Derek and Joan love Spain. So much so they’ve just put an offer in for an apartment in Andalusia situated at a purpose built community for British ex pats. They sit outside in the plaza at the local Irish pub eyeing up the fish and chips on the menu waiting for the call back from the estate agent, Juan, with some good news.
My wife and I are watching A Place In The Sun. There’s a hint of jealousy towards Derek and Joan. It’s almost April and despite a couple of days where I ventured out in a T-Shirt last week, it is now snowing.
I have a coat that I threaten to pack away into the loft each year around this time but it certainly got an outing today as I went to take the kids to school. No exaggeration it could be 20 years old or more. I bought it when I thought I could get away with the Liam Gallagher look. Now when I wear it I feel like Peter Falk as Columbo. Old and disheveled. Every time I wear it I find a different pack of rizzlas from the early 2000’s.
Although no official diagnosis I’m certain I have SAD (Seasonal Adjustment Disorder). But maybe I just hate cold weather. I mean, I don’t suffer with my mood when it turns from Spring into Summer. I just suffer from being warm to bloody freezing!
Some people like winter time and the events that happen during that time. But trudging the streets in fake blood asking for sweets, burning the effigy of a man whilst eating toffee apple, hearing Noddy Holder scream those immortal words long before it’s Christmas or trying to stay awake for Jools Holland’s Hootenanny isn’t my favourite times of the year. Walking along a sunny beach, cranking up the BBQ and sitting in the garden watching the sun go down are a few of my favourite things which all happen to be during the summer time. In fact, the only negative I can think of to a British summer is that the footy season has ended. There’s always Wimbledon I suppose.
Without a doubt a massive mood lifter to me is going to the gym. Training has kept me right for years and I’ve stated many times I think that finding a life that focussed around the gym saved my life. I once felt aimless, useless and soulless. The gym made me feel the opposite. Until I became a husband and a father, the gym was my life line.
I did some growing up in the gym. I had many ‘give your head a wobble mate’ moments. In my first proper job I had to stop off at the shop to buy a couple of whisky miniatures to down before beginning my shift a few times. It was that or a panic attack. Slowly, however, the gym became a much bigger influence in my life than any quick hit.
I developed a routine over time which meant that I went to the gym before I started work. It meant extra early starts but I felt fantastic walking into the office and the rest of the day couldn’t bring me down. The gut wrenching feeling I sometimes had as I woke up was quickly quashed once I began to train. But there was always a telling sign to my mood each day and that was the weather. The colder and grey it was outside, the more difficult it was to snap out of a low mood. If the sun seeped through the bedroom curtains in a morning, the easier it was to start my day.
My little boys help me get through a bad weather day too. I’ll stand in the cold rain all day to see Jonas score a goal. And I’ll happily build a family of snow people with Finlay to see his chuffed freezing face at the end of it. Plus, their early morning starts and them needing me for breakfast and school prep ensures that I need to get my arse in gear straight away, whatever the weather!
The weather forecast doesn’t look like I’ll need to shove my Lieutenant Columbo coat into the loft just yet so I will brave the last bit of cold before I’m able to blow up the paddling pool.
Oh, and just one more thing…Derek and Joan had their bid accepted.
Did you hear that? That’s the sound of another cheap gym selling cheap Personal Training.
I’m not surprised that, what was once a list of PT friends on my Facebook page, are now calling themselves Lifestyle Coaches, Personal Coaches, Health & Wellbeing Coaches and Holistic Wellness Coaches. Anything that avoids the term Personal Trainer.
From my experience the nationwide gyms are exhausting the term Personal Trainer, employing people ‘in training’ towards their qualifications and charging the gym member a small fee whilst paying their PT minimum wage. The experienced and savvy PT rarely charges by the hour, instead setting a price per week that includes session planning for the hour and other physical activities for their client throughout the week, messages and calls, nutritional guidances and (where necessary) emotional support. This means that their prices are higher than what the gym offers.
Sometimes I pop into the Poundshop to buy a dustpan and brush. Cheap and cheerful can be good! I’ll only be sweeping up guinea pig poo with it. It might not last too long, but hey, it’s a quid! But if I’m going to the gym because my doctor tells me I’m obese or because my sciatica is keeping me awake all night, cheap and cheerful isn’t good. Poundshop PT isn’t good.
