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How To Set A Fitness Goal For Beginners
Upon researching “How To Set A Fitness Goal For Beginners”, on page one of Google, an example of a good fitness goal which was number two on their list, to help you live a healthier life by a website called “Life Hack” was, I kid you not,
“Add Some Lemon and Apple Cider Vinegar to Your Water”
Confirming my urgent requirement to get this Blog Post written. When Google allows Apple Cider Vinegar and Lemon as the epitome of fitness goals and health - the world needs to be put to rights.
I got the idea for this article when I was writing the second edition of my book: “27 Ways To Faster Fat Loss”.
There was a section in there all about SMART Goals, and now that I am older, wiser and a little more experienced with Fitness compared to when I first wrote my book, I realised how dumb a SMART Goal is for a Fitness-led goal. This is despite what all Personal Trainers are taught in PT School - and what many personal trainers will tell you.
I think now we need an obligatory pitch: here’s me and my book:
I will give you this book - for free.
But there is a catch. I also want us to become friends. If we become friends, I won’t just send you this book for free, I will also send you a Free Calorie and Macro Calculator, and Two Workout Guides. I might also send you some funny stories from my life, some links to other helpful content that I create and generally some musings from my life.
If you would like to become my friend, then please send me a friend request by filling out the form:
Thank you for becoming my friend.
And now that we are friends let me show you exactly how to set your fitness goals as a beginner for success as opposed to failure - because success is what you want…isn’t it?
Table of Contents for:
How To Set A Fitness Goal For Beginners:
SMART Goals And Why They Won’t Help You
What Do Fitness Goals and The Theory of Acting Have In Common?
How To Set Process-Driven Goals
The Art of a Promise
SMART Goals And Why They Won’t Help You As A Beginner
One of my favourite all-time Joey quotes
If you are unfamiliar with the term SMART Goal then let me take a brief minute to explain them. Developed by a man called George Doran. He was a consultant and former Director of the Washington Water Power Company.
To me, this is a red flag immediately for applying a SMART Goal to a fitness desire - because business and fitness are very different beasts.
SMART stands for:
S - Specific
M - Measurable
A - Achievable
R - Realistic
T - Time-Bound
And let me be clear, I don’t think SMART Goals are wrong or don’t have a place - I just don’t think they are right in a fitness setting, especially for someone new to fitness.
You can look at the acronyms and think - huh - that would make sense for a fitness goal - especially if i am a beginner.
So let’s run it through and set a SMART goal for your fitness goal:
S - To Lose 5kgs
M - I will use the scale to measure my weight loss
A - 5kgs is a realistic amount of weight in the time frame I am setting.
R - I weighed 5kgs less two years ago - I believe I can do it again
T - I want to do this in four months
As you can see - the set goal to lose 5kgs makes sense and seems perfectly fine on the surface.
But SMART Goals do have their critics away from me. One of the biggest criticisms is that they are inflexible and therefore in terms of long-term goals they can be problematic. If you’re new to fitness then the long term is where your mind wants to be.
This is the first issue with SMART Goals in a fitness setting for beginners especially.
Fitness takes time - a lot longer than people will have you believe - and therefore the larger the goal, the more flexibility you will need as you progress through your journey.
One of the other issues I have with SMART Goals, and the bigger sticking point with them in terms of starting your fitness journey is that they set you up to focus on the result a lot more than the process. This can lead you to feel like you are only accomplished or worthy of praise when the result is achieved.
This is problematic because fitness, whether that be performance-based goals, or weight loss goals, is driven by executing a process.
Even if it is your first day or your 4000th day.
In fact, this study [1] emphasises the point of why SMART Goals shouldn’t be set and need to be rethought in the fitness industry, especially when it comes to beginners.
It states that:
“Both goal types are context-dependent and it is now recognised that, in some cases, performance goals can even be detrimental to the achievement of desired outcomes. Consequently, the current practice may be theoretically appropriate for physically active individuals but a different approach (e.g., learning goals) may be preferable for inactive individuals who are new to physical activity (i.e., most of the population).”
So the goal should be about learning, not about achieving. When you focus on just achievement it can be detrimental to achieving your fitness goal.
Now that, to me, sounds like the smartest idea I have heard yet when it comes to goal setting.
What Do Fitness Goals and The Theory of Acting Have In Common?
If you are new here…a quick little bio about me:
Alas, it’s true. I’m a fitness charlatan, a fitness fraud; a downright fake.
I have a Bachelor’s Degree in Acting and actually, it is one of the best blessings I ever had as a fitness professional. I was able to learn movement, the theories and application of fitness and physical work, but understanding human psychology and why people behave the way they do is all down to my career and training as an actor.
If you are interested you can find out all about my acting life here - but that won't help you set a fitness goal as a beginner.
And I apply what I learned about building a character and a role to how to go about setting fitness goals.
Now let me try to break it down as quickly and as succinctly as possible for you.
You may have heard of the Actors Studio in New York. This is one of the meccas of acting in the 20th century responsible for the likes of Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, Marlon Brando, James Dean, Steve McQueen, Mark Rylance, Sally Field, Sidney Poitier and many many more.
They were schooled by a man called “Lee Strasberg” who created the “methodological approach “. This approach hails back to the work of a Russain Director and Actor called Konstantin Stanislavski.
The Drama School in London which I attended, known as The Drama Centre, is also responsible for actors such as Tom Hardy, Colin Firth, Pierce Brosnan, Simon Callow, Emilia Clarke, Alexander Dreymon (who was actually my roommate), Rege-Jean Page and many many more, also schooled us on the workings of Konstantin Stanislavski.
Stan - as we call him in the industry - believed that each and every character in a play has one overarching “Super Objective”
Hamlet wants to avenge his father’s death. Juliet wants to be happily married and create peace between the houses. Richard III wants to be accepted by England and the Court. Prospero wants to be acknowledged as the great man he is. Iago wants to usurp Othello at any cost and get revenge on him because he believes he is the better man.
These are all my interpretations of the situation, and each actor and director will interpret different things from the text.
There is no right or wrong just exploration. Just like in fitness.
But once the Super Objective is set - you then break it down even further - into something called “Actions”.
I would then apply my actions to each scene I appear in - and over time the actions build up and lead to getting closer to my super-objective.
If I was Juliet on the balcony, for the first part of the scene would be “To plan a way to see Romeo again, in order to stay safe and protect my family” then when Romeo appears the action would change to “Collaborate with Romeo to meet safety and to show him how much I loved him, in order to seduce him into marrying me”
Then we can break it down further into an “Activity” which is literally the attitude with which you execute each line to help achieve your “Action” for the scene and this is how you break down a script to create a story and a performance.
As actors, we call it “the process of creating a role”
How To Set Process-Driven Goals?
As I mentioned previously - the SMART Goal focuses you too much on the result.
Whereas setting yourself Objectives and Actions focuses you a lot more on the process - and without a process, you simply won’t achieve your goals.
Let’s run the SMART Scenario from before setting a Super Objective, style goal, for beginners.
Super Objective: To lose 5kgs
Actions: Workout 2x a week, Increase Water, Increase Sleep, Increase Daily Steps, Eat Breakfast every day
Activities: Plan my diary to accommodate the Gym, Buy a water bottle I love drinking from, Stop scrolling on Instagram before bedtime (unless I am catching up on @the_gym_starters page), park further away from work each day, plan my breakfast the night before and protect the time I have to eat it.
Do you see how that throws you into the process of accomplishment and habit creation, whilst also prioritising your health?
Now Let’s Get Fancy…
“In Order To’s” With Your Goals
If you want to get really fancy, and I really recommend this because the more specific you are with your objectives and investigations, the more specific you will be with your actions to execute them, to be fancier, let's add the “In Order To” aspect. Having worked with 100s of beginners to fitness before I am aware that being specific about your process is really helpful.
Super Objective is set as a goal: To lose 5kgs in order to have more self-confidence
Actions:
Workout 2x a week in order to feel strong and powerful which will help my confidence increase,
Increase Water in order to keep hydrated helping me move better, digest better and curb hunger, therefore, helping me create a calorie deficit,
Increase Sleep in order to keep my emotions under control a lot more and to help decrease my stress and therefore my diet should be more aligned to my goals,
Increase Daily Steps in order to increase easily accessible movement will give me more energy as my heart health improves,
Eat Breakfast every day in order to start my day with structure around my food and therefore reduce the likelihood of binging in the evenings and snacking throughout the day
Activities:
Plan my diary to accommodate the Gym in order to be more likely to execute the movement side of my training plan
Buy a water bottle I love drinking from in order to keep up the habit and to try to get closer to my objective of 3L a day
Stop scrolling on Instagram before bedtime in order to help me sleep more restoratively and deeply as well as bring my bedtime forward a little each night - unless, of course, I am reading Adam’s posts…
Park further away from work each day in order to help me increase those little pieces of movement which add up over time and to help me compose myself ready for the next thing I have to execute in my day
Plan my breakfast the night before and protect the time I have to eat it in order to help me create a better relationship with food by spending time with my meals and setting the tone for the rest of the day
Suddenly the word “Goal” takes on a lot more meaning, and the act of setting that goal will have inspired you a lot more.
And you can see why as an actor we would be this meticulous in planning our performances…
And yes, it is a lot more work at the start as a beginner. It does take a little more time and practice of course, but by spending this time in the beginning, you are buying yourself more consistency, and better relationships with exercise and nutrition and you will reach your super-objective a lot more efficiently. Mainly because you won’t be stopping and starting over and over again…you will just execute straight away.
One Last Step: Prioritise Education
Looking at the study [1] I previously spoke about they said this:
“a different approach (e.g., learning goals) may be preferable for inactive individuals who are new to physical activity (i.e., most of the population)”
Which led me to create this:
You have to view your Fitness as your Hobby.
You have to have the same approach to it as you do your Cross Stitch, your baking and your learning to play a musical instrument.
You read books on it, you study the subject, you experiment with things and you learn from as many different people as possible to get better at your hobby.
You have started in a fantastic way, you are here, reading this.
You have got further on this page than most people will have, which means you personally really want to succeed with your objectives. That immediately sets you apart. I am sure you have heard the stat that 95% of Diets fail, although we can debate the validity of this stat, it does reveal something.
Changing your physique is a really hard thing to do, and most people, the vast vast majority of those people who try, don’t succeed. I personally believe that it is because they don’t adopt an educational attitude towards their fitness journey in the beginning.
They don’t develop their own fitness brains enough, they don’t investigate themselves enough, and always remain focused on one thing and one thing only - the end goal - without a worry about what you can learn as you go through the process.
If you want to be in the minority, you have to adopt different behaviours and attitudes to what you do compared to what others have done - and that is the main reason that fitness is so terribly personal to each individual human.
“Everybody is different and every body is different”
Without a doubt the more you personalise your fitness journey and set fitness goals in a process-driven way - as opposed to comparing yourself to what others are doing and the results they are achieving, the more you will learn about yourself and the more your fitness will become a priority for yourself.
Think about the huge world that fitness is, and all that there is to learn within it.
Heck, I have been a Coach for nearly a decade and I keep learning about new things, and different ideas and investigating what fitness means to me on a day-by-day basis.
It’s a treasure trove of learning new skills and discovering new things about oneself in order to keep progressing through life.
One of the reasons I became a coach was because I was sick and tired of feeling like I had stopped learning as a human. I was sitting in my corporate office, doing the same mundane things each and every day…and I was missing a vocation in my life. Coaching has become that vocation and it is a beautiful feeling.
Looking at our goals from above, we can then add a learning outcome to them as well:
Plan my diary to accommodate the Gym in order to be more likely to execute the movement side of my training plan and then I can learn and identify the things in my life that might stop me from being as consistent as I wish.
Buy a water bottle I love drinking from in order to keep up the habit and to try to get closer to my objective of 3L a day and I can learn how much more positive my body feels in the gym and throughout my day when it is hydrated properly and whether or not I enjoy that feeling.
Stop scrolling on Instagram before bedtime (unless I am catching up on @the_gym_starters page) in order to help me sleep more restoratively and deeply as well as bring my bedtime forward a little each night - unless, of course, I am reading Adams posts…so that I can learn how to get the most out of my day and how having that focussed energy that sleep brings me can make my day so much easier to get through.
Park further away from work each day in order to help me increase those little pieces of movement which add up over time and to help me compose myself ready for the next thing I have to execute in my day and I can learn how much better my body feels for these micro-doses of steps and regulated movement
Plan my breakfast the night before and protect the time I have to eat it in order to help me create a better relationship with food by spending time with my meals and setting the tone for the rest of the day so that I can learn and discover how much better my nutrition is throughout the day when I give myself a big win at the start of the day.
As you can see, these learning outcomes refocus you onto the result of your actions as opposed to the result of your “fitness”, and when you start noticing those results that are tied into your process you will be more motivated to continue.
Other topics you can try to learn about when on a fitness journey as a beginner are:
How certain foods make you feel
How to improve your form in your exercises
How to increase your strength
How to protect yourself from Binge Eating episodes
The effect that sleep has on your day
The differences between different exercise setups and why some are more preferred than others
The nuances of a Calorie Deficit
The calories in your food
How your hormones might change the way you feel about training
How to build muscle
How to lose body fat
I could go on and on and on…
And each one will create a rabbit hole you can get lost down and discover so much about yourself as you explore and crucially learn.
The Art Of A Promise
Each week I ask my clients on their Weekly Check-In Forms to set goals for themselves in the context of a weekly promises on their movement and their nutrition.
