motivation – Page 2 – Never Give Up PT

10,000 Steps

I don’t have a device that tells me how many steps I do each day, but if I did, this past week would’ve been off the scale.

During the half term holidays I have been helping out at a sports club for children aged from 5 to 10. The idea is to get the kids as active as possible and to encourage teamwork, movement and healthier eating. And of course if the kids are moving, the coaches are too! One of the coaches did wear a gadget to track his steps and they were over 20,000 by the time the kids had gone home for the day.

During half terms my usual training routine of gym work gets out to one side. This is fine as I schedule these events into my annual training plan. In effect, I know that I don’t need to use the treadmills in the gym for my cardio if I have a productive NEAT (Non Exercise Activity Thermogenesis) regime. And whether it be staying active with my own children or being active with 50 other children, I am comfortable with my activity levels. So I don’t particularly need a device to tell me that.

However, just like tracking my calorie intake, it’s good to check in from time to time and keep myself on my toes! So using such a device is always a credible way of keeping on top of things.

So if we take a look at what 10,000 steps a day can do for your body, hopefully we can all achieve a healthy and balanced lifestyle without slogging it in the gym every day or feeling depressed because we haven’t managed to get to a fitness class this week.

According to research, 10,000 steps a day can strengthen your heart and keep blood pressure under control. It can reduce body fat and maintain a healthy weight (with a sensible eating plan). It can improve stability, muscle tone and strengthen the core. Getting your steps in each day can also improve brain function and help with lowering anxiety and depression.

And we don’t have to panic if we only manage 5,000 steps on some days. We all need to sit and binge watch the new series of You, right?! But it just means that we average out our steps throughout the week. Some days you’ll probably hit the 20,000 mark if you are generally active.

So have a think about how you can achieve more steps into your week. Also, check out a device that will count your steps. It doesn’t have to be expensive, a free app can give you an idea of your activity levels.

And once you find the activities that you enjoy, you’ll find that you don’t even need to be running with 50 kids every day to achieve your steps!

Winning?

“I like to think that money wouldn’t change me, but when I’m winning at Monopoly I’m a terrible person.” Anon.

So tonight I beat the family at Monopoly. It’s my second win in a row actually. Last week was the Scarborough edition and tonight was the Yorkshire edition. They stood no chance once I built my hotels around Castle Howard.

I find the game a good learning experience for the kids. They follow rules, take turns, count and subtract, have fun as a family without technology. Hmm. They won too. They just don’t know it yet.

Of course they want to be the one who is the richest by the end of the game. According to the rules that’s how you win, right? But they took part. Isn’t that what counts?

Ok. I’m not comfortable with the ‘It’s the taking part that counts’ angle in this article. You would call bullshit on it and rightly so. We all want to feel that winning feeling sometimes. So I won’t patronise anybody. But I do have another angle and it is from my experiences of coaching adults, and more recently children, in what is actually important when it comes to winning and losing.

Each day I work with children who have one hour in their school time to play in the playground. That is my hour to give them all an opportunity of winning. And I’m not just talking about the one kid who can bat the ball for home runs on each turn.

In a world where some voices are heard more than others, for some of us, just getting a turn is a small victory. It’s a sign that they’ve been heard and seen and where they’ll be given a chance just as much as the kid who stands in front of me, arm aloft, shouting for their turn.

The small wins make big prizes. Just making contact with the ball is a big achievement to some kids. It’s not just the home runs that should make them feel proud of themselves. And so reminding somebody that they have accomplished something that they didn’t manage to do yesterday is a win. Just like making contact with the ball.

And a coach’s attitude can be infectious. Over a period of time, I’ve noticed that the older children or the more gregarious of the group have started to bowl the ball at a slower pace for the batters who are less confident. Now, they are encouraging each other much more. Now, there is a feeling that we are ALL winning at something during the one hour sports session.

