So the next few weeks are when many people go away and have a break. Quite right too. I think people should holiday regularly if they can, once every 4 months is about right.
I have many clients join me pre-holiday to get in shape and post holiday to burn off the weight they have gained. It seems to be an endless cycle which is great for business, but not so good for our health in the long run. Our bodies tend to like to stay at the heaviest they have ever been too, so its a never ending cycle of reducing the damage we cause on these holidays of ours.
This will be a very brief newsletter. It is easy for me to simply say don't drink alcohol, sleep 8-9 hours a night and exercise 2x a day daily, but for most of you reading this, that suggestion is simply ridiculous. I agree with you too, holidays are most definitely the times to let your hair down.
So what I would suggest is to try out and two of the following...
Get into the sun and soak up the rays, it will help you lose weight and feel happier.
The sudden absence of stress will be a god send to most of you and you will lose weight too, switch off!
Switch your mobiles off and be as unobtainable as possible. You will lose weight from just doing this!
If you can get yourself into the sea or a pool at least once a day for 15 minutes it will help massively. Keep your joints mobile and keep yourself moving.
If you are an early riser, try to get out for a 20 minute walk to burn some extra calories and clear the mind.
If you are going to have a drink, vodka soda is always a good option, keep the beers to a minimum.
Most of the food that you eat will probably be fresher than the supermarket food you eat whilst at home. As long as most of the choices you have are pretty "clean" then this will limit the damage.
Try having two courses instead of three.
Laugh as much as possible and try a new experience with someone you love or are friendly with everyday.
Just implementing two of these simple tips will make the world of difference allowing you to de-stress and limit the post holiday damage.
Yours in health
Patrick Fallis
How to get yourself to the gym when you are not feeling it
Image from http://workoutmemes.com/
We have all had those days where we really are just not feeling like going to the gym. We create elaborate stories about why it is ok for us to give it a miss just this once... or twice or actually we will start gain next week when we are motivated again and the weather is a bit nicer.
Even with a decent amount of knowledge and experience, the excuses just get more complex. I once had a training partner who has superb knowledge and technical skills, create some sort of convoluted reason to take it easy by "de-loading in a loading phase..." because he wasn't feeling it that day... (if you are reading this you know who you are ;-) What does that even mean?! ;-) Well I think I know what he meant...
However, when it comes to just not feeling it when going to the gym I completely get it. As a fitness professional we are expected to look the part, practice what we preach and its not unusual for many of us to train 6 days a week for months on end. We get tired and bored too. We are meant to loooove fitness, so if we get bored what on earth are the high achieving, busy readers of this newsletter meant to do, especially when most of you train as you really just want to move and feel a bit better.
Well I have some suggestions from my own experience, and from what others have taught me.
Whatever you had planned...halve it
It was just the other day, and I had missed every serious exerciser's favorite day of the week... leg day. Now being a former athlete, my natural tendency was to beat myself up about it, and prepare to do the next session with added intensity, plus some interest... In my mind I had built up a grueling 90 minute session in my head. I felt flat, tired, had only eaten one meal so far and not slept that well. Oh, and I had been off coffee for 3 weeks at this stage, so not "pre workout" help.
In short it was going nowhere... I was already making excuses to delay the session and make up for it later that week.
Somehow I caught myself, and realized the trap I had created for myself. How on earth was I going to do that ridiculous workout with no sleep or fuel to get it done? Well, I played a small trick on myself. I in fact used my training partner's "de-loading in a loading phase" excuse and decided to do a normal session that I normally had planned and halve all of the sets (effectively halving the workout). I suddenly had a huge rush of energy, probably because of relief at that moment.
So I went to the gym, I started as normal and funnily enough managed to convince myself once a couple of sets in, to get a normal workout done (60 mins for me). I could have done only half of the sets and been ok with that, but by lowering my barrier of expectation, it seemed to take a great load off my mind and allow me to focus on lifting.
I had a great session and learnt a lot from that experience, which I am able to share with you now!
Never Break the Chain
Warren Buffet famously quoted "Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken"
Now relating this to fitness, getting to the gym takes will power (a limited resource), and when our "attentional energy" (again another limited resource), is bombarded by work, kids, family, business, market ups and downs, as well as constant emails, the gym really does fall down the pecking order in terms of priorities, especially as we tire.
One of my clients and a very good friend of mine is a stellar example of how to overcome the "not feeling it" syndrome. He is very much a man of routine and prides himself on this.
He currently runs a business with many staff members to manage, but he is the personality, life and soul of his business and all of his clients want to see him all the time. The sort of guy that should you have a problem with anything, even a blocked sink, you could ask him and he would give you a great solution to that.
He is surprisingly more of a natural introvert so having to "switch it on" to meet and greet clients is extremely exhausting for him. I am sure the many business owners reading this now probably have a half smile and know this feeling quite well. Somehow week in and week out he manages to train 4x a week without missing a session, despite regular illnesses, high work load and extremely high stress levels. Even I as a fitness professional am in awe of his consistency for training.
