Christmas JUMPer Shred – Week 4

Week 4 contained two main challenges- wave training and increasing my NEAT. Week 4 didn’t happen.

I’ve actually been working on increasing my NEAT anyway recently, but the way my week fell meant I not only did way fewer steps than normal (as opposed to actually increasing them) and didn’t fit a single one of the training sessions in.

On Monday night I headed to Edinburgh, which meant I wasn’t able to train Monday or Tuesday, Wednesday I had a PT session in the one hour slot I could have trained in and I drank far too much on Thursday meaning that there was no way I was going to be able to train Friday! Essentially the break from my routine and increase in long distance travel meant I didn’t train as much as normal and definitely walked less. It also meant I ate more fast food and ended up in a calorie surplus.

That’s not to say I had a terrible week. I did still get four short training sessions in. Knowing that I would not have the time to fit in the five shred workouts which all require around an hour, I instead did four short sessions designed by Ricky (between 15-30 minutes each), so I still moved and felt good about those sessions. I also enjoyed my food, even if there was a lot more of the Christmas stuff and takeaways than intended, just being mindful of what I was eating probably meant that I still ate less than i would have otherwise.

Some weeks you will not be able to get everything you want done, some weeks you will eat more than you intended. The key for me is not letting one week that didn’t go to plan throw me off track. I could look at last week as a failure, a week I didn’t complete of the Shred (in fact I’ve been maybe 60% on this 6 week Shred so far, which is what I planned), I could say fuck it and decide to just start again in January.

Or I could do what I’m actually doing. Look at this week as an OK week, a week where despite not training as planned or eating well I still did get some exercise in, I made the best of the time and opportunities I had and I didn’t let it throw me completely off kilter.

December is not the month to decide to do some kind of strict, I will be perfect plan. Equally December doesn’t need to be the month where you just let everything go and never train and eat and drink every single thing you see. Throughout the year I’d encourage the use of moderation in training and eating and in December this becomes all the more important (and harder to do due to the amount of temptations out there).

So week 4- outstanding success? No. Did it keep me accountable enough to not feel like I’ve ruined all the progress I’ve made this year/ Also no. That’s why I would always encourage taking part in programmes like the Shred- the accountability to yourself and others that it brings.

Christmas JUMPer Shred – Week 3

I started week 3 feeling good- I had lost a few pounds and generally felt good from being a bit more active than normal and a bit more aware of what I was eating.

Week 3 was a bit harder in terms in fitting in workouts. Certain jobs that needed doing such as my tax return meant that I didn’t train as much as I wanted and I relaxed how much I ate over the week, increasing my calories.

Could I have done more? Yes. But to be fair watching the videos and doing the workouts when I could, has kept me accountable going into December. For me that is going to be the key this month. I don’t want to miss out on the food and drink that’s going to be everywhere but also don’t want to completely let go of my routine. Therefore having an aim each week for training sessions and calories will keep me in check, even if I miss those goals slightly, trying to work towards those will keep me close to where I want to be.

That would be my key piece of advice for anyone looking to start a plan in the New Year. What you get out of anything depends on what you are willing to put in and there is no right or wrong way of defining success. Going into something knowing what you want out of it and how much you need to put in to get there means you’re more likely to succeed as your expectations will be realistic to your lifestyle.

Jump Shred – Week 2

Week 2 focused on getting on with some training, focusing on our protein intake and practicing gratitude.

As I had some training sessions already that I wanted to do I knew I’d struggle to plan in an extra five visits t the gym (there are five sessions a week, with the aim of doing at least three). I therefore decided to do some of the body weight workouts, meaning I could slot them in at home when I had a spare half an hour.

This is one of my key learnings over the last couple of years. I’ve always been a little all or nothing, so if I don’t complete exactly what I planned I viewed it as a failed week. This week I viewed my additional three body weight workouts on top of my existing training as an added bonus. I did more than I normally do, so even if it wasn’t what I’d ideally wanted it was a win. This is a great mindset tool for keeping yourself on track and not letting perceived failures lead you to quitting.