And it is no different for adults. We don’t walk into a gym for the first time and leave after an hour looking like Dwayne Johnson or Beth Mead. But with the right sort of encouragement from coaches and other gym members then we can all recognize the small victories. The win is about trying to achieve a little bit more each time you go.

A win can be passing Go or receiving a get out of jail free card. A win can be going without cheese for the day (my personal goal) or completing 50 squats while the kettle boils. A win can be contacting the PT and putting an exercise schedule in place or a win can just be managing to sit on the toilet for 10 minutes without your kids barging in complaining that their brother has kicked them (another goal of mine!)

Winning is easy. Recognizing when it happens can be a bit tougher. But reflecting on your day and looking at the small victories is a good way to start, even if you’ve had to pay out 200 monopoly notes on a stay in Headingley.

Simplify Your Goals

Brian Clough was right about football. It is a simple game.

“All you have to do is get that pig’s bladder into that onion bag” is something I always remember my dad telling me just before a game. Maybe he got it from Clough. It sounds like Clough. Or maybe he made it up himself. As a footballer who would often get the pig’s bladder into the onion bag, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was one of my dad’s original mantras before entering the field. He was one of the best football players I’ve ever seen live. He kept it simple. He scored goals and won football games.

In my profession, what I try to convey to 90% of my clients is to keep it simple. Now, if you are training for a particular sport, event or for aesthetic bodybuilding purposes who make up my 10%, then I have lots of great advice on training splits and various techniques in other articles but the principal should remain the same. Keep it simple.

Just like the footballer or the athlete, they have to turn up if they want to compete. They have to enter the football pitch or athletic field. So your priority, too, is to make sure that you turn up. Turn up to the gym when you have scheduled it. I see so many missed opportunities from people which, can I be truthful? It’s usually because they found an excuse to not go as they couldn’t be arsed that day.

And life gets in the way. I understand. But this is where we begin to overcomplicate the game. If completing an exercise routine is as engrained into your life as eating, sleeping and breathing then it remains simple. You just do it.

Here are the main culprits when it comes to overcomplicating your fitness goals and how to simplify it…

You don’t go to a gym. Either you don’t feel that you can afford a membership or there isn’t a local gym to you.

Simple. Exercise is free. Training in a gym can be good motivation and it has lots of equipment, but bodyweight exercises or a few weights that you can store away after use at home will suit most fitness goals. And for general fitness, walking is one of the best exercises you can do.

You don’t have time. You work long hours. You have meals to prepare, kids to sort out and by the time everything is done you have run out of time and energy for exercise.

Simple. An exercise routine doesn’t have to be some elaborate plan that takes over your life. The general advice is to complete 150 minutes of moderate intensity a week for aerobic fitness. That’s just over 20 minutes a day per week. For weight loss, increase the intensity by taking less rest periods or adding more difficult exercises over time. You’ll find that you have more energy for your work, social life and your home life by sticking to it.

You can’t stick to a diet plan to lose weight. Everything from 5:2 to the paleo diet has failed leaving you frustrated and demoralised.

Simple. Every diet plan needs to have one common criteria…they need to put you in a calorie deficit. That is consuming less calories than you burn. You don’t need an overhaul of your cupboards and fridge contents. You just need a sensible approach to what you eat. I would recommend a calorie counter app, log your food entries for a few weeks and see where you are going wrong and where you can put it right. It could be just cutting back on a bottle of wine each week, switching to wholegrain instead of white or reassessing your portion sizes. You don’t need to completely ban any food that you enjoy.

It hurts your knees when you squat. You are put off by exercise because certain exercises hurt.

Simple. Don’t do them. I would advise that you ask a professional about your pain and either they can correct your form (which is what is causing the pain) or they will find alternative exercises that don’t cause pain.

We often form some long elaborate web of plans to reach a fairly simple goal. Most of it is highly unnecessary, leading to over thinking and a target that becomes impossible to reach. We forget the simple things. You can’t lose two stone without losing your first kilogram. You can’t run a marathon without running your first mile and you can’t put the pig’s bladder in the onion bag without entering the field of play.

