Just weeks away until the AL house is ready and the difference is massive since the last update! Along with the house being a place of relaxation and tranquility for our guests stay, we are trying to prepare the surroundings for a sensory lift.
Here’s the first floor entrance back in January…
And now…
The ground floor entrance when we first moved into the property…
Now we await the front doors and Juliet balcony…
Upstairs where the stairs will be…
And from the end of today, still waiting for the stairs but the surrounding areas are finished! We have tried to keep as much of the original character of the building as possible so the walls remain exposed.
The next update should be the very finished article which (hopefully) will be in a couple of weeks. Stay tuned!
It is the age old question in the gym in regards to what is the best type of training for weight management or, as is commonly known as, fat loss.
“Should I use weights?”
“Do I join a high intensity class or go on treadmills?”
“Is it high reps or low reps?”
These sorts of questions are the most frequently asked to a Personal Trainer in a commercial gym.
The correct answer, of course, is never that simple. Every individual is different, yes, but generally all of the above are perfectly fine ways to manage weight for the average adult.
To elaborate on these answers I could also suggest going for long, frequent walks, preparing your meals and counting calories for a short period of time or taking the stairs instead of the elevator. (That last suggestion isn’t meant to sound flippant or facetious. It is my attempt to encourage a more active outlook in one’s daily routine and we often miss these opportunities in order to get somewhere quicker or for convenience.)
So when we break it all down into these different training techniques, ways of moving and positive lifestyle changes we get the bigger picture. One which promotes weight management. And as long as these can be incorporated there will be success in one’s fitness journey.
But it all starts with a spark or a thought that leads us onto actually adopting these positive things into our lives. And if you have read this article up to now, I am assuming that you have already begun the thought process.
Indian philanthropist and businessman Pankaj Patel once said,”It is the sum of the parts that make up the whole. So excellence comes from how one undertakes to do something. It all begins with the thought process which is creative and exalted to produce something out of the ordinary.”
To make up the whole, it is said, you need all the little components to complete it. The thought process, or the planning, is a vital component.
In regards to a weight management journey, the whole needs planning, but this planning must include all the factors that I have spoken about. Frequent walks are just as important as making It into the gym. Why? Because it is an important part of the sum that creates the whole. Many people have found their motivation, inspiration, their plans, their passions and indeed themselves on a long walk. It cannot be underestimated. It’s also a great exercise.
There are no magical processes that can guarantee weight management (whatever you want to manage it to be). But there are a number of methods that, when put together, can give you the best opportunities. Many of them I’ve listed above.
I will often give my clients a little bit of homework. I ask them to write down four or five ways in which they can achieve their realistic body weight target. And when they have actually thought about it, they come back to me with the answers I have listed above. This is because we are not reinventing the wheel here, as many influencers would have you believe, we are simply adding simple methods to your life and tweaking things that need a bit of change.
It is the sum of the parts that you already have at your disposal. And when you use them correctly, you begin to have access to the whole.
Shay is a personal trainer, CBT therapist, meditation guide and owner of Pinheiros Tranquilos Bem Estar in central Portugal.
Social media would have you believe that you need to be ready for the catwalk or the front cover of Men’s Health magazine to be successful in the gym.
I also believe that we can get anxious when we see other people’s Instagram posts of them on holidays in some wintery wonderland to visit Santa, sat by a pool in an exotic location or having their picture taken with Mickey Mouse. I’ve done it myself. After seeing someone’s snaps of them and their children in Lapland I suddenly felt inadequate that I wasn’t taking my kids to see Santa in his homeland. I then checked the price of such a holiday and quickly clicked on to Wish to buy a Santa costume. The kids won’t know the difference.
But it isn’t the fault of the parents who put the photos on Instagram. They just want to show their social media friends what a great time they’re having. We rarely see ‘influencers’ taking a selfie on the days they’re feeling bloated and our Facebook friends are not as quick to post the videos where their kids are having a tantrum. No. We all prefer to show the world our best side.