It’s no wonder that many fitness professionals are staying clear from the PT tag.
It would be a very short PT session if I told someone how to lose weight. Eat less, move more is essentially what it entails. And I use weight loss as the example because around 80% of people who come to me have that goal. I’d gladly give that advice for free, I’d find a different career and the UK would be full of men with their shirts off in summer drizzling half a bottle of cooking oil on their six packs. But it’s much more complex than just eating less and moving more.
Even Sandra, who is shamed every week for not hitting her target at Weight Watchers knows this. Don’t you think she would be losing weight if it was so simple as eating less and moving more? She feels unsupported and frustrated going to an outdated dieting institution so she joins the gym and they offer her PT for £12 an hour. They sit her on an ab crunch machine and tell her to cut out every single bit of food that becomes comforting during her low times. The cycle continues.
Personal training should be the occasional call or message during the week asking how your client is. It should be giving advice on different ingredients and recipes to try. It should be about advice on how to schedule extra time for themselves away from the kids and work. It should be about creating accountability, setting achievable goals, producing consistent and relevant workouts, making exercise fun and being the one face in the gym your client can rely on.
Calling myself anything other than a Personal Trainer takes me away from the absolute joy of seeing a client accomplish their goal, whether it be a personal best or a longer term goal. Even online, when I get the bleep to inform me that another goal has been met I give a ‘yesss!’
It means a lot to my client so it means a lot to me.
I’ll never not be a Personal Trainer. So when I’m old and on my death bed put your ear to my mouth and you’ll hear my last breath be,”squats and deadlifts, squats and deadlifts”. And if you see Sandra, pass it on.
I’ve just finished training at the gym. It was a tough one today as I like to start the week heavy after a couple of days rest. I can feel that my blood sugar levels are low and I will need to eat when I get home.
My drive home was filled with meal ideas, but I had a big problem. Over the weekend, due to two kids birthday parties, lots of driving my family around to various errands and a great barbeque at the in laws, my eating habits had become a case of grabbing what I could here and there and plenty of it. The chips at the kids party that I snaffled into my mouth as none of the parents were looking were delicious but having had a Full English the day before I felt that I probably should try and have something a little less fatty and greasy. Anyway, young Joshua from class 9 shouted ‘those chips aren’t for you!’ so that put paid to anymore chips.
Also, it was Mother’s Day on Sunday. My wife had baked a cake to take for a mum. So after my three cheeseburgers and potato salad I ended up with a huge slab of sponge cake for dessert. Undoing the jeans belt isn’t a done thing at your in laws so I waited until I got into the car. I knew that tomorrow would have to mean some sensible meal choices.But then tomorrow came.
I’m not one for actually sitting and eating fruit. Sitting in itself would be a massive achievement on a morning getting two kids ready for school. So my wife and I have a good routine for getting in our fruit and veggies first thing. We invested in a Nutri Bullet some time ago and it’s been really useful to us. This morning in went a banana, spinach, blueberries, oranges and protein powder before I went to the gym. A good start. But by the end of my session I needed food again. The problem was that the meal ideas were not good ideas considering my weekend meals.
Weekends (or any time away from the norm) is usually a time where we can relax the diet or have a few extra treats without guilt. We should never feel bad about a little over indulgence from time to time. But it is important to attempt to readdress the balance when we can. My go to food on a weekday lunch time is quinoa and mackerel. It takes minutes to prepare and I can quickly eat it and continue my work. But my brain kept taking me to all of the weekend food I’d been having!
I was determined. Down came the tin of mixed beans from the cupboard. These are another staple in my diet. And to my delight, right at the back of the cupboard was a can of corned beef. Now, it’s not an exaggeration to say that it is not something me or my family eat. In fact, I can’t remember eating it since I was a kid and my mum rustled up a corned beef hash. But there it was saying,’Pick me! Pick me!’
So I did.
A bowl of mixed beans and a few slices of corned beef would do the trick. It was a compromise. I had the healthy stuff in there mixed with a can of processed cow meat resembling dog food.
‘But what’s this?’ I thought as I held the can aloft like the FA Cup. It was a key to open it up. Had I been transported back to the 80’s? Had it been in the cupboard so long that it actually WAS from the 1980’s?! Surely we have tin openers or ring pulls for this sort of thing these days. Reluctantly but feeling a bit Hangry by this stage I began to use the key. I wanted that processed meat and this bloody key wasn’t going to stop me.
