‘Oh shit.’ I muttered as a van slowly slid down the hill towards my car with me and the boys inside.
I would usually wince at my curses if I were in the vicinity of the kids and tell myself off for using such language. Tonight, however, it’s a wonder it wasn’t something stronger.
Within a split second, which seemed to happen in slow motion, the van uncontrollably came closer to the car. It would do a considerable amount of damage to the car if it hit it, but I was confident that me and the boys would be safe. My wife, though, was the one pushing our car up the hill! Any sort of collision, considering the cars revving hard up the hill and the sliding cars coming down it, could have been very serious to anybody on foot.
Luckily, and what seemed to be just a couple of inches away, the van managed to stop as I continued to rev my car up the hill as my wife, now with a couple of helpers, got my car onto a flatter surface.
The journey back from taking our boys for their swimming lessons had turned into quite an adventure. A journey that should take 10 minutes took an hour and a half.
That evening, along with my long list of Google questions such as ‘Schools in Santarem’ and ‘Houses for sale in Santarem’, ‘Does it snow in Santarem?’ entered the search history.
Next year will be the year that I move with my family to Portugal. The weather isn’t the biggest motivation, but last night it did nudge up a few places on the priority list.
I used to like it when it snowed. I have lovely memories of snowball fights and building snowmen as a kid. But as a grown up, I only like it on a greetings card. Snow means a loss of earnings and near misses with vans.
It also means I don’t get to the gym to train myself as much. Of course, the snow doesn’t play a huge part in this. It might cause a day or two of disruption but I have a long list of work and house chores that need doing and, generally, the lead up to the Christmas week represents a rest period to my regular training schedule. And although January would usually be the green light to get stuck into my schedule again, a week away in Portugal in the first week of the new year will give me extra time to enjoy my ‘bulking’ period.
After all, who can go to Portugal and not try a pastel de nata or two?
The bright shiny object is a term that is used particularly in business, but can be relevant in many different situations in life.
It is the belief that, although you have put a plan in place, a new venture or interest catches your eye that attracts you to it. This new thing being the bright and shiny object. In the psychology field they have even called it a syndrome (Shiny Object Syndrome, SOS).
It can often be derailing to our original commitments and the extra cost and time devoted to the shiny object begins to affect a plan that was actually already working rather well.
In the gym I see it daily and, make no mistake, the shiny object is as alluring to me as for anyone else. But I have trained my mind to move on and stick to the plan as difficult as that might be sometimes. So let’s give a couple of examples of what it means in our health and fitness goals and our diets.
Case 1. The Inconsistent Trainer.
This is the shiny object that often tries to put me off of my stride. And it did for Jack. Jack had committed to the gym four times a week to follow a program plan by his trainer which would eventually see extra muscle mass and a leaner, aesthetic physique. He was fully focussed, made the investment in time and money and, after a few weeks, began to notice subtle changes to the way he looked and felt.
His program continued to be challenging as he progressed through the different phases of training, but after 3 months a friend had started to send him YouTube videos of a few different fitness influencers. They became Jack’s new, bright and shiny new object. He wanted to try the sort of techniques and ‘kick ass’ moves that would quicken the process and reach his results in less time.
He began only loosely following his program as he diverted from it during his training to try the new stuff that he had seen from the influencers. He no longer practiced conventional deadlifts. Instead he was keen to master the Jefferson deadlift, which was described as ‘quad killers’ by the influencer. However, whilst the Jefferson might be a useful lift for many of their subscribers, for Jack it put pressure on his spine. Over time, he began to suffer with lower back pain. His PT advised him to stick closely to his original plan, as he still needed to master the original deadlift before trying different variations.
Jack became frustrated. He understood what his PT was saying, but the pull of an influencer with thousands of followers was too much of a draw. Surely they knew their stuff, he thought. And of course he was right, they did know their stuff, but they didn’t know Jack. However, Jack decided to stop the services of his PT and try to pursue his own routine.
As the year progressed, Jack went from having moments of motivation where he would manage to get to the gym four or five days a week to not managing to get there at all for weeks at a time. Either through injuries or simply feeling demoralised, Jack didn’t reach his goals. He ditched his original plan designed specifically for him for the bright shiny object. He found that one influencer would tell their audience to do one thing and another influencer would tell their subscribers something totally different. Jack’s consistency and motivation had gone.
