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.

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.

Lean into Discomfort

If you’ve made some changes in the new year now is when it’s about to get tough.

Typically the first couple of days into something new aren’t too bad, any discomfort is balanced out by some optimism for the new. After that shine starts to wear off but it’s not yet a habit and no results can yet be seen, that is when it starts to get hard.

Because new breeds motivation but doesn’t last.

Results breed motivation but you need to do the habit for a while to see them.

Habits don’t require motivation but you’ve got to purposefully do the thing consistently first to create the habit.

So here is where it might feel difficult. Here is where you have to lean into a bit of discomfort and do things when you don’t want to, or say no to things when you want to say yes, or work when you would rather rest.

The thing is if nothing changes then nothing changes. So if every time you try and make a change you give up as soon as it gets hard noting will change. So if you do really want to make a change in 2022 and it starts to feel tough in the next few days / weeks, know it will get easier if you keep going but you have to lean into discomfort for a little while.

New Year New You

How’s your new year going?

It’s always really tempting to start your new year changes as of 1^st, because it feels like a clear slate.

In reality though, chances are you haven’t yet started and that’s ok. Being real, 1^st is generally still Christmas for a lot of us and this week will be the reality of going back into work and emails and to do lists and urgent jobs, which after a week or so sitting on the sofa is likely to feel knackering.

Remember it’s ok to start a new habit, hobby, training plan, calorie counting, whatever your new goal may be at any point in the year.

It doesn’t have to be 1^st January, it doesn’t even need to be a Monday.

Don’t beat yourself up if you haven’t started yet. Don’t beat yourself up if you started and have slipped up. In fact this year don’t beat yourself up at all, if something doesn’t go to plan just brush yourself down and get back on it.

Toxic Diet Culture?

Today I saw a post referring to calorie counting / losing weight (dieting) as toxic.

Toxic!

In 2022 can we please stop referring to anything we don’t personally like as toxic? Because whilst calorie counting may not be right for everyone that doesn’t mean it’s toxic. same with weight loss.

Now, quick caveat, there are people for whom calorie counting isn’t a good idea, it can indeed for some become obsessive and be damaging. For those people yes calorie counting is not to be encouraged.

But for many calorie counting is the most simple straight forward, cost effective and practical way of creating a calorie deficit – which if you want to lose weight – is what you need to achieve.

So let’s reframe the notion that calorie counting is toxic. Calorie counting is simply a method of tracking energy intake which for some people will work well but whom for some may not be beneficial.

Swimming is a very good way to exercise. Except not for me, because I can’t swim. Does that mean swimming is toxic and a bad way to train, because it doesn’t suit me? Pretty sure everyone reading said no in their head just then.

Very few things in life are in themselves toxic, our relationship with something may well be toxic, that doesn’t mean it is also toxic for everyone else.

Diets get a bad rap, because traditionally they’ve been seen as restrictive and not sustainable. That’s really not the case these days. Most coaches will encourage sensible calorie deficits and won’t suggest you cut out food groups or stop eating your favourite foods.

Diets are just using a bit more energy than you consume each day to create a physical change in your body. Unless you’re doing that to please someone other than you it is not toxic.

Certain things might be a bit triggering to us personally, that doesn’t mean they’re automatically toxic, I think it’s a bit unhelpful to ourselves not to recognise that, as it puts all the responsibility for our reactions onto society, when in reality we can’t control what other people say or do so we have to instead look to control how we chose to react to it.

New Year New You?

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. Beyond that, with Covid we, let’s face it, have enough restrictions to contend with anyway. 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

Resolutions tend to be vague

Resolutions end up leaving you feeling worse about yourself

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. You can chose to make a change any day of the year – it doesn’t have to be tomorrow.

Choosing to make positive changes

Goal setting over resolutions

I don’t make resolutions any more but I have sat down and done some goal setting for 2022. 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 2022 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

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 (commitment and Tier depending here – but there is always Zoom I guess). 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.

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, March, April and beyond.