I got to the half way mark of opening the can. It was a slow process. At one point I tried squeezing the can to see if the meat would slop out at the open end. It didn’t. It remained solid. But now the bulged can became so much harder to open. Eventually, I had managed to open it without any cuts or too much swearing. I could have my mixed bean and corned beef lunch at last.
Corned beef is processed of course and it isn’t the type of food you should be eating too much of for it’s quality protein value or it’s vitamins, but there’s worse things that I could have gone for. It satisfied my mind when what I had given my body for the past 48 hours was white bread, oil and fat. Corned beef was actually a better option! And I had to start somewhere.
For the past 15 years I have carefully planned my eating habits to include the type of foods that experts and headlines say that we should avoid. It’s not just the gym goals or the aesthetics that are at stake, but we must consider our overall health. I know that I can’t live off poor nutritional foods for this reason, but I also know that I can balance the occasional poor nutritional food choices with the foods that are considered highly nutritious.
I want an occasional beer without running to the scales. I want to enjoy a family meal with cake for dessert. I live in Scarborough. The locals would hunt me down if I banned fish and chips! These meals can be enjoyed with the right attitude and a healthy relationship with your food. Sometimes we are so busy trying to fix our physical issues that we forget how to work with our mental issues. And yet if we can beat our anxieties around food I know that the physical issues are so much easier to fix too.
It might be another 30 years until I have to go through the trauma of opening up a can of corned beef again, but at that moment it scratched an itch that had been left behind from the weekend. Now I can move on!
I’m very careful how I use the term ‘slippery slope’. Has anybody told you that it’s the start of a slippery slope just because you have done something that goes against their agenda. They are suggesting that just because you have done something against what is perceived to be the right path that this will become an unhealthy habit leading to the slippery slope. It is commonly known as The Slippery Road Fallacy.
An example would be an arguer suggesting that if we ban rifles this will lead to banning hand guns, and then cap guns, then water pistols and before we know it snowballs have been outlawed.
Another example of this is how many of us develop this anxiety around our own diets. You restrict or ban certain foods in an attempt to lose weight but when you deviate from this diet and eat a food outside of the ‘rules’ you are annoyed that you allowed yourself to do this and you feel like a failure. The self fulfilled prophetic nature takes over you and you believe that because you have deviated once that you will do it again…and again…and again.
You tell yourself that you will write today or this week off because you over ate anyway. You start to binge all of the foods outside of the rules of your diet. In the end you don’t even want to eat it, but you continue to do so anyway. It’s almost like self harm. You feel a release as you eat it but feel pain and depression afterwards. The cycle continues. You have entered the slippery slop fallacy.
Now imagine an alternative. There is no diet that will take us on the right path, but there’s no slippery slope either. There’s just a path. Your path.
As you walk down your path you discover that there’s a huge selection of foods to pick from. There’s lots of great tasting, nutritious foods here but you also see the foods that you thought were forbidden. A sin. The foods with added sugar, salt, fats and ultimately calories. Foods that the headlines tell you to ‘avoid if you want to lose weight’. But as you continue walking along your path here they are, harmlessly growing amongst the stuff we’re told that you should eat. Nothing is restricted.
You know that, on your way, the occasional bit of extra sugar or calories will not alter your path . It won’t lead you onto another direction nor one that becomes slippery. Your path stays the same. No up hill battles. No unknown detours. Your path remains constant.
Having tried so many different approaches to dieting myself including not eating anything at all for long periods, I know quite a lot about the psychological impact that food anxieties can bring.
I am beginning my Balanced Plate Challenge on my fitness app next month and I am determined to show as many people as possible that there is an alternative to feeling shame, disappointment, anxiety and depression around their diets. There’s a path that they build, that they walk down and with the foods that they enjoy.
I’ve been having a bit of bother in getting my lads motivated for school in recent mornings. At a certain point in the term this can happen. Tiredness creeps in and I find myself repeating the same prompts.
“Are you dressed yet?”
“Have you brushed your teeth?”
“Please just get your shoes on!”
Everything is operating on slo-mo. Although I have found a technique that currently works, at least for this week, which is giving marks out of 10 for their efforts. Whether that’s their morning routine, tidying up or meal times. The higher the score the more of earning stars for the weekend, which is usually based around the Switch and Xbox time or VBucks.