And I am conscious about what I post online, especially since our move to Portugal. When I first mentioned that we were moving to Portugal, most of our friends and family would be like ‘ooh! I don’t blame you with all that sunshine’ or stuff to that effect. Throughout winter I’ve posted pictures of us dining out, in swimming pools and even having a BBQ on Christmas day. The weather, albeit not our greatest motivation for making the move, can be lovely.
But already this week in March we have had to shelter from the heat. Even the Portuguese builders were happy to find jobs to do that were in the shade during the hottest parts of the day. We are beginning to understand the need for siestas. This is where shops and cafes close for a few hours, usually around 2 until 5. People start to pull shutters down on their windows and the streets and roads empty.
As a Brit who hasn’t had this issue before, however, it can be frustrating. We need the builders to get the job done, we need builders merchants to be open for supplies and Lou and I have 20,000 square metres of land to clean before the summer. And even the amount of land would bring about comments on ‘how lovely for the kids’ it is to have so much land. It is, absolutely we will make it wonderful for us and our guests. But at the moment it is a tinder box waiting for the spark. We don’t want a few hours break in the afternoon. Daytime is when we have always got stuff done, while the kids are at school! It’s irritating, but we will have to change. Coming into spring and with summer just around the corner. We’ll need to find different moments in the day where we can work outside. One way or another we need to get it done. Time, as we are discovering, is money.
So in true form, I won’t be posting a picture of Lou and I panicking about the budget of our project. Instead I’m showing you our homemade irrigation system for our vegetable patch. The veg patch is an old chicken coup and, although we discussed having chickens in the future, we decided to use it to grow vegetables for now instead. When we moved into the property there were lots of useful hosepipes hanging around the place and several water taps and bore holes. Cutting a length of pipe and drilling holes into it has provided much needed water for our lettuce.
By the end of the day, and I guess the whole point of this blog, as we sat in the (slightly) cooler evening we talked about how satisfying it was to be creative and, most importantly, to do it together. That might sound silly. After all, we haven’t gone our separate ways to go to work etc for the past 6 months. Lou and I have done everything together. But writing a business plan, filling out VISA forms or putting furniture together isn’t as rewarding as planting some lettuce and providing them with water.
It’s part of our dream. The vision. It’s what we talked about almost every evening in the UK. The sort of veg we would grow and how self sufficient we could become is part of the package on this journey. It’s important to us. And, yes, so are the VISA forms and the flat packed book shelf, but that doesn’t excite us.
I make no apologies for showing you my punctured bit of hose pipe. For now, that’s my Lapland. It’s the ‘look at me with Mickey Mouse in Disneyland’ moment. So the next time I see the lovely pics of tinterweb friends and influencers on social media, I’ll remember my great moment making our irrigation system. Sometimes it’s just the little things.
Nature had an idea when it decided that it should prepare me for getting older. It made me start receding at 18. Even younger maybe. In fact my jesting mind allows my memory to believe that I looked like Phil Mitchell as a 3 year old.
Nature prepared me well. I became not at all bothered about losing my hair. I embraced it. On a practical level I have saved thousands of pounds on the barbers and my short morning grooming routine meant I had more time for a cuppa and a couple of ciggies while watching Big Breakfast before running for the bus to get to work.
So, at 45 I am now totally accepting of the ageing process. The morning groom has changed and, in a cruel twist laid on by nature, I do have to deal with hair now. It’s just that this hair grows from my nostrils and out of my ears. I first realised that these hairs were noticeable to others when I got a nose hair strimmer for father’s day a few years ago. It made a change from socks, I suppose.
Today our stuff arrived on pallets from the UK. Luckily the builders were on hand to help lift everything off of the lorry with us. One of them, Thiago, commented on all of the gym equipment. I replied that I am a Personal Trainer and I aim to continue here in Portugal.
“Ah ha!” He exclaimed as he looked me up and down. “I thought you looked good.”
My face made that weird look that it always does when I’ve been complimented but trying to play it down as I also sucked my belly in a bit more (the fresh bread is too nice here) before he went on to continue his comment…
“…for your age.”
