A little different to my normal podcast topic this month.
I recently went on a solo trip to Croatia and got a lot of questions about travelling alone and lots of comments about how people would like to do it but are a bit unsure about how they would feel.
So here I talk about why I sometimes travel alone and some simple tips and thoughts about how you can make it less of a scary concept.
How are you feeling right now?
Tired!
I got in at 3am this morning and was in work today first thing. My flight back from Croatia was delayed so I got even less sleep than I was expecting. I had a great time though so I’m not too bothered.
The other thing I’m pleased with is how I’ve slipped back into my routine. Even though I was tired I made a nice breakfast, some lunch and snacks to take with me and had a pint of water and my supplements first thing. I’ve got my gym kits so I can go to the gym later. That’s helped me feel better even though I’ve had a lack of sleep, much better than if I’d just grabbed something from the work canteen or ordered a takeaway. Those small changes in habit recently have definitely had a positive effect.
What daily habit do you do that improves your quality of life?
Real life health is all about habits.
You might think it’s about eating ‘good foods’ or training every day or drinking protein shakes but really it’s about creating small habits that you can do everyday without really needing to think about it that help improve your general well-being.
Here’s a few things I try to do daily that have now become habits I barely even think about.
1) Drinking at least 3 litres of water. Staying hydrated is good for you.
2) Drinking a pint of water and taking supplements when I first wake up. Helps with habit number one, wakes me up and the supplements help contribute towards anything I might be lacking. I only take a general multi vitamin and Omega 3, nothing expensive – whatever shop brand I happen to come to when I need to buy some. The Omega 3 I take because it’s supposed to help combat depression and I have taken them since 2015 because of this (even if it’s a placebo effect I take it!).
3) Getting at least 10,000 steps a day. NEAT is arguably more beneficial than exercise in staying healthy.
4) Having a simple but regular morning and bedtime routine. Just simple things that tell my brain it’s times to wake up and time to go to bed because I do them daily. The routine helps me wake up and then later in the day fall asleep!
5) Eat 5 portions of fruit, veg or salad. It might be an old fashioned number to aim for but if you can get this in as a minimum daily you’re likely getting plenty of vitamins in.
If you can’t train or eat your normal diet or do the perfect things every day but you can keep to some simple daily habits you’re more likely to stay on track. These things can also act as anchors, things that keep you feeling in control even if you don’t manage to do everything you planned in a day. Mentally that can be a good thing to help you stay on track because a lot of the time it’s mindset that matters when it comes to making progress and staying consistent.
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!
Did you over do it over the bank holiday?
Changes to our routine can disrupt how we feel about our fitness levels. Long weekends and breaks are great but when you feel like you didn’t eat healthy enough or move enough it can make you feel like you need to be extra good in the days after to make up for it.
Did you say I’ll start Monday then realise you were off work Monday so now you’ll have to wait until next week?
The idea of the perfect week often means we decide to start again at the point things don’t go to plan, meaning we never quite get to the end of a week and just keep starting again.
Are you thinking I’ll start next year now because there’s only 4 months left and what can I do in that?
The idea of a perfect starting point, like January because then we’ve been good for a whole year can be tempting but when you start healthy habits doesn’t really matter, we won’t all reset back to zero on December 31st.
Do you have loads of things coming up so you think I’ll just wait until after to get started because there’s no point?
Well you might see slower results if you can’t be super consistent for the next few weeks but you’ll see more results from just doing what you can than you will if you just wait.
You’re never going to have a clear path, no distractions, no obstacles. You’re never going to be perfect for a whole week, month or year.
Being consistent and doing what you can when you can and more importantly getting back to your routine as soon as you can after any little changes (be them blips or planned occasions) is going to bring much better results than trying to be perfect.
What’s your favorite time of day?
This question was posed by WordPress today so given this is a fitness blog I’ll rephrase it, what’s your favourite time of the day to exercise?
Mine is morning. Now I hate getting up in the morning, my most committed relationship in the world is with the snooze button to be honest, but, once I’m up I love training first thing.
You just throw something on and go do it, nobody looks ‘put together’ in the gym first thing, and then once your done you can go shower, get dressed and feel smug for the rest of the day because you’ve already trained. I feel like when I train in the morning I just feel more positive and alert throughout the rest of the day. It’s so much easier to put training off as the day goes on and things pop up that you need to do, so when you’ve already done it before the day really starts you’ve just removed some of the pressure from yourself.