This morning my eldest asked me if he had done better than his younger brother. I had noticed that this comparison has become more prominent in both of their mindset, yet I’m very careful in not giving any extra points to one over the other. I assist them on both managing to earn the same points out of 10. This morning was a strong 9.
What I replied to my eldest was the same response I used to have to give myself and what I have to say to many trainees I have worked with…
“Concentrate on making sure that you do your best job and don’t worry about anybody else”.
It’s easy to lose your way when you compare yourself to anybody else. You are you.
I used to pick up the 30k dumbbells because Biceps Brian on the next bench to me had just pressed 28k. I was trying to prove that I could outlift them, even if my form was horrible and it put my shoulder out. I should have focused on my weight and rep range. I should have looked at yesterday’s me and tried to better myself. Nobody else. I found this out eventually which is why I became a PT, but I also need to teach myself this outside of the gym too.
Bob lives opposite with his wife and two kids. Each morning as I am telling the kids to get dressed for the tenth time and I draw back the curtains I notice Bob pass the window going on his morning run. He waves. I feel like putting the middle finger up but I wave back with a half disheveled grimace on my face.
Bob
“A wonderful morning for it!” Bob shouts as he canters down the road. Is it? I think to myself as a worn pair of undies slaps me in the face. The kids are finally getting dressed.
Bob’s kids get into his new sports car effortlessly as I bundle mine into the Juke. Off Bob goes to school with his children while I’m sifting through the crisp wrappers to find the seat belt buckle to strap the youngest in. His wife Berni gets into her car to get to work early for her very important meeting.
I see the kids are finally getting dressed
On Saturday evenings I often see Bob and Berni going out for the evening all glammed up. They head off in a taxi as their kids and child minder wave them off. I look at the clock. Its time for Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway, I’ll get the kids to bed and pour a glass of wine.
What I don’t know is that Bob won’t be drinking alcohol when they go out for the evening because he is a recovering alcoholic. His sports car is on finance and his midlife crisis made him get it and this has caused daily arguements with Berni because they can’t afford it. He goes on his daily runs because that is the only thing that gets him out of bed and his children can’t wait to be driven to school so that they don’t have to listen to mum and dad argue anymore. Berni gets to work early so she can meet up with her office fling.
We all know Bob and Berni. Their lives look terrific. But all we have managed to do is create a story in our minds that we begin to believe. You know your life. You live it every day. Warts ‘n’ all. The grief, the battle scars the daily bloody grind. So we begin to imagine that Bob and Berni have the most perfect lives.
Yet when we stop comparing ourselves to anybody else we can see that our own life isn’t so bad. Yes there’s still the ups and downs and curve balls that life throws at you, but you are owning this shit. You are not just managing to survive each day but you are thriving through adversity.
Life can be tough. Sometimes you just need to get off of the carousel. But make no mistake, Bob and Berni are no better off than you. Look at yourself and be proud of yourself today and see what you can achieve tomorrow.
It feels like I’m sat in a school hall at lunch time. No, that’s being kind. I’m in the middle of a borstal canteen. I’m waiting for a young Ray Winston to come at me with a sock full of pool balls.But it’s me who is the daddy now and I’m sat with my two boys in McDonald’s.
Two big promises that my wife and I made when we had kids is that we won’t buy our kids toy guns and we won’t take them to McDonald’s. So after a trip to The Golden Arches full of Ket they’ll be sure to go home and shoot each other with NERF guns or ‘head shot’ some kid on Fortnite. There goes that promise.
Each year, our kids are given guns for their birthday presents from other kind parents. And after much consideration my wife and I realized, perhaps with resignation, that children have always played with toy guns and probably always will. I played with cap guns, spud guns and water pistols but I didn’t grow up to be El Mariachi. Nor do I try to blow Roadrunners up with TNT because I watched Wile E Coyote and I’m not a Satanist because I went to a Marylin Manson concert as a teenager. So maybe we need to lighten up.
Since kids were having birthday parties at McDonald’s and mine were invited, which enabled their palette to taste such..erm,,delicacies then we have decided that they can go now and again as a ‘treat’. It might only be a quarterly event, but it fills me with dread with every visit. I had a mare today.