Case 2. The Yo-Yo Dieter.
Jill had promised herself that she would lose some weight and started to be more careful about the food that she ate. Having a sweet tooth and grazing throughout the day meant that she had put on a certain amount of weight that left her feeling lethargic and uncomfortable about herself.
Jill decided that she would download a calorie counting app to keep a check on the amount of calories that she was consuming. She didn’t want to be too restrictive, so along with meal plans of some of her favourite nutritious meals, she allowed herself some of her more indulgent treats a couple of days a week. Jill knew that, as long as she could track her calories, she could remain in control of her portions and enjoy her efforts to lose the weight that she wanted. After a few weeks, Jill felt that she wasn’t so tired all the time and she decided to join a local running group and also began enjoying long walks with her partner.
After 6 months of the positive lifestyle change, Jill was talking to a friend. They were discussing weight loss and it was apparent that her friend had lost a considerable amount of weight. Jill’s friend told her that she was on a diet which allowed just 800 calories a day and, although she felt too tired to exercise from the lack of energy, she was losing lots of weight each week.
Jill had been happy with her progress, but her friend’s impressive story had made her wonder if she could do the same. Jill concluded that, due to the darker cold nights setting in, she wouldn’t want to go running anyway. Plus, if she can make the sort of progress that her friend did, she could hit her target weight for Christmas, 6 months earlier than she’d expected.
Jill started the new diet. But it wasn’t long before her energy fell and she quit the running club. Her mood changed too. She felt snappy with her partner and didn’t want to attend special occasions because she was unable to eat or drink the same as anyone else. She lost weight quickly, but she wasn’t happy. Eventually, she would have binge days and this left her even more frustrated as she felt like she was failing.
Jill came off of the diet and tried to go back to her original plan. This proved to be more difficult than she’d expected though as all of her positive habits that she had worked on had gone. She found herself grazing and eating all of the wrong things again. Despite having bouts of motivation, Jill has not found the consistency that she had once enjoyed.
Summary
In both scenarios, Jack and Jill had found something that worked for them and their lifestyle. There is nothing wrong with what a friend might be doing differently or what an influencer might suggest, but what Jack and Jill were doing was successful to THEM. Yet something new and exciting swayed them into boycotting their plans. The very plans that were working.
Alterations, tweaks or little changes to a plan are fine as long as it is exactly that…the plan. Nobody wants a training program to stagnate or a nutritional menu to become boring with the same meals each day. But the foundations in which it was first created need to remain the same.
The bright shiny object will always have us wondering and the newness to try alternative methods is intriguing, but take it from someone who has had his fingers burnt on many occasions before becoming a Personal Trainer, it will often end in derailing our good work and possibly even ending it with nothing in return.
The term ‘false choice’ is used to describe a situation where we believe that we only have two options to get the answer.
Examples of this include…
Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
If you want to protect the environment, you must want the economy to crash.
If you support Utd, you must hate City.
If you are proud of your nation, you must be xenophobic towards all other countries.
You like horror movies? So you don’t like comedies?
Marmite. You either love it or hate it.
All of the above gives us very little option. It is an either/or dilemma. Which is not very helpful.
And it is not very helpful when it comes to fitness goals. We often restrict ourselves to two categories. Our pigeon holes are…
A. I don’t go to the gym therefore it doesn’t matter what I eat so much because I haven’t got any time to make fitness goals.
B. I often workout therefore I restrict my diet to look and feel my best in order to reach my goals.
These two extremities are unhelpful when it comes to planning your health, wellbeing, nutrition and quality of life. It doesn’t have to be down to choosing between two options.
As much as lots of people begin their exercise routines in September and start a particular diet in time for looking their best for Christmas parties, there are more people that decide on leaving it until January when they will make it a New Year’s Resolution. Yet both options often lead to disappointment.
The September starter will find that they have hit the gym hard, restricted their calories too much and still run out of time to reach their (usually) unachievable goal.
