Category: Motivation

Oooops

I fell off the rails a bit this weekend and did nothing.

It’s tough when you have a couple of days that don’t go to plan to get yourself back into a positive mindset and moving again.

However, I’ve got one week until I go away again and I want to feel good going into my holiday, so I’m planning on getting back to training and eating well this week.

Almost immediately it made me feel better (albeit a bit hungry1) and I went to the gym at lunch time for 30 minutes of weights with a BlokFit class tonight (something new again, which i believe is circuit based, but I’ve done the strength class and enjoyed it so hoping I’ll like this one too).

Just a reminder to myself that a bad day is only an issue if you let it affect all the subsequent days too!

Mood

Do you find your mood affects your fitness?

I think this is what I’ve really struggled with this week. I’m definitely a comfort eater, I struggle with binge eating, I’m definitely an emotional eater and I find it harder to commit to exercise when I’m stressed too, so this week I just haven’t done that well.

The difficult thing when that happens it’s putting it in the past and just moving on rather than letting it spiral on any longer. Last night I went and did a step and cycle class and felt so much better for it, and I’m trying to just eat better from today.

Motivation isn’t something you just have, it something you have to build from doing things and building momentum so I really need to start just doing things and rebuilding habits until I start to see results and that will be which fires that feeling of being motivated.

Winter Mood

Do you find it harder to exercise in winter?  I do and I don’t think I’m alone.

On one hand there’s less of a desire to go out and do things like sit in a pub garden and so I should have more time to dedicate to going to the gym, but equally when it’s cold and dark the urge to stay at home is strong.

Less sunlight and colder temperatures can certainly make people feel more tied and less motivated.  Light subconsciously boosts a lot of people’s mood, obviously in winter there are fewer hours of daylight so it’s not uncommon for us to feel more fatigued during the winter months.  Beyond that, cold and wet weather and even snow can make getting outside to exercise harder, when the weather is particularly bad even travelling to a gym may be difficult.  So whilst actually getting up and doing something would probably make us feel better, getting started in the first place often feels like a much bigger obstacle.

Now in the past, when training has just been so habitual I did it without thinking, this seasonal change had minimal effect on how much I did.  But in recent years it’s become much more of a notable thing for me.

The solution of course is sill to work on making exercise a habit rather than something you need to be motivated to do.  Like going to work or brushing your teeth, tings you just ‘do’ no matter whether you feel like you can be bothered or not, when training becomes a habit the weather won’t matter.

For me that means planning it in, making dates with people to do stuff and putting sessions in my diary like appointments so I don’t end up putting it off, as I do this I know I’ll start to rebuild those routines back into my week so how much I feel like training won’t matter, I’ll just go do it.

Diets Do Work

How many times have you heard the phrase diets don’t work?

I’ll be honest I’ve said this myself so many times.

Then in 2019 I went to Martin MacDonald’s Nutrition Tour and he said something that turned my thinking on this totally on it’s head. I’ll have to paraphrase because I don’t have the exact quote.

Diets do work, weight maintenance is what people fail at.

When we say diets don’t work, as fitness professionals we are saying it from a good place, as a way of trying to protect clients, but it isn’t actually what we mean. It’s a simplified statement to generalise what we mean.

Because the fact is diets do work.  Or at least they can if you follow them.

Firstly let me clarify here when we talk diet we generally mean a way of losing weight.  I’ve said previously in it’s most accurate term your diet is whatever you happen to eat, but as a society we hear diet and we think weigh loss effort.  That is how I’m going to use the word today.

I’ve also said before all diets, no matter how they are dressed up, work by creating a calories deficit in some way.  If you create a calorie deficit you will lose weight.  Some ways are healthier than others. Some ways are more likely to promote unhealthy relationships with food than others.  Some ways provide more education as to how you are losing weight than others and some pedal myths that you are in fact losing weight because of a pill or a shake or your food combinations instead of calorie control.  But, the fact remains you burn more calories than you consume you create weight loss.

Therefore diets do work.

I can say oohhh don’t do Herbal Life, Weight Watchers, Slimming World or whatever diet you want to put in place of that, but fundamentally if you do them and follow them you will lose weight.  It would be wrong of me to lie and say that is not the case.