The first thing I noticed is that it felt like I was walking into a nightclub. Two security guys looked me and my lads up and down as we walked up to The Arches. Now, my youngest had just downed a bottle of fruit shoot which can make him seem a little tipsy but I was sure we would get in. I held his hand to stop any swaying and gave a confident nod to the doorman. He opened the doors for us. We were in!
The nightclub feel continued once we got inside as a bleeping noise akin to an electronic dance anthem was heard above the euphoric noise of revellers. But it was just the ubiquitous noise from the serving area.
And since when did Maccy D’s have touch screen to make an order?! My kids have very specific requests when it comes to how they have their burgers. It’s not something that I can get across on a touch screen. Chicken nuggets it is then.
As we sat down, brushing away a few courses of food on the chairs from the previous customer, I glanced around the room and my initial description of a school lunch hall was pretty accurate. Except instead of teachers telling the kids to get down from the tables it was the security guys. At one point they told a teenage boy to stop vaping or he’ll be thrown out.
Bleep!
McDonald’s food has always reminded me of toy food. It looks and tastes fake. I’m not a food snob. I’ve had many cold kebabs the morning after and I buy fake Pringles. I’ll eat most things as long as it’s not looking at me and I’ll even eat seafood sticks (formerly known as crab sticks) and I don’t know anybody else who will touch those! I’m not too fussy. But a McDonald’s burger has left my taste buds feeling empty except for a saltiness that I’m hoping my seventh pint of water will get rid of.
As we walked back to the car I was pleased to hear that my boys didn’t really like their burgers either. We all left feeling a little awkward that this ‘special tea’ experience was a bit crap.
But I can’t deny the influence of this global patty giant. Like the chain or not, it’s 850 restaurants closing in Russia is as significant today as it was it’s first opening 32 years ago. Yet every time I eat there I refuse to believe that it is their great tasting menu that makes it what it is. As McDonald’s grew in popularity in the USA the rest of the western world all wanted to eat like Americans, smoke, drink, wear jeans and drive cars like Americans. And this obsession stretched to the rest of the world too.
1950’s American McDonald’s
My kids pick up lots of accents and ‘isms’ from YouTube influencers. There’s an Irish guy who is popular at the moment but the majority seem to be American. Our leftovers go in the trash according to our kids. They put their pants over their underwear and they fall on their butts. It just seemed like yesterday that they were watching Paw Patrol on Channel 5. Today it’s YouTube channels. Their intrigue into new accents, cultures and languages don’t bother us, they can watch it but the content on YouTube is obviously closely monitored by us. Every decision like this is always discussed by my wife and I. Is it the right decision? We dunno.
Should YouTube be banned in our house? Do toy guns, statistically, cause future violent men? Do McDonald’s burgers affect healthy eating choices?
I was allowed to watch horror movies at a fairly young age. Maybe I was Jonas’ age when I watched Friday The 13th. And as I pointed out earlier I’m not an axe wielding murderer. Yet as much as I tell myself I need to lighten up our children have much more access to sex, violence and ‘swears’ as my kids call them with just the wrong click of a button. Maybe it’s different from a scary film from Blockbusters.
I’m a great believer that people need the opportunity to realise their errors for themselves. Having studied theories like Rogarian Therapy I understand how important it is for an individual to come to their own conclusions about their own life, even if these individuals are my young children. Maybe the next time we have a spare hour in town they might suggest somewhere that they actually enjoy eating at.
Last season I cringed as Jonas took his coat off during a football training session. It was a cold and wet November evening. The other kids were dressed as the Michelin Man but, despite the coach’s attempts for him to put his coat back on, Jonas refused saying that he was warm. I understand his coach having Jonas’ welfare in mind, but I also understand that until Jonas experiences a freezing cold November and can’t go back on his decision to put his coat back on in front of his mates, he won’t learn how to make the correct decision the week after. He knew it was a bad call to take his training jacket off, but bravado had gotten the better of him and it was too late for him to eat humble pie. But he has always worn his jacket on cold nights ever since. He won’t be making that mistake again.