I do train in the evening, and more often than not at lunchtime, but I find both of those times never feel quite as good as morning sessions do. In reality lunch time is the most practical time for me because we’ve got a gym at work so I do tend to go quite frequently, but when work gets stressful I find myself skipping the session. I also try to limit the type of things I do because I need to be showered and back at my desk within the hour so whilst it’s a convenient options it’s not optimal. Evening sessions often leave me not ready to sleep and also when I get in from work I’m hungry so it throws out my eating a bit.
So the best time to train for me varies, and I’m lucky I can train either before or after work or at lunch time, but the time I always feel best for getting up and doing something first thing in the morning.
I wrote yesterday about how I felt better for eating more sensibly and cooking more from scratch, even though I wasn’t really tracking my calories or weight. I also mentioned how I’ve not been cutting anything out so I’ve eaten plenty of chocolate and had a few things like McDonalds.
One thing I’ve noticed is that I’ve not felt guilty about this. Generally I’ve felt better after days where I’ve made food from scratch and had plenty of fruit and veg but the days where it’s not been as good as that or evenings where I’ve had chocolate before bed I’ve still gone to sleep feeling good. Previously I’d feel guilty about these kind of things even if I knew I wasn’t over my calories, like mentally, foods like takeaways made me feel a bit bleugh, and I really do mean in my brain not just that I felt a bit sluggish.
I think that kind of mindset shift, where the 80/20 rule really does feel like it’s ok, rather than being ok in theory but still feeling a bit like a failure (if we’re honest) has done wonders for me, because now those meals that weren’t planned aren’t derailing the rest of my day of week.
A little personal update today.
I’ve had a little reset. I decided a couple of weeks ago to stop teaching for a bit. When I turned up at 6am to teach a class that I’d checked was on the timetable to discover it actually wasn’t, to be met with a shrug, I decided it was time for a break.
With that I’ve been able to focus more on my own training, right now weights are light but I’m going to have the energy to start to push myself a bit more.
I’ve also had more time to cook and eat better foods. I’ve not really been tracking and I’ve eaten well, still having chocolate and cakes, but also eating proper food and cooking from scratch a lot more.
I’ve not weighed myself so no idea of the impact so far but I feel better in myself. I’ve not found myself craving junk or wanting to eat the contents of my cupboard of an evening. Without checking my weight my clothes feel a little looser.
I feel at a bit of a crossroads with what to do with my fitness next. I don’t want to keep setting restricting challenges but feel like I need to do something new.
Any ideas?
I write a lot about calorie deficits to lose weight and how what you make those calories up of doesn’t matter in terms of dropping weight.
Of course that doesn’t mean that what you eat doesn’t matter. How you actually structure your diet to meet these calories will have an impact on how you feel.
The fact remains that you can eat foods in any combination, eat specific foods, eat at certain times. If you aren’t in a deficit you won’t lose weight, but once you’ve got the deficit thing nailed looking at what you actually eat can help you progress further and feel better with it.
Increasing your protein intake for instance, that can help you feel more satiated, which in turn makes calorie deficits feel easier.
Swapping out some of your sugary snacks for fruit will make you feel better over time and also reduce the calorie value of your snacks.
Looking to fill up on denser lower calorie foods (piling your veggies high for instance) will keep you full but also help stay within your calorie goal.
Focusing on eating homemade food with lots of salad and veg included will make you feel better than takeaways and grab a go sandwiches, probably be lower calorie and reduce your spending.
So of course how you chose to make up those calories does have an effect.
Why do PTs tend to say calories matter more as a headline theme then?
Because our nutrition is like a pyramid and you need to have the foundations right before you build on them.
If you aren’t yet in a deficit then looking at changing everything about what you eat and worrying about the specifics of what certain foods do for you is going to feel overwhelming. Quite simply if you can hit a calorie deficit by cutting a snack out, reducing your portion size, changing your McDonalds order from Large to regular, making your takeaway coffee an Americano instead of a Pumpkin Spiced Late every day, well that’s going to make sticking to a calorie goal easier. Once you’ve adjusted to that then you can look at some more small changes bit by bit.
Generally speaking we are better at adjusting to small changes over time rather than overhauling our life all in one go, we are much more likely to stick with small changes consistently and consistency is what is needed to reduce weight and keep it off.
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.
Heather Sherwood Fitness 