How does he do it? Well he actually uses the power of habit to his advantage. He doesn't rely on will power as he has already used most of that on many other fronts. He simply made the decision years ago to set an appointment, set everything up to make the gym happen and allow the habit to ingrain itself into his routine. He knows that as soon as he puts his gym kit on, that he will get to the gym, get his workout done, shower, change, go home or back to work without even thinking about it.
No matter what the weather is like, his sleep, food or how busy he is at work, he never misses a workout.
So my advice here is to focus on starting a habit and aim to string as many workouts in a row without missing one to avoid breaking the chain. Make a decision and set up a cue (shape your environment) to go to the gym, do the session without being too critical of performance, and pay attention to the reward you give yourself for completing the workout. (this is usually an endorphin rush/ feeling of virtue not a pain au chocolate with a skinny cappucino ;-).
Keep yourself accountable
When people hire a fitness professional, its more than just wanting someone count reps, tell you what to do and occasionally talk about the state of the kardhasians. (that was a joke by the way, so if your trainer does do this, fire them immediately). Although the skill set of the coach is very important, what people are really paying for is accountability. If you know you have an appointment booked at 6am on a cold February morning, you are far more likely to turn up and produce a high quality session that if you say that I'll go to the gym tomorrow morning to "work out". (80/20 as to whether you hit the snooze button, especially if you go to bed late).
Accountability is so powerful as if you know that you are letting someone down, whether it be your trainer or your workout partner, not only do you feel guilty for yourself too!
My advice here is to either hire a coach (which Is completely biased as I am one), or at least find yourself a decent training partner to go to classes/ train with. By booking a session in with yourself where someone else is involved you are far more likely to stay consistent and achieve whatever goal it you are after. Of course there will be times when others let you down, but it is far more likely you will stick at it for longer. Weight Loss programs such as "weight watchers", the Les mills group classes, running clubs or even recreational sports teams are all great testament to the power of accountability that groups bring.
Should you have had any experiences when you were not feeling like training at the gym, but went. I would love to hear what you did to make it happen?
Yours in Health
Patrick Fallis
How to make the "Switch" to improve your health and fitness
Image used from www.michaelhyatt.com
Change is hard. It is especially hard when it comes to our health and fitness. We know what we should and should't be doing, but for one reason or another we just can't seem to "switch" our habits and make them stick.
Last year I read a fantastic book by Chip and Dan Heath called "switch". It is about how to change things when change is hard. The main premise of the book uses an analogy of a rider (our logical left side of the brain), the elephant (our powerful emotional right side of the brain) and the path (our environment) that we must shape for our success.
The following model has been adapted from their book to apply to the world of health and fitness.
The rider knows that in order to get back into shape, you need to train 3 to 4 times a week, eat nutrient dense foods regularly throughout the day to keep blood sugar levels stable, sleep 8-9 hours a night and do something daily to de-stress. The rider knows that if you do this consistently for long enough your will not only look better, but feel great every day.
However, the weakness the rider has is that it is hyper critical, over analyzes every decision and thinks in terms of the end destination only. The rider also guides the elephant using willpower which is a limited resource.
The elephant is extremely strong and powerful. When it is motivated, knows where it is going, is feeling the energy and invested in what it is doing, it is a force to be reckoned with. Unfortunately it is easily spooked by change, drains the riders will power and immediately goes back to what it knows best if it is not constantly guided along its path.
"HOW TO MAKE A SWITCH" for health and fitness
Example- Eating the right food choices all week rather than just Monday-Thursday
You want to eat more healthily and consistently from the New Year as you have put on 4 kg over the festive period . You have big plans to get in super shape by March.
You are eating healthily at the beginning of each week because you take the time to prepare your food in advance each day, but fall off every Thursday. You are making all your food in advance from Monday- Thursday, but you like to go drinking on Thursday evening to unwind. So by missing out on food preparation and having a hangover the next morning the rest of your weeks nutrition halts to a stand still.
Direct the Rider
Follow the Bright Spots- Investigate what is currently working in your health and fitness regime and clone it
Keep on preparing your food as this is working for you 4/7 days of the week.
Script the critical moves- Don't think big picture, think in terms of very specific behaviors
Move your day of drinking from the Thursday to the Saturday night so you are more likely to stay on plan 6/7 days. Prepare your food for Monday and Tuesday on Sunday.
Point to the destination-Change is easier when you know where you are going and why its worth it
Set a goal to eat well for 27 days each month with an allowance of 10% where you will definitely be off plan. This way you will eat more healthily for longer streaks, still have a social life and feel less guilty about having a few "off plan" foods each month. There is more to it than this, especially as this has not covered meal frequency, but you I hope you get the idea.