The January starter finds it even harder. They procrastinated back in September for a reason and it’s because they don’t like exercise or they have never been shown any exercise or food that they like to sustain it. So they decide to leave it until after the summer. Then decide to wait until January where they can make a New Year’s Resolution. The cycle continues.
So what if I told you that there were multiple choices? Options that were all shades of grey and not just a black or white view. A consistent, sensible lifestyle approach that didn’t leave you with anxiety about your body and your health.
You don’t need a program that you would expect to see from an Olympian. You don’t need to spend hours each week in the gym. In fact, for most fitness goals you don’t even need a gym. And you never have to quit your favourite snacks.
When you enter a false choice scenario, it is easy to reach a dead end. The all or nothing method can leave us unfulfilled, demoralised and either ends up in quitting or never getting started.
The chicken and the egg question is a prime example of a puzzle that only becomes a puzzle because of how the question is posed. Whilst both options are correct, the only way of explaining the conclusion to this is by exploring the grey areas. This is because the original question is poorly delivered.
We ask ourselves poorly delivered questions all the time. Would I prefer the chocolate cake or the spinach smoothie tonight? If this was my only choice, then the chocolate cake would win every time. But again, if you were to explore the possibilities you would find that a small portion of chocolate cake would be great and you can have the smoothie too!
Should you begin an exercise routine for weight loss or not? Once again, this question is poor. If you find yourself motivated in that specific moment, you might answer yes. Tomorrow, you might feel differently.
To get your answers, first you need to discover why you should exercise more and why choosing nutritional meals is important to you.
My answer is easy. I don’t want my kids to have to bury me when they’re just young men and if I do live to be a ripe old age I want to be as independent as possible. I want a certain quality of life. So yes, I do want to exercise and I do want to choose healthier options.
However, I don’t want this to dictate my life. I enjoy not moving too. I enjoy laying on the sofa watching four episodes of Better Call Saul back to back with a glass of wine. But I can rest easy knowing that I walked the kids to school instead of driving, or I took the stairs instead of the elevator, or I went to the gym or… whatever I did, I moved. I had an active day and I made sure that I had nutritional meals.
I’m not training to run a marathon or for a bodybuilding competition. The only event I’m training for is in the event of old age I can get in and out of a chair, that I can play football with my grandkids, that I can get to the toilet in time. That doesn’t require me to hammer the gym for two hours a day.
Your false choices will kill your goals if you let them. If you look closer, you have many options to choose from. You just need to start answering them honestly.
I dread the day that my car goes in for its MOT. It’s the day I get to find out how much more out of pocket I’m going to be. However, the grand old Juke seems to have a bit of life left in it yet! It got the all clear.
But this isn’t an article about my car. Although, I wish that I was as prepared to get myself checked out as regularly as I do my car. The difference is, the car legally needs to be checked for road worthiness, but I can continue my life blissfully unaware without being stopped and penalised for not going to the doctors. That is until I break down. And then the penalties for my ignorance could, in fact, be my life.
The journalist, Bill Turnbull, adds to the long list of well known people who were diagnosed with a terminal illness who came out and said that they wished that they’d gone to the doctors earlier. This week he lost his fight. In a 2018 interview he said that he felt his bones ache and had pain in his hips which he put down to old age instead of going to the doctors. He left it too late, but he would speak out until his death about others going for their regular check ups so that they didn’t make the same mistake.
In the UK, the NHS Health Check is for people turning 40 and it is advised that we have one every 5 years. At 43 I’m still yet to have one. Indeed, I can’t even remember my last doctor’s appointment. I can blame Covid restrictions, sure, it has had an impact on health appointments.
But if I’m being honest, the older I get the more reluctant I am to see a doctor.
No. Let me rephrase that last sentence…
Being a dad of two beautiful little boys, I am reluctant to face the thought of being told that I might not see them grow up or that they and my wife have to go through the grief of losing me.
I know there’s no logic to it. If anything was discovered where I had to act on my health regarding treatment, the earlier the problem is found the better. But fear doesn’t always appear with common sense or rationale. It just bites and we act in whatever way we can. Usually to sweep it under the carpet.
This morning I booked my Health Check and I’m relieved now to have the appointment. I feel healthy. Sure, I don’t live a totally clean lifestyle in today’s definition of ‘clean’. But I exercise regularly and eat with an 80/20 rule where 80% of my diet is of nutritional value.