I state the following:
“The promises you make for yourself are the most important. They are the foundation of your confidence - and should take priority in how you move towards what it is you want for yourself. Focusing on actions over outcomes means you are focusing on what you can control not what you can’t. Promises will be set and split between movement and nutrition - and these are non-negotiable - they are the standards you set for you - and these promises will create actions which will ultimately get you closer to where you want to be”
When you view your goals which you set as a promise to yourself, you are more likely to fully commit to them.
It’s very interesting to me that we are all more than accepting of the idea that we would keep a promise to a friend - and make sure that we did not betray that trust or not keep our word to that person, yet when it comes to ourselves it’s almost normal to let ourselves down.
It’s almost accepted as the default state.
I would like to propose that this is completely inverted.
For if you cannot keep a promise to yourself, how would your friend truly know that they would be able to trust you when you can’t trust yourself?
As Plato said:
““The first and best victory is to conquer self””
and Mahatma Ghandi said:
“Your capacity to keep your vow will depend on the purity of your life”
I know so many people who just cannot keep a promise to themselves, and their confidence has hit rock bottom, they question everything and never feel like they are good enough for themselves - let alone others.
This then leads them to look for validation from others - so they then begin to over-commit to everyone else around them - and they are left with no time to actually set promises for themselves, let alone execute on them too.
I’m sure you can see the vicious cycle that gets created here.
And I am sure you can relate to the people-pleasing nature that occurs in these situations.
If you struggle with your confidence, and if you struggle with people-pleasing, then I have a worksheet for you to fill out in order to start rebuilding that confidence for you. To access it then all you need to do is click on the button below - and it will open up a Google Form for you.
Please feel free to fill it out and start working on yourself in this manner.
Setting promises is an art form, and setting fitness goals for beginners is an art form.
And the more you work on the art, you develop the skill, the more you investigate, the more beautiful the journey becomes.
What’s Next?
I really hope you found this article useful, and that you feel a lot better about setting goals as a beginner in fitness.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read my work, it really does mean a lot to me to have you here.
I also have some other articles you might find useful to help you navigate the early stages of your Fitness Journey:
Added to all of that, don’t forget to add me as your friend, and you can get two workout guides from me, a calorie calculator AND my book: “27 Ways To Faster Fat Loss”
Thank you so much for reading my work and for being here.
References:
Swann C, Rosenbaum S, Lawrence A, Vella SA, McEwan D, Ekkekakis P. Updating goal-setting theory in physical activity promotion: a critical conceptual review. Health Psychol Rev. 2021 Mar;15(1):34-50. doi: 10.1080/17437199.2019.1706616. Epub 2020 Jan 27. PMID: 31900043.
How To Stop Yourself Counting Calories Obsessively: Life After Apps
You might think that my choice of image for this article is an odd one.
But by the end of you reading this, I promise it will become clear.
I am writing this because I got this gorgeous question from one of my one-to-one clients on the Strong and Confident Program.
Firstly, the fact that my client feels like she is personally battling this, means that there are probably millions of others out there battling with it as well.
It’s normal to feel scared about wanting to stop counting calories.
So my first point is, if you are here reading this, you are not alone.
You are here because you are struggling, and you want to find a release…this Article will provide that release from counting calories obsessively.
An awful lot of people when they are struggling feel lonely.
So please don’t.
To help stop you from feeling lonely, it would be awesome if you wanted to become my friend.
As your friend, I will send you some things. Links to my podcasts, an opportunity to work with me, some educational material, and a few books. and workout programs and probably the odd story about me, and my cats Nala and Simba.
If you want to chat more, please just send me a friend request by filling out this form:
My face now we are friends:
TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR: How To Stop Yourself Counting Calories Obsessively: Life After Apps
Does Calorie Counting Work?
Should You Stop Counting Calories?
Strategies to manage Calories Without Calorie Counting
The Process Behind Stopping Calorie Counting
A Little Pep Talk
You can listen to the audio version of this Blog Post on my Podcast: The Fitness Solution
You can watch the video version of this Blog Post on my YouTube Channel:
Does Calorie Counting Work?
It wouldn’t take you long to flick through my Blog Posts and see that I regularly give out advice to help people learn how to manage counting calories and how to make it more effective.
This is because if your goal is weight loss or weight gain - counting calories can work.
But that doesn’t mean it will always work.
And it doesn’t mean that it is the best strategy for everyone.
If you look at the titles of my posts:
It would be fair to assume that I am indeed in favour of this as a strategy. But if you read the posts and look deeper, you will see the great variance and nuance in my message around Counting Calories and their relative success for you in your Weight Loss goals.
This morning I was talking to a Physician who specialises in Type 2 Diabetes Healthcare - and we got into a glorious discussion about what is optimal healthcare for these clients.
The conclusion we both had was:
You have to let the person decide what science you are going to use.
There is Science out there that clearly shows Calorie Counting can help manage body composition [1]:
“Over 3 times as many Consistent Trackers as Inconsistent Trackers achieved ≥ 5% weight loss at 3 months (48 vs. 13%) and at 6 months (54 vs. 15%; ps < .001). Though causality cannot be determined by the present study, tracking weight and/or diet nearly every day [on a Commercial App] per week for 12 weeks a commercial app may serve as an effective strategy for weight loss. Strategies are needed to promote greater consistency in tracking.”
There is also science that shows truly how damaging counting calories can be. Damaging for a relationship with food, relationship with body image, relationship with social occasions - and this damage is real - I’ve worked with more than enough people to know that to be true.
This study [2] analysed 5.5k posts on community forums and three mobile food journals in relation to the difficulties with food tracking.
It found posts summing up these emotions of those who engaged in this behaviour:
Food journalers report feelings of shame, judgment, or obsession associated with current designs. P6 reported journaling “made me feel guilty sometimes”, while P27 noted a lack of positive feedback: “I always felt guilty when I ate too much, and there wasn't that much pride when I was under my goal.”
“Sometimes I feel like not logging things because I know it’s really unhealthy”
”It made me too focused and obsessive about what I was eating”
“It was more of an on the way to an eating disorder thing than anything else (tried to keep calories extremely low)”
“I think I was hesitant to do the logging if not alone”
“I had more of a problem with eating out at a friend’s house because I didn’t want to ask for ingredients or mention that I was logging calories”
Many of those feelings I can imagine you relate to. Which is why you are here.
The great tragedy in all of this is that my dear friend, “the fitness industry” has painted this as a black and white scenario.
Counting Calories = losing weight. Regardless of the cost.
And with all behaviour there is a cost attached - and you must always ask yourself when engaging in behaviour whether the cost is worth it.
But the good old “fitness industry” doesn’t tell you this. It doesn’t understand that everybody is different and you need a unique path for you.
It just draws a line from where you are to where you want to be and expects you to follow it.
Counting Calories has worked for many people. If it didn’t Under Armour would never have bought My Fitness Pal.
But its greatest failure is its inability to screen its users to actually check to see whether or not they should be counting calories.
Because there is a whole host of people, people more than likely just like you, who should not have engaged in tracking calories, to begin with.
So here I am. A humble fella with just his keyboard as his weapon to try and help you reverse that damage and show you a way out of this tunnel you feel like you are in.
Take my hand… Let’s find you a way out.
Should You Stop Counting Calories?
As I mentioned previously, many people can count calories and use it as a perfectly decent way to manage their intake.
But many others cannot.
This doesn't mean that one person is superior to the other, it simply means that there are no black and white rules in fitness, other than you must always treat each and every case on its individual merits.
This also doesn't mean that if you don’t count calories, you can’t achieve your goals.
Believe me, you really can. In fact, I would say 80% of my clients on The Strong and Confident Program don’t count their calories, and we manage their nutritional needs in other ways - more on this later.
As I write this, it is very important to me that I am clear on who should not be counting calories, so that you can judge whether you fall into one of these categories, and can therefore learn how to move away from this obsessive behaviour.
Have you ever been diagnosed with an Eating Disorder?
If the answer to this question is yes. Then you should not be counting calories.
Period.
No ifs. No buts.
End of discussion really.
You must remember with every behaviour there is a cost attached, and the cost attached to counting calories if you have ever had a diagnosed eating disorder - or suspect you might have an eating disorder - just isn’t worth it.
It’s not worth the cost to your Mental Health and physical health.
Knowing the calories in your food is not worth the negative effects that can occur from counting calories.
This study [3] looked into this very topic and found:
“Of the app [MyFitnessPal] users, 73% stated that the app had at least somewhat contributed to their eating disorder, with 30% reporting that the app very much contributed to their eating disorder. Additionally, the more likely an individual was to report that usage of the calorie tracker had contributed to their eating disorder, the more likely they were to have higher eating disorder symptoms”
If you are already susceptible to an eating disorder, tracking your calories is only going to re-open that pandora’s box again.
And believe me, no physique goal is worth that.
Are you a perfectionist?
If you have perfectionist tendencies, then tracking your calories is not a good idea as it will create too much stress in your life.
Calories aren’t perfect.
The calories that are published on packets can be up to 20% inaccurate.
This study found the following:
“Measured energy values exceeded label statements by 8% on average in pre-packaged convenience meals (12), which is slightly higher but consistent with the label disparity of 4.3% in packaged snack foods. Also consistent with this study, most products in our sample fell within the allowable limit of 20% over the label calories per Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations”
Added to that, all the clever equations we use in Fitness to help calculate your Maintenance Calories, for it is from there where we can establish your Calorie Window, is just the best guess.
Figuring out your weight, height and age, and then asking you to subjectively rate your movement each week in terms of intensity is not going to be accurate.
This is why when you use many different Calorie Calculators, you get different numbers. Whether it’s the Katch McArdle Method, or the Mifflin St. Jeor neither are perfect.
This is exactly why I work with a Calorie Window with all of my clients. I don’t need their calories to be perfect, I need them to be in a range that will work.
Therefore if you are a perfectionist in an imperfect set up you will find untold stress in trying to get it right all the time.
You can’t get it right. But you don’t need to. Comprehending the imperfect system will help you be less obsessive with counting calories.
Do you feel guilty after eating certain foods?
If you can’t eat a Krispy Kreme doughnut without feeling like you have to go to the gym for an hour to “burn off those calories” then you need to start creating space between what you eat and that immediate feedback on the calories involved.
No good can come from eating something and then chastising yourself by logging it immediately, and to see that the calories are more than expected which compounds all of those feelings of shame and guilt around what you enjoyed.
Even though you see tracking and logging your foods as a way of working towards your goals, it is actually counter-intuitive if you experience this guilty feeling. This is because it will slowly rot away your self-esteem. You will feel completely undermined, and you will be left with three choices:
Spend countless hours in the gym time and time again to punish yourself for the food you ate - damaging your relationship with your body and exercise.
Stop tracking the foods that make you feel this way and therefore feel like a failure every time you have them - and be aware you are “lying” to yourself about your caloric intake - damaging your sense of self-worth.
Give up on your whole fitness journey period - again leading you down a path of feeling like a failure and thinking you will never succeed at changing what you want to change.
None of those options are ideal for your long-term success.
Do you refuse to eat when you are hungry because you are worried about going over your Calories?
Calories are a best guess.
If you are refusing to eat when you are genuinely hungry because you might be over for a day - then you have a problem.
Hunger can mean many things - not all hunger is a desire for food.
Hunger can mean you are bored, you need a hug, or you are in need of a connection other than for food.
But there is an element of hunger that is related to the need for food - if you are denying that hunger too much in order to stay within your calories, and you are doing it too often, then there is no way you will be able to keep that up.
The hunger will win - and then you will again give into that physiological feeling - perpetuating your feelings of failure either way.
Strategies to manage Calories Without Calorie Counting
You are probably sitting there thinking this all so far makes sense but how on earth do you keep working on your goals when you have no idea what your intake is?
But there are many ways to manage a calorie deficit without having to track your calories.
A Study called: The Effect of Adherence to Dietary Tracking on Weight Loss: Using HLM to Model Weight Loss over Time [3] concluded that:
“Consistent trackers had significant weight loss (-9.99 pounds), following a linear relationship with consistent loss throughout the year. In addition, the weight-loss trend for the rare and inconsistent trackers followed a nonlinear path, with the holidays slowing weight loss and the onset of summer increasing weight loss. These results show the importance of frequent dietary tracking for consistent long-term weight loss success”
However, when you look at how they were asked to track their dietary intake you find a great nuance that doesn’t involve MyFitness Pal.
They managed this long-term weight loss by:
Maintain daily food journals and physical activity records;
Reduce portion sizes;
Reduce foods high in calories, fat, and simple sugar;
Increase consumption of fruits, vegetables, and low-fat dairy products;
Weigh themselves frequently and at least weekly
They each worked with a Health Coach and attended interactive sessions designed to educate them on nutrition and exercise adherence.
Strategy 1: Food Journals
The food journal in the study above could well have been on MyFitness Pal. But it doesn't have to be on there exclusively.
A Food Journal can just be writing a record of what you ate and when you ate it. No Calories but just the foods.
For example:
I chose this diary as an example because I love the “Starbucks” comment.
I do think that with Food Journals if you can also document an emotion along with the food you are eating it would be really helpful. It just needs to be a sentence, explaining how you were feeling at the time and how that led. to you eating what you had.
For example:
Porridge with peanut butter - was a little tired but wanted to have a good breakfast.
Coffee - I was tired, and I love starting my day with coffee.
Plant Kitchen No Chicken Indian Wrap - I thought this was a good lunch option, but I was a little short on time because of my work schedule, but I enjoyed it.