If you’re struggling with your fitness goals, have a think about how you might be able to bring it back to being simple.

I Became The Lion

Something changed when I stopped listening to the generic body building and weight loss sites and I reassessed my own fitness goals. I took charge of what I had to do. This led me to becoming a PT and helping others. I became in control. I became the lion. And I teach others to be the lion too.

It is said that “until the lion learns how to write, every story will praise the hunter.”

I used to follow a narrative led by muscle magazines, gym bro websites, diet books and all of the other mediums that generate billions of dollars from selling their latest trend.

For most of my adult life going to the gym was about ‘lift big or go home’. That’s what I was told. I had to eat chicken and broccoli every day. It’s what the experts told me. I got it so wrong.

I beat myself up daily just to try and lift heavier than some guy who I didn’t even know.

But then I discovered a better way. I could still get results and train without causing injury and anxiety. I realised my ‘why’. And I didn’t find it on YouTube.

Sure, I wanted to be happy and confident with my body but I needed to know how to love myself in the present moment and not just focus on loving what I wanted to be. I began to imagine the future me. What would the future me thank the present me for? I started to do my homework. To save my physical and mental health it became so important to me that I acquired so much knowledge on the matter that I qualified as a PT and successfully made a business out of helping others pretty quickly.

I became the lion. And this lion learnt how to write his own narrative.

I now recognise that training is how I have energy for my kids. It is what keeps me focussed in my marriage and in my work commitments. It is giving me a chance to have a better quality of life. I like myself at last.

I don’t punish myself for not making it to the gym every day. If I can’t get there then a walk with my family is a great way to exercise and surround myself in nature with the people I love.

I don’t regret eating something that is ‘bad for me’ because I enjoyed it at the time and I can have an occasional snack. I enjoy life without living in fear of ‘losing muscle’ or gaining weight. I am free of fads and confusing information.

I am free.

Dig The Well

Just a short message for you today for us to have a little think about our health and wellbeing.

First of all it is important to note that beginning a fitness journey is never too late. Also, finding happiness and peace in your life can be discovered at any age. But searching for it is important and necessary. Very rarely will something fall at your feet.

I’ll use my profession as an example. Just in the space of a few weeks of attending a wedding, a few BBQ’s and kids events with my two boys, as soon as somebody knows that I’m a Personal Trainer I often get comments such as ‘I could do with losing a few pounds’ as they tap on their belly. Or on a couple of occasions I’ve had people say ‘I need to start going to the gym again’.

Of course, you might think that is my cue to sell them PT sessions or a fitness program. And I have often replied ‘well, you know where I am!’ But a social event is not the appropriate place to sell my services. A PT can clear a room when they start handing out business cards.

We often complain about our physique or our mindset without doing anything about it. I meet some acquaintances who I see very irregularly who complain every time about their weight or their injuries every time i see them. And, yes, there have been times where I have offered to help. I’m still waiting for their reply.

And yet with each day, week and year we age. With age comes more challenges in regards to our health. If we don’t feel ready for the battle today, how will we cope with tomorrow?

My clients understand that I’m not going to get them a quick fix. They will progress with me on the journey that it should be. This will help them in later life. I don’t promise a longer life, but I can give a pretty confident argument for living a better quality of life by making simple adjustments to their lifestyle.

Two reasons right here on why I need to keep working for a healthy future.

As the Chinese proverb goes…

Dig the well before you are thirsty.

Be prepared for the future by putting in the work today. Happiness, peace, health and wellbeing can all be discovered with the right course of action.

And that action, however small or subtle, should begin today.

As Easy As 1,2,3

Up and down the country parents are dealing with consoling their children who have just received their GCSE results today. There’s going to be some very happy households too. Many kids will have made their grades and will be able to put their plan A into place.