For my age. What does that even mean? Do I look good or not?!! He doesn’t know my age!
If he thinks I’m 65 then I probably do look pretty good for my age.
Another thing came in the pallets today. A mirror. I’ve enjoyed not having a mirror in the house. I even had to use my phone camera to look at when it came to shaving my follically challenged head. Other than that I’ve not felt the need to check myself out all that much. I was looking at myself in the reflection of a cafe the other day to find a couple weirded out by some bald bloke giving them a blue steel look. But now I have a full length mirror in the bathroom and my gym stuff I’m sure to be doing the thorax pose daily like I’m an extra on Pumping Iron.
I haven’t lifted anything heavy for months now and I can feel that my body is ready to take on a deadlift or two. Despite all the wonderful bread that keeps finding its way into my mouth I have been sticking to a nutrition plan of sorts. Decades of calorie counting has ensured that I don’t need to sit and work out what every meal adds up to as I can calculate it in my head simply enough and I know I stay within my weight maintenance limits. It means that the jeans I packed last October and arrived today still fit me.
But my joints and muscles have suffered. They’ve not been working as they’re used to. My gym equipment couldn’t come soon enough.
And it won’t be long until some unwitting couple sat by a cafe window will see me strut towards them, pouting and flexing, and say “He looks good….for his age.”
Someone call the fire brigade, this guy is hot! (For his age)
“The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man be perfected without trials.” Confucius.
It doesn’t matter what passions we develop in life, there will be moments when we lose our focus. At the moment I am learning a language. My day to day conversational speaking is becoming more advanced and my learning apps are telling me that I am ready for the next level, but I have recently hit a wall. Then I remembered my own advice. It’s what I tell my trainees.
Sometimes we need to rediscover the reasons why we wanted to take on a particular challenge in the first place.
In the past week or so I have become overawed by the task in hand. I felt daunted by the long, in-depth skills needed to speak to Portuguese builders, bank and VISA staff or my kid’s teachers. Imagine the robot or a computer with steam coming from it. That felt like my brain. It all became too much.
So I put on YouTube and literally typed in ‘basic greetings in Portuguese’. I watched short fun clips of people telling me how to say and pronounce ‘bom dia’ and slowly counting to 20 in Portuguese. I knew it. I knew it well. This is all the stuff I listened to in late 2022. It felt good.
Now let’s take a look at your fitness journey.
The timing of this post is not coincidental. Traditionally, the gym membership numbers go up in January and we see more runners in parks and on pavements during this time too. But by early March, in my experience, people are beginning to doubt themselves and the goals that they’ve set themselves.
The issue we have is that we tend to want everything now. I want to be fluent in Portuguese, we want to stream the latest movie or series, we want to turn on 24/7 news channels for the latest headlines, we want to order a convenience meal at the tap of a button, we want to post our holiday selfie the moment we take it and we want to lose body weight today. And because things don’t always happen instantly we become frustrated by the process.
But this isn’t advice just for the new year resolutioner. It doesn’t matter when you began your fitness journey. When the wall hits, it hits.
I spoke earlier about taking my language learning back to basics. I focussed on something that I knew that I could do. I simplified the process and made each session shorter. I made sure that I watched fun clips and not just somebody sitting at a desk with boring graphics. In a previous post I said that I am going to attempt to be a beginner every day. That is because I want to develop an attitude where nothing should be seen as ‘easy’. I learnt Portuguese numbers a long time ago, but it is only this morning that I mastered the finer details of how to say them. Knowing the words is one thing, but saying them in an accent that is understood is another.
When we have gone to the gym for a while it is normal to attempt a heavier lift or a longer, enduring set or session than the previous day. It is, after all, what we are told is progression. Anything else would be classed as failure or a waste of time. But as a personal trainer with hundreds of successful training programmes I can tell you that this is nonsense. Some of it anyway.
Almost every one of my training programmes has included periods of regression. And these don’t have to be written in blood. If a trainee is telling me that they have hit a wall, meaning either physical or mental fatigue, then I will factor in a period of regression straight away.