By doing this you begin to create objectivity between your food and emotions. You can begin to see how your emotions are impacting your food choices and the more information you gather in this way the more you can see patterns and get insights into how your emotional state affects your caloric choices.
Strategy 2: A Structured Diet
I come across an awful lot of people who use Calorie Counting as a way to try and control emotional and binge eating. But as we have seen from the studies, this can be very counterintuitive.
A lot of calories do come into your diet when:
You don’t eat because you are “busy”
You restrict too much and then binge.
This is where a structured diet will have huge benefits. The two issues are essentially the same.
Just yesterday, I had a banana for breakfast and some toast at about 07:30 am - not a huge amount of calories for me - then I didn’t eat again until I was in a restaurant at about 12:30. But by that point, I could feel my blood sugar levels dropping, I was getting anxious and was beyond hungry. The second I sat in the restaurant, before my lunch, I asked for a Croissant with Nutella in it. Just because I was ravenous.
I then ate my full lunch too.
That is an extra lot of calories that could have been managed a lot better by having a much better breakfast.
I have worked with many people who vow that they don’t eat that much, I then ask them to start eating breakfast…and they start to achieve their goals.
As this study [4] backs up:
“Eating breakfast is a characteristic common to successful weight loss maintainers and may be a factor in their success.”
When you don’t eat at regular times during the day it creates moments where you overeat at mealtimes.
By eating in a more structured way you protect yourself against that.
In many ways - you will feel like you are eating more - and yet you are actually consuming less.
How To Structure Your Diet
I have one method: 3 Meals. 2 Snacks.
Each meal must fit on one plate - as much food as you want - but it must only be on one plate.
If you have an alcoholic beverage the night before - try and take away a snack the next day - but this isn’t essential.
If you can iron out your food intake to more regular moments with food, in a structured manner your body will respond well. It will enjoy the rhythm and pattern of knowing when it is being fed, and your hunger hormones, grehlin and leptin, will respond in a much better way because they will have a structure.
Remember:
“We find freedom within a structure, without structure all we have is chaos”
The other important aspect of structured dieting is actually spending time with your food. Don’t eat in a distracted manner, if possible. As in, don’t work as you eat, don’t watch TV as you eat, and certainly don’t scroll social media as you eat.
I fully respect and understand the issues with this advice for parents with young children - you are exempt - just do what you need to do to get through dinner.
But allowing yourself a moment of self-love, self-care and nourishment when you eat is going to help you improve that relationship with food, and will help stop the mindless eating.
It is all about being more mindful, not mindless.
Strategy 3: Five Awesome Rules For Fat Loss Life
I came up with this for my clients when I first became a personal trainer. It was more instinct than science, and since then science has very much backed up what I put in place.
These Five Rules are very simple:
Be in a Calorie Deficit
and the others help you achieve that, without counting calories:
2. Three Litres of Water A Day
3. Protein and Veggies at every meal
4. 10,000 steps a day
5. 7-8 hours of sleep a night
I explain all of them in much more detail right here:
5 Easy Ways To Do A Calorie Deficit Diet without Working Out
Or you can watch this:
Strategy 4: Portions and Food Choice
Now within 3 Meals, 2 Snacks it would be wise to still follow some guidelines for better nutrition. It’s important we don’t overthink this because overthinking this can lead you back to that desire to track what you are doing to make sure you are getting it “right”.
I recommend Protein and Vegetables at every meal.
In fact, some meals I have personally, are only protein and veggies.
You are allowed Carbs - probably more Carbs than you think you should have - in fact, Carbohydrates will be the fair majority of your diet - in the forms of Fruit, Vegetables, and Complex Grains.
Remember, no one ever gained weight from eating too many fruits and vegetables.
The fact that within 3 meals, and 2 snacks you are only allowed your food to fit onto one plate is designed to help control portions.
When it comes to Carbohydrates, portion control is the issue. They are so easy to overeat.
This is why I always recommend building your plate of food with Protein first, Vegetables second, then Carbohydrates last.
But it is also why you should make sure your food fits onto one plate because then you know you are controlling portions in a more optimal way.
When you look at the study I referenced earlier one of the points that led to more successful weight loss was:
“Reduce foods high in calories, fat, and simple sugar”
There are a number of other studies that back this up. In this study [5] participants had maintained a weight loss of at least 13.6kg for at least 1 year, and they found that:
“Successful maintainers of weight loss reported continued consumption of a low-energy and low-fat diet.”
The tasty food isn’t the Carbohydrates. It’s a very real combination of carbohydrates, Fat and Salt.
Like with potato chips. Let’s take the greatest potato chips ever made:
These have:
123kcals, 6.5g of Fat which is 58.5kcal and 14.3g of carbohydrate which is 57.2kcal.
If you want to have a bag of chips, then please do. But as you do. consider the portion size a lot more and by doing that you will naturally improve your calorie management.
The Process Behind Stopping Counting Calories Obsessively
Everything I have so far said in this article will help you stop calorie counting because it is all designed to help take your fear away.
Because I get it.
You are stuck in this loop of;
“I don’t want to count calories anymore, but I am scared of having no control over what I am doing”
And the thought of just not logging into MyFitness Pal and not tracking that one carrot and teaspoon of Hummus you ate a 20:30 when you were at a friend’s house is just too scary.
So there are a couple of things you can do to help ween yourself off tracking your calories.
Make Sure You Have A Structured Diet
I am not going to go through the structure again;
***Cough***
Three Meals, two Snacks
***Cough***
But I do want to make sure I emphasise how truly important this is to your success away from tracking calories obsessively.
Track One Meal A Day
Pick a meal - any meal - and just track that each day. Then over time, you will see that you are still making progress by only tracking one-fifth of your intake, and you will show yourself that everything else you have implemented aside from tracking food is working.
Go into an Education Mindset
I believe this should be the case for anyone who starts tracking anyway - but sadly very few people set themselves up in this manner. When you started tracking your calories, rather than using it as a way to control your intake, you should have used it as a way to educate yourself about your intake.
And this difference takes away the shame.
It adds in the aspect of investigation and exploration, two very important themes in how I work with clients.
Therefore if you are trying to stop tracking calories obsessively, give yourself a time frame of a month or two to use the tracking as a way of learning, a tool for you to create a knowledge and database in your head about what you usually eat and how that all plays into your goals.
Tracking your calories should only ever be used as an educational tool - not a tool to control you, and the more you learn the more freedom you will find over time.
Make Sure You Are Doing “The Work”
Many people use calorie counting to control their intake because it gives them a sense of working towards their goals. They almost use it as a way to make up for doing the other work that is required.
They aren’t going to the gym, they aren’t getting their steps in, they aren’t making mindful and healthful choices with their food and so they can use tracking as a way to either help beat themselves up for not doing the other work, or they see tracking their intake as “the work”.
A great way to make sure you feel comfortable in moving away from tracking your calories is to make sure that you are executing a well-thought-through plan each day that helps you move towards your goals.
I am by no means saying you can give up tracking and do nothing else and still achieve your goals. Implementing the rest of your plan will help reduce your anxiety about stopping counting your calories.
A Little Pep Talk: Life After Apps
The reason you are so nervous about giving up calorie tracking is that you are scared of undoing your progress, or not making any at all.
This comes down to a trust issue.
MyFitness Pal is very clever in the sense that it gets you to put your trust into it and you therefore attach your success to the app.
Its a very good marketing strategy. But it comes at great cost. Great cost at your relationship with food, and great cost at the expense of your confidence in yourself.
To give up calorie counting. you have to teach yourself to believe in yourself.
You have to build your confidence to be able to stand on your own two feet.
You have to trust that you are able. You have to trust that you can do this. You have to trust that you won’t “screw up again”.
And I know that you can do that.
As this article draws to an end, I want you to use this as your guide, I want you to start working on the concepts laid out in it, and I want you to start rebuilding your trust in yourself.
You deserve food freedom.
You deserve unconditional permission to eat and enjoy your food.
You deserve the balance that can be found between those two concepts and your goals. You deserve self-love and self-trust.
You deserve self-empathy and compassion.
I started this Article with a text from one of my clients who gets one-to-one coaching from me on the Strong & Confident Program.
I would also like to finish with what she put in her weekly report to me the other week.
There are four weeks between the first text I showed you and the one I am about to show you:
She has put in the work to get to this point. She has implemented behaviours and actions that have bought balance into her life.
Those behaviours have allowed her to begin to release the toxic control that counting calories can have.
Set and Keep Promises To Yourself
If you want help developing a system where you can rebuild that trust in yourself. Rebuild your confidence and develop your ability to know that you are doing the things that will work towards your goals then I would suggest starting with getting a few things written down and laid out for you immediately so that you can have a system which supports you.
It started with this Google Form right here:
The First Step To Building Your Confidence
What’s Next?
I hope you found this article useful, and that you feel a lot better about your struggles at the moment.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read my work, it really does mean a lot to me to have you here.
I also have some other articles you might find useful to help you navigate scale weight and your relationship with it:
It would also be a delight if you wanted to join my Facebook Group. It’s a safe space for anyone who would like some free help with empowering their Fitness Journey. I can’t wait to have you in there.
References:
Patel ML, Brooks TL, Bennett GG. Consistent self-monitoring in a commercial app-based intervention for weight loss: results from a randomized trial. J Behav Med. 2020 Jun;43(3):391-401. doi: 10.1007/s10865-019-00091-8. Epub 2019 Aug 8. PMID: 31396820.
Cordeiro F, Epstein DA, Thomaz E, Bales E, Jagannathan AK, Abowd GD, Fogarty J. Barriers and Negative Nudges: Exploring Challenges in Food Journaling. Proc SIGCHI Conf Hum Factor Comput Syst. 2015 Apr;2015:1159-1162. doi: 10.1145/2702123.2702155. PMID: 26894233; PMCID: PMC4755274.
Ingels JS, Misra R, Stewart J, Lucke-Wold B, Shawley-Brzoska S. The Effect of Adherence to Dietary Tracking on Weight Loss: Using HLM to Model Weight Loss over Time. J Diabetes Res. 2017;2017:6951495. doi: 10.1155/2017/6951495. Epub 2017 Aug 9. PMID: 28852651; PMCID: PMC5568610.
Wyatt HR, Grunwald GK, Mosca CL, Klem ML, Wing RR, Hill JO. Long-term weight loss and breakfast in subjects in the National Weight Control Registry. Obes Res. 2002 Feb;10(2):78-82. doi: 10.1038/oby.2002.13. PMID: 11836452.
Shick SM, Wing RR, Klem ML, McGuire MT, Hill JO, Seagle H. Persons successful at long-term weight loss and maintenance continue to consume a low-energy, low-fat diet. J Am Diet Assoc. 1998 Apr;98(4):408-13. doi: 10.1016/S0002-8223(98)00093-5. PMID: 9550162.
How To Love Exercise Again
One of the greatest DMs I ever got happened about 6 years ago when I was working in London as a Personal Trainer.
This wonderful human messaged me asking for details about my Personal Training…and I asked her why she wanted to work with me?
Her response was:
“All of your clients look like they are having fun”
Amy became a client for two years. Her partner and now fiancee…soon to be husband, and I can’t wait to see them get married...became a client for 3 years.
I miss Amy and Howard every day and when I got that message, it lit me up.
It got me in the feels.
Many many many of the friends I work with usually come to me because they believe that I have the key to helping them love exercise again.
They see my balanced approach, my forgiving tone, and my ability to program to their needs, and I think I make them feel safe and special.
As a Personal Trainer, my job is to make you feel two inches taller when you walk out of the gym than when you walked into it - sadly, just tracking your weight loss doesn't do that.
But rebuilding your relationship with exercise so that you can learn to love moving again is one of the most important things I can do for anyone who comes across me - and I want to help you improve your relationship with exercise.
And as you are here…I want to show you exactly how to do that here in this article. Show you precisley how to love exercise again.
But first, let's be friends. The fact you are here means so much to me. And if we become friends I’ll email you things. Sometimes they will be educational, sometimes they will be inappropriate, and sometimes I might just want to know how you are; either way…it would be delightful to connect with you.
Just send me a friend request by filling out the form below…
Oh, and I will also send you some free fitness goodies to help start our new friendship off on the best foot possible.
TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR “HOW TO LOVE EXERCISE AGAIN”
Terminology Matters
Why are you exercising?
Releasing expectation: The All or Nothing Mindset
Ask Yourself How and What?
The Success Loop
Terminology Matters
I have to start here.
Not because I don’t think you need to learn how to talk.
But you probably do need to learn how to talk about exercise…
The words we chose, and the verbiage we work with each and every day is very very important. View the way you talk about movement in your life as micro messages for your relationship with it.
Words carry great meaning in our lives and if you are trying to rebuild a relationship - or even begin a relationship with movement then the words you use will frame the way in which you think about what it is you are doing.
And there are some key things you need to change here.
The fitness industry thrives from talking about extremes because extremes sell. They create a void between you and the outcome and therefore you will spend money on making that void smaller.
What the fitness industry sucks at in terms of its verbiage is balance - and the more you use words and terms that promote balance in your thoughts, the better your relationship with movement will become.
Say: “Movement” not Exercise
A paper called “Move Your DNA: The Difference Between Exercise and Movement” [1] which was published by the Journal of Evolution and Health in 2017 it outlines a very interesting concept between the two words of Movement and Exercise.
It states that: “Caspersen et al. (1985) define “physical activity” as “any bodily movement produced by skeletal muscles that result in energy expenditure” (i.e., calories utilized) and “exercise” as “physical activity that is planned, structured, repetitive, and purposive in the sense that improvement or maintenance of one or more components of physical fitness is an objective.”