In addition I also carried on increasing my protein to 2 x each kg of my body weight. Now I’ll tell you straight off, that’s a lot of protein – I was aiming for around 170g per day. I actually ended up averaging around 180g a day. I felt full and satisfied and found myself eating a lot less processed food throughout the week, leaving me feeling good.

I’ve been practicing the gratitude challenge for a while now- recording every day what I’m grateful for, what went well and who I complimented. It’s a quick and easy way to encourage yourself to look towards the positives and overtime it starts to become a more automatic reaction to situations.

Overall this week kept me focused on the positives, got me to move a little more and eat food that made me feel good. A great week from making just a few tiny adjustments, demonstrating small changes done consistently can make a big difference.

Supporting Local Businesses

I know this is a food and fitness blog but as someone who themselves makes money being self employed I also like to try and support other small businesses.

Between that and Christmas coming up I wanted to spend today’s blog introducing you to my friend’s company Hamperoo.

If you are looking for a unique gift for any occasion have a chat with Charlotte and she can create either a pre-designed or a personalised hamper to match the recipient and your price range, and with lots of hampers around the £25 (and less) mark you can get a brilliant gift for a purse friendly price. Hamperoo can also deliver to anywhere in the UK with very reasonable postage and packaging prices.

From birthday hampers, pamper hampers, new baby hampers, children’s hampers (Toy Story, LOL dolls…), halloween gifts, Mrs Hinch hampers (this one confuses me but some people seem to like it) Christmas hampers, Christmas Eve hampers, Elf on the Shelf hampers – the beauty of being able to chat directly to the business owner is that the only restriction to the type of hamper you can create is your imagination.

Check out some of the hampers people have already bought below and follow Hamperoo here.

Hamperoo is now taking pre-orders for Christmas (and it’s probably time you start thinking about Christmas right!?). You can contact them via their Facebook page.

Supporting a local business doesn’t just help that person (over the big shops and companies) it also allows you to give a gift that not just anyone could buy so if you are stuck for a gift do give Charlotte a shout. She is the person who once announced that she wished she could learn to like eggs and asked me if I still did that strange thing on my lunch breaks (that strange thing being exercise) so you’re always guaranteed a good bit of banter with her as you plan you gift out!

5 Reasons Group Ex Instructors should consider signing up to Jump 4.2

Hello!

So today’s blog is actually a video. If you follow my blog you know I’ve been blogging about my progress on the fitness nutrition and mindset programme Jump 4.2. This is a bit of a follow up to that where I explain 5 reasons why any group ex instructors or regular participants who train a lot but aren’t getting the results they want should consider doing Jump.

I’m not your traditional advert for a fitness programme. I haven’t had a massive physical transformation in 8 weeks – I haven’t developed a six-pack. What I have gained from working with Ricky is a healthy relationship with food, my training and my own head. I can have weeks where I eat too much and don’t train of course, but now I can deal with them – they don’t derail my progress or make me feel like I need to start again. I know what I can achieve if I want to get super lean, equally I know where my happy place is where I’m fit, healthy and able to enjoy life.

I think that’s what most of us really want. Most of us don’t want to give up cake and cocktails or spend hours in the gym in exchange for abs- we just want to feel good whilst still enjoying our favourite indulgences. If that’s you then I’m the proof that Jump 4.2 works – I’m the most boring yet honest advertisement going!

The last intake in 2019 opens on 1st September. If you are interested and have any questions you can contact me on instagram DM @heather.sherwood or Ricky Long @rickylong42 or @jump4.2.

I have a couple of discount codes for 15% off – if you would like to sign up with a discount drop me a message.

Anyway – here’s my video!

Jump 4.2 Video

Jump 4.2 – Week 7

Week 7 and I want to talk about having a training goal.

Previously I’ve always been mindful to think of this as things like run a marathon or reach a certain weight, and they are goals and if they are things you want to do then perfect.