If I don’t allow my kids to make measured mistakes now, in ten years time when they are met with much greater decisions to make they will struggle. Those who work with me will know that I embrace failure. Failure, or bad decision making, should lead to reflection on how to make better decisions next time around. If I tell my kids not to put YouTube on, or that McDonald’s is not an option, then the desire to eat the forbidden fruit will grow. I’d rather that they taste it now and hope that they realize that the forbidden fruit isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. YouTube channels of people playing on computer games are tedious after a while and a McDonald’s burger is nowhere near the standard of one that they can make at home.
But this is all a ‘hope for the best’ situation. I’ve trained people for longer that I have been a father. I’ve taken a journey with hundreds of trainees, whereas I’ve only been to McDonald’s with my kids half a dozen times. I’m qualified at training people with their physical and mental wellbeing. I’m not qualified at being a dad. Maybe a few lessons and an exam would have been helpful. As it is though I’ve got to wing it, like all parents do. In my job I know every given situation and how to deal with it. Eating disorders, self harm, depression, athletes with Olympic dreams, bodybuilders, fat loss or weight gain goals, I have a plan for every person who approaches me.
But in McDonald’s with their touchscreen ordering, two hungry kids, doormen chasing unruly customers and an incessant bleaping noise coming from the tills and I’m a nervous wreck by the end of it.
We are constantly being told that our training must be consistent for us to get the results that we seek. How true is this? And is there any room for variety in our training. Variety, after all, is the spice of life.
Consistency in your training is very important, but the levels and types of consistency will vary depending on your goals. For example, for fat loss goals you need to develop a consistent routine of when you exercise. This plays a big part in your overall lifestyle goals such as mood and eating habits. Yet for muscle hypertrophy it is essential that not only a consistent routine is developed, but a consistent type of movement is too. But let’s focus on fat loss for today as the two goals are like different sports.
Let’s take a look a person A, who has fat loss goals. Here is a list of mistakes that I see on a daily basis and how he can put this right…
Probably not Person A
× he says that he wants to lose weight.
✓ when an individual understands what it is that they want to lose from their body the process becomes easier straight away. It’s fat that he wants to lose. Not muscle, an arm or an organ.
× he doesn’t plan his week around exercise.
✓ like any goal, it needs a certain amount of planning. At the beginning of the week, he should choose the days and times that he will exercise.
× his plan of a home workout in Monday could not happen because of work commitments so he ditched the whole week in plans.
✓ sticking to a plan, even if it doesn’t happen on a certain day, will still help him achieve his goals. His Monday workout could either be done on a different day or he can go for a walk when the time is right to make up for it.
× he follows a ‘diet’ that his mate told him about.
✓ every diet must have the same conclusion…it has to be in a calorie deficit. This means that he must eat fewer calories than he burns. This can be done by eating food that he enjoys with good nutrition and protein options.
× his exercise program becomes demotivating. Johnny Gainz from Gainz Bruh YouTube channel gave his followers two kick ass ab exercises to do.
Probably not Johnny Gainz.
✓ he needs a consistent exercise routine, but those exercises should be fun and varied. Although certain compounds will remain a constant throughout his training, these can be done with different equipment, rep ranges, as a circuit or as supersets. And full body workouts with a calorie deficit will get rid of belly fat. Not a hundred hanging leg raises. Johnny Gainz forgot to tell his followers that.
Person A became annoyed at not planning and when he did he found that other commitments got in the way. He listened to his pal regarding diet tips who’s own weight goes up and down more than an elevator at Trump Towers and he watches YouTube clips of jacked topless dudes talking him through a human flag routine. In the end the only consistency he maintained is the part where he says that he’ll start again in January. His variety comes from a box of Celebrations.
Attempting positive, consistent routines in his life doesn’t make him a control freak. Building structure and setting weekly targets is not anal retentive.
From being a baby a human will develop routines that work for them. They will crawl to a certain bit of furniture each day to climb to their feet and attempt to walk until eventually they will walk by doing it consistently. Many times they will fall and cry. But they will walk one day through development and persistence.
As we get older and life becomes much more chaotic, it is easy to forget how we were all that baby once. We attempt to be swan like above the surface but the feet are frantically trying to navigate us through another day below it.
Person A has already got the experience of achieving his goals, he just can’t remember them.
It helps having a past full of ‘what ifs’ as a PT. I can draw from my own experiences and, 9 times out of 10, instantly connect with a new trainee because they have the same ‘what ifs’ as me.