The paper then goes on to define the movement as:
“Movement” is a term used abundantly in discussions about evolutionary health, yet has not been clearly defined—especially as compared to related terms like “exercise” and “physical activity.” However, the effects and benefits of movement are not limited to caloric expenditure and physical fitness; movement facilitates operations in almost every human system (e.g. immune, digestive, nervous)”
And it concludes with the proposed definition of movement as: “any motion that creates a change in the shape of a body or parts of a body”
Which is a phrase I like. A lot.
Previously I stated that words carry great meaning - and the word Exercise is wrapped up in feelings of struggle, punishment, diet culture, expelling calories, and Physical Education classes you muddled through and hated doing…
Whereas Movement.
Well, we all move. All of the time.
We all have to move all of the time, and therefore all movement matters.
When you look at your Workout Plans and understand that they are a very small concept of your overall movement for the day you fall into line with the Science.
And when you are trying to lose weight, being aligned with the science as opposed to being at odds with it will help give you perspective and allow you to rebuild that relationship with exercise.
When you workout you are merely burning 5% of the Calories you will burn overall for that day.
It’s a small piece of the pie.
But when you look at Movement in total it’s 90% of the calories you burn every day divided thus:
70% is your Basal Metabolic Rate - your metabolic baseline
15% is your daily movement outside of prescribed exercise - we call this NEAT (Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis).
5% is your prescribed movement session or a “workout” (Activity Thermogenesis)
And when you can see your movement in this way, you see that all movement matters, all movement is important…and missing a workout really isn’t that big a deal.
In fact missing a workout should be seen as an opportunity missed to get stronger, not a moment where you failed and gained weight. When you see it as a missed opportunity to get stronger, you can easily recuperate that moment by doing one thing…giving yourself the opportunity again.
To learn more about your Metabolism please read my article that has helped hundreds of people understand the science of burning calories and help them improve their relationship with exercise
Food is nourishing, not good or bad
We have grown up in a society where we divide foods into two groups.
Food that is good for you, and food that is bad for you.
However, neither is true.
Foods can be more nutrient-dense and less nutrient-dense. Foods can have higher calories or lower calories. Foods can make us feel more energised or less energised.
And that is it.
Of all my clients on the Strong and Confident Program I ask one thing of them when it comes to diet, and that is to use their guiding light as the word “nourishing”.
Because there are times in your life when a Pizza (especially when there is Pineapple on there) is going to nourish you, and there are times when a Pumpkin Salad will nourish you also.
Sometimes you need to nourish your cells with nutrient-dense foods. Sometimes you need to nourish your emotions with food that is like getting a warm hug.
Both are valid and neither take you away from your goals, so long as you are giving yourself absolute permission to enjoy the food you are eating and therefore can enjoy it without guilt attached.
A key metric in being able to do this is understanding how much weight the human actually gains from overeating.
A study [2] produced by the American Diabetes Association looked at just this. It took 29 men and made them eat at 40% above their Maintenance Calories for 8 weeks every single day. This varied between 1200kcal and 1500kcal ABOVE their maintenance calories. Every. Single. Day.
In two months of overeating in a controlled environment, they gained just 9lbs of body fat, or 0.16lbs of fat a day.
By having some food when you need to nourish your emotions, it isn’t going to make you gain a stone overnight. It’s not going to derail all of your progress. This doesn't mean don’t take actions that help you process your emotions and your stress levels, of course, I would always recommend that, but one very key aspect of managing those stress levels when you are working towards a goal in movement is to comprehend what really happens to your body when you indulge, as opposed to what you think is gong to happen.
Say: Stronger, not Slimmer
This will be the title of my next book.
And yes, if you’re a publisher reading this please drop me an email, because I REALLY WANT TO WRITE THAT BOOK (adam@thegymstarter.com)
You have been told your whole life that slimmer is better. Thinner is sexier. But it’s not true.
The truth here is that getting stronger is more accessible to everyone.
There is this phenomenon in life called “Set Point Theory”. The fact it is referred to as a theory has always cast doubt in my mind about its validity, however, the more I have looked into it, the more I understand where the “theory” comes from and the truth behind it.
In this study called: Is there evidence for a set point that regulates human body weight?
”Taken collectively, these data provide evidence for the idea that there is biological (active) control of body weight and also weight stability (and thus a set point at a healthy steady-state) in response to eating healthy chow diets. By contrast, this regulation is lost or camouflaged by Western diets, suggesting that the failure of biological control is due mainly to external factors”
The study proposes that there isn't so much a “set point” but a range described as a “settling point”: upon which adult bodies exist at.
Colloquially I have known this to be true as well. When I became a Personal Trainer I dreamed of the transformation pictures I was going to create for my clients where they looked like totally different humans, but what I have found to be true is that in those photos you see on Instagram, they nearly always are different humans, or at least the photos are incredibly heavily edited.
I learnt this lesson about two years in when it just dawned on me that for the majority of my clients, who could afford Personal Training, they had a very set environment - a stable job, a stable relationship, a stable home life, very regular habits, and they were for the most part very comfortable in their environment - which meant when it came to losing weight with them, we were discussing losing a few pounds, not a few stones.
And surprisingly the clients who were the most consistent, the most engaged and the most interested in their fitness journey’s were those who focussed on getting Stronger - not slimmer.
The study cited above concludes that your body does have biological settling points, but it is actually your environment that is masking over what these true setpoints are - and changing your environment is really hard to do - because as we grow older we build our responsibilities on our stability.
I would also argue that the word environment refers to both internal and external environments. The study cited above only look sta the physical environment. But your mental environment here is just as powerful and must be dealt with as much due care and attention. The way in which you view yourself, speak about yourself to yourself and others is as much a part of your environment as the physical world you live in.
This is why getting stronger is a much more accessible way to focus your movement compared to losing weight.
Stronger, not slimmer.
It’s also why I created the Strong & Confident Program, not the Slimmer Is Better Program.
Say: Energy, not Calories
Calories are a unit of measurement of energy in your food. However, Calories are often associated with over restriction and/or overeating.
They can be used as a method to count your food amounts and therefore control what it is you are eating. This isn’t true in all cases with all people, I personally am a proponent of being Calorie aware, but if you are someone who is trying to learn how to love exercise again, or even trying to learn how to love exercise period, then focussing on calories might not be useful for you.
Instead, look at your food with a wider angle lens.
Look at it as Energy - and when you are managing your nutrition throughout the day ask yourself what kind of Energy do I want from what it is I am eating.
Sometimes that energy will be of comfort. Sometimes that energy will be of absolute nourishment. Sometimes it will be that of community.
When you view your food as an energy source, as opposed to a calorie source, you will choose foods that relate far deeper to your needs of hunger and nourishment compared to if you just focussed on the calories and the macros involved with the food you are eating.
Say: Exploration, not Right/Wrong
I repeat this message daily to my clients on the Strong & Confident Program.
I have to repeat it daily because in some cases for 50+ years they have been told that what they are doing is wrong - and what they should be doing is right.
Undoing 30+ years of micro-messaging from diet companies, fitness magazines, lifestyle magazines and modern media is hard work.
But its work that I personally see as an honour to have to do.
If you are familiar with my work, and that of Kamala, you will know the phrase you are about to read. If you are new to my work, then this is the single most important thing I need you to understand when it comes to movement and nutrition.
Are you ready?
““There is no right or wrong, just exploration””
You can’t get a movement plan wrong. You can’t get your nutrition wrong. You can’t get anything on a fitness journey wrong.
A fitness journey means that it exists without judgement.
If you constantly think that what you are doing is right or wrong, then you are constantly living in a world with judgement. You aren’t on trial, you aren’t in front of a jury - and if you think you are…then you need to recover that relationship yourself.
Living through judgement is very stressful, both internal judgement and external judgement - and this work can be hard enough as it is, without that added stress being added.
Why are you exercising?
And if it is to “put the ab in fab” then you need to stop. RIGHT NOW.
I touched on this above but I wanted to go a little bit deeper into this particular theme.
I have trained many many people who wanted to lose weight - and the reasons for this are multi-faceted. It could be because they want to look good at a wedding, it could be because they feel uncomfortable in their skin, it could be because they think losing weight will improve their self-confidence.
I want you to take a moment and think about when you have engaged with movement before. What was the reason you did it for?
“Did you want to lose weight because of ‘X’?”
And if so…ask yourself why can X only happen in the context of weight loss.
Why do you need to lose weight in order to:
Look good at a wedding? Feel comfortable in your skin? or have self-confidence?
The truth is that you simply do not need to lose weight in order to achieve any of those things. You need to be able to give yourself permission outside of losing weight in order to explore those feelings.
There are two great ironies in terms of weight loss and exercise.
The first is as I outlined above in the sense that it is counterintuitive to your metabolism to engage with prescribed exercise for the sole reason to create weight loss.
The second is that dieting undermines your confidence. You are literally pulling the rug from under your feet every time you diet. You are making yourself constantly question your validity, question your choices and question your freedom around movement and exercise in the name of reducing your body size.
As opposed to giving yourself permission to enjoy what it is you are doing, what it is you are trying to achieve.
This is why changing the framing of why you are wanting to move is really important.
Changing it from “to lose weight because of X”
To:
“Get strong enough to fight a bear in the woods”
This will take away food guilt and frustration because suddenly foods that were off your imaginary fat loss table are now in play - because to get strong enough to fight a bear, my friend, you’re going to need the calories and you will feel the need to choose foods that nourish your goals, rather than withdraw you from them.
100% of my clients who only moved to reduce their body size have all struggled to be consistent with their movement schedules.
100% of my clients who move to get strong enough to fight a bear in the woods have a relationship with exercise that is based on discovery and investigation.
A relationship with exercise that excites them with the possibility and releases them from the guilt of diet culture.
Losing weight may well be a consequence of their actions, but when they have a framing of getting stronger they see their movement plans as opportunities of growth, opportunities of development and opportunities of discovery.
And if you miss an opportunity that’s ok.
But when you believe that your movement schedule is the key to losing weight, and you attach the all or nothing mindset to it, then you will attach far too much guilt to missing a movement session which will eventually lead to you giving up and feeling like a failure compared to having a more balanced perspective.
Move to get strong in your body, in your mind and in your soul.
That is a much more inspiring message to tell yourself than because you want to fit in a dress because society deems that more acceptable.
Releasing expectation: The all-or-nothing mindset
When you approach movement and nutrition with an all or nothing mindset you always end up with nothing.
Extremes lead to extremes.
You may well be able to give your movement a 100% attitude for a period of time, but when you have done that, and you can’t keep up with it, like the vast majority of people who are not professional athletes can’t, then when you grind to a halt because of stressors in your life like work, family and other things, you again end up feeling like a failure and giving up.
Some people can give movement their all for 6 months.
Some people can give movement their all for 6 weeks.
Some can do it for a week.
But they all end up stopping when they believe that the only way to success is by giving it all.
Those who incorporate a balanced approach to their movement success end up being more consistent over much longer periods of time and being able to adopt a balanced mindset is much easier said than done.
How to adopt a balanced mindset to movement and nutrition?
My best piece of advice for this is to adopt what I call a wide-angle lens.
Zoom out on your life.
Stop listening to diet culture that makes you think that you should be able to lose 10kgs in 12 weeks. Stop allowing yourself to feel like a failure when you have a Pizza with pineapple on it because you believe it has made you gain 3lbs of fat.
Stop calling yourself fat.
You have fat.
There is a difference between those two statements.
You must comprehend and understand and truly internalise what I outlined previously about the body’s settling points. Great change of your body requires a change in both your internal and external environments, and that is not something that is accessible to all people.
But getting stronger is.
You must realise that one movement session will not give you muscles like Arnie. That one can of Spinach will not make you look like Popeye.
And that missing one movement session will not undo all of your progress.
Or that eating one bag of chips will not make you gain 6lbs of body fat.
Nothing in life changes that quickly - and that is a good thing.
I would even argue you could miss a month from moving and the progress you “lose” is finite.
By comprehending this, you will find freedom in both your movement and your nutrition. You will be able to give yourself full freedom and permission to enjoy foods you want to eat, and you will be able to remove the guilt and stigma from your life that is associated with your actions.
You will be able to find peace from second-guessing everything that you do - because you can begin to realise that it just isn’t that big a deal.
I’m a personal trainer, I have a roster of clients that rely on me every day for my expertise in this field, and there are times that I don’t work out, there are times that I eat pizza three days in a row, and there are times I may have alcohol every night - erm 2021 and lockdown is calling.
The only reason I am able to do this is that when I look at myself over the years I know that I have been consistent with my movement and nutrition more than not.
And consistent means at a maximum 25 days out of 30 in a month.
Not 30 days out of 30 - that’s perfection.
You will always need to have respect for your work, your home life, other demands on your being like socialising and travelling - and by making sure you have a wide-angle lens on what it is you want to achieve you will always be able to make movement and nutrition fit in around these things. But when you have the all or nothing mindset…when bigger priorities like paying your mortgage kick in, you will feel like you are letting yourself down, when in fact you are just being a beautiful human being.
There will always be pressure from all angles of your life - and therefore the more we can work on releasing pressure from your movement, you will be able to build a much better relationship with it. Take Kevin for example, if we can take exercise out of his hot pot, he might not be so overwhelmed and might not drop everything on the floor….and that’s the goal.
To view the movement as something that stops your cup from overflowing - not adds to your overwhelm.
I found this when looking for GIFs about Balance.
And it brightened up my day - I hope it does yours too.