This, however, gives us no certainties. I might be giving myself a better chance to not just live longer, but to have a better quality of life. It doesn’t earn me guaranteed immunity though.
If I could, I would urge everyone who reads this and who has procrastinated in making their doctors check up appointments to do it today. I know that it isn’t as easy to get an appointment these days in some parts of the UK, but your appointment will take even longer if you don’t attempt to make one.
We would be quick to book our car’s MOT or service. But we have a vehicle that we own for life. Make sure you look after your body.
Perhaps I was a little over ambitious to set about a new online course for a further qualification just a couple of weeks before the summer holidays kicked in. With two boys off school I’m struggling to find any extra time for my regular appointments, let alone the added stress of completing assignments.
But that’s where I’m at. It’s what I signed up for. I don’t like my personal growth, business, economical, family or physical growth to become stagnant. And sometimes it is challenging.
I recently listened to a podcast from a speaker who said,”If you remain comfortable, you will fail. Success is not a comfortable procedure. You have to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. Start putting some pressure on.”
I fully understand this sentiment. I need goal setting, time lines, wins and losses. I’m not a betting man. At least not with the bookmakers. I hate it. I don’t even do the lottery. But I do take a punt on the outsider now and again trying to sneak a goal or ‘win by a nose’. On this occasion, that outsider is me.
One of Mohammed Ali’s most famous fights in the ring was 1974’s Rumble In The Jungle. He spent most of that fight on the ropes defending himself against the onslaught of George Foreman’s punches. Ali managed to tire his opponent out (throwing punches continuously is extremely tiring) and counter this by building his own attacks. He knocked Foreman out in the 8th round. The term was called rope-a-dope.
Success isn’t always built by coming out of the blocks looking for the quick fix. It often takes calculated risks. Ali left his comfort zone. He didn’t want the heavyweight champion of the world throwing punch after punch on him whilst he was trapped on the ropes. It’s a risky tactic. But he knew that this was a technique to win the match in this particular battle.
And as I sit in my bedroom thinking of the punches that are coming my way, I know that I will need to roll with them. Sure, I’ll need to come out fighting at some point, but I also need to find a way of protecting myself until I align myself with the task in hand. It’s not my round 8 just yet.
Choosing between…
* worrying about unfinished jobs, crying over missed opportunities, procrastinating over deadlines, avoiding the mirror because the school holidays seem like a looooong time and my belly looks bigger and the ‘v’ frown on my forehead gets more prominent, or
* choosing your battles, when to attack, when to rest, planning your route, accepting the knocks and finding solutions.
Both are about leaving your comfort zone. But the latter, albeit daunting and uncomfortable, still gives you control. There’s no easy way in finding what you want. The one that at least puts you in the most amount of control must be the best way.
Ali was always in control during this fight, but Foreman didn’t know that. Foreman felt too comfortable. It would be his downfall.
I know that my desires and ambition shouldn’t be tethered. They should be allowed to run freely around in my head like a pool of ideas, creativity and inspiration. And so I need to leave my comfort zone and set them free, knowing that I must remain patient in truly finding the wins in some cases. Locking my future goals away entirely will only fester anger and frustration.
I need to start with my next assignment if I’m to follow my own advice. One punch at a time, Shay. One punch at a time. As long as I can withstand that, It’ll soon be my round 8.
Over the past few weeks there’s been parents queuing up at the booze isle so that they can choose their poison for the evening when they’ve put the kids to bed.
How do I know? Because I’ve been one of them. And although it hasn’t gotten to fisty cuffs just yet, there’s been a few near misses as I hurdle the crates and boxes placed by the staff in the centre of the isles to get to the last bottle of Montepulciano. I almost straddled Big Dave’s back to reach for this particularly fruity red but luckily he was headed for the stout section. Just as well. If I had to challenge him for my favourite tipple I think I would’ve lost.
Of course, it’s not just the parents heading for the booze section. A study published by The Lancet in 2017 found that global alcohol consumption had gone up by 70% from 1990 to 2017. Notice the dates. This was pre-pandemic. I can’t imagine the consumption of alcohol to have gone down.
