 5k, 60 min 10k, 2.5 hour half
One (staying secret for now) physical challenge
Grow this blog and business
Travel more
Try new things and tick things off my bucket list

So at the stat of the year I worked out what I needed to do to reach these targets,

I have a rough, subject to change, plan of my strength and running training for the year. Focusing on different aspects of strength training at different points in the year and building up running with my first target being a half in May.
Getting to Park Run consistently.
Stretching weekly.
Attending classes as a participant.
Sticking to a calorie deficit.
Writing blogs regularly.
Plan and book some trips for across the year and look to book things oon my bucket list and other things to do that are new.

January hasn’t been perfect. I have been going to the gym, although I feel like I’m not in a habit with this. I’m starting from scratch – light an getting back into the habit so I can start to rebuild the weight. I have been getting to classes though, I’ve found two I really enjoy- a step class and a strength class that I’ve been pretty consistent with. Running has been harder, the weather (ice and wind) is a challenge and I’ve not made a Park Run yet. I also haven’t really stretch much (mentally I have such a block here as I don’t enjoy it). I’ve also really struggled with my food intake, I’ve over eaten most weeks. So in those terms I’ve made a start with moving more but need to turn my attention to my diet now and just be more sensible because my weight won’t shift without doing this. At the same time I need to remember that I’m never going to be perfect and instead of pressing the f**k it button when I slip I just need to be better than I have been at these things even when it’s not ideal.

As well as trying step, which was new to me (in the past when I’ve tried I’ve never kept up) I’ve started a beginners Sala course and it’s fun! I’ve also got my first trip of the year coming up, I’m off to Malta on Monday for an exploring holiday (and a bit of sun) and I’m umming and ahhhng about where else I want to go. I’m weighing up an epic trip that I think would be amazing but would be scary to do on my own.

How have you done in month one of 2024? I think the thing to remember is that we can’t do everything straight away and as much as I’d like to say oooh I can already see results and like I’ve made loads of progress the fact of the matter is that January is cold and miserable and that makes things harder, so I’m taking January as laying the foundations and February will be where I want to actually feel things starting to take shape.

Hard

What was the hardest personal goal you’ve set for yourself?

I think the hardest goal I ever set myself was to run a marathon.

Back in 2014 after running my first ever 10km event, which was in itself a massive challenge seeing as a year before I couldn’t run a kilometre, I decided to sign up for a marathon.

That was in May and in October I ran my first ever half before crossing my one and only marathon finishing line in May 2015.

What was harder than the day itself for me was the training. Training for a half is one thing but I don’t think I realised how much time marathon training takes up. It takes over your life a little.

Beyond time, you need to adjust your diet, deal with niggles and injuries and tiredness and generally always feeling emotional.

I think now, I’d only do another one if it was London, like a bucket list one, because for me it takes up so much time and energy you have to really want to do it.

Think, Plan, Do, Check In

How do you plan your goals?

Goal setting, something which can help you focus in on what you want but also something that can seem a little overwhelming. Like honestly how many times have you put of doing something until you’ve planned it out and put off planning it out because you just don’t know where to start?

Goals and all they entail come in two parts – firstly you need to know what you goal is and why, because honestly, a goal you don’t really care about will not help motivate you. The goal you have needs to mean something to you, be something that will bring benefit to you in some way.

Then they need to be achievable. If you’ve never run before aiming to be in the next Olympics probably isn’t going to happen right. But even the more mundane of goals needs to be realistic. If you’ve got a full time and kids aiming for something that requires 5 hours of gym time a day is setting yourself up for failure. You want something that will push you, that’s tough sure, but it does need to be possible for you and your lifestyle.

Then you get to the planning, the how. Here I find it easiest if I break it down. Work backwards, what do I need to be able to do, how can I do those things and what will I need to do step by step to get there. Once you have those steps you can plot them, how much time will you need on each one, when will you do them, how will you fit them into your week, what equipment will you need, who will you need to ask for help from. Once you’ve done that your plan is literally mapped into your diary, it’s appointments that you just need to keep each week. Your goal suddenly is just something you’re doing anyway and that makes it’s way easier to reach.

Regular check ins with yourself are then needed. Each week or month you want to see if you’re where you wanted to be. If you are great. If not you’ve got the chance to rejuvenate your plan a bit. Do you need to slow things down, do a bit more, repeat a few steps again.

Goals once reached sound inspirational, great, like someone just woke up one day and said I’m going to do xyz and just did it via pure determination. In reality, you need to think, plan and create habits to reach goals and realistic planning is the key.