Motivate the Elephant
Find The Feeling- Knowing something isn't enough to cause change. Make yourself feel something
Do you remember what it felt like to have bundles of energy? Were you ever in a good mood for weeks on end? Do you remember what it felt like to wake up well rested and excited for the day? Take the time to remember what this felt like, speak to someone who lives a healthy lifestyle that grants them these feelings regularly. At the very least, try going to bed at 10pm for 3 days in a row. You will be astonished at how great just doing that will make you feel.
By eating healthily 27/30 days a month you will surely feel far better than before.
Shrink The Change- Break Down the change until it no longer spooks the Elephant
To be on plan, we will say that you need to eat 5 small evenly portion sized meals each day. Bearing in mind that we allow 10% of "off plan" eating each week.
So to get back in shape this year that means we need to do the following.
- 1 year/ 52 weeks will be a total of 1,612 "on plan" meals and 208 "off plan" meals
- 6 months will be 744 "on plan" meals and 96 "off plan" meals
- 3 months will be 372 "on plan" meals and 48 "off plan" meals
- 1 month will be 124 "on plan" meals and 16 "off plan" meals
- 1 week will be 31 "on plan meals" and 4 "off plan" meals
All you need to do to make this happen is to shop in bulk, pre-prepare your foods and book in your social times when you allow yourself to be off plan.
Grow your people- Cultivate a sense of identity and instill a growth mindset
What does it mean to you to be eating healthily? What sort of person are you trying to become and who do you know that could join your on the same journey?
Shape the Path
Tweak The Environment- when the situation changes, the behavior changes. So Change the situation
Have all of your foods and kitchen utensils, laid out ready for you to start preparing your food. Have a list of recipes that you can cycle through each week to add variety to your food.
Build Habits- When behavior is habitual, it's "free"- it doesn't tax the Rider. Look for ways to encourage habits
By preparing your food each day and booking out your social time in blocks, you control the two things that will keep you "on plan" for longer. You may occasionally stray from a rigid social diary, but the more closely you stick to it, the more you will acquire a natural rhythm of completing the things you need to do to achieve your goals without the stress of them being a pain.
Rally The Herd- Behavior is contagious. Help it spread
Find a coach or a friend to help keep you accountable. Do it with a friend or two if possible. Measure your progress regularly and decide what your "Key Performance Indicators" are. The feedback you will get from these will be invaluable.
I hope you found that useful. For more information you can get the book from the link by clicking "SWITCH". I would highly recommend it.
Do Less To Achieve More In 2015
We all do it every year. We reflect on the year and ask important questions. What did we do well? What did we not do so well at? What can we do this year to get where we want to go?
These are some great questions and we can get some really insightful information by taking the time to answer them. What follows is where many of us make the mistake. I am also very guilty of doing this!
We create big lists of goals for our health, family, holidays, finances, hobbies and things we ought to do. The list starts small and becomes bigger and bigger until we then have to make the decision of... which one do I do first? We usually try to do several.
Then it happens... the year begins and as the weeks and months go by we begin to forget our goals, dis-invest in them and eventually fail at them... again. Its is like the juggler who has too many balls to focus on and drops them all one by one! We have all tried and failed at many things, but as we keep failing and repeating the same process we lose trust in ourselves. This does our confidence no good at all.
All of the people receiving this newsletter are very busy people. Most of your schedules are already fully loaded so this year I would suggest trying something slightly different. Instead of adding yet more stress into your lives, make a decision to...
Focus on one thing and focus purely on the process rather than the outcome
We have all committed to crazy training and nutrition plans at some point, especially at this time of year... " I will do the "Insanity" DVD program 6 days a week, do a detox, not go out at all and get in the best shape of my life", "It is time to go hard or go home..." and etc. This usually lasts for about 3-5 weeks until we fall off the band wagon and rebound by drinking too much and eating foods that make us feel good.
If you want to get fit this year, avoid planning a big push in January and training 6 or 7 days a week. Instead think, how many training sessions a week could I see myself doing for an entire year? If you want to do 6 days a week then you are committing to 288 sessions a year including a 4 week break. Good luck with that! Most fitness professional don't train anywhere near that much consistently.
Try something a little more realistic. I tell all my clients that in order to achieve good results from training they really need to be doing 4 times a week, which is a well known fact. Bearing this in mind, if I can encourage someone to never miss a workout and fit training around their busy schedules then 3 times a week is the number I would highly recommend. That would be 144 sessions in total including a 4 week break. They can do more if they like, but the baseline requirement is 3 sessions a week.
If the goal then becomes training 144 times a year and never missing a workout then results will be far more substantial simply because the emphasis is now on consistency. this will yield long term results and the client will still be training in September 2015, rather than the usual burnout by March. You may not always feel like training, you may be ill or have a hectic work schedule, but if you can prioritize never missing a workout and making that 3 session a week baseline, you will amazed at what you achieve in 2015 and beyond!
This year think long and hard what the most important health related habit is for you and focus purely on that one thing! You will be amazed at how much better your results will be than any previous years. When that habit becomes second nature (which it will, sooner than you think), you will be ready to focus on your next "one thing".
Do less to achieve more in 2015!