Regression isn’t designed to be ‘easy’. It still requires commitment, but it is different to the usual routine. In regards to a fitness goal, this could mean using more machines in the gym instead of free weights, going for a walk instead of lifting, running, or an intense fitness class. If you still choose to lift, you could work at a 50% weight of a one rep max instead of your programmed 80%. Or if you still want to join in the fitness class but choose to go at a less intense pace, then inform the instructor at the beginning. If they don’t understand the concept then they shouldn’t be instructing a fitness class.
Being committed to anything shouldn’t have to mean devoting every bit of your time and energy into it. This can create resentment. And I mean anything. Your partner, children, friends, work or your gym goals. Give something back to yourself now and again.
And when you do, you might find that you become a better partner, a better parent, a better friend, a better worker and a better trainer.
If there is one guarantee in life it is that the mainstream gyms will be buzzing with new members who have promised themselves a healthier start to the year. The new year’s resolutioners. And their journey, hopefully, is a great one. I know lots of people who started a successful journey based on a new year’s resolution. But there are many who don’t have the same success. They give up. This message is for anybody who has just begun their journey and how they can stay on track.
It is common knowledge between Personal Trainers that the gym looks like this every new year…
The January Rush
Especially in the mainstream gyms, it can be difficult to get onto any of the equipment due to the influx of new members mixed with the regulars. The PT can spot the new member immediately. They flit from one machine to the other with little direction. Form, especially in the free weight section, can be erratic. But for the most part the new member will stick to machines.
The PT will begin to plant the seed that you might need their help. They might offer an induction or consultation straight away if they are pushy, but also a good PT will simply just be present to answer questions.
The February Frustrations
Despite January being great for the gym, it is not necessarily the best month for a PT. A new member won’t generally just sign up with a PT they’ve just met. Also, most people think that they can do it by themselves. After all, how difficult can working a treadmill be? But new members can have unrealistic targets and in no way is a treadmill (or any machine) the best place to start. Frustrations arise. They’re not seeing the results they expected.
Their gym visits become less regular unless, and this is where the patient PT reaps the rewards, the member asks for help, tips, advice and a price list.
The March Sleepers
A sleeping membership is a reference to a gym member who pays for a membership but does not attend its services. By march and the dust has settled, according to statists, about 18% of people paying for a gym membership become sleepers. They have lost motivation, got bored, found other interests or just found life getting in the way.
What To Do Before You Get To March!
* Seriously consider a good PT. They’ll stick out a mile. Watch their interactions with their current clients. Approach them for advice. They should give free advice without being too pushy. If they’re too pushy then they’re desperate for custom. If they say that they’re really busy but will try to find a slot for you then they’re lying. There’s always room for a new client. Some trainers also work online with clients without the face to face sessions. This works out cheaper but can be a good option because of my next piece of advice…
* The biggest reason for people quitting the gym is their motivation (or lack of it). A good PT should be able to give you the determination and motivation that you need. Almost every day they should be asking ‘how do you feel today?’ and tracking your workout progress, offering challenges and fun targets. You don’t need to see them in person for them to do that.
* But if employing a PT is still something that you don’t want to do then consider this quote from author Zig Ziglar…”People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing, that’s why we recommend it daily.”
You see, your motivation needs working on daily. Just because you ate the full box of Quality Streets on Christmas day and promised yourself a gym membership doesn’t mean you’ll give a shit come March. After all, there are 18% of gym members who don’t.
Every Sunday I would ask my clients to plan their meals and their gym visits for the week. Have they booked the classes they wish to attend? Do they have packed lunch ideas for work so that they don’t feel the need to stop off at Gregg’s or Maccy D’s?
Any of my clients who were having a tough time of it (everybody does, even professional athletes) I would ask them for their reasons why they came to me. In some way, it was a call for help. But why?
I’ve had just about every reason given to me over the ten years that I worked in mainstream gyms and online. From eating disorders, beating depression or self harm, a charity run and to making the next Olympics. Plus, there were many of my clients who simply wanted to feel better about themselves and feel that they were doing something proactive.