But for the kids that were like me at 16 it will feel like a lonely experience. Embarrassing too. Friends, cousins and jubilated kids on the news waving their bit of paper in the air all seemed to do better than me. I felt like a failure.

I even remember what I wore that day. It was my grunge stage at 16. Long hair, ripped jeans and an orange REM t-shirt from the Monster album. Grunge symbolised the anger, frustration and angst of those years. Listening to bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden became much more appealing than revising for exams.

I will never know how those exam results changed my life. Not really. I never felt like I wanted to go to University, so top grades never appealed to me anyway. The problem was that I didn’t know what I wanted to do at 16.

But what I do know now is that those results didn’t define me. I thought they did at the time. And it used to annoy me that If I were to fill out a job application form it would ask for my GCSE results. 27 years later, is my knowledge of GCSE algebra of any importance to any potential employer? My knowledge of algebra does not define me!

I didn’t know it then, but I learnt a great lesson that day. I learnt how to deal with disappointment. And not just the sort of disappointment you get when you open up the takeaway bag to find that they’ve missed out the salt and pepper spare ribs, as crushing as that is. No. The disappointment that you feel when you don’t even want to be on the planet anymore. You don’t know why you exist.

And looking back throughout my life I managed to discover lots of failures. I fail often. Only now, I absolutely love it!

Due to knowledge, experience, a good track record and plenty of recommendations I seemed to have stumbled into becoming a weight management specialist within my coaching. And I call it weight management because as much as the large percentage of people want to lose weight, I also work with those who need to gain weight. So specialising in weight loss wouldn’t do what I do any justice.

What I find is that many people go through the same emotions as I have. Not so much in them having the same experiences, but in how they feel about themselves after failure. Not hitting a weight target, not managing to complete an exercise routine or feeling like they’ve eaten too much or too little. Anxiety and resentment can take over.

But over time I’ve managed a lightbulb moment that has armed me with the most valuable tool. I now know that failure is not the opposite of success, it is a part of it. To succeed at anything, we must accept that we fail sometimes. That’s why I love it. Failure, to me now, is a milestone moment. If I know how it went wrong, tomorrow I will know how to put it right.

You will not have success every day, whatever your goals. It will hurt. I know it will. And the good news is that whatever your journey might be, it won’t be as bad as learning algebra.

Self Acceptance

What does ‘self acceptance’ mean to you?

For me it is about realising that I’m not perfect, that I have flaws, I cannot please others or myself all of the time and whilst working to improve daily I can still find humour in my weaknesses.

I’m changing daily. So are you. If you can truly accept yourself today, maybe your tomorrow’s self will be happier.

Here are a few other examples of how people interpret self acceptance…

“When you stop living your life based on what others think of you real life begins. At that moment you will finally see the door of self acceptance open.” Author Shannon L. Alder

“You have been criticizing yourself for years, and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.” Author Louise L Hay

Or poet R.H Sin simply put “Make peace with your broken pieces.”

And Buddha said “You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.”

I am currently studying the Socratic method of cognitive behaviour and one of the principles of this is Self Acceptance. It got me thinking. I’m supposed to be the one helping others, yet there are days when I’m so down on myself I feel like a fraud for even attempting to help anybody else. And then I got it. A bit of a lightbulb moment perhaps.

I’m not supposed to be perfect every day. Some days I will make mistakes, I’ll let myself down or I’ll give up on something. But if I have the ability to accept this as part of me, then I know how to fix it.

In my interpretation of Self Acceptance I said that finding humour in my weaknesses is a factor. Sometimes finding the humility to laugh at myself or to say sorry to somebody rather than excuse myself is a good place to start. Battling with ego and pride takes so much more energy than simply accepting a mistake or a blemish.

Take a moment yourself to think about all of the fantastic qualities that you have. You have flaws, yet the positive aspects of you and your life can outweigh the negatives if you allow them to. And in the meantime you can work on the bits that you don’t like too.