Ask Yourself How and What Questions
You have more than likely seen many a Personal Trainer talks about your “Why?”. Some dude in a room in a gym that knows nothing about you pretending to give a shit about why you want to “get fit” and that his methods of Heavy Barbell Back Squatting will magically answer all the problems associated with your marriage, relationship with children and take out the stress from work.
This dude who is 25 years old, lives with his parents and has no idea how hard you find moving and how nervous you were to ever step foot in the Gym because well let’s face it, he has the empathy of a Goldfish.
Finding out about clients’ “Why” is nothing other than a sales tactic, and unsurprisingly it sets you up for failure. It focuses you on all of your insecurities, and it focuses your mind on fixing those insecurities.
It turns your main focus into a results-based solution.
A “why?” question is what’s known as an extrinsic motivational question.
And the issue with extrinsic motivation is that it fades quite quickly. Especially when the lived experience is not what your expectation was at the start. When those results aren’t as forthcoming as quickly as you think they should be, or when your life takes over and you can’t show up as much as you hoped, you think everything is going wrong and that you will never be able to achieve what you hoped for.
You need to get down and dirty with intrinsic motivational questions.
This is why as your Coach I would ask you different questions. I would only ask you:
How are you going to achieve your objectives?
What are you going to do to achieve your objectives?
And your mind will be razor-focussed only on the next week or two.
This way you throw yourself into a process.
Carol Dweck in her book “Mindset” states:
“Becoming is better than being”
If you really want to learn how to love exercise again the greatest thing you can do is forget about the why - and enjoy the process.
Become who you want to become. Rather than try to live up to being who you want to be.
You have probably heard Personal Trainers all over the internet tell you to enjoy the process without you actually being told how that happens. I know I have experienced this.
I have been told it so many times, I almost feel guilty that I don’t enjoy the process because no one showed me how that part works - they just told me to enjoy it.
No one actually laid it out for you in a way you can actually comprehend. But I am going to do that for you…
To truly enjoy the process you must see your movement as an investigation.
And each time you do a movement session, you will give yourself one goal, one new thing to investigate. Lifting weights and building strength is a skill. Developing movements is a skill, and skill is developed in one way.
Through mindful repetition.
There is a very famous quote that states:
“Repetition is the mother of skill ”
I would also like to add the word persistence to that quote.
“Persistence through repetition is the mother of skill”
Especially in relation to building strength.
It’s not just enough to repeat something, without being present with it, and in order to bring your mind with you to your workout, you need to investigate what it is you want to achieve.
When I was on Stage, one of the very best Directors I ever worked with every night at the half-hour call would come on the tannoy and announce:
“Your theme for tonight’s performance is X”
And he would insert a theme that he knew was a feature of the story, and he would want us to see how that thought would enhance our ability to tell the story for that evening’s audience.
The themes he came up with would be both technical and emotional:
Love
Money
Sex
Hatred
Poetry
Positioning
Listening
Friendships
Loss
Danger
Super Objectives
And the list goes on. Each night, we would allow this one word to resonate through our performance and see how that might change the rhythm and the presence of our performance.
Performing a Play for a total of one hundred performances is going to get monotonous and stale. There is a trap that many ensembles fall into where they just phone in the performance because they know it that well, and they can run it on auto-pilot.
Ever felt like that in the Gym? Of course, you have.
But your movement session should not be phoned in. You should try your hardest to not make it seem like you’re just there doing the work for the sake of the work - this can’t be avoided every time of course - but investigating a theme when you workout it can reduce the chances of this happening to you.
Investigation cues I use with clients are:
Develop the range of motion
Explore the floor
Root the Glutes
Stack your joints
Tempo
The feeling of strength
What muscle are you trying to activate?
Intensity of Exertion
How does one movement pattern inform another movement pattern?
Some of these are more complex than others, and some of them require more context than I can get into here on the Blog - they are always ongoing and deep discussions with my clients on how they can get the most out of their movement and develop the skill.
The Success Loop
In my article, “How Do You Get Motivated To Lose Weight and Exercise?” I outline the idea of the success loop.
The success loop is something I have designed to help people understand the science behind motivation and how they can make sure that motivation is the last thing they rely on in order to love exercise again.
Many people think that beginning fitness starts with Motivation.
They see their journey thus:
Get Motivated -> Take Action -> Get Results
However, Motivation actually works this way:
You take action first, then you get results and those results are what keep you motivated.
Or as I say it:
DO -> TRACK -> REPEAT
The Success Loop takes this one step further, and looks like this:
Here you can see I have added in a very important aspect of what continues to perpetuate your motivation to investigate movement - and it is education.
Because educating yourself can keep you inspired to carry on.
As you look to rebuild your relationship with exercise, I want you to think about how much are you learning on this journey. Heck, you wouldn’t have a hobby and not learn how to do it. Many many people think exercise is something you justhave to show up for, tick the box and away you go…
But when you start investigating what and how you are going execute your movement, you start to look at educating yourself in the process - and the more you learn, the more awesome your movement will become.
So read Blogs, follow people who focus on educating you, not showing off in front of you, question the choices your personal trainer makes with them and ask them insightful questions about how you move and why things are they way they are in your sessions.
Education leads to empowerment.
And an empowered human is a Strong and Confident human.
And Finally…
Before you consider everything in this Blog Post the heartbeat of how you move, what you move in what way and how to truly love exercise again is that you have to enjoy it.
At the very front of the success loop, at the very front of what you chose to do, before you even think about about what to do and how to do it you must ask yourself - what do I enjoy doing the most?
This whole article has been about how to change your outlook on movement.
To promote a more balanced view of fitness in your mind, because being imbalanced is probably the reason you feel out of love with movement in the first place.
Every human I have ever worked with, who had the sole desire to move in order to lose weight, has had an awful relationship with exercise, and we have had to do some really hard work to refocus them onto the thought of getting stronger and more confident.
Because there is nothing inspiring about reducing the size of your body.
You should love yourself more than having a mentality of diminishing yourself.
You should love yourself so much that you do things you enjoy - and learn how to enjoy them more.
Have fun. You deserve to have fun, just like Amy wanted to all those years ago.
And, in my most personal of opinons, that is a far more insipiring thought than going to the Gym to just burn some calories.
Did You Find This Useful?
Firstly I want to say a huge thank you for reading my article, and I hope it has given you some food for thought in relation to rebuilding your relationship with movement.
Across this website, I have other Articles all about managing your relationship with exercise:
I would also love to invite you to grab some free fitness goodies from me, including a free month of coaching on The Strong and Confident Program
You also have a unique opportunity to grab a Free Month of Coaching from me as a thank you for being here.
Thank you so much for reading my article - I really hope you found it helpful.
References:
Anon, Move your DNA: Movement ecology and the ... - escholarship.org. Available at: https://escholarship.org/content/qt1k6948g0/qt1k6948g0.pdf?t=q3qtt8 [Accessed November 14, 2021].
Johannsen DL, Tchoukalova Y, Tam CS, et al. Effect of 8 weeks of overfeeding on ectopic fat deposition and insulin sensitivity: testing the "adipose tissue expandability" hypothesis. Diabetes Care. 2014;37(10):2789-2797. doi:10.2337/dc14-0761
Müller MJ, Bosy-Westphal A, Heymsfield SB. Is there evidence for a set point that regulates human body weight?. F1000 Med Rep. 2010;2:59. Published 2010 Aug 9. doi:10.3410/M2-59
When To Increase Your Weights In The Gym
The Gym can be a very intimidating place.
And there are few things more intimidating than increasing the weights you lift.
Whenever I rack on a few extra KGs I still hear my Mum’s Voice:
“You be careful Adam!”
And I respond like my 14-year-old self with a “Yes Mother” in my own head.
Ask most people who haven’t spent a long time in the Gym, or working out, and they will tell you that a Gym is a dangerous place and that if you lift too heavy…you will hurt yourself.
Interestingly the most common person to be injured in a Gym is a 27-year-old male,:
“Patients' mean age was 27.6 years (range, 6-100 years); 82.3% were male”
And most of the time…they are trying to get the Pectoral Muscles and shoulders of a Greek God:
“The upper trunk (25.3%) and lower trunk (19.7%) were the most commonly injured body parts” [1]
And women, I’m not sure what you have been doing but…
“Females had a larger proportion of foot injuries” [1]
Actually, I found some footage that might explain this:
From 1990 to 2007, 25 335 weight training injuries were seen in US emergency departments, correlating to an estimated 970 801 injuries nationwide
That is four injuries a day that went to an Emergency Department - in the whole of the United States.
“The most common diagnosis was sprain/strain (46.1%). The most common mechanism of injury was weights dropping on the person (65.5%)” [1]
The Gym is a relatively safe space to exert yourself physically.
It's far safer than contact sport participation.
Don’t get me wrong, Social Sport and participation in a Group Sports Activity are very very important…so much so that after years of retirement, I have rejuvenated my career as a Football Referee here in Australia.
Yes. This is in Australia. I was promised sun and sand…its all lies…
Social Sport is very important for many aspects of your wellbeing - but mainly:
Community
Humility
Sense of Achievement
Enjoyable Exercise
Eye Hand Co-ordination
And I recommend everyone finds a sport they enjoy to participate in but you do get more injures on the field of play than you do on the Gym Floor.
This is mainly due to the duration of exercise and fatigue setting in.
However, the stigma around the Gym being dangerous, especially for non-gym goers is very real and very true.
The fact that the most common diagnoses in the Gym were sprains/strains leads me to believe one main thing that too many people are “upping the weights” far too quickly, or misunderstand how, why, and when to increase the weights they are lifting.
Thus leading to the 46% rate of strains and sprains.
So here we are.
Let me take you through when to increase your weights in the Gym, so it remains effective for your goals, sensible for you ability and above all lets you be in charge of the decisions you need to make when it comes to putting on 5 more kgs!
Table of Contents for “When To Increase Your Weights In The Gym”:
What are Sets and Reps? A Practical History Lesson
What Sets And Reps Should I Chose?
How much weight should I actually choose? And at what Intensity?
Progressive Overload
When To Increase Your Weights In The Gym
Bottom Line
To be able to explain and empower you to make strong and informed decisions about your weight training, I will need to first explain to you why we have different numbers for Sets and Reps. I’m a firm believer in understanding the systems in place, and why, so that when you make decisions on those systems you are making a much more informed decision.
I can’t simply tell you when to increase your weights in the gym, without first telling you the context behind the decisions that will determine the weights you chose in the first place.
If you want to know the Golden Rule for When To Increase Your Weights In The Gym - it is written at the bottom of this article. But I would encourage you to get the education and context you need to help you make a better decision when the time comes to lift heavier.
So here is your context:
What are Sets and Reps? A Practical History Lesson
Simply put:
A Set is one group of repetitions of a particular exercise you will perform, typically with rest after the set is completed and before you commence a new set.
A Rep is the number of repetitions of a single exercise you will do within a set.
So if you did 10 push-ups, in three separate non-stop goes with a rest time in between each block of push-ups, you have achieved 3 Sets of 10 Reps of a Push-Up.
The History of a Set
When I write my programs I play around with Reps more than I do with Sets.
I ask my online clients to typically perform 3 sets of each exercise or 5 sets of each exercise. But very rarely fewer than that.
The reason behind this is steeped in lots of Science that is very much agreed upon in the Fitness Industry.
In May 2015, a study was done on 48 men with no experience in Resistance Training and it split them into three Groups: 1 SET, 3 SETS, and 5 SETS.
Over 6 months the men trained 3x a week and the study found:
“that multiple sets would result in greater changes in strength and local muscular endurance than single-set training and that there would be a dose-response for these same measures were supported.” [2]
Concluding that multiple sets are more beneficial than singular sets in un-trained populations.
And as I am called The Gym Starter I suppose that is what I should educate you about.
This 2015 study also found that any number of sets was effective for Body Composition:
“The percentage of body fat was reduced significantly and FFM (fat-free mass) significantly increased in all training groups, with no significant difference between groups”
The whole 3 sets of 10 are quite an interesting story….
A physician 1948 called Thomas L. DeLorme prescribed 3 Sets of 10 Reps of resistance training to his injured patients to help with their rehabilitation, and he recorded his results. Once they were published, that was it.
3 sets of 10 Reps became “permanently etched into the collective subconscious of the fitness community.” [3]
So that is our default starting point thanks to Dr Tom with Sets.
The History of a Rep
You can play around with Reps a little more in a workout - which is fun.
Because different Rep ranges elicit a different response in the Muscle.
The lower the number of Reps you are working in, the heavier the weight you should try to lift.
Here are the Guidelines:
1-5 Reps = Power
Think of this range as “very heavy, very intense” just want to get strong AF. Lots of concentrated effort and it will tax your Central Nervous System a lot more.
(Intense being a word we will come back to later)
Recommended Rest Time Between Sets: 2mins
5-8 Reps = Strength
Think of this as granite strength. Not explosive power, but solid and stable, useful for sports performance.
Not as intense as Power, but still aware you have worked hard.
Recommended Rest Time Between Sets: 90secs
8-12 Reps = Hypertrophy
Your “Popping” muscles. This is the range you want to be in to grow your muscles and make them show.
This range increases Sarcoplasm in your muscle, which is responsible for 30% of the total makeup of your muscle.
This is why it helps make them look bigger.
If only it was as easy as eating a can of Spinach!
Recommended Rest Time Between Sets: 60-90secs
12-20 Reps = Muscular Endurance
This would be where you want to be if you are an Endurance Athlete. Training and building your muscular ability to train for an extended period of time.
If you are working on this aspect of your training, then you will be typically be lifting lighter weights, but for a longer period of time.