My issue recently has been that I’ve been really busy and adding an extra unnecessary stressor into my life (in my case I was determined to run more races this year) ended up just causing me to get over stressed, injured and not enjoy or even want to train. What used to be a good focus generating goal for me- running- became a stress that made me feel bad about myself and not want to train.

Same with my weight, instead of the goal of trying to drop a bit of fat motivating me it stressed me out and I probably put weight on, I definitely binge ate and had a guilt based relationship with cake.

The problem here is that training daily is vital for my mental health, it’s an anchor and doing something most days helps keep me happy. What I eat does also affect my mood- not in the form of only ever wanting to eat salad, but in the way that if I don’t get regular fairly balanced meals

The last seven weeks have forced me to think about what I realistically want.

I don’t mean what I want, because what I want is to be super lean, have super defined muscles, be able to run fast and lift ridiculously heavy weights.

What I realistically want though is to fit training into my day comfortably and enjoy it and eat plenty with variety and some sugary treats because I have a sweet tooth.

Because actually to train for hours a day I would need to let go of another commitment, to create the muscle definition that would be ideal I’d have to cut out a lot of the foods I love. Really, when I’m honest what I want isn’t some amazing achievement- I’ve got business goals to work on that require my focus – what I really want is a nice routine that makes me feel good, keeps me healthy, keeps me in decent shape and fits nicely into my current week.

So having a goal is important, but the goal doesn’t have to be training for xyz or aiming to be a certain size or weight. It could be to fit in two training sessions a week or eat x number of calories a day or even work towards improving lift in the gym.

Being a bit more flexible with your thinking surrounding training and eating can allow you to find a focus and goal that is more manageable and enduring than simply picking one of the more traditional goals.

Jump has made me think about my goals and changed my thought process to lead me to a place where I feel happier with my training routine. I know in the future when things change and I’ve more time I can adjust my goals again but for now I’m exactly where suits me.

Jump 4.2 – Week 6

Week 6 has been unremarkable.

OK so that sounds a bit crap.

It’s not and here is why.

I’m about to tell you why every programme or diet or plan you’ve ever tried and not completed has gone wrong.

Because nobody, and I mean nobody, does 8, 12, 16, 24, 52 weeks with no bad days or slip ups or missed workouts, unplanned meals, tasks not quite done at 100%.

What we are all prone to doing however is starting things with very good intentions and because we’ve paid for this we are going to do it perfectly and become a new person.

Have you ever seen that clip in the comedy Miranda where she tasks about being the type of person to jog, power walk to work, eat fruit and home baked muffins? I mean if you haven’t do you even have a sense of humour? I digress however- this is the type of optimism you start any new plan with. Then life happens (as I’ve said many times before) and you have that bad day / week and feel like you have failed so quit – that programme is clearly not for you… or it’s the wrong time…or you’re rubbish.

I’ve done this, like I’m not pretending I’m the exception here.

Now though I’m a bit different, I’ve approached this differently.

I knew that I wouldn’t be ‘on it’ for 8 weeks. I thought about maybe starting at a different time but at no point would I have 8 weeks to be ‘on it’, so I just started.

This week, much like the last six I’ve been ok. I’d say I’ve done most of the workouts, eaten ok 805 of the time and done the mindset tasks throughout around 80% of the time. Some days I have done things I’ve planned, some days I’ve not at all and some days I’ve kind of done them.

I’ve not transformed myself into a different person.

I have established a few more habits that I’m happy with – and when I say established, I mean started to establish- like they aren’t 100% embedded yet but habits take time and sometimes you slip as you work to set things in place.

So this week has been unremarkable- I have no amazing lightbulb moment to share.

I’m still working through the programme though, I’m happy with my progress, and I’m happy this progress is going to be longer lasting than any dramatic quick fix would be.

Jump 4.2 – Week 5

You know when you have those weeks where you just feel a bit blah, where no matter who much you try and do and even manage to do you have a nagging sense of failure.

That’s been me this week!