I would ask them to give themselves 5 minutes each morning as they open their eyes to think about these reasons. What would achieving their target for that day mean to them? How does it make them feel? What about not doing it? How does that affect their mood by the end of the day?
This ‘self assessment’ should be done daily. And with it we will find the reason why we do it. I love a workout, but I need my daily motivation too! I need to know my ‘why?’. I have two small children. I want to be healthy enough to see them grow up. I want to be active enough to play football with them and (in later life) my grandkids. My wife and I are starting up a new business in a different country. I need to be mentally strong for the challenges ahead and exercise keeps my focus. I want to look and feel good about myself and when I’m really old I want to be able to get out of a chair unaided. My motivation isn’t about staying alive so much as having a quality of life as I get older.
We will all have our reasons, but it’s remembering them and acting on it daily that will take you past March in the gym.
Since Jonas was five he has played football for Scarborough Athletic. He was only able to train with the under 7’s team as he was too young, but once the new season started, he was able to play official matches.
Now ten, he has a new challenge coming up. Soon he will begin training with his new team, Sertanense, a club based in Sertá, central Portugal, ready for the new season in September.
Both Jonas and his younger brother Finlay will be starting a new school in Portugal in the new year and this is the biggest challenge of all seeing as it will include learning a new language (it is a local school and not an international school). It also means that they’ll not be with us every hour of every day which has been the case for the past few months as we made the permanent move.
Things are happening quickly for them. Lou and I don’t know how they will react on the morning of the 3rd of January when we take them to their new school. So far, when we talk about it, the signs are good. But to them it’s still Christmas. January might seem a distance yet. In reality it is a week today as I write this.
Finlay seems to want to take up a martial art as his extra curricular activity. He plays football, but it seems a bit more forced because he just joins in what Jonas is doing. But he doesn’t seem to have that passion for it. He doesn’t like watching it, whereas Jonas will analyse a period of play and talk about positioning during a game on TV. I’ve had play fights with Finlay. I think Karate or Judo will be a good choice for him. He’ll be a black belt in no time.
I’m trying not to transfer my fears onto the boys. What I mean by that is maybe I’m more scared than they are. They might just walk into school without any issues. Jonas might run onto the training pitch with 20 other kids with no problems. Maybe it’s me who has the nerves.
I hated new beginnings. The start of a new school term and definitely a new school still makes me shudder. And I never really pursued any extra curricular stuff as a kid because it meant meeting new people. I just stayed in the safe zone as much as possible.
But there’s a little bit of our move which is exactly for this purpose. We wanted to take ourselves and our kids out of the safe zone. A couple of years ago I never expected to be speaking Portuguese to a postal worker in a sorting office with no knowledge of English about my missing post. But I did that today. It’s a little achievement, but a massive confidence boost that he actually understood me.
I’ve been driving along cliff edges on an unfamiliar side of the road in rural Portugal. We bought an old farm house that we intend to make into a well being centre and guest house. Individually, each one of us has a zone which becomes out of their comfort. Mine might not seem like much to some people, but I’m enjoying finding my zone and continuing to challenge it.
And that’s the ultimate goal for my kids. That they can feel the discomfort in walking into a new class room, karate group or football pitch, thrive and grow from it and enjoy their achievements. Overcoming new and different experiences can make us more rounded, happier people.
I always told my new clients this whenever they felt like entering the gym became too much for them. Gyms can be an intimidating place. That’s why just stepping into the gym as a new member is the first goal. Not a deadlift or 20 minute treadmill run, but just entering the gym. From then on, with consistency, each visit gets easier to do.
Perhaps you have a new challenge that you want to focus on in the new year? My advice is to take that first step. It might mean leaving your comfort zone, but it’ll feel all the more sweeter when you overcome it.
I’ll keep you informed on mine and my family’s achievements in the coming weeks. Be sure to tell me yours.
I don’t want to bog you down with the diet conversation too much now. I’ve been blogging for over a year and a lot of my earlier content was about different diets, a calorie deficit and weight maintenance and seeing as the science on these subjects hasn’t changed in that time I don’t feel the need to repeat it. You can always look back in my posts to find the relevant reads for you.