If you’re a runner, triathlete, or cyclist this is where you will want to be, as you will not only create more ability in the muscle, but it will also help your injury prevention.
Recommended Rest Time Between Sets: 60secs
The Bottom Line on Sets and Reps
Think of Sets and Reps as an intricate web that interacts with itself.
Just because you are doing 12 Reps of an Exercise as opposed to 8 doesn’t mean you aren’t getting stronger.
Or just because you only do 6 Reps of an Exercise, it doesn’t mean that muscle isn’t gaining the long-term ability for that movement.
Each Rep Rage is a guideline. A guideline that supports all of the others at the same time.
What Sets and Reps Should I Choose?
Like with most things, I like to keep it simple when constructing a workout and this can be overthought, over-philosophized, and over-complicated very quickly.
So this is how my brain figures it all out…whenever I am programming for one of my clients on my Strong and Confident Coaching Program
The guiding principle of my structure is Intensity.
I have to consider their Goals, Ability, and above all enjoyment.
Intensity guides everything.
I want my clients to be working most intensely when they have the most energy.
Intensity can be established in three ways in a workout:
More Sets
More Reps
More Weight
I will show you these looks in a workout, in a little bit. But first I will need to talk you through how to judge your Intensity - as that will tell you how and when you should increase your weights in the Gym.
But if you want a very quick answer to What Sets and Reps should I choose?
My best advice is this:
Pick an Exercise.
Pick something. Anything within the Rep ranges I have outlined previously for your goals: 3 Sets of 10 Reps. 4 Sets of 12 Reps. 5 Sets of 5 Reps.
Pick a weight - any weight you feel comfortable with - but err on the side of caution, to begin with.
Then execute. See how it feels. And amend from there.
The next time you come to do that exercise, try and do a little more.
You can do this by either - increasing your Reps, increasing your Sets, or increasing your Weight.
If you want to stay in a particular Rep range, for a particular reason - muscle growth, endurance, etc, then when you find your ability is exceeding the weight you have chosen, you can either increase the weight or increase the Sets.
Most people chose to increase their weight - because it’s simply more time-efficient.
How much weight should I actually choose? And at What Intensity?
When you are in the Gym, on your own, without an expert…it is surprising how good you will be at judging what weight to use.
You won’t always get it right.
Sometimes it will be too light, sometimes it will be too heavy.
And that’s ok…because you need to remember:
““When it comes to Fitness there is no right or wrong; just exploration””
Yes. I quoted myself.
Let’s move on…
Personal Trainers don’t automatically know what weights to choose for each client, we simply have the best guess….and amend from there based on the performance we see.
You too can only try something. And amend from there.
Once you have your starting point there is a guideline to let you know whether or not you are working hard enough throughout a given Set of movements.
Or the more accurate term for this is “Intensity”.
When it comes to resistance training you must apply a certain level of stress on the body in order to achieve the desired outcome. As in, its pretty pointless lifting 2kg Dumbells on a Bench Press if you aren’t working to the correct intensity.
A systematic review called ”Maximizing Muscle Hypertrophy: A Systematic Review of Advanced Resistance Training Techniques and Methods” on literature between 1996 and September 2019 which was published in 2019, concluded the following:
“Effective hypertrophy-oriented training should comprise a combination of mechanical tension and metabolic stress. In summary, foundations for individuals seeking to maximize muscle growth should be hypertrophy-oriented RT consisting of multiple sets (3−6) of six to 12 repetitions with short rest intervals (60 s) and moderate-intensity of effort (60−80% 1RM) with subsequent increases in training volume (12–28 sets/muscle/week)”
Now finding your One Rep Max (1RM) isn’t necessary to see results - and this study backs that up, as you need to be working to 60-80% of your 1RM.
How To Establish 60-80% Intensity
The guide you need to use to find this Intensity is called the RPE or Rate of Perceived Exertion Scale.
This is a subjective sliding scale from 1 to 10 which will determine whether or not you are working with enough Intensity in a Set to get the desired outcome.
When I write plans for those I work with Online I don’t tell them what weight to lift, I tell them what RPE to aim for - and let them decide for themselves whether or not the weight they have chosen, is creating a big enough stimulus on their body.
This is how we establish the weights you need to lift, without having a Personal Trainer there with you on the Strong and Confident Program.
The RPE Scale looks like this:
Throughout a workout, you want to be working through the RPE Scale in this manner:
Warm Up = 1-2 RPE
Main Movement For The Day = 8-9 RPE
Rest Of Workout = 6-8 RPE
Optional Cardio-Metabolic Finisher = 8-9 RPE
In an actual Workout that I have written for my Client Tim it looks like this:
You will notice that as the workout progresses the Target RPE drops. This is to account for fatigue over a workout. If you can keep the Intensity high throughout then be my guest - but remember it’s always a balance between what is possible and what is optimal.
If what is optimal might hurt you - let’s not do that.
The Main Movement in a workout is the most important part of your workout as well - which is why it has the highest intensity attached to it. In workouts, I write this is always a multi-joint compound movement, and if all a client does in a workout is that one exercise, to the desired RPE, then that is still a successful workout.
And then the rest of the workout is there to support my client’s goals from their fitness.
When it comes to what Weight to actually choose…as you can see there is no one size fits all. Everybody is different, and everybody is different, which is why I would encourage you to use a subjective answer as opposed to an objective one.
When it comes to increasing your weights - and crucially when to increase your weights…we need to discuss one more principle before we bring it all together.
Progressive Overload
Now, we need to go back to Ancient Greece, to learn about a Wrestler called Milo or Croton. Milo was the most successful Wrestler of his day, having won the Ancient Olympic Games, 6 times over. Milo was a six-time wrestling champion at the Ancient Olympic Games in Greece. In 540 BC, he won the boys wrestling category and then proceeded to win the men's competition at the next five Olympic Games in a row. He also dominated the Pythian Games (7-time winner), Isthmian Games (10-time winner), and Nemean Games (9-time winner).
In the rare event that an athlete won not only the Olympic title but also all three other games in one cycle, they were awarded the title of Periodonikes, a grand slam winner. Milo won this grand slam five times. [5]
So how did Milo build such strength and athleticism? Well, it comes in the principle of Progressive Overload - the core and guiding principle of any method of self-development, including building strength.
As legend has it, a baby Calf was born near Milos's home when he was a boy.
Every single day Milo put the Calf on his back and walked him on his shoulders.
Milo did this every day for four years.
The calf grew into a four-year-old bull, and as the animal grew so did Milo of Croton.
This is the guiding principle of strength training - to create a Progressive Overload over time.
As you can imagine your body will adapt to the same stimulus quite quickly also known as a “plateau”, therefore you need to change the stimulus to encourage growth.
Progressive Overload can be created in a number of ways:
Increase the weights you lift in the Gym
Increase the number of Reps you do
Increase the number of Sets you do
Improve your Form through an exercise.
Slow down the Tempo of your Reps or increase “Time Under Tension”
Do more workouts (to a point)
A 2011 study decided to test Progressive Overload.
Researchers found progressive overload — gradually increasing the weight and number of repetitions of exercises — to be effective for increasing bicep strength and muscle growth in both men and women. [6]
Every time you address a bar or a dumbbell, you should give yourself a thought, a task, a mindful check-in, to try and work on one thing on the progressive overload list.
Increasing Weight is always the easiest one to go for, especially as a beginner, but it is quite common to get caught between weights. I.e: 10kgs is too light, and 12.5kgs is too heavy for your Rep Range.
And this is when awareness of Progressive Overload comes into its own - by focussing more on form or time under tension at the same weight one day you will be able to make that 12.5kgs move like a hot knife through butter.
Drawbacks of Progressive Overload
With everything in life, there is a point of diminishing returns.
This is evident in a form of training knowns as German Volume Training - upon which you are expected to do 10 Sets of 10 Reps of an Exercise.
This study in 2017, found that with such a High Load of Volume the actual gains being made after 5 Sets were non-existent. Participants were just wasting time in the Gym and working out for the sheer sake of working out.
The study also concluded, which backs up the study from before when I was discussing Sets and Reps, that:
“To maximize hypertrophic training effects, it is recommended that 4-6 sets per exercise be performed, as it seems gains will plateau beyond this set range and may even regress due to overtraining.” [7]
Ergo more is not always better in the Gym.
Therefore always try to work within the parameters of what we outlined above in terms of Sets and Reps.
With regards to trying to achieve the principle of Progressive Overload, if you go for too much…too quickly it could have negative repercussions, injury for example.
Do it slowly, steadily, and surely.
The only other thing to add here is that the stronger you get, the more slow progression will occur.
“For males, baseline strength capacity appears to be negatively associated with hypertrophy, and thus stronger males may be less likely to experience the same degree of hypertrophic adaptation over 12 weeks as compared to weaker males.” [7]
This is why being aware of all of the aspects that can create a progressive overload is important because when you find you are lifting the same weight week on week, it can get demoralizing. So having other ways and means to demonstrate and experience progress is a great way to keep motivated.
When To Actually Increase Your Weights In The Gym
Now that you know why we do what we do when it comes to the Gym floor, you should be able to establish when it is sensible and logical for you to increase your weights in the Gym.
There are a lot of myths around this as well.
One of the most common ones is that you should “confuse your muscles”.
This is in a word:
Firstly, your muscles don’t have brains - so how can you confuse them? Secondly, there is ZERO Science to back up the Muscle Confusion theory. Thirdly, it will move you away from consistency and our bodies need consistency to be able to adapt. The more you change the less likely you are to see results.
If you really want to confuse your muscles, do it by adding a greater stimulus in a movement that you have been working on - as in - increase the weights you are lifting.
The Golden Rule is coming up…as promised.
I will now tell you EXACTLY when to increase your weights in the Gym
The Golden Rule is:
Increase your weights when in a Set you are no longer hitting “Target RPE”
By working towards your Target RPE you will be in the best position to strike a balance between the intensity required for growth (60-80% of 1RM) and your own personal ability.
Thus protecting you from Injury and still allowing Progressive Overload over time. RPE will take into account all the Progressive Overload factors, such as when you decrease or increase the tempo when you increase or decrease weight when you increase or decrease Sets and Reps your RPE should respond accordingly.
The human body can be a fickle system - especially when it comes to energy levels. RPE also allows for this. If you go to the Gym having slept well, fuelled well, and it’s early in the morning and you are full of beans.
You are likely to be able to produce more effort.
If you are sleep-deprived, tired, and just have no energy, you are likely to produce less effort.
RPE allows for these changes in your system and is more than likely still going to drive you to your goals as you will still be working to between a 60-80% intensity.
The Bottom Line
The answer to this question of when to increase weights in the gym comes down to balance.
You will always be balancing three main factors:
Your own physical ability
Your energy levels
Your likelihood to cause injury
Just walking up to a Barbell with an arbitrary number of KGs on it with no context or frame of reference as to whether you can actually do it, will likely not end well.
And this brings me to my last and final point on the topic.
Tracking your workouts is the key to your success.
You must track your workouts.
Without recording what you are doing then you will have no idea if you are actually making progress, or whether or not you are able to life the weight you want to set yourself.
Track the following data as a minimum:
Weight
Sets
Reps
RPE
If you write nothing else down - those four are the key to your success.
Then from there, when you see the Weight, Sets, and Reps staying the same - and the RPE coming down - you can increase your weights.
Or if you see the Weight, Sets, and Reps staying the same - and the RPE is increasing or not coming down - maybe take some weight off, and try to acquire the progressive overload in another way.
Time Under Tension
Higher Rep Scheme
More Sets
Add a workout into your week
The amount of weight you lift is your prerogative.
All I would ask is that you keep working hard, be consistent, and always try your hardest.
That deosn’t always mean lift more weight or always push yourself beyond belief.
Sometimes working your hardest can be just showing up.
Just remember to make sure every workout is effective to work to the Target RPE and adjust accordingly.
If you do that as each workout passes, you will begin to feel more and more like this:
Because really.
Thats the goal isn’t it.
Become Strong and Confident.
Be the Bad-Ass you were born to be.
Because you deserve to be.
Did You Find This Useful?
Thank you so much for reading my article - I really hope you found it helpful.
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References:
Kerr ZY, Collins CL, Comstock RD. Epidemiology of weight training-related injuries presenting to United States emergency departments, 1990 to 2007. Am J Sports Med. 2010 Apr;38(4):765-71. doi: 10.1177/0363546509351560. Epub 2010 Feb 5. PMID: 20139328.
Radaelli, Regis1; Fleck, Steven J.2; Leite, Thalita3; Leite, Richard D.4; Pinto, Ronei S.1; Fernandes, Liliam3; Simão, Roberto3 Dose-Response of 1, 3, and 5 Sets of Resistance Exercise on Strength, Local Muscular Endurance, and Hypertrophy, Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research: May 2015 - Volume 29 - Issue 5 - p 1349-1358 doi: 10.1519/JSC.0000000000000758
https://journals.lww.com/nsca-jscr/fulltext/2012/11000/Thomas_L__DeLorme_and_the_Science_of_Progressive.1.aspx
Krzysztofik, M., Wilk, M., Wojdała, G., & Gołaś, A. (2019). Maximizing Muscle Hypertrophy: A Systematic Review of Advanced Resistance Training Techniques and Methods. International journal of environmental research and public health, 16(24), 4897. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16244897
James Clear. 2021. How to Build Muscle: Strength Lessons from Milo of Croton. [online] Available at: <https://jamesclear.com/milo> [Accessed 27 June 2021].