You just need to accept them.

Thank you for reading my blog. Please contact me if you have any questions or if you would like to apply for a place on my coaching app.

The Journey

A very important piece of advice was given to me the other day and it has stuck with me. In fact, the more I think about it the more I can relate it to me and my goals and I see it in other people too.

The person who loves to walk will walk further than the person who loves the destination.

When you love the journey, goals just happen. The destination is cool too! But you are so engaged with the process you don’t even realise that you are there. You carry on. You hit more milestones. And whether you inch forward on some days or you take big strides, you want to continue.

This advice is so huge it goes beyond the stuff we do to become fitter or jacked or to control our weight. This is a lesson for life. There are some months I could earn more money in my previous job. I could walk away from being self-employed with no holiday or sick pay and know that I could have a regular income each month.

But this journey that I’m on? Priceless. I’ll enjoy this journey so much more. The stress, the pitfalls and the headaches are there but the good times, by far, outweigh the bad. This is my own process. My destiny.

I’ll need to give myself a little tap on the shoulder in future when I have a moment feeling down or inadequate just to remind myself of why I keep walking. Some days I’m crawling, some days I’m running. Either way, I keep going forward on my journey because I enjoy it.

I spent so long not enjoying the process. In the gym I’d choose the wrong exercises because ‘that’s just what you need to do, dude!’

And yet it isn’t what I ‘just need to do’. I need to find the few exercises that I enjoy and become good at them. Then the journey really begins. I find new and interesting formulas and techniques. Maybe stuff that I hated before became appealing and the challenge of trying it and succeeding gets me out of bed in the morning.

Transferring this attitude into everyday life is similar. The journey needs to make sense to you. It has to be yours and a good PT will make it yours because it will be personal to you. Something I’ve yet to see from Poundland PT is actually making Personal Training personal. If a PT can’t do that all they do is give every person they train a gym induction. Gym inductions are free.

Your journey becomes an obsession. Obsessions can be healthy, even if we might not like the word or its connotation. Most people we see as being happy, healthy or successful got to where they are because they were obsessed about their journey. They trained almost every day. They made their journey personal and kept on walking.

So what of the destination? Is it irrelevant? No, for sure it plays a part, but if you focus on the big house, the sports car, becoming jacked, being a size 8, taking 4 cruises a year or having the perfect family then you will be disappointed. You’ll want short cuts. You’ll take routes that you don’t enjoy and can even be dangerous to your mental or physical health. You become desperate. You quit.

The destination just happens. But it only happens if you enjoy the walk.

Keep going forward son. There’s nothing to stop you on your journey but your own self doubts.

Fear

One of the biggest obstacles you will have to overcome in your quest for happiness is fear. You fear the past, you fear the future and no matter what state of mind you are currently in, you fear it. If you are happy you fear being too happy because you don’t want to be hurt or let down again. If you are unhappy you fear it because you’ve been here before and you’ve read the script. It cripples you.

Maybe you have to change the script. As the author, you can make edits.

“You are a ghost driving a meat covered skeleton made of stardust on a rock in the middle of space. Fear nothing.” Eric Mina.

It is your ego that makes you fearful. You don’t want to fail. You don’t want to be seen doing something wrong. You don’t want to die.

Yet you WILL do all of these things anyway. And when your ego holds you back, tell it to f@#k off. And if it’s another person holding you back, get them out of your life.

Then you will be fearless.

Everything that you want is on the other side of fear.

If you want success then go and get it. What would make you feel like a success? Take a moment to visualize what a successful you looks like.

If you want good health then go and get it. What would make you feel healthier than you do right now? Close your eyes and imagine what a healthier you would do.

Don’t let fear hold you back.

Don’t fear your next struggle. Some of the biggest struggles that we go through, we learn our biggest lessons. Think about your own personal life. Think about a particular struggle. Now think about how you turned it around. How did you do this? What did you learn? Who was there to help you? These are the questions you need to ask yourself often, because it is the answers to these questions that become your armour. You have faced fear before. You’ve suffered misfortune and you have had moments of despair. Yet here you are. Surviving.