People are finding work stressful. They turn on the news to wars and political unrest. The economy is a mess. Social media can be addictive but toxic. People are having to hang on in there. The daily grind leads to an alcohol unwind. I just made that up. It rhymed.
But anyway, my job as a fitness coach isn’t to analyse the many studies made on our society. But it is my job to know how to deal with the many different issues that our society brings up. Body confidence, work life balance, injuries, physical health, mental health and food anxieties are all things that I deal with regularly in my work.
But I’ll tell you why I am particularly good at what I do. Everything I have listed above I have had to deal with in my own life at some time or another. Some are more prominent than others, but damn, it hits you like a ton of bricks and knocks you off course pretty quickly. Alcohol, perhaps, becomes a crux for some. For others it might be over or under eating. And then there’s a whole myriad of people who self harm in other ways. There isn’t much I haven’t seen.
My weight management programme has been tweaked to what is now a well established offering to my clients. Why? Most people don’t even know they’re on a programme. It simply becomes a journey of self discovery. It deals with becoming stronger both physically and mentally. It is designed to challenge the body and the thought processes that we have. I not only wrote the programme, but I lived it first.
Adding a summer sports school for a hundred kids two days a week to my list of work commitments this summer has had me spinning those plates to the extent that, just maybe, Big Dave wouldn’t have stood a chance had he made a grab for my bottle of Montepulciano.
But come September, I’ll be back to dropping the kids off at school and having a focus on developing my online coaching programmes and my gym work.
And seeing as the kids go back to school next week and I’m about to open this bottle of Montepulciano right now, it could be the last of my summer wine.
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.
An influential coach in Leeds I used to work with recently spoke about his latest challenge at a recent event he participated in and highlighted “the relentless pursuit of better.”
Despite performing well, he was left slightly disappointed that he didn’t meet his intended target for the event.
Seb Cook demands it of himself and this enthusiasm is passed on to those he coaches.
But the term “the relentless pursuit of better” hit me. This will mean something different to every individual, this is what good coaches do, we find out what our trainees need and want. And much like Seb, every good coach will have their own version of “better” that they pursue.
I still have the drive and hunger to hit PB’s in the gym, but for a few years now my version of a better me is being a good dad, husband and friend. It’s about remaining in control and not getting so angry or upset if things don’t go my way. It’s about balancing my life and remaining grounded.
But I don’t believe that any of these would be possible to achieve without the commitment, dedication and discipline that going to the gym almost every day has given me.
For others it might be a long walk each day and meeting their step count. Or it could be sticking to a yoga class a few times a week. It could be running, climbing, swimming. Whatever each individual finds that gets them excited about doing it is a way of unlocking their potential. It begins their pursuit of better.
And, of course, you don’t even need to move to do it. In recent years I’ve found meditation to be a great source of self awareness and reflection. It makes me a better person.
Seb wasn’t looking for perfection in his event. He just keeps striving for better each time. This will be a success, yet, just one event will never define it as much.
Perhaps entrepreneur Howard Getson says it perfectly when he spoke about success when he said, “Success is not about an event or an outcome. It comes from the relentless pursuit of something better.”
So whatever you do tomorrow, make it a little bit better than today. And my number one piece of advice for making that happen is to prepare. Every day from now, prepare something for tomorrow and carry it out. Start your relentless pursuit.
I like to think that I have a group of motivated and enthusiastic trainees who are focussed on their goals. At the moment there seems to be a buzz of excitement in what we are achieving, but it comes with a big red flashing light of caution.
As early as the consultation stage I like to prepare my future clients for the reality. Yes, they will succeed. They can reach their goals. But only if they become comfortable with the knowledge that it will be a case of not if, but when they have to face the feelings of failure.
Failure comes in many different guises. To some it’s a disappointing week with nutrition. To others it could be not seeing the results as quickly as they expected. It could be that they feel that they haven’t dedicated enough time to the gym or their weekend binge has set their progress back.
Even in elite sport the athletes will face failure. Djokovic might win Wimbledon, but he will drop sets. City might win the league, but they will lose games. A boxer might win the fight, but it doesn’t come without a few blows along the way. Real Madrid lost a whopping four times during their Champions League campaign in 2022 and yet went on to win the final. Being a Liverpool supporter I know that stat all too well!