Motivational BS

So January hasn’t started with a bang let’s face it. Another Lockdown being announced on day 4 of the new year didn’t exactly set me up mentally, and to be honest in terms of fitness and nutrition I hadn’t really finished the previous year well as it was.

I don’t know about you but I’m finding it quite hard to get motivated without access to a gym, dark mornings and nights and nothing planned to look forward to. I’ve signed up to a virtual year long running challenge but although that’s got me outside doing my weekend runs it’s not doing much for making me want to train in other ways through the week.

I’ve also been comfort eating. Now to be fair I’m not eating more than I used to but I am moving a lot less so it’s meant my clothes have bee getting tighter and tighter.

Here’s the thing. You may or may not have signed up to a fitness programme already, you may be considering it or you may just be thinking about putting your trainers on and taking up running or some other type of fitness type thing. Maybe you’ve got a nutrition plan that you should / will be following. Signing up, buying the trainers, knowing what you need to do doesn’t mean you’ll actually take action. You might expect the next line to read ‘Motivation is what you need’, but it’s not because that’s (excuse my French) bollocks.

I mean yes technically you do need t feel motivated to make the changes to see the change, but essentially we do not fall into two camps of people- the motivated and the unmotivated. That would imply those people who do things to work towards their goals are always motivated and never lose it or those that don’t are just lazy. In truth we all switch between feeling motivated and unmotivated all the time. This time last year or the year before that when I trained as habitually as I brushed my teeth it clearly wasn’t that I felt motivated to do so every day. Some days I really could not be arsed, yet I trained anyway. Some days I was knackered but I cooked a decent meal instead of turning to Uber Eats and MaccyDs. Motivation alone clearly isn’t the key to getting the results you want.

What you need are habits. I mentioned brushing my teeth just now. Do you brush your teeth every day? I’m going to assume the answers yes (if not please do). Is that because you are motivated to have nice teeth? Of course not, it’s just a habit, something you do, part of your day no matter how busy or tired you may be, lets face it – even when you stumble in drunk at 3 am you probably still brush your teeth before you fall into bed.

Doing the things you need to do often enough to see results requires consistency and to do something consistently you need to make the components of that a habit. So if you want to eat better that means making planning your meals a weekly habit, going shopping a weekly habit, prepping your lunch a weekly habit. If you want to train three times a week you need to make doing whatever you plan on doing a habit. As rubbish as I have been the last few months I’ve run at the weekends consistently. It’s a habit- I wake up, have breakfast and put on my kit and leave the house, don’t even think about it beyond what direction I’m going to aim for.

Creating habits isn’t easy, it can take time, you see relapses, it can take ages to get a habit in place. Habits however create results and seeing results come creates momentum to continue to continue to see results.

If like me you’re struggling to kick start yourself in 2021 break what you want into the small practical things you need to do (wake up earlier, go to bed earlier, set aside an hour three times a week) then try and make those tasks habitual and see how motivated you feel come the end of the month.

Control What You Can Control

Control what you can control.

This year has made it difficult to plan when it comes to anything, let alone your fitness. Gyms open, gyms closed, gyms open, gyms closed. Weights have been almost impossible to buy and the whole country realised that whilst running in summer is fun, running as your main source of exercise come October is a bit miserable.

In all reality we know that the first couple of months of 2021 are likely to be much he same. I won’t lie I’ve found this tough at times, every time I’ve felt like I’ve found a rhythm the rug has been pulled from under me and everything has changed again. Not knowing when things will change again makes it tough too.

But we cannot control this. Let’s face it Boris is in charge of the Country and doesn’t seem to be able to control it.

What we can control is how we chose to react in 2021. Maybe that means adjusting your plans right now so that you can do something that makes you feel positive in the next few weeks, even if it isn’t what you’d really hoped to be doing. Maybe it’s just accepting that we need t let go of some things for a bit and worrying about them again some other time.

Remembering there are some things beyond our control but that we can always make a choice in how we react to them is perhaps the most positive change we can make for ourselves this New Year.