So don’t fear what you have already conquered. The chances are you are stronger than you think you are.

I am a Fitness Coach, Personal Trainer, Meditation Teacher studying Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. I’m good at what I do because I deal with fear every day just like everybody else. Today I won. Tomorrow I’ll try to win again.

How To Approach ANY Fitness Goal

Dale is absolutely buzzing. Today he just walked 30 minutes to the gym, completed an intense resistance workout and ran home again before he gets ready for his shift. As he showers he reflects back on his workout. Sure, he’s tired before he even gets to work! But there’s also a feeling of satisfaction and an adrenaline that will keep him going long into his shift. He even flecks on the way past the mirror. “Still got it”, he says to himself.

Today was his first gym session in a while and he is following a training programme. Tomorrow he’ll do the same and then his rest days are to complete 10,000 steps. “Active recovery”, his PT demands. On top of this, he promises himself to cut out the midweek drinking. Over the past few months he has noticed that he has been buying more beers to drink after work. It has left him feeling sluggish and unhappy with his weight.

He goes to bed feeling tired but accomplished after today. His gym kit is ready for tomorrow.

Then tomorrow comes. He didn’t get the best night’s sleep. It was warm and he tossed and turned. He ended up on the sofa so that his wife was not disturbed. As he eats his breakfast a whole lot of excuses go through his mind on why he can’t make the gym today.

He feels tired, so there’s no point as it will be a rubbish workout. Maybe he could just drive there and back, but no, it needs to be just like yesterday’s session otherwise he’ll feel like he’s failed. There’s paperwork to do for work. The car needs booking in for its service. The kids need to be dropped off at their activities. He needs energy for other stuff. Maybe he should leave the gym for today and hope for a better day tomorrow.

After work he opens up a beer. He’s starting his workouts again tomorrow so a few cans won’t harm tonight.

A week passes and he has only been to the gym on that first day. Bad night’s sleep has continued due to his alcohol consumption. This has caused anxiety which has led to poor meal choices. He marches on the spot while the kettle boils to at least show his PT that he is getting in his 10,000 steps but most days he is a few thousand away from reaching them.

If only he hadn’t talked himself out of the gym on day 2. He doesn’t even understand why he did. He kind of enjoyed it!

The paperwork for his job will still be there after a workout. The car can still be booked into a garage if he went to the gym. The kids can still be taken to their activities. Going to the gym 4 times a week wouldn’t make his life, his family’s life or his work life suffer. It would most likely have a much more positive effect. And deep down he knows that it isn’t just the warm weather causing him to have a bad night’s sleep. The alcohol he drinks will give him poor quality sleep but eventually his sleeping would become much better if he remained consistent with his training programme. His PT tells him that. The fitness pages on his social media tells him that. Articles on how to approach any fitness goal tells him that.

No matter how good his last workout was or how intense he made it, if he doesn’t do it consistently he will not reach his goals. And his goals aren’t just about giving a flex in the mirror and feeling pumped. It’s about feeling better about himself. It’s about having more energy for his wife and kids. It’s about approaching middle age and wanting to do something about his health now before it gets even harder when he is older.

He will have bad days. Days where an emergency crops up. But his consistent approach means that he can plan an alternative. What he can’t do is stop, put it on hold or promise himself that he’ll start again in January. Work, family, the odd bad night’s sleep, that old niggling injury and the car needing a service will still be there in January. He knows this! But those excuses just keep on popping into his head.

Whatever your goals are, you need to consistently work on a solid plan and stick to it. It could be the best plan in the world but if it isn’t carried out consistently you will not get to where you want to be.

Remember Dale the next time you think about giving your workout a miss. You might even come up with a similar excuse to what he used. If so, do it differently.