Healthline. 2021. Progressive Overload: What It Is, Examples, and Tips. [online] Available at: <https://www.healthline.com/health/progressive-overload#benefits> [Accessed 28 June 2021].
Peterson, M. D., Pistilli, E., Haff, G. G., Hoffman, E. P., & Gordon, P. M. (2011). Progression of volume load and muscular adaptation during resistance exercise. European journal of applied physiology, 111(6), 1063–1071. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-010-1735-9
Why Does Sleep Affect Your Weight Loss?
We live in an age where sleep is an aspect of our lives we compromise on more and more.
Sometimes through our own behaviors, we have ALL said “just one more episode” when watching Schitts Creek, despite knowing it would take our sleep from seven hours…to six and a half.
Or…many people struggle with their sleep due to more intricate issues like anxiety and stress. In fact in the UK during the first Lockdown in 2020, Britons suffering from sleep loss due to worrying increased from one in six to one in four, with Key Workers, Mothers, and people from Minority Backgrounds being the worst affected [1].
We know that Mental Health issues are on the rise, outside of the Global Pandemic. In fact, this is the World Health Organizations summary of the state of the Worlds Mental Health as of 2017:
“Mental health conditions are increasing worldwide. Mainly because of demographic changes, there has been a 13% rise in mental health conditions and substance use disorders in the last decade (to 2017). Mental health conditions now cause 1 in 5 years lived with disability. Around 20% of the world’s children and adolescents have a mental health condition, with suicide the second leading cause of death among 15-29-year-olds. Approximately one in five people in post-conflict settings have a mental health condition.
Mental health conditions can have a substantial effect on all areas of life, such as school or work performance, relationships with family and friends and ability to participate in the community. Two of the most common mental health conditions, depression and anxiety, cost the global economy US$ 1 trillion each year.
Despite these figures, the global median of government health expenditure that goes to mental health is less than 2%.” [2]
From this information, it is fair to conclude that as our Mental Health deteriorates, so too does our sleep.
And this links to increased body weight.
As the study “Sleep and Obesity” from 2011 states:
“According to recent estimates, the worldwide prevalence of obesity has doubled since 1980. This obesity epidemic has been paralleled in modern society by a trend of reduced sleep duration. Poor sleep quality, which is often associated with overall sleep loss, has also become a frequent complaint.”[3].
Please don’t misunderstand me.
Sleep is certainly a major aspect of every human’s life, but it doesn’t dictate whether or not you gain weight - eating too many calories does.
But Sleep, or lack thereof, is oftentimes the reason that you might be consuming more calories.
And that is what we are going to unpick in this article.
I’m going to show you some of the risk factors associated with lack of sleep, how that will then impact your sleep - and crucially a plan of action to help you improve your sleep.
Table of Contents for: Why Does Sleep Affect Your Weight Loss?
The Link between Sleep, Depression and Weight Gain
The link between Sleep, Stress and Weight Gain
The link between Sleep, Hunger Hormones, and Weight Gain
The link between Sleep, Reduced Movement, and Weight Gain
How To Improve Your Sleep
Over the years that I have been working as a Personal Trainer, one thing that very few people seem to have a handle is a good, solid, sleep routine.
And the second I bring it up with them, they get very defensive.
I have heard things like:
“I may go to bed at 2 am but I sleep really well”
“Lack of sleep just doesn’t affect me”
“But I must have “me” time”
And from Matthew Walkers brilliant book “Why We Sleep” he states this:
“People have said to me I’ll sleep when I’m dead. And that is exactly right…because lack of sleep in one’s life means that you will indeed die sooner”
The benefits of sleep sit directly opposite to many of the causes of weight gain and obesity.
We know that factors like depression, stress, poorer health, lack of confidence, lack of creativity, and lack of movement, are all things that can lead to increased body weight in an individual.
And they are all aspects of your life that sleep can improve.
The Link Between Sleep and Mental Health and Weight Gain:
According to the Sleep Foundation:
“It is becoming clear that there is a bidirectional relationship between sleep and mental health [4] in which sleeping problems may be both a cause and consequence of mental health problems.”
Cause and consequence.
The later stage of sleep, known as REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, a stage that you will visit up to 4-6 times as an adult has profound effects on your emotions and health.
The amygdala is part of the brain, that is responsible for your emotional memories. It is responsible for giving emotions meaning and memory. It is also responsible for your responses to your emotions.
All of your emotions.
In a study by Matthew Walker, [5] they took a group of people and split them in two. Both Groups were shown emotional Stimuli, and then one group was allowed to sleep, the other was sleep deprived.
As you can see in the Figure below the sleep deprivation group showed much higher activity in the amygdala:
Concluding that: “Without sleep, however, amygdala-mPFC connectivity was decreased, potentially negating top-down control and resulting in an overactive amygdala.”
But why does Depression or even an Overactive Amygdyla due to lack of sleep equal weight gain?
Have you ever heard the term “emotional eating”?
I think we all know what emotional eating is, although there isn’t an actual medical definition. I would describe it as:
The behaviour of consuming any food, as a direct result of an emotional experience you have had happened to you at any time in your past, or anticipate might happen to you in the future and seeking short-term comfort in this behavior.
In fact, I bet you have used it…I think we all have at one time or another.
Depression in and of itself doesn’t mean you will gain weight but there is a correlation.
About 43% of Adults with Depression are Obese according to the CDC, and those who are diagnosed with depression are more than likely to be overweight.
So you have to ask yourself. What is coming first? Depression, Emotional Eating or Lack of Sleep?
Well, I can’t sit here and tell you to just stop being depressed.
I can’t sit here and tell you to just stop eating emotionally.
But I can ask you to build a better structure around your bedtime, protect your sleep in a much better way…and can then see if that has a positive impact on the other factors at play.
The Link Between Sleep and STRESS and Weight Gain:
Stress impacts hunger in a number of ways. In fact, stress is an emotional term we give to a hormonal response pulsing around our body. This hormone is called Cortisol.
Cortisol can cause havoc in our systems.
When we experience stress, our adrenal glands on top of our Kidneys release insulin into our bloodstream, which means that there is more Glucose in our system.
This is fine when you are running from a bear - or a whirlwhind.
But repetitive exposure in the body to Cortisol can and will lead to weight gain - because that glucose needs to be used, or it gets stored in the body…and typically that occurs around the midsection.
A 2015 study [6] found that when people are stressed your metabolism is slower.
In the modern-day, a threat can be a bad news article, an unwanted text, bills to pay, just a scroll on Social Media. We don’t run from bears anymore.
What we do instead is sit at our desk fuming at the situation we are in, or we turn to our fridges in order to cope with the emotional feeling we are experiencing.
How does Sleep reduce Stress?
Having already established that REM sleep helps you reduce the activity in your amygdala each night and in turn helps you with your mental health, it stands to reason that it would also help you with the emotion of stress.
In fact, here is an image from the American Psychological Association [7] that demonstrates the negative effect of stress on people if they get less than 8 hours of sleep a night:
Looking at that list of symptoms of stress, outside the norms of being an emotional eater, many of them link directly to other factors that lead to weight gain.
Lacking interest, motivation, or energy - we know that boredom equals the consumption of food in many people, combined with the lack of motivation and energy leading to a lower metabolism each day.
Skipping Exercise - this will result in fewer calories burned, less muscle on the body and therefore opens up the potential to unwanted weight gain
The Link Between Sleep, Hunger Hormones, and Weight Gain
Your appetite is controlled by two very receptive hormones.
Leptin and Grehlin.
Leptin is the hormone that is responsible for your stomach telling your brain that you are full.
Grehlin is the hormone that is responsible for your stomach telling your brain (hypothalamus) that you are hungry,
In the ideal world we want our brains to be very recpetive to Leptin, and have low levels of Grehlin, leading to lower hunger and increased satiety once we eat.
Think of Grehlin as this:
A little gremlin that is easily influenced and affected by nearly everything that goes on in your body.
Factors that increase Grehlin in your body are:
Weight Extremes, both anorexia and obesity alter Grehlin
Low Muscle Mass
Lack of Protein in your Diet
Yo-Yo Dieting
Eating too few calories for too long a time
and, yup you’ve guessed it:
Lack of Sleep
Added to that there are many factors that cause Leptin levels to decrease, or more, can lead our brains to just not recognize it.
And therefore you may never feel full after eating…even though you technically are, which will result in more calories consumed.
When this is the case you are “Leptin Resistant” and to try and reverse this you should:
Exercise more
Eat less highly processed foods
Increase your Soluble fiber intake (fruits, vegetables, whole grains)
Increase your protein intake
and, yup you’ve guessed it:
Improve your sleep
How are Grehlin and Leptin affected by Sleep?
In 2004, Taheri et al, took 1,024 participants from the Wisconsin Sleep Cohort Study [8] and tested their blood each morning for Grehlin and Leptin levels.
The study found a correlation between lack of sleep in duration and increased Grehlin and lack of sleep in duration and decreased Leptin.
As shown here:
The link between Sleep, Reduced Movement, and Weight Gain
The Sleep Foundation states: “Losing sleep can result in having less energy for exercise and physical activity” [9]
If I refer you back to the image I shared with you earlier, from the American Psychological Association, there were two symptoms of stress that I bought to your attention in terms of how stress affects your ability to affect your weight.
Lacking interest, motivation, or energy and Skipping Exercise
This all points towards “prescribed movement” and it stands to reason that you are going to be less likely to head to the gym if you are sleep deprived.
No one wants to see this:
But there are other forms of movement that help significantly with your weight loss efforts.
The Daily Step Count.
And let’s face it, those who are tired are less likely to walk, less likely to fidget, and therefore are less likely to burn enough calories in the day to help them with their weight loss efforts. Therefore lack of sleep reduces your metabolism.
How does reduced sleep mean fewer calories burned each day?
When we look at your Metabolism - the name given to the body’s ability to burn calories - we can see it is broken down into four main sections:
The two I want to draw your attention to today are:
NEAT - Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis and EAT - Exercise Activity Thermogenesis.
These two categories are basically the calories you burn through movement. NEAT is your daily movement outside of prescribed activity, and EAT is your prescribed activity.
Therefore, if you aren’t moving, if you aren’t getting to the gym, then you are burning fewer calories each day. NEAT is 15% of your Metabolism and is the reason we Personal Trainers ask you so very often to increase your step count. More steps equal more calories burned which equals an impact on your weight.
Aside from all the other amazing benefits walking can bring you.
Added to this, the more tired you are, the less intensity you will be able to put into your training.
There have been a variety of studies on this.
This study [9] took 10 male athletes, deprived them of sleep for 30 hours, and tested their Sprinting ability - which was indeed reduced significantly.
This study [10] took Runners and Volleyball players and tested their time to exhaustion after being deprived of sleep for one night. It concluded: “We suggest that one-night sleep deprivation may reduce exercise performance by decreasing exercise minute ventilation and time to exhaustion. We also indicate that sleep loss may decrease more the performance of volleyball players than that of runners.”
It would is my belief that Volleyball players tire quicker because the sport would require much more cognitive work combined with physical work. It is a less repetitive movement pattern and therefore you are having to make more decisions relating to the execution of skill as well as your physical fitness.
Looking at these studies, it is fair to conclude that lack of sleep will result in less time being active, less intensity when being active and therefore not helping your overall goal of being able to sustain a healthy weight in the long term.
How To Improve Your Sleep
Now that we have looked into the effects that not having enough sleep can have on you, its probably a good idea to look at how to actually help you to get to sleep so that you can start implementing some better behaviors for your bedtime.
Plan to Get 8 Hours Sleep A Night
All of the studies I have looked into for this article state that the optimal time for sleep is indeed 8 hours. This is because our bodies go through sleep cycles - about 4-6 a night.
NREM sleep or Light Sleep is broken into three stages, and in one cycle to get through all three stages it can take about 45mins.
REM sleep or Deep Sleep can last between 10-60mins. Giving you a total, across 6 cycles, of about 8 hours worth of sleep.
The whole pattern of your sleep is known as your “sleep architecture” and as you can imagine, we all have a different architecture - but bearing these guidelines in mind will certainly help you.
Sleep with the Sun
Have you ever heard of a circadian rhythm? This is your body’s natural timer, that correlates with the sun.
As the US National Institute of General Medical Sciences states:
“Circadian rhythms are physical, mental, and behavioral changes that follow a 24-hour cycle. These natural processes respond primarily to light and dark and affect most living things, including animals, plants, and microbes. Chronobiology is the study of circadian rhythms. One example of a light-related circadian rhythm is sleeping at night and being awake during the day.” [11]
Many people put great value on living in harmony with their circadian rhythm and making sure they get up when the sun comes up and go to sleep when the sun comes down - and it makes sense that it is what the human race has done since time began.
So if you are lucky enough to be able to do this…then I strongly recommend it. If you are a Shift Worker or a New Mum, then of course this will be more difficult for you to implement…but at times in your life when you can…make this a priority in the best way possible.
Exercise Regularly
Exercise makes you tired, which makes you sleep in a more restful state. By sleeping in a more restful state you will get much more quality sleep and feel more rested when you wake up again.
Exercise also helps stabilize your mood and decompress your mind which will help you drift off into NREM Sleep.
Listen to a Sleep Story
Why do we read to children before bed? One because it’s good for their development…but also to help them wind down after an exciting day of discovering the world. Yet as adults we simply think that we don’t need to do the same.
We give our brains no space to decompress from whatever we were doing in the evening to hitting the pillow. And then we just toss and turn and get frustrated that we can’t seem to drift off.
Sleep Stories are excellent at two things.