If you’d like to hear more of my ramblings on goals here’s a podcast I did last year …

https://anchor.fm/heather-sherwood/episodes/Goal-Setting-Your-Why-and-How-e1pver7

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.

February

It’s a new month. January both managed to go by really fast and also have 493 days in it. I don’t know how that works!

You may be one of the few that has had a flying start with resolutions, in which case well done! If you aren’t and January has ended and you feel like you haven’t quite started the things you wanted to, seen results you hoped for, or things just haven’t gone perfectly to plan, that’s ok.

A new month can be quite like a new year, a fresh page (if you are the type of person that needs that fresh start, new week type of feeling you may as well acknowledge that and work with it). Try taking some time to decide what you want from the month and setting some small goals that you can work towards. I’m not talking, losing a stone or massive things like that. I’m talking about goals that you can hit and track which will help you work towards those more wide sweeping weight loss or training goals.

Perhaps you will hit 10,000 steps a day and drink 2 litres of water every day, maybe you will make 10 minutes free each day to write down what your grateful for, get outside for fresh air every day, get 8 hours sleep a day, arrange a catch up phone call or coffee catch up with a friend once a week. Little things like this add up to bigger results but also feel more achievable to start with and also at the end of the month when you look back you feel like you’ve hit your goals.

Things don’t need to be perfect in February, you can miss runs or training sessions, you can eat Pizza on a Monday and you can have the odd day where lunch ends up being a McFlurry (to be honest i recommend you do this at least once a month anyway). Consistency will always beat perfection because you will never be able to maintain perfect for any length of time.

Project 40- Week 11

January is actually pretty well underway, it feels like we’ve only just come back after Christmas but it’s already 16th. It just goes to show that January is a funny month and I do wonder why we think it’s the best idea to start all the ‘new’ stuff in a month where it’s mostly dark, we have financial and literal hangovers from Christmas and every other day someone tells you it’s meant to snow next week.

Nonetheless, I feel like I’ve got some stuff done already this year. I’ve shift a few Christmas pounds, am in a routine training wise (albeit, I do need to ramp this up if I want to do the fitness goals I’ve set myself this year) and I’ve done one thing that scared me already with my other not fitness thing that scares me hopefully sorted for when it’s a bit warmer.

What I know I need to do on pay day is book in some runs. Right now the goals are a bit too abstract for my brain to kick into gear and make me push myself harder in training sessions, once they’re booked I’ll have the fear factor to help me a bit. I, you see, know that I need a deadline to get stuff done. I’ll quite happily amble along thinking ahh yeah I’ll get to that if I don’t have something concrete to focus on.

I think the best piece of fitness advice I could give anyone this year who has set a fitness goal, whether you be new to the gym or a regular who’s set themselves some big ‘thing’ is select your event or milestone and do something to set it in stone (i.e. book the run, the swim, the competition spot) and use the fear that generates to garner a bit of motivation.

Go Hard or Go Home?

I am knackered. Honestly, this week there’s been times when my eyes could close by themselves as I sit at my desk. I think it’s because even though I worked and trained between Christmas and New Year, I still did a lot less than usual, had more rest, more early nights, more lie ins. This last two week I’ve been up at 6am or earlier most days, works been busy, I’m back to teaching and fitting in training and running too. Obviously I ate more too, and now I’m, trying to reduce my calorie intake a bit.

This is the time of the year when you want to make lots of positive changes but it’s also the time of year when you need to get yourself back in he swing of things. The two don’t always go perfectly hand in hand, because making yourself too tired isn’t going to help you stick to the changes your making.

I’ve skipped a couple of planned runs this week, just to get a bit more rest and reduce how tired I feel. I know that in a few weeks once I’ve readjusted to my normal routine again I won’t feel as tired, it’s just something I need to manage myself back into.

If you’re completely new to exercise though, have jumped in with both feet, and suddenly feel like you’ve been hit by a bus, remember that you don’t have to do everything all at once and that whilst your body will adjust to an increase in activity, too much too soon can be detrimental. I think you are much more likely to give up on a new habit if it feels too hard.

Ambition is great, setting big goals is too. Go hard or go home isn’t always the best way to look at these things though.

2023 Goals

If you’re looking to make changes or set yourself some challenges for 2023, it isn’t enough to just want things to change, you need to work out what actions you need to take to make those changes happen.

Here’s a podcast all about goals, what, why and how…

https://anchor.fm/heather-sherwood/episodes/Goal-Setting-Your-Why-and-How-e1pver7

New Years Non Resolutions

Do you make New Year’s Resolutions?