So why do I and so many people say you shouldn’t follow a diet when they do work?

Because what we really mean when we say that diets don’t work is that diets, as opposed to educated lifestyle changes, work whilst you follow them.  When you stop following them and go back to previous eating habits they will stop working, and the issue with diets is that they are very often not sustainable in the long term or if they are sustainable they tie you into contracts with that brand.

Some diets are restrictive.  Anything very low calorie or which cuts out certain foods for no other reason than weight loss is hard to maintain forever.  Especially once you have lost the weight and the scale coming down every week no longer exists as motivation.  I’ll tell you from experience no matter how much you believe staying at your ideal weight will be motivation enough it really isn’t.  Therefore very restrictive diets are difficult to maintain long term and so if you don’t have the knowledge and acquired skills on how to maintain weight once you reach your goal it is the maintenance part you may struggle with, and this is often why we see people yoyo diet.

Other diets are certainly less restrictive and I do see that there is honestly no reason why once ready to maintain weight you could not continue with them.  The issue with these is they very often tie you into a product.  Weigh in groups for instance (Slimming World, Weight Watchers and so on).  You could continue to attend these and eat in this way quite comfortably to maintain but you must continue to buy into the method because there is a lack of education included to allow you to go alone.

Equally things like Herbal Life, these can be promoted by PTs who also provide education around nutrition.  But they integrate their products into that education, so you believe you not only need a protein shake and a herbal tea and a pre workout and a meal replacement shake to lose then maintain weight, but you need that particular brand.  I believe that psychologically if we have succeeded in losing weight on those products we will believe even more so that they are important to remaining on track.  This essentially means to maintain weight loss you are tied into a product for however long you maintain.  If you suddenly can’t afford that product, mentally it is a lot easier to then lose that maintenance.

So when a PT says diets don’t work what we really mean is the diet phase is really not that important in the grand scheme of things.

You want to lose 3 stone.  You think that that is the hard part and then keeping it off will be easy.  Nope, at 1lb a week allowing a few weeks where you lose nothing you can comfortably lose 3 stone in a year (less if you are very focused but actually you don’t want to be obsessed with losing weight).  Say you are 25 and live to 98, that is 1 year of weight loss and then another 72 keeping that weight off.  If you are successful at this the majority of your life is in the maintenance phase not the diet phase (obviously not taking into account life changes etc).

So when we say don’t diet, we mean diet if you wish to lose weight, but don’t follow a fad.  Learn about calories, get a coach,  not a diet plan (PTs can provide advice and education not diet plans unless they are qualified nutritionists), get an idea of how much energy you need to eat.  Then eat that food in a way that suits your lifestyle (by the way that could be paleo, via fasting or another method if you are also aware of your calorie consumption).  If you do that once you hit your goal you adjust your calories slightly and just continue as you were.  The key here is all the time you have eaten normally, in a way that really suits you – not in a special magical way that has helped you lose weight but requires a lot of thought every day / week or a lot of money.  The key is you’ll know why you lost weight and don’t attribute it to magical speed foods (yes Slimming World I’m looking at you) or a magical pill (there might well be a product out there you love that makes you feel great and that’s cool, use it, feel great but all the while know that product is not the reason for your weight loss).

A decent PT knows if they do their job well you won’t need them forever – if they try and make you reliant on them forever they pretty much just want your money.  We might retain clients for a long time because they feel the benefit of our support or thrive from the accountability, valid reasons to see a coach, but we want clients to understand where their results come from – not to mystify them so they remained chained to us.  Whether you chose to continue working with a coach or not you should be given the skills that if you went it alone you have knowledge and are empowered to do so.

Diets do work. We struggle with maintenance. That’s why dieting in a sustainable and suitable way paves the way to a greater chance of success with maintenance, and if you are currently dieting or thinking about starting a weight loss journey know both that and this. Weight loss isn’t what you want. What you want is to be able to maintain that once you reach the goal. You don’t want it to be a short term thing so don’t look at short term options.

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.

Monday

Monday tends to be a day of starting.

Much like 1st January or the start of a new month it feels like a fresh page and the perfectionist part of most of us likes the idea of a chance to start again and do everything just right.