But, especially at this time of year, I get lots of people asking me what the best diet is for a new year’s resolution or how to stick to a diet during the Christmas period.
Bearing in mind that I’m now living in a country where their bitoque dishes come with rice and excessive amounts of chips on the same plate (carbtastic!) and the best pastel de natas for a little sobremesa treat, I’m also keen to find that happy foodie head place where I can still meet weight maintenance goals and enjoy my meals.
Enter The 20%
I, like many others that I speak to, will say things like…
“I’ve quit smoking…
I’ve cut down on alcohol…
I’ve got kids/work/family/friends who depend on me and I get stressed…
I don’t need to train for a marathon/Olympics…
I just want to be fitter, healthier, stronger and happier.
Why can’t I just enjoy a freakin’ pizza if I want one?!!”
Well, here’s the thing. We can. We can have pizza, a burger, an extra Yorkshire pud on our Christmas dinner plate. But we need to stick to one rough bit of math. If we can consume 20% of the food and drink that are considered non-nutritional, then for the most of us we will be in a good weight maintenance place. And if the other 80% of the food is full of vitamins, proteins and nutrients, then there’s a good chance of weight reduction.
Let’s take the traditional Christmas lunch as an example. Turkey breast is a protein monster coming in at about 30g in a serving. And the vegetables…sprouts have a great fibre content with 8g per serving. Carrots promote bone health with high calcium and vitamin k content. Red cabbage reduces inflammation. Parsnips are full of vitamin C and can help regulate blood pressure.
Then there’s the potatoes. You can’t have a Christmas dinner without a few roasties. Rich in iron, they can improve digestion. So even if we add the pigs in blankets and Yorkshire pudding, we can safely say that we’re in the 80% zone for highly nutritious food. Leaving us with a good 20% to play with. Heck! We could even add a pate starter and a pudding as long as we keep to sensible portions.
But Christmas time is tricky for other reasons. The actual Christmas dinner is not the problem. The tub of celebrations, the nibbles and the Irish cream, now there’s the problem!
We can, however, still be indulgent. We can eat some chocolates and not the whole tub or have a few alcoholic drinks without drinking the bar dry.
Even on a day of celebration, we should still stick to 20% of non-nutritional drinks. Water, coffee, tea, juice, milk will all be your friend if you plan to have a drink to get tiddly and you’ll be grateful for the 80% of positive fluids by the next morning.
The Bottom Line
Whether it’s the festive period or not, every day you should be thinking about what positive, nutritional food you could have with your next meal. But omitting everything else that you might enjoy is often a counter productive practice, where you just end up resenting the process and being miserable. And sooner or later, you quit the process and start right back at the beginning…anxious with no idea where to turn.
Be mindful about the nutrition that you put into your body, but don’t cut out the other stuff entirely. Think 20%. That 20% might just keep you on track.
For those of you who read my blogs from afar you might not see my family’s move to Portugal as anything too big. But for those who have followed my journey and who know me personally will know that it is absolutely massive.
The fact is that my decision to move from the UK to Portugal came from me (or my wife and I) hitting a brick wall.
This brick wall was making us unhappy. We felt that, month upon month, we could not pay mortgage bills, rent bills on our businesses, council tax and food and energy bills. There was no way of planning a holiday for the kids. Our savings since COVID was depleted. Our brick wall was getting thicker and higher.
You too might feel that you have a brick wall. Let me tell you now that you can climb it, dig under it, hell you can kick your way through it, but never let a brick wall break you. You can come through the other side.
Your brick wall might be totally different to mine, but if it is making you unhappy and restricting your happiness then it is there.
I always had a need to travel, yet career moves and kids meant that I had to stabilise my life at that time. It was only in 2016, after the referendum for the UK to leave the EU did I know that I would leave my home. But at the time my career was just taking off as a Personal Trainer and my kids were babies. It was, we felt, not the right time.