I’ve actually been pretty productive and got quite a lot done, I’ve trained, and I’ve eaten reasonably well – hitting a small calorie deficit, if not the 20% I was aiming for. I’ve also hardscaped my garden (which felt like it burnt around four million calories as well as burning my back!).

But I’ve not felt brilliant. The tough thing about these weeks is what do you do if you know you’re basically on track but you still feel a bit rubbish – it’s not the same as knowing you feel crap because you’ve not trained or have eaten nothing but takeaways.

What I have done is follow module 5 of Jump, get the training in, modifying it a bit on the days I felt crap and lethargic so I still did it just at a slightly reduced intensity. I’ve done yoga everyday, noted down things I’m grateful for every day, for more fresh air and generally tried to keep myself plodding along without dwelling to much on the nagging anxiety.

When we sign up to programmes or plans or start new health kicks we want 100% perfection and the moment we slip up or don’t do every single workout or eat every single meal we think I’ve fucked that up, I need to go back to the beginning and start again doing it 100% this time. This is why so many people don’t complete fitness programmes however they are structured.

Life is rarely uniform, things crop up all the time and the most successful lifestyles are ones which allow you to ride the ups and downs, have good weeks and bad weeks but importantly not stop and start again after the bad weeks.

To be fair just writing this reminds me that what I’ve felt of as a bad week really wasn’t bad at all, I’ve just not felt very sprightly and have been a bit run down. That’s not a reason to call a week a failure because if anything getting to the end of weeks like that and being able to brush yourself down and be ready for a new week is part of creating a healthy and sustainable lifestyle.

Jump 4.2 – Week 4

I’ve reached the half way point of Jump.

This week was a tough week – work, people, my period; you know those weeks where you aren’t feeling it- I’ve had one of those.

But the great thing I’m finding about this programme is that doesn’t matter. Life doesn’t need to be going perfectly to be able to work through it. Even though there’s been frustrations I’ve not felt down about it – I’ve used habits already practiced on weeks 1-3 such as writing down what I’m grateful for and what I have done well to stop myself getting down about what hasn’t worked and to stay upbeat and keep working to get things done nonetheless.

Training has been ok – I’ve not completed everything but I’ve had some good sessions. My food intake has been ok – I haven’t hit a calorie deficit this week – mainly because I’ve craved chocolate. Again what I’m pleased with here is how I feel about that. Sometimes these things would stress me out and make me feel like a failure because I haven’t done things perfectly. Right now I feel like perfect isn’t a necessity and although I’ve things I’d like to improve in week 5 I don’t feel like not being perfect so far has meant my experience on this programme hasn’t been useful so far.

This week’s message from my experience would definitely be that it’s worth changing your mindset towards yourself and your training / nutrition when want to improve how you feel and train.

JUMP 4.2 – Week 3

Week three of eight is almost over.

This week I moved from a Paleo based diet to monitoring calories. This has felt brilliant as as much as I can cope without bread it’s always nice to be able to eat these things when you fancy them.

I’ll openly admit that I’ve had cake or chocolate every day this week and have largely eaten what I fancy whilst sticking to making the majority of my meals rather than relying on ready made stuff. Despite being quite relaxed I was pleased to come out in a nice 20% calorie deficit, a nice position to be in without actually trying. That felt especially good as it makes me feel like my habits are strong enough to maintain a balance between eating well and enjoying food without having to fixate on what I’m eating.

Training wise I’m feeling good and despite it being Les Mills Launch week managed to get three training sessions in so I feel in control of my training.

I’ve also started focusing on what I’m grateful for, what I’m doing well and where I can compliment people. Writing these things down daily takes a couple of minutes but really focusing the brain on thinking in a more positive way. This really helped on Thursday when after having a horrible day at work I went home and moved on as opposed to letting it completely ruin the rest of my evening, a massive progression for me in terms of managing my own emotions.

After three weeks I’m feeling positive and loving that the exercises, videos and audio recordings don’t take up too much time and I can fit around everything else in my life.