Most of the subject matters might be different of course. For me it’s my lack of traveling when I was younger or not saving money when I had the chance. I chose to spend my money on nights out in Leeds and clothes that I didn’t need. One night out in Leeds, even 15 years ago, would easily cost £100. Most weeks I’d go out clubbing twice a week. That’s a lot of the world I could have seen. Instead, I got no further than Majestic’s in Quebec Street, Leeds 1.
I had fun. Regrets don’t weigh too heavily on me. But there is often a ‘what if’ moment as I look back.
Another of those moments and this I can guarantee is something that is identifiable with my trainees is the feeling of unlocking my fitness potential. What if I’d have done this sooner, or done it properly first time round?
Fitter than I’ve ever been now at 43, had I had this knowledge and application 25 years ago could I have saved years of physical pain and mental anguish? I think I know the answer, but it will forever remain a ‘what if’.
I am convinced that, as human beings, we were meant to climb, lift, run, squat, throw and jump. And yet we became so clever that we practically abolished these great human traits and replaced them with lifts, cars, trams, supermarkets, takeaways, online ordering and anything else that required us to do as little as possible in order to get what we wanted. We wanted convenience.
Physically we can still do all of these things that we were designed (or evolved) to do but mentally we are becoming so tied up in the notion that we don’t have to do it.
Our society is becoming fatter and more depressed. We know what we should do. We have a history of millions of years telling us what we should do, but the comfort of convenience takes over.
And it’s not about how many miles you can run or how much weight you can lift. Unlocking your full potential begins by moving. That’s it. That’s the first part and it’s a huge step for lots of people.
But fear engulfs us. We feel safer in doing what we know, even if it niggles away at us as we complain on Facebook about our weight or our latest ailment. We want the replies of ‘You ok Hun?’. We get the rant off of our chest to anyone who will listen for another week or two.
A ship is always safe a shore but it is not what it is built for. No matter how slow it needs to go, a ship is built to move. In doing so it heads into dangerous waters with unprecedented conditions, but it is built to deal with it and reach it’s destination. With a captain and a map the journey is less treacherous too.
We must realise our full potential and set sail ourselves. Another day a shore is another wondering.
My trainees become their own captain. That is the deal, that one day they can train without me. They create an active lifestyle that involves consistent training and a diet that they can enjoy guilt free. Because I know how they felt in the very first day they approached me. And I know how to manage the ‘what if’.
The other day I had been training for an hour and i noticed a guy training beside me for a while. We gave a few nods to one another as we selected our weights and at one point I muttered “have you finished with those 22’s pal”. Our training intensified. I felt pretty good that day and this guy was obviously a veteran of the free weights area. We ended up simultaneously grunting out each rep which, to the other side of the gym, must have sounded like a porno you order on Wish. We were scraping ourselves off of the floor by the end, obviously being spurred on by each other. He turned to me, smiled and said”Why do we do it to ourselves?”
I get this question a lot. I usually just smile and say “I dunno. I’m getting too old for this.” But on that particular day, I said….
“Training can help boost energy levels, self esteem, sleep quality and mood. It helps us combat health conditions and diseases including strokes, type 2 diabetes, arthritis, depression and cancer. Research also tells us that performing regular exercise reduces our chance of becoming seriously ill from Covid.
Resistance training not only helps us in the now but we are giving ourselves the best chance to be as independent as possible in later life. It shapes our body through increasing bone density and muscle firmness and keeps us from wanting to eat and drink poor food choices because we are proud of our goal setting and our achievements and we don’t want to destroy our good work.
I become a better dad and husband after training. My mindset is in a much better place because I feel strong both physically and mentally. People meet friends while working out and a gym can be a place of sanctuary and a social hub.
I can wear T-shirts and feel proud of my body. I sometimes tense my bicep and say ‘Hello Mr Bicep’ in the same voice as Phoebe did to Chandler in Friends. I could even squeeze into skinny jeans if I were into that kind of fashion because after a few squats I think my ass looks like Beyonce’s. It probably doesn’t, but I don’t care because I think it does and it is my body and I have to live in it every single day and if I think I’ve got a good ass then I have a good ass.”
As I stood towards the mirror and twerked my booty whilst giving it a firm slap, he walked away shaking his head. I’ve not seen him since.
Who needs Beyonce’s ass when you’ve got a hat like this?
Never Give Up PT 