And as much as I always threatened to leave the UK it only became a reality when I felt that I could no longer afford to live there. I hit the brick wall. And to put that into perspective, my mortgage had doubled in the UK from October and council tax was almost £300 a year. In Portugal, we are mortgage free and council tax is 20€ a year. A 5 litre box of quaffable wine is under 5€ too. Bonus.
I’m not here saying, hey, look at me! Look at how well we’re doing! Blimey. There’s a long way to go for us yet. We’re still renting from one place to the next until our house purchase goes through. We’ve been living like this since September and expect to be until late January as we still await a reply from a school for our kids.
Also, there is a whole lot of work to do on the property that we have bought to become liveable and profitable for our business. Something that you will be able to see on our Road To Tranquility Facebook and YouTube pages plus Channel 4’s A New Life In The Sun in series 10.
The Brick wall is still palpable. But we still keep climbing, digging, bulldozing and beating down this bloody wall. It won’t get in our way.
Never let a brick wall get in your way. Whatever you want, overcome it and reach the other side. Don’t let it beat you.
Navigating our way through life is a complicated one. We do our best. Blimey, we try. But sometimes the anxiety of our past and what is in store for our future can be a constant buzzing around our head.
With it all swirling about, we miss our nearest targets. And they’re the most important ones. In resistance training terms, I use the ‘cycle’ of training programming to reach certain goals. I’ll explain…
We might have an ultimate fitness goal of losing 60 pounds in a year. This is called a macrocycle. Macrocycles are long term goals. Athletes, especially Olympians, can even have a macrocycle target set for 4 years time which is where they are expecting to be at their peak fitness for their main event.
But having this target of losing 60 pounds within a year is not enough. That is why, in the fitness industry, we implement mesocycles. This represents the different phases of training throughout a program and could depend on seasonal adjustments for example. Again, athletes will train for strength or endurance leading up to certain events depending on what is required of them to achieve winning a meet.
But we need to break it down even further. So we use microcycles. If we go back to the 60 pound weight loss in a year goal, a microcycle can be a weekly gym plan with a calorie or nutrition target. It can even be shorter than that. It can be a daily target. Shorter still? Every meal could be calorie controlled and every gym set can be weight and rep monitored.
Very often when I speak to weight loss clients, they have a very clear idea of their macro target (“I want to lose 60 pounds by this time next year”). Their mesocycle targets are usually a little less clear but can be managed (“I want to fit into this *insert item of clothing* by the summer”).
But their microcycle almost becomes none existent. And in 90% of my client base over the past ten years, I have found that it is the microcycle that is the most important bit for them and where the role of the PT has become essential. It has been their next gym visit or daily meal plan.
You see, some people might be able to book their place for next year’s Tough Mudder and break their training time down into cycles. For the rest of us, we need to just do the next right thing.
Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung once received a letter simply asking him ‘how to live’. Jung admitted in his reply that this was an almost impossible question to answer, but he did attempt an explanation. He said…
“If you always do the next thing that needs to be done, you will go most safely and sure footedly along the path prescribed by your subconscious. Then it is naturally no point at all to speculate about how you ought to live. And you know, too, that you cannot know it, but quietly do the next and most necessary thing.”
My interpretation of this is about doing ‘the next right thing’. This could be going for a walk, booking an exercise class, preparing a nutritious meal, calling on a relative you haven’t spoken to for a while or meeting up for a coffee with a friend. The next right thing is YOUR thing, nobody else’s.
I heard the quote ‘doing the next right thing’ on the soap opera Coranation Street the other day. Having studied Jung many years ago I recalled his reply after hearing the quote on TV.
In the soap opera, the character asked her friend how she coped with the tragic death of her young son. Her friend said that she didn’t cope and never will, but each day is just about doing the next right thing.
We all live with some sort of grief, regret, anxiety or doubt. But if you can manage the next right thing in your life then it is a step closer to some sort of comfort. It can, in many cases, lead to not just a strategy of coping, but to enlightenment and happiness.
Think now about your next right step. What are you going to do?
Never Give Up PT 