So often though, by 10am we’ve not done what we planned, not been perfect, dropped the ball in some way and feel like another week is a write off.

People who you would view as fit, healthy, motivated, the people who generally look like they have their shit together aren’t perfect though.  They don’t do everything absolutely on the ball every day.  Whilst their Instagram video might imply they do, they will of course sometimes over sleep. Miss a gym session, eat something that isn’t Instagram aesthetically pleasing.

What they do though is remain consistent. Some days they won’t do all those little healthy habits but they will do more of them more often than not.

This is the key to gaining results, not looking for the ideal week where a morsal of sugar does not pass your lips or where you are on a treadmill for more hours than you are not.

Doing little things that will help you reach your goal more often than you do not do them.

If you haven’t started this on Monday you can start this on Tuesday or Thursday or Friday.  

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.   

Calorie Hacks

Are you trying to lose weight and struggling to stay within your calories? Truth is we all go through periods where this happens and with better weather coming up you’re likely to find it a little bit harder anyway as you find yourself out enjoying the weather more.

So what can you do to help keep your progress on track?

  • Plan your weeks meals in advance.
  • Prepare any meals you can in advance, especially for days you know you’ll be busy, that way you’re more likely to stick to your plan.
  • Treat your calories as an allowance for the week rather than per day, that way you can have days you eat more, higher calorie food and still stay on track.
  • If you know you are going out work out what you’ll need calorie wise for that meal and account for that in your plan for the week.
  • If you know you’re going to want an ice cream, cake or whatever at some point, include it in your plan for the week s you are still on track without losing out on the things you enjoy.
  • Consider options – would an ice lolly instead of a 99 be ok when you pass an ice cream man on a trip to the beach? Do you need the super cream filled high calorie coffee as well as the piece of cake or would an Americano with the cake be satisfying enough? Picking lower calorie options can be a good way of staying on track. But if you’d feel you missed out and deprived it’s probably better to just plan the ice cream into your week!
  • Be flexible. Honestly sometimes things are going to come up and put a spanner in the diet works, but living your life is more important than losing weight so when that happens don’t beat yourself up.    
  • Balance YOLO and Moderation. If you always think F**k it at any point where a bit of restraint is required you won’t see results (now that’s ok – I’ve been like this in recent years and you can totally decide to take this tact with life) but if you always refuse to do fun things or eat the amazing cake because you want to lose a pound this wee you’re missing out on life. Finding a balance that works for you on when to make the sensible choices and when to throw caution to the wind will help you stay consistent.

I’ll Start on Monday

Starting things on a clear starting point always feels good.

January 1st – New Year

1st Month- New month

Monday- New Week.

Mentally we have this fresh start mindset with these kind of days and dates.

The problem is, if you decide to start on a Monday and it goes wrong on Wednesday, you end up writing off the rest of the week to start again Monday. Or you get to October and think well I might as well wait until January now. All that time in between start points just takes you further away from your goal. In fact if you think well I’ll start again Monday on a Thursday you far more likely to binge over the weekend because you know what’s coming.

The first thing to remember is it doesn’t matter what day you start. You can start the gym or a diet on a Friday or 6th of the month or November, calories don’t only work in week or month long blocks.

The next thing to understand is you don’t need to be perfect. The only reason you want to stop a diet or training plan once you start is because you feel you’ve failed. You probably feel like you’ve failed when you don’t manage to do everything you planned to. Yet you are never going to stick 100% to something with no meals out, takeaways, days when things go wrong, days when you’re too busy to train. Accepting that a ‘bad’ day is just that and getting back to it the next day keeps your progress on track and means you won’t keep having to ‘start again’.  

Progress is rarely linear. When we start anything we have ups and downs and your fitness or weight loss are going to be no different. Restarting every other week will be much more detrimental to that progress than the occasional bad day.

That’s not to say if what you’re doing for you doesn’t suit you and isn’t working for you, that you should just stick with it. If you want to train differently, try something new. If you wat to adjust your eating habits to suit you better, you can. Instead of seeing it as starting again though, see it as an adjustment in a long term journey, where you are going to make changes as time goes on. Those changes will be what keeps progress coming.

It might make things feel a bit messier but life is pretty messy so trying to make your fitness and diet the exception to life is pretty pointless.