The above sports people are trained to deal with the highs and lows of sport and competition. And let’s not hide away from the fact that your goals are a competition. If you set any type of target or goal, you begin to compete against yourself. Today, you compete against the yesterday’s you. Find that mindset and you make a big step towards your success. Acknowledge that sometimes the yesterday’s you will defeat you, then that’s an even bigger step.
But if you allow yourself to get bogged down on the low days then your journey will be so much more difficult. For many people it becomes too much and they give up.
The low days are the ones that you can look back on and embrace. These are the days when you learned something about yourself and you responded. It becomes an education. And in many ways you learn more on these days than you ever will on your good days.
Giving up on your goals is like slashing your three other tyres because you got a flat.
Sometimes you will get a flat tyre. Acknowledge it, know what to do or who to ask when it does, fix it and move on.
Scarborough is a small town. It’s the sort of place that if you go into the town centre you will probably know somebody to say hello to. Train in a gym with almost 3,000 members and the chances are that I will definitely see somebody I know.
Had they seen me in a bar this lunch time they would have found me with a large gin and tonic and some ‘dirty fries’. When I ordered them I imagined some chips with a sprinkling of grated cheese. What I actually got was a bag of potatoes, a pack of bacon and a block of cheese squeezed into a good sized pasta bowl. This wasn’t the amuse bouche that I had visioned in my mind, but it was one my belly was happy to try.
I wished a client of mine would’ve walked in as I slurped the stringy melted cheese into my mouth. If only to keep proving my point. I keep reiterating my point regarding food and weight management…eat it. All of it. If it fits your daily calories, eat it and enjoy it. But there’s a slight caveat. Just one little rule.
If you aren’t going to cut out the low nutrition foods, then you must keep the nutritionally dense foods high. Whether you are very active with fitness goals or more sedentary, keep the nutritionally dense foods high.
You see, I don’t believe in banning food types. If you want to stop off at a bar and order a truck full of McCain’s Chips then do it, as long as your weekly macros are met. Yes, weekly. Some days your carbs might be up, but if you keep the nutritionally dense and high protein foods a priority over the course of the week then your calories and macros will average out. Judging your Journey on just one day will serve you no purpose.
I knew that I could eat some greasy cheesy chips today. I count my calories.
Now, if you read the newspapers you might gasp in horror at the knowledge that I count calories and I also endorse it for others. The one exception being anybody suffering from an eating disorder. In which case they don’t need me, they need professional medical support.
But the media seem to be very negative towards counting calories. Which is interested, because they print lots of other methods such as 5:2, Intermittent fasting and promote large dieting companies who count ‘syns’.
My conclusion is that counting calories isn’t sexy. It isn’t a buzz word or trending on Twitter. And if it isn’t a large company paying a newspaper to advertise their diet or a book publisher paying them to flog Michael Mosley’s new fad diet, then it gets demonized as wrong.
If I go into a shop and see something that I want to buy I will check my bank balance before I purchase it. That’s just simple accounting.
If I go to the carpet fitters I will take the measurements of the room that I wish to have carpeted with me. That is just common sense.
If I take my son to buy a pair of shoes I will ask the assistant to measure his feet first. Efficient.
And if I want some dirty fries washed down with a gin and tonic I will make sure that my meals around this tasty treat are low in calories and high in nutrition. No anxiety or concerns.
I get what I want now and again and I also get to keep my body on track with my fitness goals. And a part of my fitness goals is my mental health, therefore stressing at banning all of the foods that I enjoy is not something that I consider healthy. I have a good relationship with food. I don’t want to feel anxious about being in a social environment and seeing half of the food on the menu to be cancelled for me.
I don’t develope programmes or challenges for my clients if I wouldn’t do it myself. So occasionally doing my own Balanced Plate Challenge works for me. My clients succeed, why shouldn’t I enjoy my own methods too?!
And so it’s time to make my smoothie. With plenty of spinach and fruit in there my body will still know that I love it. And it might even get another bowl of dirty fries again next week!
Never Give Up PT 