Part of the reason for starting this blog was to share all the amazing information I have picked up from many hours of research and experimenting. I want to help as many of you as I can and having an online forum to do that is just fantastic. I get asked so many questions about fitness, nutrition and health ALL the time and always try to give the best advice I can. The thing is, the same questions seem to come up time and time again.
I’ve also had a really positive response to the content I have put up here already and lots of emails asking for further advice. So, I decided, why not answer as many of the questions as I can in the form of a question and answer style article.
I have always wanted this to be a blog full of quality, useful information that you can use to reach your health, lifestyle, nutritional and fitness goals. So, to start, I’ve put together a few of the questions that I regularly am asked with some practical solutions for you to implement into your daily life. I’m looking forward to hearing from many of you with any more questions you may want to ask.
I need to lose weight for a party I’m going to and wanted to know if you can write me plan that I can follow to achieve this. I have 4 weeks!
This is a difficult one for me because whilst you can make a big difference to your physique in 4 weeks, I hate the idea of a quick fix or the promise that it will be easy. There is no shortcut where you can get instant results with no effort. And anyway, what happens after the 4 weeks are over? You go back to your old habits and before you know it you’re back to square one.
So much marketing centres around the quick fix, the new plan, super fast results, the bikini body in 30 days. The body just doesn’t work like that.
What I promote and can assist with is a lifestyle change, the creation of habits that will last a lifetime. People who are in it for the long haul will be the ones that succeed. Eventually, they will be the ones who make it look easy.
People used to say to me ‘you are so lucky you look like you do’ Lucky? I got there with hard work, going to train at the gym and on the track 5-6 times a week and through a nutrient dense diet plan….not luck! Even my diet has evolved over the last 6 years, it didn’t happen overnight. What looks like luck is consistent action day after day for a long, long time.
It’s great to set goals as they assist the planning for the action plan but focusing on the end result often takes the focus off what we need to do to get there. It becomes overwhelming sometimes. The end result can wait and it will come. The small action plans you have put in place to get there are the things we need to channel our energy into doing.
Results happen when we consistently apply the rules to things. The process, the lifestyle should be the focus, not the end result.
What Nutritional Strategies can you recommend to help me to be compliant?
This is a great question because it’s very rare that I have a person that finds it easy to follow the guidelines that I set out for them. If they found it easy, they probably wouldn’t ask me to help them. It’s back to the knowledge is power quote. Its not what you know, its whether you can implement it or not that will determine your success. Do I write meal plans? No. Well I have been known to, as a small minority of my people have found this works for them initially when starting out. Why don’t I write them? Because I want the people I help to be independent and to be able to make informed decisions without a plan. For some even negotiating a menu in a restaurant is filled with confusion. The best way to work something out is experience and experimenting and improving with each attempt and as time goes by. Like I said earlier, even my nutrition has evolved and its effortless now for me to get through any situation.
I understand there are times when its hard to control the situation around food such as parties, BBQ’s, dinner parties and eating out in restaurants but its not an ‘all or nothing’ situation although many people treat it as such: ‘ if I cant be perfect I might as well go all out and start again tomorrow’ But you can learn to apply certain strategies so these things don’t become an ‘all or nothing’ event or even worse you end up declining the social invitation altogether so to avoid the situation. Do I ever have days when I think I shouldn’t have eaten that because….?’ Of course I do but its no big deal, I don’t go crazy and eat more and more of it and throw it all in until the next day. Just because something is not perfect doesn’t mean to say it’s terrible either.
So, what do we do? Of course you need a structure to follow and some things are more important than others but I don’t recommend sticking to a rigid plan. Learn to listen to your body. Am I hungry or just bored? Is it just a habit that I eat at 4pm so I do it regardless of whether I’m hungry or not? We need to be flexible, be able to make better (not perfect) choices when we are not in control of preparing the food ourselves.
