Over the next few days we will be recording the below as part of a series – we thought audio might work better for some people so figured might be worth a try – also it will allow us to elaborate on the this as we get feedback from it – so PLEASE message us your thoughts or queries on the below 🙂
In this series I’m going to look at possible reasons why you may be not hitting your health, fitness or weight loss goals – I’m not saying all these points will apply to everyone but there is a VERY strong chance you will identify with some of them at least – if we can make just one change it will push your goals forward – must be worth a try right?
- You are doing too much cardio
In conventional gyms with lots and lots of cross-trainers, bikes and treadmills etc FAR too many people are doing way too much aerobic exercise. People unfortunately believe that aerobic exercise – particularly on machines is the number 1 way to burn fat and get them looking great – sadly that is not the case.
Those machines are designed to get a person more cardiovascular (the heart / aerobic system) fit rather than getting them lean and looking great – believe me – if they had any way of getting away with it the manufacturers would call them things like ‘FAT FIGHTER 6000 or GUTBUSTER XXL – truth is – they can’t – hence why they don’t.
A slightly more cynical person might even say those machines allowed a LOT of people to exercise in a small area, perfect for getting lots of members into a relatively restricted room – look how the machines are designed next time you go – very narrow, forward-facing foot print – perfect to put into lines – like hamsters in wheels was something I heard once a long time ago that stuck with me 😊
One of the big problems with long duration low to medium intensity is your body adapts to make you more economical – it thinks you are trying to get better at your cross-trainer activity so responds to the stimulus by trying to reduce your fuel consumption – namely it starts to allow muscle that is not being used to shrink– this not only reduces weight – great if you are trying to do more with less, but it also lowers your bodies day to day needs for kcals – effectively making you more economical with the kcals you get from your food and drink.
That is not a good thing in terms of looking lean or getting stronger as the number one thing we want to preserve whilst trying to lose weight IS that very same lean muscle mass – in fact, in a perfect world we aim to increase the amount of lean muscle mass so as to get the body burning MORE kcals each day rather than fewer.
Additionally, long duration aerobic exercise can often result in the body becoming hungrier – almost subconsciously it will seek to replace the energy used during the exercise – after all – it’s job is to keep you alive and it sees this expenditure as potential problem!
Those extra kcals going in combined with the body trying to make you more economical by actually ridding itself of energy hungry, not needed muscle is a double trouble situation leaving people at best lighter but just as flabby or worse no change.
So – should you stop doing aerobic exercise? Nope – not at all – just don’t make it the main part – or worse still the only part of your programme! Steady state (read comfortable) cardio work is great for your health, it aids the body in lots of ways and helps to build your fitness to try more demanding things BUT it just needs to be part of a balanced plan of attack.
- You watch too much TV / look at your phone too much – read!!
This is a massive bug to me – the TV’s in gyms are there to aid boredom but if you follow the first bit of advice and do less long duration stuff you won’t be bored anyway!! Too often I see people pedalling the stationary bike more and more slowly as they become more and more engrossed in what they are watching! Same for the other equipment – the TV has NO PLACE in an exercise environment unless it is playing constant loops of Rocky training montages 😊
The other thing relating to this is spending too much time on your phone – again – people get engrossed in conversations / reading about what is going on – just switch it to airplane mode – get your work down – then go back online! If a client ever started flicking through Facebook or similar they would not be using my services a second time 😊
And yes – I did mention reading in the tag line to this – I have seen – on more than one occasion people deeply engrossed in a book or magazine whilst aimlessly pedalling or walking on the treadmill – WTF?
When you are exercising the number – the only focus is on the session you are doing – in order to actually achieve something from the limited amount of time people have to train we need to make sure it gets our fullest attention!
- You focus too much on WHAT you eat and not enough on the QUANTITY
If I was put on the spot and was told I could only say one thing in relation to weight loss / healthy weight management it would be PORTION CONTROL. Eclipsing everything else people portions are very often simply too big.
I can hear people tutting and saying oh – not me – I eat healthily, I don’t eat too much – that can’t be the reason… Really… hmm – with the greatest respect I beg to differ …
The number one thing I have witnessed time and time again is that when people finely believe me and change their plate / bowl size they see a change in their weight. Studies – a lot of which were done by Cornell food lab – have proven over and over again that the bigger a person’s plate / bowl etc is the more they WILL consume. I can 100% agree on a personal note (my plate size is often a cause for double take lol) with my own experience with weight management. I can also 1005 agree in my professional work as I have seen with my own eyes what happens when we change this one simple thing.