Distracting your mind and taking them on a journey
Helping you meditate before you sleep
I’m awful at keeping up with the habit of meditating - despite the fact I know how good it is for me.
Being able to quieten the mind during the day is something that takes discipline and repetition - and my days lack structure for that to be able to occur.
Therefore I do my meditation as I drift off to sleep - and I kill two birds with one stone.
Might not be optimal. But it’s certainly possible for me - and I do these with Sleep Stories.
I can’t remember how I first discovered them…but I have been listening to them very consistently on the Calm App for nearly 5 years now - and have journeyed in my mind’s eye to some of the most amazing places the world has to offer - and it has benefited my sleep beyond words.
Sleep Stories do take a while to get used to…and they do require an element of patience. For a while I used to fight them so much, I used to find them intrusive and frustrating…but just like meditation the more you practice the better the effect of them.
So if the Sleep Story doesn’t work right away - the issue is not likely to be the story (although we all find different voices soothing and not so soothing). Work through it - the benefits of being able to calm the mind to ensure you drift off peacefully are very much worth it.
If you want to try a Sleep Story…luckily I have recorded a few myself for you to enjoy.
Listen to a Sleep Meditation
These are very similar to Sleep Stories but rather than distract your imagination they are designed to focus you on your breathing, using suggestive language to help you calm your mind and drift away into NREM Sleep.
Meditation is a very powerful tool to help you learn to quieten the mind and help you move away from the stress of your day.
Here is a selection of Sleep Meditations I recorded for my clients.
If the Sleep Stories are too distracting these might help you in a very similar way.
Get Off Your Phone 60mins before Bedtime
Your phone releases Blue Light. In fact, most screens do. And this blue light directly stops your brain from releasing melatonin, which is the hormone required to induce sleep.
It’s great to have this Blue Light during the daytime, as it can be helpful to keep our brains switched on, however it is not helpful before bedtime.
In fact, many screens these days have a “Night Shift” Mode which takes out the blue light and makes your screen look yellow. I have this turned up all day every day on both my iPhone, my MacBook, and my iPad.
It has got to the point where when I look at a phone without this on…I feel like I need sunglasses to look at it. I also make sure my TV Screens have their backlight and Brightness turned down. It takes some getting used to in the beginning. But is so worth it on the other side of a great night’s sleep.
Reduce Caffeine late in the day
Now by late in the day I really mean late in the morning like 11 am.
And by Caffeine I’m not just talking about Coffee. I’m talking about all caffeinated drinks, including Coke Zero and Cups of Tea.
Let me explain why.
The standardized recommendation for caffeine for an adult each day is just 400mg.
Caffeine has a half-life of 5 hours. This means that if you drink a cup of coffee with 300mg of Caffeine in it, like a Starbucks Venti Americano, at 11 am, you still have 150mg of Caffeine in your system at 4 pm. Wind this on further, and at 9 pm you still have 75mg of Caffeine in your system - and at 2 am the next day 37.5mg of Caffeine in your system.
Now I know many people, that believe Caffeine doesn’t affect them. This is certainly not the case. About 10% of the world has the “Caffeine Gene” according to a 2011 study.
If you are still able to consume caffeine and drift off to sleep then that’s great, but the effects of the caffeine will happen in your sleep. The caffeine will affect your ability to get into the crucial deep restorative REM sleep [12].
Reduce Alcohol Intake
Sorry, Homer. This just isn’t true…especially if you struggle with fatigue.
Much like Caffeine, Alcohol also inhibits that all-important restorative REM Sleep.
Although alcohol can induce sleepiness and is a relaxant, you will get into a vicious cycle if you rely on it for sleep, because of how it impacts your ability to have deep REM Sleep.
In Conclusion
Sleep is one of the single most important pillars of a healthy happy life. Away from your body weight, sleep is a critical part of your human behaviour.
Now I am acutely aware that sleep cannot be afforded to us all in a fair manner. My fiancee works in Emergency Services, and she has looked into the negative effect that shift work has on your health. Poor Sleep behaviour isn’t the sole reason that shift workers’ health is negatively affected, but it is certainly one of the largest.
I am also aware that many people struggle to sleep for much deeper psychological reasons pertaining to something from their past.
And of course, as I have mentioned previously, new parents are always going to struggle with their sleep behaviour for obvious reasons.
What I would ask of you is this.
Give yourself a chance. Many people do struggle to sleep, but they also don’t do anything to help the root causes of this either.
I once heard that the bedroom should only be used for two things.
Sleep and Sex.
If you want to make your Weight Loss journey as successful as possible, as sustainable as possible and you want to get the most out of your training, then stop looking for the BCAA supplements, stop looking for the quick fixes, stop looking for the optimal amount of nutrition and for crying out loud….PRIORITISE YOUR SLEEP.
If you get this in place first…I bet everything falls into complete insignificance.
Sleep and Sex.
If you remember one thing from this article.
Remember that.
Did You Find This Useful?
Thank you so much for reading my article - I really hope you found it helpful.
I work with clients all over the world in my One on One Coaching Program called The Strong & Confident Program.
A New Program Designed To Get You Stronger, Healthier & more confident than ever before.
My aim with the friends I work with is to give them so much more out of their fitness by focussing them on the process of getting stronger and therefore making them more confident.
Just like with this article - where I like to give as much help to you as I can
My approach to online training is no different. The whole program is about you - how best can I serve you, and therefore help you in the best way possible.
Just like my client Tim who has nailed the last 5 months.
We actually worked very hard on two things I have referenced in this article with Tim. We increased his Steps (NEAT) and we improved his sleep.
Tim is getting married next year, and he is trying to make sure that he feels his most confident & strong on what will be a truly happy day. Tim has trained with me in person for a number of years until in 2021 he decided to take me up on my offer of working online.
And by making that switch…he really started getting some results. In 5months he has lost nearly 2 stone in weight, and every lift he is doing has improved. This coincided with asking Tim to get more steps in each day…and now he is on an average of 15k a day….and his sleep has improved leaps and bounds.
He still enjoys a beer at the weekend - and we both have a love of well Barista’d coffee.
But he has learned how to still enjoy meals out with his lovely fiancee (soon-to-be wife) as well as keeping on track with his goals of feeling stronger and more confident ready to tie the knot.
It goes without saying how utterly proud of him I am.
But more importantly…he is proud of himself.
And there is no better success than that.
If you want to get a Free Month of Coaching with me then hit the Learn More button below and apply to work with me on the next page.
Thank you so much for being here and reading my work.
Speak again soon,
Coach Adam
References:
the Guardian. 2021. Coronavirus lockdown caused sharp increase of insomnia in UK. [online] Available at: <https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/aug/02/coronavirus-lockdown-increase-insomnia-uk-sleep-mothers> [Accessed 24 May 2021].
Who.int. 2021. Mental health. [online] Available at: <https://www.who.int/health-topics/mental-health#tab=tab_2> [Accessed 24 May 2021].
Beccuti, G., & Pannain, S. (2011). Sleep and obesity. Current opinion in clinical nutrition and metabolic care, 14(4), 402–412. https://doi.org/10.1097/MCO.0b013e3283479109
Scott, A. J., Webb, T. L., & Rowse, G. (2017). Does improving sleep lead to better mental health? A protocol for a meta-analytic review of randomised controlled trials. BMJ open, 7(9), e016873.https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2017-016873
Walker, M. P., & van der Helm, E. (2009). Overnight therapy? The role of sleep in emotional brain processing. Psychological bulletin, 135(5), 731–748.https://doi.org/10.1037/a0016570
Kiecolt-Glaser JK, Habash DL, Fagundes CP, et al. Daily stressors, past depression, and metabolic responses to high-fat meals: a novel path to obesity. Biol Psychiatry. 2015;77(7):653-660. doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2014.05.018
https://www.apa.org. 2021. Stress and sleep. [online] Available at: <https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/stress/2013/sleep> [Accessed 2 June 2021].
Taheri S, Lin L, Austin D, Young T, Mignot E. Short sleep duration is associated with reduced leptin, elevated ghrelin, and increased body mass index. PLoS Med. 2004 Dec;1(3):e62. doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.0010062. Epub 2004 Dec 7. PMID: 15602591; PMCID: PMC535701.
Skein M, Duffield R, Edge J, Short MJ, Mündel T. Intermittent-sprint performance and muscle glycogen after 30 h of sleep deprivation. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2011 Jul;43(7):1301-11. doi: 10.1249/MSS.0b013e31820abc5a. PMID: 21200339
Azboy O, Kaygisiz Z. Effects of sleep deprivation on cardiorespiratory functions of the runners and volleyball players during rest and exercise. Acta Physiol Hung. 2009 Mar;96(1):29-36. doi: 10.1556/APhysiol.96.2009.1.3. PMID: 19264040.
Nigms.nih.gov. 2021. Circadian Rhythms. [online] Available at: <https://nigms.nih.gov/education/fact-sheets/Pages/Circadian-Rhythms.aspx> [Accessed 3 June 2021].
Sleepfoundation.org. 2021. Caffeine’s Connection to Sleep Problems | Sleep Foundation. [online] Available at: <https://www.sleepfoundation.org/nutrition/caffeine-and-sleep> [Accessed 3 June 2021].
How To Keep Your New Years Resolutions - 5 Ways To Never Fail Again
The studies are clear.
80% of people can’t stick to their New Years Resolutions, and it's perplexing because it's something society keeps going back to year after year…and we keep getting the same results.
Failure.
What was it Einstein said?
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
A study by Bupa and ComRes in the UK asked 2,014 adults about their New Years Resolutions in November 2015.
Topics relating to improving health accounted for the top three resolutions. And of that group of people, 66% said it lasted one month or less. 12% of people said they managed to keep a resolution. [1]
TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR “HOW TO KEEP YOUR NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS - 5 WAYS TO NEVER FAIL AGAIN
How To Keep Your New Years Resolutions — 5 Ways To Never Fail Again
1. Don’t Set A New Years Resolution
It's too simple, right? But if you don’t set one you can’t fail at it. Now I am not saying don’t implement change. Of course, I want you to become the best version of you that you possibly can be. But how many times in your life have you had a New Years Resolution and failed at it.
Then you do it again next year.
And fail again.
Your story, in fact, everyone’s story relating to New Years Resolutions is one of failure, and therefore when you set one, you will be looking through the lens of failure. Not success.
If I told you to not think of a huge pink elephant…
Then if I showed you a picture of the huge pink elephant…and still asked you not to think about it…
2. Get a Stress Ball
Any habit change is a test of Willpower, and Stress Balls have been proven to improve willpower. Participants were told they had to drink a “Vinegar Health Tonic” and those who were on tiptoes, clenching their calves drank more of said tonic. Another group as they were flexing their Biceps said they would be far less likely to break their diet.
According to the researchers “Steely Muscles led to a Steely resolve” however…you have to want the outcome.
Researchers also found that those who drank more of the tonic also viewed fitness as a virtue.
So for this to work, you must want what your New Years Resolution is working towards…and I don’t mean…“Yeah, it’d be nice”. You have to literally be resolved against it…and that means accepting a period of willful suffering whilst you allow yourself to change.
How To Keep Your New Years Resolutions — 5 Ways To Never Fail Again
3. The Two Minute Rule
Resolutions tend to focus on the long term result. Not the process, and building your process is more important than the long term result.
Think of giving yourself a 2-minute rule as explained by James Clear in his book Atomic Habits.
Because in truth the action doesn’t succeed or fail when you are doing it. It succeeds or fails just before. Therefore you need to lower your point of entry in order to make it something you do. If you got to the gym. Did two minutes and realized it wasn’t your day…then you can leave.
The act of getting there, being there and experiencing it will strengthen your ability to do it again. And doing it, again and again, will make it stick and grow.
Eventually, if you give yourself enough opportunity to grow you will succeed.
4. Focus on the Process
New Years Resolutions traditionally focus on the end result.
Lose 2 stone
Eat Clean (yawn!)
Travel more
Get Healthy
This list is all result focussed. How are you going to achieve these things?
How do you Lose 2 stone? Maybe start with 1lb and repeat that process over and over.
Eat Clean, although I can’t stand the premise, in truth is add more vegetables to your dinner each day.
Travel More…in order to do that…you should probably save more and plan your vacations from work for the year.
Get Healthy…becomes…go for more walks and build the habits of a healthy person.
Once you get yourself working on the process the result will take care of itself, and you will find building up slowly far more sustainable than going all out on Jan 01st.
Remember: It’s not
“What you want to achieve”
It’s: “How are you going to do it?”
How To Keep Your New Years Resolutions — 5 Ways To Never Fail Again
5. Realize its a new YEAR resolution
Why the rush? Why does everyone want to do their resolution on Jan 01st? And hit their goal by February 01st.
A year is 12 months. You have that long to achieve your New Year Resolution. When clients ask me about them I give them this strategy.
Pick one resolution and get that mastered. Then move onto the next one. And then the next one come September or October. It doesn’t matter how long it takes. If by the end of year you have only mastered two of your new years resolutions…that's a lot better than failing by February 01st on all five.
What’s Next?
I have plenty more articles about Mindset for Fitness throughout my Website.
Here is a selection I think would make great further reading for you:
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Get yourself a free month of workouts (Home and Gym-based options)
Get yourself a free copy of my e-book ”27 Ways To Faster Fast Loss”
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References:
Comresglobal.com. 2020. BUPA New Year Resolution Survey « Savanta Comres. [online] Available at: <https://comresglobal.com/polls/bupa-new-year-resolution-survey/> [Accessed 26 July 2020].