Eat protein every meal, have snack with you in case you cant find any healthy options…not ‘I must eat this 150g of chicken breast with no skin and 100g of broccoli at 10am and if I don’t I have failed and may as well just start again tomorrow. It’s a bit like dropping your mobile phone and slightly damaging the case but then throwing down again and again until it smashes. You just wouldn’t do that but you do it with your diet. Why?
How many times a day should I eat? What should I eat before/after my workout? What about food combining? Should I be eating low carb/high carb/low fat?
It all gets very confusing. Actually unless you are applying the main rules none of these things matter. They aren’t going to make a big difference unless you get the basics right and this is what I focus on when I first start working with a client. Get the basics right and follow the principles consistently and this will bring the biggest results.
We eat forever, not just for 30 days. It may take time to get there but when you have put your own personal strategies in place, its effortless. It’s then not a case of deprivation and relying on your willpower, but engrained habits and strategies that allow you to be free from the roller coaster quick fix diet solution.
Think about being consistent. You don’t have to be perfect. A little is better than nothing. It’s ok to be good. When you have created the consistent habits it will eventually become automatic and then you can begin to tweak things here and there.
Just because you think you ‘know’ what to do to doesn’t make the ‘doing it any easier. You need to implement the information you have or you will get nowhere.
Advice I would give:
Eat protein and veg with every meal
Move 10,000 steps a day
Sleep 7-8 hours every night
Drink 2 litres of water every day
Take time out to relax
I know this is not groundbreaking news, you’ve heard it all before but are you applying it consistently to your life? If you are, thats great. If not, try. It will make more difference than any pill, potion, detox, supplement or new quick fix fitness craze will ever do.
There are many other things that will help but the ones above, along with some form of resistance training will make the biggest changes. Get those right and try your best with the others but no stress.
Don’t be looking for a new diet for the answer. You need to learn the best way for YOU to succeed. Take into account your personal preferences, your lifestyle and your metabolism. It will take time and experimenting but you will end up being in control.
I’ll admit I’m an ‘ALL OR NOTHING’ person. I function well that way but I don’t recommend that approach. It works for me.
Remember, the journey of health and fitness is NEVER over.
How do You stay motivated to exercise
You need a purpose and to be consistent you need to enjoy what you do. No amount of willpower is going to get you into to the gym or to that exercise class or onto that sports field if you don’t enjoy it. The brain is hard wired to seek pleasure and to avoid pain. (more about that another time)
My purpose was always to train for performance, in particular Athletics. I did love the training but I’m also highly competitive and loved to win and I knew the only way to win and improve was to train hard and eat specifically for my goals. But then I got injured and couldn’t compete anymore. What did I do then? The reason for me training so much had been taken away. I decided to learn a new skill. Motivation and enthusiasm is high with anything when its new. Its the novelty factor I think. Travelling to new places or new experiences.
What did I choose? An Aerial Arts 12 week course to include Flying Trapeze, Static Trapeze , Silks and Ropes. I loved it and Tuesday night became my favourite night of the week…my favourite two hours of the week hands down. It wasn’t training but I kept my motivation in the gym because I needed good upper body strength and core strength to be good at it. My lower body was damaged but I found a new way of staying motivated and I learnt new ways of training my body. So, look for challenges or new things to try. Sometimes, people get so hooked up on changing their body shape or losing those ten extra pounds that it consumes them and ceases to be an enjoyable process. Maybe you should consider performance goals instead and you may be surprised to find that aesthetic improvement will be a welcome by product.
In the ‘all about me’ section of this page I talk a lot about the reasons why I took part in a fitness competition that was based purely on the way my body looked. It was alien to me but my body didn’t look the way I presented it on stage by training to look like that, but because I trained for sprints and jumps on the athletics track.
Look for challenges, learn a new skill and do more just for fun.
Let me know in the comments box or drop me an email with any specific questions you would like me to answer in the next ‘question time’ blog.