Up until a few years ago I did – I’ve made many New Year’s Resolutions over the years, in fact honestly I’d make the same resolutions year after year which I never kept.

These days I don’t make New Year’s Resolutions as such. Here’s why:

January is a shit time to make drastic changes

It’s cold, dark and everyone is depressed and skint after Christmas. It’s a rubbish time to decide to suddenly make drastic and often restrictive changes to your life. Result is you feel miserable two days in and give up. Planning to give up chocolate on January 1st when you probably have a shed load of left over chocolate in your cupboards is practically setting yourself up for failure. Deciding not to drink in the most miserable month of the year is going to become unappealing quickly.

Resolutions tend to be negative

Generally we say things like I’m going to give up… sugar, wine, chocolate, smoking. It’s something we are NOT going to do anymore. This means we feel like we are depriving ourselves. Depriving yourself is rarely a long-term plan for success.

Resolutions tend to be vague

I want to lose weight, I want to get fit, I want to earn more money. They are goals / outcomes we’d like to reach yes, but they aren’t very specific and how and when they will be achieved isn’t always clear. How often do you make vague plans with a friend to ‘catch up soon’ only for that catch up to not happen? It’s not because we don’t want to catch up it’s just because we’ve been too vague for anything to actually happen. Resolutions can be a lot like that.

Resolutions end up leaving you feeling worse about yourself

If you don’t succeed then you feel like a failure. Yet if you set something too restrictive and ambitious you’re unlikely to stick to it and so you’re essentially setting yourself up to feel shit.

Negatives out the way – I fully believe in improving things – here’s what I think is better than making New Year’s Resolutions and why:

Change when you are ready

There’s a popular saying that if you’ve thought about it you’re ready. Right now, 2 days before New Year Day – if you’re thinking about stopping drinking fizzy drinks – stop. Right now. Why wait until Friday? If you want to start running start running – these things aren’t banned until January 1st.

Choosing to make positive changes

Positive changes are easier to put in place than ‘I won’t’ type changes. I will drink more water, I will eat vegetables with every meal, I will walk 10,000 steps a day. These are things you are going to do – so you do them and you’ve created a change. You might have also eaten ten chocolate bars but you’ve still eaten vegetables with every meal, the change has still happened. Positive changes make us feel better and so we are more likely to stick to them.

Goal setting over resolutions

I don’t make resolutions any more but I have sat down and done some goal setting for 2023. I have decided what I want to achieve, these are specific goals so they aren’t things like ‘I want to get fitter’ they are set things I’d like to get done, some will be quick and relatively easy others less so. Along with these goals I have made detailed plans of what I have to do to reach these specific goals and planned out realistic timescales for taking these actions. I’ve asked for feedback from people more experienced than me on these plans and discussed goals that include other people with them so we are on the same page. I know what I need to do personally and professionally in 2023 and how I plan to do it. I’ve got more chance of reaching these goals than if I left I chance.

SMART resolutions

Specific, measureable, achievable, realistic and time specific. If you goal ticks all these things you’re more likely to be able to reach it.

Commit to creating habits / systems instead

If you want lose weight you could think of it as working towards creating habits that in turn help work towards weight loss. Make drinking more water, creating a calorie deficit and training three times a week a habit and you will achieve your goal but you also find it is something that starts to fit into your everyday life as opposed to something you have to work towards constantly. The benefit of this is you can pick one small thing to work on then once that has become a habit work on something else, building change gradually.

Re-framing how you think

Take a non fitness resolution (because it isn’t always about weight!) ‘I want to get over my ex and for them to see me looking happy.’

You could re-frame this thought process to what would make you happy? Seeing your friends more perhaps? So instead of I want to get over my ex you could say I want to go out and do something fun with my friends once a week / fortnight / month. Instead of focusing on becoming happy or getting over someone you could just commit to doing something that has the potential to make you happy and allow feeling happy and getting over them to happen naturally – all the time your still succeeding in your actual goal. It sounds very self help book but when you start to habitually re-frame your thoughts, you start to find it easier to make changes.

Whilst I’m at it – what do you read? Now I love a chick lit / crime thriller audio book, but I’d also recommend you consider some non fiction personal development books. I recently bought a couple of work books for things I want to work on this year, Amazon has books on anything you want to work on for yourself and it’s a small investment in working toward what you want to improve.

A New Year is a natural time to look to start things afresh but approached with more clarity and thought than just a New Years Resolution you can feel much better and positive come February.