People think that they must be eating the wrong things and in some cases, this is absolutely correct – chocolate bars / processed high kcal foods are all obvious things that a person should be reducing when trying to reduce their weight – but if it were that simple then why when these things have been eliminated from their diet aren’t they losing weight?
Put quite simply there is still too much cash in the current account to warrant delving into the savings 😊
I love this analogy – think about your body / kcal intake as cash flow – if you have weight to lose you effectively have a savings account with spare money (energy in the form of fat = kcals) just sitting there – each day you ‘spend’ money in the form of your body keeping you alive and allowing you to do active things such as exercise etc.
You then ‘pay’ your body back with money in the form of kcals from the food and drink you consume. Your body stores any extra in the form of fat for a ‘rainy day’ – after all, its priority is to keep you alive so it wants to have a nice little sum tucked away – just in case 😊
We need your body to start to release some of those funds so we need it to be spending just slightly more each day than we have in our current account – each day the body will try and ‘top up’ this deficit by releasing stored energy from its fat stores. This done over and over again will gradually start to chip away at your pile of cash helping to get you closer to a healthy weight.
What is the simplest way to do this? Cut down on the amount of food you physically consume – smaller plates / bowls being the simplest way. We are not talking big here either – just something 10% smaller will have a gradual, but significant effect over time.
If you only trust me on one thing – make it this – you won’t be disappointed!!
- You’re not being consistent enough
Part 1 – exercise consistency
Consistency is massively underestimated in this industry – people are always trying to stand out from the crowd by coming up with ‘new’ exercises – we could blame social media but it’s probably natural and has no doubt always been the same – just not so easily seen. This innovation is fine and to a degree is needed to move forward BUT your body adapts to a repeated stimulus not a random hit every now and again. You don’t get stronger / faster / more able to do something by doing something just a handful of times – it takes consistent effort and practice.
I’ve been doing some of the same sorts of exercises for months – some even years! Do I change things up a bit – yes – don’t want the body to become injured or that used to something it stops adapting but big core movements such as deadlifts / press ups etc will always be in my programmes.
Clients sometimes ask about the weight I use for an exercise or how fast I can do such and such and I am always hesitant to say for fear of putting them off – truth is I’ve done a deadlift burpee hundreds if not thousands of times over, constantly looking to improve and build on my past performances – this consistent approach has meant my body has got quite good at it – I don’t always feel like stacking the weight on and doing it but I know my body responds well to this type of training so I pull up my big boy pants and get it done – sometimes if feels awful – others times it feels great but I always get it done.
TIP – stick with a programme – don’t be constantly looking for ‘cool’ new tricks and variations before you have mastered the basics – it takes time!
Part 2 – nutritional consistency
This second part relates to accepting that you are in this for the long haul – obtaining and more importantly, maintaining a healthy weight takes consistency, a lifelong change of habits – not some quick fix ‘paid for’ solution that promises lighting quick results or your money back.
Excuse my French but this type of thing really pisses me off – I’ve witnessed first-hand the damage quick fix products, pills and potions have on people already desperate to find a solution to their weight problems.
Over and over again people trying to lose a significant amount of weight try the next ‘big thing’ that promises the magic bullet – this obviously has an effect while the person sticks with the harsh regime but study after study shows no extreme diet works long term – the vast majority of people end up back where they were or worse still they gain more weight when all they had to do was follow a sensible but slow approach. Too often I see people’s faces fall when I say things like realistically ½ to 1 lb of fat loss per week is pretty much where you are going to be – they looked shocked that such a small number is quoted.
The only reason that shocks people so much is because of all the bullshit ‘lose 21lbs in 21 days’ crap that snake oil sellers pump out all over the place – ½ a pound a week is both sustainable long term and pretty easy to achieve / maintain – in a month that’s only 2 to 4 lbs but over a year that is knocking on the door of 2 to 3 stone. Put that into perspective – at the time of doing this piece it’s July so if they had started this in January (as so many others did with their quick fix stuff) they would be a stone or even 2 lighter by now – pretty big change in anyone’s world and more importantly, because they would have made these changes steadily and consistently they would have become part of their lifestyle by now and would be effortless – it becomes part of who you are – just by being consistent they would be winning the tortoise and the hare race.
NPC Performance 